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.
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 1%Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.
But we must see that the struggle today is much more difficult. It’s more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality. And it’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job. It’s much easier to guarantee the right to vote than it is to guarantee the right to live in sanitary, decent housing conditions. It is much easier to integrate a public park than it is to make genuine, quality, integrated education a reality. And so today we are struggling for something which says we demand genuine equality. — The Other America Martin Luther King Speech at Stanford University, April 14, 1967
My introduction to King’s, The Other America, for the San Francisco BayView: The Jan. 15 birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be celebrated this year as America’s only ‘Black holiday’ Monday, Jan. 19. On this day, the ruling class and their mass media always feature his 1963 ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, as if he never evolved beyond that point. During his lifetime, as a leader of the civil rights movement, King was constantly hounded by the government with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. Since his death, an effort has been made to convert him into a harmless icon – to canonize him. Below is one of his last speeches, given over 40 years ago and one year before his assassination, at Stanford University in April 1967 and titled the ‘The Other America.’ Here he speaks not of a dream but of the nightmarish economic condition of Black people. When he talks about ‘work-starved men searching for jobs that do not exist’ and living on a ‘lonely island of poverty surrounded by an ocean of material prosperity,’ the speech remains timely in today’s world.
Public “Medicare for All” Saves U.S. Taxpayers 1.5 Trillion Dollars Contrary to Michael Bloomberg and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, potential 2020 Presidential candidates, a completely public health care program could save taxpayers 1.5 trillion dollars, says Prof. Robert Pollin of PERI at UMass, Amherst and Adam Gaffney, President of Physicians for a National Health Program
Arrested! American & Serbian Mercenaries in Haiti with heavy weapons!This is what the Core Group of internationals, ambassadors from U.S., France, Canada, Brazil, Spain, OAS, UN, European Union and Germany are emboldening in Haiti to keep Jovenel Moise in power. Who paid these men, which of the Haiti oligarch and Core Group ambassadors paid these mercenaries to maintain the abuse and open air prison Haiti is for the collective majority?
Until the philosophy which hold one race superior And another Inferior
Is finally And permanently Discredited And abandoned Everywhere is war Me say war!—Bob Marley – WAR
Fifty Ways To Leave A Donor – Parody of Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover We’re seeing some major shifts taking place in the political landscape and one of the main issues is big money in politics. A small handful of progressives. exemplified by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have rejected corporate donations and PAC money as a matter of belief and principle. This has resulted in a copycat strategy among many establishment democrats who are pretending to do the same with neither the belief nor the principles to back it up. It’s easy to tell the difference. If Goldman-Sachs says they are ok with the candidacy you can take that as a very bad sign.
U.S.:
31 Actual National Emergencies A Wannabe Strongman’s Brown Menace Straw Man Everyone with five functioning gray cells knows that the aspiring fascist strongman Donald Trump’s Declaration of a National mergency on the U.S.-Mexico border is absurd. There is no “national security crisis” of illegal immigration on the southern United States border. Illegal crossings are not at “emergency” levels; they are at a fifty-year low. By Paul Street
It’s Not Just Trump and the RepublicansThere is a lot of talk lately in the liberal media about how President Trump and his Neocon advisors John Bolton (National Security Advisor) and Mike Pompeo (Secretary of State) along with his acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, are moving the country and the world dangerously closer to a catastrophic global nuclear war with the administration decision to terminate the Reagan-era treaty banning intermediate range nuclear missiles By Dave Lindorff
The Latest Propaganda Push From Pro-Pipeline Front Group GAINAlthough pipelines have been facing a number of setbacks recently, pro-pipeline groups aren’t giving up. One of those is Grow America’s Infrastructure Now (GAIN), which came to our attention because it’s recently begun sponsoring the Washington Examiner’s daily energy newsletter. GAIN’s website simply describes the group as supporting strengthening infrastructure development and only mentions pipelines as one aspect of its focus, which also includes bridges, roads, etc. But the group’s blog, Twitter, and coverage in the media are pretty exclusively dedicated to pro-pipeline messaging. Hmmm, almost like it isn’t an all-around infrastructure group, and perhaps may have some ulterior motive … Which, of course, it does. GAIN was formerly known as the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN), which Steve Horn at DeSmog reported was acting as a front group for DCI. You may remember DCI as the PR firm tied to the GOP: It’s got experience in creating front groups on behalf of Big Tobacco, it’s known for its role spearheading the modern Tea Party movement, and it’s also worked to discredit Dakota Access pipeline protesters. By ClimateDenierRoundup
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
‘It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.’Gay Catholic Priests Speak Out The crisis over sexuality in the Catholic Church goes beyond abuse. It goes to the heart of the priesthood, into a closet that is trapping thousands of men. “The event has worried gay priests. A few years after the 2002 scandal, the Vatican banned gay men from seminaries and ordination. When the abuse crisis broke out again last summer, the former Vatican ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, accused “homosexual networks” of American cardinals of secretly working to protect abusers. And this week, a sensational book titled “Sodoma” in Europe (“In the Closet of the Vatican” in the United States) is being released that claims to expose a vast gay subculture at the Vatican.” By By Elizabeth Dias
Many retired coal miners are suffering a slow and painful death from black lung and other chronic illnesses, but investors argue that taking away their health benefits is only feasible option. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Haiti and the Collapse of a Political and Economic SystemYou can draw a pretty straight line from the last electoral process to the current unrest in Haiti. Building for months, and frankly years, the country has now been shut down for five days as tensions – and violence – increase, threatening President Jovenel Moise’s mandate. By Jake Johnston
Laughter for All (Financial) Times. Armchair Militarists and “Western Values” The difference between the articles in the Financial Times (FT) and the handouts from the war ministry is a matter of source not substance. As the US engages in a total war on China’s cutting-edge industries, particularly, the world’s most advanced telecom company Huawei, the FT parrots US threats and warnings without the least effort to sort out facts from propaganda. The fact is, the Times is part and parcel of the imperial revival which attempts to block China from establishing its pre-eminence in the world. The FT echoes President Trump’s lies about economic theft as the basis forChina’s Huawei’s global leadership in telecom technology. By Prof. James Petras
Gilets Jaunes: a popular movement of a new kind The steamroller of the Macron “start-up” seemed to be advancing relentlessly. The Gilets Jaunes (“Yellow Vests”) movement has thrown his government into crisis, the popular anger has been such that it has been forced to draw back, at least symbolically. It is the first time since 2006, when the massive mobilisation of youth supported by several days of strike action called by the trade unions forced the withdrawal of the Contrat Première Embauche, that a French government has faced a crisis which it can only resolve by abandoning its project. [1]Nonetheless, since the neoliberal turn of the 1980s, social struggles have multiplied in France. But these successive struggles, strike actions and mass demonstrations have only at best been able to limit the breadth of the destruction of the social conquests of the previous period and have not prevented a long series of defeats and social setbacks which have continued in recent months with the employment law which has unravelled a part of the Employment Code, the privatisation of the SNCF and the destruction of the status of rail workers. There months ago, we sought in vain to break this spiral and defeat the new pensions counter-reform planned by Macron for 2019. Today the breadth and the radical determination of the Gilets Jaunes movement, a social movement which is impetuous, inventive and uncontrollable, has modified the relationship of forces, perceptibly transforming the social and political situation in France
Jair Bolsonaro Praised The Genocide Of Indigenous People. Now, he’s emboldening attackers of Brazil’s Amazonian Communities. “The Brazilian Cavalry was very incompetent. Competent, yes, was the American cavalry that decimated its Indians in the past and nowadays does not have this problem in their country.” That’s the opinion of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, expressed on the floor of Congress in 1998. His views appear to have changed little since then; in a video message to supporters 18 years later, he promised to revoke the protected status of an Indigenous reserve in 2019 and in the next breath added, “We’re going to give a rifle and a carry permit to every farmer.” By Sam Cowie
Why the Boycott Was SuccessfulThe boycott was successful, in my opinion, for several reasons:
1. It had mass support and it strength developed from the unity of the Black masses to boycott the buses.
2. In order to sustain the boycott, the MIA had organized an alternative transportation system, which gave the masses the ability to get to work for over a year, something that was crucial to the success of the boycott.
3. The democratically organized Montgomery Improvement Association had regular weekly mass meetings of thousands to decide the strategy and tactics of the movement. The people in the struggle had control and the final say — not the leaders from on high. This helped to insured the power of the movement, for the masses saw the MIA as theirorganization and were committed by their votes to implement theirdecisions.The tactics of both mass civil disobedience (the boycott) and self defense by the MIA was key to the success of the struggle.
4. The power of independent mass action, independent of the politicians, was demonstrated by the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This is the power that inspired and garnered support from throughout the nation and the world.
In his San Francisco speech, King explained this system and decision. He stated: “One of the first practical problems that the ex-bus riders [had experienced] is that in finding some way to get around the city. The first thing that we decided to do was to use a taxi, and they had agreed to transport the people for just ten cents, the same as the buses. Then the police commission stopped this by warning the taxis that they must charge a minimum of forty-five cents a person. Then we immediately got on the job and organized a volunteer car pool. And almost overnight over three hundred cars were out on the streets of Montgomery. [applause] They were out on the streets of Montgomery carrying the people to and from work from the various pickup and dispatch stations. It worked amazingly well. Even Commissioner Sellers had to admit in a White Citizens Council meeting that the system worked with ‘military precision.’ [applause] It has continued to grow and it is still growing. . . Since that time we have added more than twenty station wagons to the car pool and they’re working every day, all day, transporting the people. It has been an expensive project. Started out about two thousand dollars or more a week, but now it runs more than five thousand dollars a week. We have been able to carry on because of the contributions coming from the local community and nationally, from the great contributions that have come from friends of good will all over the nation and all over the world.” [applause] [8]
I had the good fortune to meet E.D. Nixon a few hours prior to the December 13, 1965 Militant Labor Forum.
Farrell Dobbs of the SWP talking with E.D. Nixon, December 13, 1965 Militant Labor Forum Photo by Eli (Lucky) Finer (http://bit.ly/2gWL4Sy and https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/sheppard/party/photos.pdf)
From my conversations, prior to this forum, with E.D. Nixon and Clifton DeBerry, (1964 Presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party), who, along with Farrel Dobbs (1956 Presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party) helped organize the 1956 Stationwagons for Montgomery Campaign, it became clear to me, that the success of this transportation system was made possible by the Korean War GI’s. They were able to use their experience in the army’s “motor pools” specifically and the army generally, to perform the maintenance of the automobiles and become the hard core of the drivers that sustained this transportation system for a year. It was also widely known, in Montgomery, that these men also had the ability and the willingness to defend themselves. If the KKK attacked the transportation system, due to the wide knowledge of this fact, and the world attention that the Boycott had achieved, the racists were unable to disrupt the car pool, that “worked with military precision.”
