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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.
Image of the Day:
Quotes of the Day:
To me, the U.S. military and CIA drones that hover constantly over eight countries across the Greater Middle East and Africa, and regularly terrorize, maim, and kill civilians, including children, are the equivalents of the disturbed shooters in American schools. But that story is hard to find anywhere in this country. What reports Americans do read about those drone strikes usually focus on successes (a major terrorist taken out in a distant land), not the “collateral damage.” — Allegra Harpootlian, School Shooters and Drones: Linking Gun Violence to America’s Wars
Videos of the Day:
U.S.:
The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through their ownership of the Republicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace.— The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War! Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace!
Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and his government committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, aided and abetted by U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration, according to a recent ruling from the International Peoples’ Tribunal on the Philippines. The tribunal, which was held in Brussels, Belgium, on September 18 and 19, 2018, rendered its 84-page decision on these crimes on March 8. Conveners of the tribunal included the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, IBON International, and the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines. A panel of eight jurors from Egypt, France, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands and the United States heard testimony from 31 witnesses, including me. By Marjorie Cohn 
Venezuela Leads Fight Against Narcotics While US, Colombia Part of ‘Vicious Cycle’ of Drug Trade: Arreaza Drug trafficking is a source of accumulation and generation of wealth, which is full of blood and an inherent part of the capitalist system,” Arreaza said. The Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza said the country is implementing methods to grapple with narcotics sales and consumptions, denouncing Colombia and the United States as responsible for the damages caused by drugs in the Americas at the United Nations Commission of Narcotics in Vienna, Austria, Thursday. During his speech at the U.N.’s 62nd session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, Arreaza said that Venezuela implements a comprehensive development model that allows for reducing the risk factors associated with the illegal consumption of illicit substances, and ratified that the country is not a route for drug trafficking. “Venezuela has promoted more than 580,000 activities carried out since 2009 aimed at communities, schools, children, and prisoners,” said the chancellor.In his speech, the minister denounced that drugs produced in the neighboring country of Colombia end up “in the blood, the neurons, and the graves of young Americans,” and that, despite the fact that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration acts “as watchman” in the country.
The Imperial Racist Saga Comes Home, Where It Began What makes US progressives think that the Lords of Capital will be more tolerant of austerity-busting ‘socialists’ here at home than they are with Venezuela? “Imperialism permeates U.S. culture, infecting most American brands of leftism and even ‘socialism.’” The historical U.S. embrace of apartheid Israel is rooted in much more than “the Benjamins” wielded by Zionist lobbies. The two most lawless states on the planet revel in their shared roguishness, bound together by race-based colonial ideologies that sanction and celebrate their crimes against humanity. Were it not for the U.S. superpower, there would be no State of Israel, an outpost of Europe in Arabia that most white Americans perceive as inhabited by kindred souls surrounded by savages, like the settlers of American mythology. It is the United States’ “exceptional” duty to arm and protect the “chosen” people of Israel, whose expansionist imperatives are perceived as benign and defensive, mimicking American Manifest Destiny. By Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
War-Mongering Nation“Fully 57 percent of the federal budget of $1.3 trillion, $718 billion has been earmarked by Trump for the military and defense purposes. All of the rest of government will
run on the leftovers from the military-industrial complex
and its enablers in industries in various states and, let us not forget, all of the members of Congress who bow before he god of earthly might and the campaign money that comes to them from those destructive sources.” By BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello
Ilhan Omar Exposes US Hegemonic Positioning and Takes on Both Political Parties Since February 2019 Omar has come under attack for tweeting, retweeting, deleting, stating and restating, a number of positions, including of course that financial resources generated by pro-Israel lobbying groups served as motivation for American political support of Israel. Omar is currently facing another onslaught by high powered Democrats for subsequent comments she made regarding Israel. This after a recent racist depiction of Omar by the West Virginia GOP in a poster linking her to the September 11, 2001 attacks. By Richard Falk – Daniel Falcone
Nader’s Message to Boeing: Ground the Planes Now “Stop digging in your heels.” Update: President Donald Trump grounded the planes this afternoon. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader believes Boeing should ground its fleet of 737 Max 8 airplanes. The message comes as the world struggles to understand what happened to Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which crashed Sunday, March 10, killing 157. The accident came just four months after the crash of Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610 in October—also a 737 Max 8. Nader’s grand-niece, Samya Stumo, died in the crash. The Sheffield, Mass., native was an employee of education publisher ThinkWell and was ultimately headed to Uganda for work. In an open letter to Boeing executives published Wednesday, Nader said that the airplane manufacturer was behaving as a company “used to having its way” and not in the interests of American lives. By Eoin Higgins
The Boeing 737 Max 8: a Case Study in Uncreative Destruction On October 29, 2018, a Boeing 737 Max 8 belonging to Lion Air in Indonesia crashed into the Java Sea 12 minutes after take-off. All 189 passengers and crew members were killed instantly. It is extremely unusual for planes to suffer such accidents in clear weather after having reached their cruising altitude. Flight experts concluded that the pilots were not adequately trained in the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), a robotics technology that lowers the nose of a plane to prevent a stall. Although there is no definitive judgement on exactly what happened, it appears to be a combination of inadequate training for the pilots and a malfunctioning MCAS. By Louis Proyect
Will the FAA Do to Boeing What the SEC and NY Fed Did to Wall StreetOn Wednesday, March 13, Canada banned the 737 Max planes, citing similarities between the Ethiopian and Lion Air crashes. There were 45 countries that had banned the plane before the FAA decided to act yesterday. According to FAA data, there are 74 such planes registered in the U.S. and a worldwide fleet of 387. Boeing, however, is desperate to limit the damage to the plane’s reputation because it has about $600 billion in orders for approximately 5,000 of that model plane. Since closing at $422.54 last Friday, Boeing’s stock has lost approximately $26 billion in the market value of its shares, trading intraday this morning at $374. All of this is proving, once again, that deregulation and crony regulators are not good for business but, instead, undermine the public’s confidence that is vital to sustaining America’s competitive edge. By Pam Martens
Empire Unravelling: Will Huawei Become Washington’s Suez? America’s full-spectrum campaign against Chinese tech leader Huawei is coming spectacularly undone. Curtains are imminent for Washington’s tawdriest global offensive in recent memory – featuring open extortion, kidnapping, demonization and intimidation of both friends and foe. By Thomas Hon Wing Polin
Environment:
Ahead of Global #ClimateStrike She Inspired, 16-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize“The massive movement Greta has set in motion is a very important peace contribution.” “We have nominated Greta because the climate threat may be one of the most important causes of war and conflict.” —Freddy Andre Oevstegaard, Norwegian lawmaker. By Jessica Corbett
Big Energy:
Are the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Days Numbered? Almost no one was surprised that the annual budget released by the White House on Monday once again proposed slashing billions of dollars in federal spending on environmental protection and renewable energy research. The budget is considered an agenda-setting document for the Trump administration, and President Trump is apparently the fossil fuel industry’s best friend. “And the oil and gas industry, I want to promise you, has no greater friend than President Donald Trump,” Vice President Mike Pence said in a Friday address to the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, an industry and lobbying group that has grown powerful with the shale fracking boom. By Mike Ludwig
Fracking 2.0 Was a Financial Disaster, Will Fracking 3.0 Be Different? Two years ago, the U.S. fracking industry was trying to recover from the crash in the price of oil. Shale companies were promoting the idea that fracking was viable even at low oil prices (despite losing money when oil prices were high). At the time, no one was making money fracking with the business-as-usual approach, but then the Wall Street Journal published a story claiming all of this was about to change because the industry had a trump card — and that was technology. Today, frackers are again relying on technology as a financial savior, but this time, they are looking to Microsoft. By Justin Mikulka 
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Cops and Fascists: KKKolleagues? Cops survey a scene of conflict in California’s capital, a struggle between fascists and antifascists. Blood is on the ground, and webcam recordings show images of members of the Ku Klux Klan and related groups, not only armed with knives but actually showing some men stabbing downward at writhing bodies beneath. One side has knives. One side has signs. Guess which side received charges of violating the law? Guess which side had been surveilled by state and federal agents long before the events of the day? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t the Ku Klux Klan. According to published reports in The Guardian (London), police accounts concentrated on two major groups: Antifascists and members of Black Lives Matter. By Mumia Abu-Jamal
Labor:
Economy:
World:
A New Regional Order: Producing Cross-Economic, Political, and Cultural Interests Among the People of Kashmir Indian nationalists are quick to claim their intractable hold on Kashmiris; Pakistani nationalists are just as quick to claim to speak for Kashmiris. Kashmir, despite having a real internal history and a place in the world, is suppressed by its positioning in the Indo-Pak conflict. By Nyla Ali Khan
Spain: 8 March – working women stand against the Francoist right According to police figures, 500,000 people participated in the main demonstration in Madrid and 200,000 in Barcelona. If you only count these two most important cities, you would already exceed half a million, a figure that far outmatches the mobilisation of the right wing a few weeks ago in Madrid, despite the 8 March demonstrations lacking the same resources or the support of the regime. By contrast, the women’s struggle is based on the oppression and frustration arising from a patriarchal class system that motivates women, and also many men, to mobilise and fight. By Lucha de Clases
Britain: the dying days of May’s governmentWith her precious Brexit deal thoroughly defeated in parliament for a second-time, Theresa May seems to have finally run out of road. Commentators on all sides are imploring the war-weary prime minister to stop flogging a dead horse and move on. But where can she go from here? The Tory government is in office but not in power. One disaster follows another in a never-ending circle. May looks (and sounds) like a dead-woman walking. Rob Sewell and Adam Booth
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!
U.S. Health Care Ranked Worst in the Developed WorldThe U.S. health care system has been subject to heated debate over the past decade, but one thing that has remained consistent is the level of performance, which has been ranked as the worst among industrialized nations for the fifth time, according to the 2014 Commonwealth Fund survey 2014. The U.K. ranked best with Switzerland following a close second By Melissa Hellmann
Texas: Mayor Bans STAAR Test from His Town The mayor of Devers, Texas, happens to be a fifth-grade teacher. Steve Horelica knows how phony the state test (STAAR) is. He has proclaimed that it won’t be allowed in his town. Very likely, the Texas Education Agency won’t let him get away with it. But what can they do? Send in the Texas Rangers and force kids to take the Tests? By Diane Ravitch
