During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 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.
In private, Murdoch regarded Trump with disdain, seeing him as a real-estate huckster and a shady casino operator. But, for all their differences, the two men had key traits in common. They both inherited and expanded family enterprises—an Australian newspaper; an outer-borough New York City real-estate firm—but felt looked down upon by people who were richer and closer to the centers of power. As Edward Luce, of the Financial Times, has noted, both men have tapped into anti-élitist resentment to connect with the public and to increase their fortunes. Trump and Murdoch also share a transactional approach to politics, devoid of almost any ideology besides self-interest. — The Making of the Fox News White House
In an open letter to the president and members of Congress in May 1951, SWP national secretary James P. Cannon wrote the following, which stands up well more than half a century later: “Your differences are merely tactical. My differences with both sides in your so-called ‘Great Debate’ are fundamental. You are preoccupied with the problem of how to conduct a war the American people do not want and never approved. I propose to end the war at once and let the American people themselves decide the life and death questions of foreign policy.”
Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their lives. They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. — Eugene V. Debs, The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech
Trump’s “Coalition of the Willing” Against Venezuela Has Legitimacy Issues of Their OwnMany right-wing South American governments that are supporting Trump’s effort to oust Venezuela’s President Maduro have their own legitimacy issues, such as Brazil and Honduras. Others are deeply dependent on the US, such as Argentina and Colombia. CEPR’s Mark Weisbrot analyzes the coalition
Defense Tech Startup Founded by Trump’s Most Prominent Silicon Valley Supporters Wins Secretive Military Ai Contract A Startup Founded by a young and outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump is among the latest tech companies to quietly win a contract with the Pentagon as part of Project Maven, the secretive initiative to rapidly leverage artificial intelligence technology from the private sector for military purposes. Anduril Industries is the latest venture of Palmer Luckey, the 26-year-old entrepreneur best known for having founded the virtual reality firm Oculus Rift. Luckey began work on Project Maven last year, along with efforts to support the Defense Department’s newly formed Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, according to documents viewed by The Intercept. By Lee Fang
U.S. Has Spent Six Trillion Dollars On Wars That Killed Half A Million People Since 9/11, Report Says The United States has spent nearly $6 trillion on wars that directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 people since the 9/11 attacks of 2001. Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs published its annual “Costs of War” report Wednesday, taking into consideration the Pentagon’s spending and its Overseas Contingency Operations account, as well as “war-related spending by the Department of State, past and obligated spending for war veterans’ care, interest on the debt incurred to pay for the wars, and the prevention of and response to terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security.” The final count revealed, “The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9 trillion (in current dollars) on the war on terror through Fiscal Year 2019, including direct war and war-related spending and obligations for future spending on post 9/11 war veterans.” By Tom O’connor
Trump call for budget cuts sparks new shutdown fears President Donald Trump will make a cost-cutting opening budget offer Monday that will dismiss hopes for a grand budget deal and likely stoke fresh fears of another government shutdown. Trump will put on paper what the White House has already prepared lawmakers to receive — an audacious plan for sucking 5 percent from the budgets of non-military arms of the federal government, while using an accounting trick to bust beyond set spending limits for defense programs. The 5 percent would be below the fiscal 2019 budget limits for domestic agencies. By Jennifer Scholtes and Caitlin Emma
US Blamed Venezuelan President for Burning AID Trucks. Wrong.“They tried a false flag operation, that supposedly the people of Venezuela had burned a truck carrying rotten food — no, no, no — it was they themselves.” The New York Times is reporting Sunday that the fire was actually started by supporters of oppostion leader Juan Guiado. “Unpublished footage obtained by The New York Times and previously released tapes — including footage released by the Colombian government, which has blamed Mr. Maduro for the fire — allowed for a reconstruction of the incident. It suggests that a Molotov cocktail thrown by an antigovernment protester was the most likely trigger for the blaze. At one point, a homemade bomb made from a bottle is hurled toward the police, who were blocking a bridge connecting Colombia and Venezuela to prevent the aid trucks from getting through. But the rag used to light the Molotov cocktail separates from the bottle, flying toward the aid truck instead. Half a minute later, that truck is in flames. The same protester can be seen 20 minutes earlier, in a different video, hitting another truck with a Molotov cocktail, without setting it on fire.” By Common Dreams staff
We Are Being Lied Into War AgainThe mainstream media and nearly the entirety of the U.S. government tell us Juan Guaido is the “interim president,” even though he was never elected to that position and the current president is still leading the Venezuelan government and military. So I guess this “interim” is the time between Guaido being a nobody and the time when he goes back to being nobody but now gets to tell women at parties, “You know, I used to be interim president.” The mainstream media also inform us that the Venezuelan military set U.S. aid trucks on fire, when video shows opposition forces doing it. Furthermore, the idea of Venezuela taking “aid” from the country whose sanctions are crushing them would be like the Standing Rock Sioux accepting gift packages from the construction crews swiss-cheesing their land to lay down the Dakota Access pipeline. Unless the boxes are filled with industrial paper towels to help clean up oil spills, I fail to see how it would be beneficial. Sometimes you do indeed have to look a gift horse in the mouth (or should I say “gift dog”). By Lee Camp
Senate Democrats Enabled the Biggest Bank Merger Since the 2008Crash When Senate Democrats teamed up with Republicans last year to pass banking deregulation, they went all in, parroting conservative talking points about running to the rescue of Main Street. More than half of the Democrats who backed the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (S.2155) invoked “credit unions and small banks” when explaining their vote. ess than nine months after it was signed into law, however, the legislation has already paved the way for the largest bank merger since the 2008 financial crisis — the proposed purchase of SunTrust by BB&T. Their integration would create the sixth-largest bank in the country. By Sam Knight
Even Environmental Groups Can Greenwash Selling pollution credits to other sources doesn’t reduce the overall amounts of poisons polluting our air and invading our watersheds. Cozying up to energy companies to sell the public on a self-certification program may look like a legitimate effort on the surface, but it ultimately abandons any true form of accountability. The same is true for carbon offsets and nutrient management. Allowing large factory farms and other industrial agricultural operations to sell pollution credits to other sources doesn’t reduce the overall amounts of poisons polluting our air and invading our watersheds, including the Chesapeake Bay. It’s a shame that certain groups want to give these bad ideas any legitimacy, especially the ones who often get credit for leading the charge. By Wenonah Hauter
Environmental Racism:
‘They chose us because we were rural and poor’: when environmental racism and climate change collide These are, unfortunately, not just corporate practices of the past. Today, Louisiana’s impoverished river communities are polluted by big oil and companies, creating the so-called “Cancer Alley”. Pahokee, Florida, a town whose population is 56% African-American and 29% Hispanic, has had to confront the sugar industry, which polluted nearby Lake Okeechobee, endangering drinking water, fish safety, and property values. Paper mills have polluted Africatown, Alabama. Burlington Industries dumped cancer-causing PCBs in Cheraw, South Carolina. There’s toxic coal ash in Uniontown, Alabama. The list goes on and on.
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Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics: CPI Year-to-Year GrowthThe CPI-U (consumer price index) is the broadest measure of consumer price inflation for goods and services published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). While the headline number usually is the seasonally-adjusted month-to-month change, the formal CPI is reported on a not-seasonally-adjusted basis, with annual inflation measured in terms of year-to-year percent change in the price index. In the charts to the right we show two SGS-Alternate CPI estimates: One based on the pre-1990 official methodology for computing the CPI-U, and the other based on the methodology which was employed prior to 1980.World:
Venezuelans Go About Their Day as Power Gradually Restored Social media users reported that the system has been restored in Caracas and many parts of the country. People in the Venezuelan capital Caracas reported Friday that electricity is being restored gradually in different zones of the city after a sabotage attack against the electric system of the country that took place Thursday evening.
Venezuelans March Against Attack on Electric Grid System in Anti-imperialist Day The march gathered thousands of Venezuelans that protest imperialist intervention in the country, two days after the attack on its electric system. Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets Saturday to march against interventionism in the country, as part of the celebrations of the national Bolivarian Antiimperialist Day.Health, Education, and Welfare:
The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of wall street and the bankers. Yet those who ‘govern’ pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers that be a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let The People Vote on Healthcare!
Welcome to 2019:
Shadow Government Statistics: CPI Year-to-Year GrowthThe CPI-U (consumer price index) is the broadest measure of consumer price inflation for goods and services published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). While the headline number usually is the seasonally-adjusted month-to-month change, the formal CPI is reported on a not-seasonally-adjusted basis, with annual inflation measured in terms of year-to-year percent change in the price index. In the charts to the right we show two SGS-Alternate CPI estimates: One based on the pre-1990 official methodology for computing the CPI-U, and the other based on the methodology which was employed prior to 1980.
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Health, Education, and Welfare:
