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Democracy?: As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99% — Only the 1% Voted For Austerity — The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not Just The Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.
Images of the Day:
Saudi Dictator Dines with French President as Yemenis Starve Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited France to sign $18 billion in agreements, while Algerian journalist Akram Belkaid says the catastrophic war on Yemen is barely even mentioned
Starbucks and the Criminalization of Blackness “Criminalization of blackness” is at the root of the arrest, where Blacks who do things that whites do all the time is considered a reason for arrest, explains Eugene Puryear of the D.C. Movement for Black Lives
U.S.:
“The Mob Boss Orders a Hit and a Pardon”Well, it appears Syria and Russia were on the verge of defeating the USA backed “rebels” and the US Mob Boss had stated the USA was leaving when Assad decided to use chemical weapons on his “own” people. How curious. On the verge of victory, Assad decides to cross the “red line” and use chemical weapons on his own people and give the US Mob Boss an excuse to reinvade. So, Assad is not only a cruel dictator but incredibly stupid as well. On the verge of victory and US standing down, Assad shoots himself in the foot with chemical weapons! Who woulda thunk it? Or maybe Assad was just relying on the old saw that to rally “your” people a leader needs a foreign threat or invasion. So, by using chemical weapons on his “own” people, Assad was able to renew the threat of US invasion. Maybe Assad ain’t so dumb. by Kary Love
1/ Donald Trump’s April 11thmissile-attack-promising reference to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as a “Gas Killing Animalwho kills his own people” reeked of moral hypocrisy in at least three ways:
* Trump had just hosted his “good friend” the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, a leading architect of the arch-reactionary Saudis’ United States-backed and U.S.-equipped crucifixion of Yemen. The Saudi/U.S. war on Yemen has murdered tens of thousands of Yemini civilians and created one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in recent history.
* Trump is trying to turn the entire planet into a Greenhouse Gas Chamber by pushing the U.S. to extract and burn every fossil fuel it can get its hands on.
* If Trump cared about the fate of the Syrian people, he would end his ban on virtually all Syrian refugees to the U.S.
Environment:
Denial By A Different Name: It’s Time to Admit That Half Measures Can’t Stop Climate ChangeIt can feel good to make fun of climate deniers. So let’s take a little romp with one: Wolfgang Müller. Here he is in a Dusseldorf hotel conference room, 100 people gathered to take a group photo before him. He’s distributing stemware and pouring champagne, at the 11th annual International Conference on Climate and Energy, a convening this past November of some of Europe’s pre-eminent denialist minds. Given that this is Europe, it’s not a huge crowd. Müller and company fit the stereotype: cranks poking holes in scientific consensus, railing against the pointy-headed academics — often, though not in his case, with generous industry funding. This particular gathering is co-hosted by the European Institute for Climate and Energy, known as its German abbreviation EIKE; the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an American outfit; and a handful of smaller groups of self-identified climate skeptics. By Kate Aronoff
America’s Arid West Is Invading the Fertile East There’s an invasion going on down the middle of the US, as America’s arid West advances eastwards. Imperceptibly, decades of climate change have shifted the natural boundary between the dry west and the fertile farmlands of the eastern states by more than 225 kilometres, according to a new study by US scientists. By Tim Radford 
Understanding Ecological Grief: Hope and Mourning in the Anthropocene Climate change has been linked to a range of negative mental health impacts — including depression, suicidal ideation, post-traumatic stress, as well as feelings of anger, hopelessness, distress, and despair. By The Conversation
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Coal is a Global Warming and Air Polution Producer:
Coal and Air Pollution: Air pollution from coal-fired power plants is linked with asthma, cancer, heart and lung ailments, neurological problems, acid rain, global warming, and other severe environmental and public health impacts.Coal has long been a reliable source of American energy, but it comes with tremendous costs because it is incrediblydirty. The same chemistry that enables coal to produce energy—the breaking down of carbon molecules—also produces a number of profoundly harmful environmental impacts and pollutants that harm public health. Air pollution and global warming are two of the most serious. . . .Coal and global warming: Of coal’s many environmental impacts, none are as harmful, long term, and irreversible as global warming. Global warming is driven by emissions of heat-trapping gases, primarily from human activities, that rise into the atmosphere and act like a blanket, warming the earth’s surface. Consequencesinclude rising temperatures and accelerating sea level rise as well as growing risks of drought, heat waves, heavy rainfall intensified storms, and species loss. Left unchecked climate change could lead to profound human and ecological disruption. . . . — Union of Concerned Scientists
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
The Philly Starbuck’s Arrest: Negrophobia Is Real — And Black People Weren’t Surprised At AllOne of the great privileges of whiteness in America is the freedom to ignore racism, and then act shocked by it.To be black in America is to live a life where even the most mundane activities can threaten one’s dignity and, in the worst cases, imperil our safety, security and sanity. By Chauncey DeVega
Confront the Black Misleader Class at the Polls: Black radical candidates must always “keep politics in command,” when challenging the misleadership class for the hearts and minds of the Black community. That was one of the themes of the Black Is Back Coalition’s Electoral School, convened in St. Louis, Missouri, last week. Listen to nine speakers address the broadest range of issues — always with the focus on Black self-determination.
Winnie Mandela the Tallest of All:South African freedom fighter Winnie Mandela, who passed away this month at age 81, “will outlive in her glory and marvel many of the presidents we’ve had since 1994,” said Ronnie Kasrils, the former chief of intelligence of both the African National Congress and the post-apartheid South African government. “She will outlive all of the leaders, barring Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Chris Hani.” Kasrils spoke on The Real
Only a Fool Believes U.S. on Syria Chemicals:“We’d have to be complete morons to believe the scenario” painted by the U.S. to justify its latest bombing of Syria, said Stephen Gowans, author of Washington’s Long War on Syria. Speaking on Phil Taylor’s CIUT radio program, Gowans said the entire western conversation on Syria is baseless. “We implicitly assume they that they actually have chemical weapons. They don’t” – having destroyed their stocks under international agreement in 2013-14.
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
Labor:
Economy:
These Are the Michael Cohen “Business Dealings” Prosecutors Are InvestigatingIt’s clear from the prosecutors’ filings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that they believe President Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, has lied to them and is concealing information from them. Last Friday evening, McClatchy newspapers dropped a bombshell that provided some insight into what some of those black redacted passages in the government’s court filings in the Cohen case might refer to. McClatchy reporters Peter Stone and Greg Gordon write that Special Counsel Robert Mueller “has evidence” that Cohen did, in fact, make a “late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign.” By Pan Martens and Russ Martens
World:
South Africa: SAFTU prepares for a massive general strikeAcross the country, workers are mobilising for a mass general strike on 25 April. Although all sectors of the economy are likely to be affected, the strike is expected to hit municipal services, transport, manufacturing, mining, construction and the public sector particularly hard. The government’s determination to continue with the legislative process on proposed changes to the labour law is preparing the ground for a confrontation with the unions. By Ben Morken
Colombia and Cuba: a Tale of Two CountriesColombia and Cuba differ. Colombia is a good friend of the United States while revolutionary Cuba is a U. S. enemy. Individuals and groups of people are abused in Colombia. In Cuba they are safe. The U.S. military uses Colombia as a springboard for control of a region. Officials in Washington easily tolerate the suffering and marginalization of many Colombians. In 1948 Colombia hosted the continent-wide meeting in Bogota that, under U.S. auspices, established the Organization of American States. It was charged with preventing communists from taking power in the Americas. Nevertheless, Cuba’s socialist revolution happened. With new resolve, the U.S. government funded, advised, and provided troops and equipment to Colombian governments engaged in suppressing a Marxist-Leninist insurgency, the FARC. by W. T. Whitney
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
The Corporate Plan to Groom U.S. Kids for Servitude by Wiping Out Public SchoolsAre first-world children being trained for a third-world life? country. West Virginia’s public school teachers had endured years of low pay, inadequate insurance, giant class sizes, and increasingly unlivable conditions—including attempts to force them to record private details of their health daily on a wellness app. Their governor, billionaire coal baron Jim Justice, pledged to allow them no more than an annual 1% raise—effectively a pay cut considering inflation—in a state where teacher salaries ranked 48th lowest out of 50 states. In February 2018, they finally revolted: In a tense, four-day work stoppage, they managed to wrest a 5% pay increase from the state. Teachers in Oklahoma and Kentucky have now revolted in similar protests. By Lynn Stuart Parramore
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: 1. Austerity, 2. Scapegoating Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal Immigrants’ for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel.
Signe Wilkinson: Where Do We Bomb?
Videos of the Day:
