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.
What, then, is the general law that determines the rise and fall of wages and profit in their reciprocal relation? They stand in inverse proportion to each other. The share of (profit) increases in the same proportion in which the share of labour (wages) falls, and vice versa. Profit rises in the same degree in which wages fall; it falls in the same degree in which wages rise. — Karl Marx, The General Law that Determines the Rise and Fall of Wages and Profits
W.E.B. Du Bois knew that the “economic foundation” of the northern bourgeoisie would never allow them to follow through on Reconstruction. From that he drew the lesson that blacks and poor whites in the South must unite against the ruling class. He was expand on this when categorizing the American worker into four sets: : “The freed Negro, the Southern poor white, and the Northern skilled and common laborer” and grieved over the fact that “These groups never came to see their common interests and the financiers and capitalists easily kept the upper hand.” This begs the question of how far class consciousness has advanced today. — A Few Comments on the recent PBS Series: Reconstruction: America After the Civil War
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!
In Libya, the death toll from fighting around Tripoli has risen to at least 227, with more than 1,100 injured, since a Libyan warlord launched an assault on the capital city on April 5. The World Health Organization said Sunday the fighting has displaced more than 30,000 people. The fighting pits the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord against a militia led by former Libyan General Khalifa Haftar, who already controls much of eastern Libya. Haftar has dual U.S.-Libyan citizenship and is a former CIA asset. On Friday, the White House revealed that President Trump spoke by phone with Haftar on April 15. According to a statement, Trump “recognized Field Marshal Haftar’s significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources, and the two discussed a shared vision for Libya’s transition to a stable, democratic political system.” News of Trump’s support for Haftar drew thousands of protesters into Tripoli’s Martyrs’ Square on Friday. — Democracy Now!
The Monroe Doctrine is Back, and as the Latest US Attack on Cuba Shows, Its Purpose is to Serve the Neoliberal OrderIn November 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry declared: “The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” The reality of Obama administration policy did not entirely support this assertion; there was the executive order against Venezuela in 2015, support for the coup in Honduras in 2009, and ominously close ties with right-wing governments across the region. But with other more encouraging steps such as the normalization of relations with Cuba and the (belated) show of support for the Colombian Peace Process, there were at least some modest steps towards greater mutual respect for national sovereignty in the Hemisphere. Then came the unexpected election of Donald Trump. By Peter Belmont
A Few Comments on the recent PBS Series: Reconstruction: America After the Civil War The Civil War which ended in 1865, demolished slavery and emancipated four million human beings. What happened next in the South remains largely unknown to most Americans. In a recent poll of high school graduates, only 20 percent had even heard of Reconstruction, in part because history classes about this period invariably end with the South’s surrender. During the short Reconstruction period from 1865-1877, the Federal state was empowered to act on behalf of freed black men and poor whites. Unprecedented changes followed, including new public hospitals, schools, aid to the poor and public programs offering a wide range of services that gave preference to the needs of those previously deprived of them. The beginning of meaningful democracy was exemplified by new Federal courts, replacing state governments and well-attended state constitutional conventions to Black suffrage, ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifthteenth amendments and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, This mandate’s enforcement could rely on the full force and protection of Federal troops in five military zones. By Gary Olsen
Our Ever-Deadlier Police State None of the reforms, increased training, diversity programs, community outreach and gimmicks such as body cameras have blunted America’s deadly police assault, especially against poor people of color. Police forces in the United States—which, according to The Washington Post, have fatally shot 782 people this year [2017]—are unaccountable, militarized monstrosities that spread fear and terror in poor communities. By comparison, police in England and Wales killed 62 people in the 27 years between the start of 1990 and the end of 2016. By Chis Hedges
What Happens If Trump Breaks All the Laws? Since Donald Trump took the reins of power in January 2017, his ghastly team has been looking for ever more creative ways to make the lives of immigrants and would-be immigrants as miserable as possible. They have sought to use all the powers of the executive branch to limit not just undocumented immigration, but also legal immigration through curtailing the issuing of visas and shuttering overseas visa-processing offices; travel bans targeting people from Muslim-majority countries; ludicrously low caps on the numbers of refugees; and, over the past months, an all-out assault on asylum seekers. By Sasha Abramsky
Environment:
As the forest decline and the oceans get polluted, the Earth is losing its natural urban sinks.An ominous discovery that was reported in the journal Science, is that Antarctica’s Southern Ocean, a crucial “carbon sink” into which 15 percent of the world’s excess carbon dioxide flows, is reaching saturation and soon may be unable to absorb any more carbon dioxide, allowing more CO2 to be pumped into the atmosphere. “The last time ocean chemistry underwent such a radical transformation”, Caldeira said, “was when the dinosaurs went extinct. One result of this CO2 saturation will the lowering of the pH of the oceans endangering the coral reefs. According to the above article, “if CO2 emissions continue at their current pace, the pH of the ocean is expected to dip to 7.9 or lower by the end of the century — a 150% change.” In Siberia and Alaska, for instance, the permafrost is melting, releasing methane, and further accelerating the warming process. Methane in the Earth’s atmosphere is a powerful greenhouse gas , when Siberian permafrost melts, carbon buried since the Pleistocene era is bubbling to the surface of lakes, and dissipating into the atmosphere as methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide). (While carbon dioxide is typically painted as the bad boy of greenhouse gases, methane is roughly 30 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas. New research in the journal Nature indicates that for each degree that Earth’s temperature rises, the amount of methane entering the atmosphere from microorganisms dwelling in lake sediment and freshwater wetlands — the primary sources of the gas — will increase several times. As temperatures rise, the relative increase of methane emissions will outpace that of carbon dioxide from these sources, the researchers report. — A more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, methane emissions will leap as Earth warms) — Whither Humanity? The Environmental Crisis of Capitalism
We Are Not Moving Fast Enough’: Study Shows Cost of Melting Permafrost Could Total $70 Trillion“We have the technology and policy instruments to limit the warming but we are not moving fast enough.” —Dmitry Yumashev, Lancaster University “The most important thing to remember about our study is the greater the warming, the stronger the feedbacks and the higher the costs to society.” By Jake Johnson
Runoff from melting permafrost in Alaska flows toward the sea. (Photo: NOAA)
War, United States, and Regime Change = Oil: Map of Libya
In Libya, the death toll from fighting around Tripoli has risen to at least 227, with more than 1,100 injured, since a Libyan warlord launched an assault on the capital city on April 5. The World Health Organization said Sunday the fighting has displaced more than 30,000 people. The fighting pits the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord against a militia led by former Libyan General Khalifa Haftar, who already controls much of eastern Libya. Haftar has dual U.S.-Libyan citizenship and is a former CIA asset. On Friday, the White House revealed that President Trump spoke by phone with Haftar on April 15. According to a statement, Trump “recognized Field Marshal Haftar’s significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources, and the two discussed a shared vision for Libya’s transition to a stable, democratic political system.” News of Trump’s support for Haftar drew thousands of protesters into Tripoli’s Martyrs’ Square on Friday. — Democracy Now!
Terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka: only workers’ unity can end sectarian violence!On what should have been a peaceful and calm Easter Sunday, Sri Lanka was hit by a horrific terrorist attack. Churches and hotels across the island were bombed. The explosions were so powerful that church rooftops were torn off and smoke could be seen for miles. The blasts have killed 321 at the last count, leaving as many as 500 injured. We condemn this disgusting and cowardly attack in the strongest possible terms. The country is now locked down under a curfew, and military services have been granted granting sweeping powers. All of the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers in the Sinhalese populated cities of Colombo and Negombo and one predominantly Tamil area in Batticaloa. By The country is now locked down under a curfew, and military services have been granted granting sweeping powers. All of the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers in the Sinhalese populated cities of Colombo and Negombo and one predominantly Tamil area in Batticaloa. By Meena KumarBritain: the Assange arrest – Blairites run to the support of imperialismThe arrest of Julian Assange is a vicious assault on basic democratic rights. Through WikiLeaks, Assange has exposed the hair-raising crimes of US imperialism and its allies, including the UK. While war criminals like Bush and Blair walk free, Assange now faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in a US prison. A defence of Assange is a defence of the right to freedom of expression and the right to information, against imperialist aggression. Sajid Javid, the Tory home secretary, made clear last week which side the British ruling class is on. In Parliament he described Assange as “someone [who] has a track record of undermining the UK and our allies and the values we stand for”. These “undermining” activities are the publication of documents and footage proving massive corruption and deliberate murder of civilians by the US military. Corruption and murder, then, are the “values we [the British ruling class] stand for”. By Ben Gliniecki
Economy:
Based on data that Wall Street On Parade has newly compiled, there is a strong suggestion that the Federal Reserve conspired with at least three of the largest Wall Street firms to hide their teetering condition from the public during the financial crisis, despite the fact that these were all New York Stock Exchange listed companies with a duty to reveal material, adverse financial information to the public in a timely fashion. If Maxine Waters wants to leave her mark in history as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, she will subpoena records from the Federal Reserve on its biggest and dirtiest bailout program, known as the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF). She and her colleagues must then demand answers from Fed witnesses during the hearing Waters has scheduled for May 16 at 10:00 a.m. The upcoming hearing is titled “Oversight of Prudential Regulators: Ensuring the Safety, Soundness and Accountability of Megabanks and Other Depository Institutions.” — Maxine Waters Needs to Subpoena Details of the Fed’s Dirtiest Bailout
There has been no recovery! — Profits are Up — But there has been no GNP growth, since the early 90s. Unemployment has been over 20% since 20. Why? — Read Rober Baron Usury Capitalism in the United States
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!
DeVos Funnels $116 Million to Open 20 Charter Schools in El Paso, Which Will Devastate Public Schools Should Amy O’Rourke, Beto’s wife, send a thank-you note to Betsy DeVos? Betsy DeVos has awarded a huge grant of $116,755,848 to the IDEA charter chain to open 20 new schools in El Paso. IDEA opened its first El Paso charter last fall. In 2017, DeVos gave $67 million to IDEA.IDEA has received a grand total of $225 million from the federal Charter Schools Program. By Diane Ravitch
Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford: Black Agenda Radio, Week of April 24, 2019
