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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.
Images of the Day:
Quotes of the Day:
With President Trump’s 2020 budget finally revealed this week, the world can see where the heart of the U.S. is: In wars of choice, bombing, occupying other countries, drone warfare, nuclear weaponry development, sanctions against other nations backed up by force of arms, bullying of most of the globe. And, all of this can be threatened because of the power of the American armed forces, the most powerful the world has ever seen. 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 the god of earthly might and the campaign money that comes to them from those destructive sources. The rest of government will have to make do with $543 billion, down from $597 billion budgeted in 2019, a nine percent decrease, according to the National Priorities Project (NPP). At this time, the Republicans in Congress are in a period of time in which debt and deficits don’t mean anything. They save that for when Democrats are in power. — John Funiciello, War-Mongering Nation
Videos of the Day:
Admissions Scandal Exposes the Fraud of Meritocracy
Bribery and corruption is the real problem in college admissions, not affirmative action, says historian Gerald Horne–With host Paul Jay
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!
Venezuela Denounces Unlawful Seizure of Diplomatic Premises in the USThe forcible occupation of diplomatic premises is a clear violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza denounced Monday that the country’s diplomatic premises in the United States have been forcibly seized by Washington-backed agents.
Chelsea Manning and the New Inquisition The U.S. government, determined to extradite and try Julian Assange for espionage, must find a way to separate what Assange and WikiLeaks did in publishing classified material leaked to them by Chelsea Manning from what The New York Times and The Washington Post did in publishing the same material. There is no federal law that prohibits the press from publishing government secrets. It is a crime, however, to steal them. The long persecution of Manning, who on March 8 was sent back to jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury, is about this issue. If Manning, a former Army private, admits she was instructed by WikiLeaks and Assange in how to obtain and pass on the leaked material, which exposed U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, the publisher could be tried for the theft of classified documents. The prosecution of government whistleblowers was accelerated during the Obama administration, which under the Espionage Act charged eight people with leaking to the media—Thomas Drake, Shamai Leibowitz, Stephen Kim, Manning, Donald Sachtleben, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou and Edward Snowden. By the time Donald Trump took office, the vital connection between investigative reporters and sources inside the government had been severed. By Chris Hedges
The Real College Admissions Scandal Is Structural Inequality The indictments last week of a number of prominent people for paying bribes to get their children into elite colleges was perhaps more amusing than shocking. The fact that rich people are often able to buy their kids into schools is hardly a secret. After all, who believes that Donald Trump would have been accepted at the University of Pennsylvania, or his son-in-law Jared Kushner would have been attending Harvard, had it not been for their wealthy fathers? We also know about all the ways in which people who are affluent, but not super-rich, give their children a huge advantage in the college admissions process. These kids go to the best schools, either public or private, that prepare students to get into and attend an elite college. They also can count on help from tutors if they have difficulty in their classes and to improve their scores on standardized tests. By Dean Baker
737 MAX scandal: Boeing putting profits before safety“May one be pardon’d and retain the offence? “In the corrupted currents of this world, “Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice, “And oft is seen the wicked prize itself “Buys out the law.” (Hamlet, Act III, sc. three) Boeing is in trouble. The American aviation giant finds itself in the middle of a storm that has culminated in the worldwide grounding of its latest aircraft model, the 737 MAX. There is an emerging picture of a major manufacturer botching a new aircraft design, with more than 300 people dead as a result. This follows two fatal accidents in the space of five months that seem to have occurred under similar circumstances. By Martin Swayne
Environment:
Big Energy:
Lawmaker Who Compared Green New Deal to Genocide Rakes in Oil MoneyThe lawmaker who compared the Green New Deal to genocide last week has taken major campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies. Rob Bishop, a Republican congressman from Utah, expressed his opposition rather cryptically after a news conference in which Republican lawmakers called for hearings on New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s plan to address climate change. By Naomi LaChance
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
US Trying to Undermine Women Rights Agreements in UNUnited States officials in New York are trying to dilute language and remove the term “gender” from documents at the United Nations which is perceived as a threat to international agreements on women rights. In the negotiations at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at U.N. headquarters, the U.S. said it wants to remove the term gender in the outcome document which refers to only women or girls. country’s commitment to the Beijing declaration and platform for action agreed in 1995 during the fourth world conference. The Beijing agreement, although not legally binding, has been used by activists to hold governments accountable regarding women rights. The Beijing agreement talks of ending violence against women and eliminating female genital mutilation to women’s representation in the media and their involvement in decision-making.
Economy:
World:
The Brutal Legacy of Bloody Sunday is a Powerful Warning to Those Hoping to Save Brexit The prosecution of a single paratrooper for allegedly murdering two out of the 13 innocent civil rights marchers in Derry in 1972 has provoked inevitable criticism from knee-jerk defenders of the British army. They stubbornly refuse to admit that the greatest recruiting sergeant for the Provisional IRA during the Troubles were the killings carried out by British army troops on Bloody Sunday. The wounds in the nationalist community in Northern Ireland opened on that day have never closed and, thanks to the meagreness of the judicial response to the massacre, they never will do. By Patrick Cockburn
New Zealand Suspect’s Actions Are Logical Conclusion Of Calling Immigrants “Invaders” Brenton Tarrant, who stands accused of killing 50 adults and children at two mosques in New Zealand last week, wants us to know what inspired his actions. Before livestreaming his massacre of Muslim worshipers, he composed a lengthy document that proudly advocates the murder of innocent people in the name of racial purity. The manifesto is predictably disturbing. It is the work of a nihilist who sees a world so bleak and hopeless that it could be improved through acts of mass murder. There is one word in the 74-page document, however, that stood out to me: “invader.” By Murtaza Hussain
The Magical Thinking Around BrexitThe next two weeks will test how deeply a nation can immerse itself in self-delusion. The lexicon of Brexit, the United Kingdom’s buffoonishly mismanaged effort to leave the European Union, includes technical terms such as “backstop” and “customs union,” as well as a fanciful but revealing one: “unicorn.” It has come to be a scornful shorthand for all that the Brexiteers promised voters in the June, 2016, referendum and cannot, now or ever, deliver. An E.U. official, referring to what he saw as the U.K.’s irrational negotiation schemes, told the Financial Times that “the unicorn industry has been very busy.” Anti-Brexit protesters have taken to wearing unicorn costumes. “A lot of the people who advocated Brexit have been chasing unicorns now for a very long time,” Leo Varadkar, the Prime Minister of Ireland, said last week in Washington, D.C., where he attended St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. His visit coincided with a series of votes in Parliament that were meant to clarify the plans for Brexit but which did nothing of the kind. By Amy Davidson Sorkin
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 the to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let The People Vote on Healthcare!
Establishment Democrats Are Undermining Medicare for All The Democratic establishment — deep in the pockets of the health industry — wanted to make sure any blue wave election in 2018 would help sink, rather than support, the growing movement for a single-payer health care system. The recent decline in co-sponsors of the House Medicare for All legislation is, in part, a byproduct of this strategy and a reminder of the great obstacles corporate Democrats have put in front of the single-payer movement. By Michael Corcoran
Labor:
