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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.
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Following the 1929 stock market crash, which resembles 2008 in so many ways, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee conducted an extensive investigation over a period of three years into the trading practices on Wall Street. It found unprecedented amounts of brazen collusion between the largest Wall Street banks. The Senate investigations focused extensively on the operations of “Pools,” today reincarnated as Dark Pools. The Senate Committee wrote as follows: “A pool, according to stock exchange officials, is an agreement between several people, usually more than three, to actively trade in a single security. The investigation has shown that the purpose of a pool generally is to raise the price of a security by concerted activity on the part of the pool members, and thereby to enable them to unload their holdings at a profit upon the public attracted by the activity or by information disseminated about the stock. Pool operations for such a purpose are incompatible with the maintenance of a free and uncontrolled market.” … Today, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken no action to break up the activities of these Dark Pools or to stop the Wall Street banks from making tens of thousands of trades in their own stock. (See Wall Street Banks Are Trading in Their Own Company’s Stock: How Is This Legal?) Of course, there is also the problem that the Chair of the SEC is Wall Street’s former lawyer. (See SEC Nominee Has Represented 8 of the 10 Largest Wall Street Banks in Past Three Years.) — How Bad Are Things on Wall Street? JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs Offer No Minimum Accounts
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!
‘This Is the Cover-Up’: Trump DOJ Instructs McGahn to Disregard Subpoena by House Judiciary“Our democracy is built on an understanding that one branch of government won’t systematically obstruct another,” said Rep. Ro Khanna. “Mueller named McGahn as a critical witness: the American people need to hear his testimony.”
Trump’s FCC Chair Accused of Betraying Public Interest Mandate by Backing T-Mobile/Sprint Mega-Merger He “seems to take smug pleasure in being a blatant telecom shill.” By Andrea Germonos
Venezuela: Amnesty International in Service of Empire Uncle Sam has a problem in his South American “backyard” with those uppity Venezuelans who insisted on democratically electing Nicolás Maduro as their president instead of by-passing the electoral process and installing the unelected US asset Juan Guaidó. No matter, Amnesty International has come to the rescue with a full-throated defense of US imperialism:“Faced with grave human rights violations, shortages of medicines and food and generalized violence in Venezuela, there is an urgent hunger for justice. The crimes against humanity probably committed by the authorities must not go unpunished.” By Roger Harris
Environment:
Renewable Energy: the Switch From Drill, Baby, Drill to Mine, Baby, MineThe most penetrating criticism I’ve seen of renewable energy is that it’s being promoted at massive scale to reassure us that we can go on as before, with little if any change of lifestyle, no move beyond our comfort zones. That’s a comforting view, one that we’d all love to be true. And yet, it raises a big and uncomfortable question. Can we mine, baby, mine, to ensure no reduction of living standards, no uncomfortable change of lifestyle. By Lance Olsen
Custer’s Last Stand Meets Global Warming A recent article in Arctic News on the outlook for global warming foresees a frightening scenario lurking right around the corner. Hopefully, the article’s premise of impending runaway global warming (“RGW”) is off the mark, by a lot. More to the point, off by really a lot in order to temper the sting expected when abrupt temperature increases hit hard, as projected in the article, which is entitled: “Greenhouse Gas Levels Keep Accelerating.” Oh, BTW… the worst-case scenario happens within one decade! By Rober Hunzinker
Black Liberaation/Civil Rights:
Freedom Rider: Abortion Rights and the Power of Protest An abortion rights crisis looms, but Americans have lost their fightng tools, lulled to sleep by the corporate fixers of the Democratic Party. “The response from the pro-choice community has been both weak and laughable.” Americans do not know how to protest. Even on those occasions when they take to the streets they also waste time with nonsense. Props like pink hats or costumes from the Handmaids Taletelevision show are poor substitutes for effective politics. It has been nearly 50 years since mass action has been coordinated into coherent political demands. Now the right to abortion is at risk and the lack of effective protest is partly the cause. By Margaret Kimberly , BAR editor and senior columnist
The Corporate Media and the “Resistance” to PeaceThe “Resistance” to peace being waged by the capitalist class and the corporate media is the greatest threat faced by humanity today. “The corporate media has shaped the consciousness and behavior of the masses with clear directives from the U.S. military apparatus.” For the lords of capital, the Trump administration is insufficiently hawkish. Trump can send an aircraft carrier strike force to the Persian Gulf to intimidate Iran amid the ongoing evisceration of the Iran nuclear deal. He can attempt a coup and impose crippling sanctions on the democratically elected government of Venezuela and intensify sanctions against Venezuela’s strongest ally, Cuba. Yet none of this satisfies the thirst for carnage that resides in the “Deep State” and the military industrial complex. Peace is the primary threat to the U.S. empire’s profit-driven objectives. Under Trump, the ruling class believes that there is too much of it, By Danny Haiphong, BAR contributor
How the Promise of Roe v. Wade Left Women of Color Behind Roe has never been full of promise for women of color, immigrant women and women with low incomes, who also have the most to lose. “Legal abortion means little to communities without the ability to access it.” This article originally appeared in ColorLines on January 19, the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade. Forty-six years ago today, millions of women across the country celebrated as Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, was made the law of the land. No more hiding in the shadows, no more being ashamed to talk about abortion, we thought. We finally had complete control of our reproductive future and the ability to plan our families. By Sung Yeon. Choimorrow, Marcela, and Howelland Jessica González-Rojas
Socialism – The Litmus Test for Authentic African LeadershipThere is no better time than African Liberation Day to call out Africa’s imperialist stooges, lackeys and puppets. “There are far too many neo-colonial African leaders willing to dance to the African dependency tune.” A man lost in the desert needs water and lots of it. If instead, a rescuer gives him a really excellent novel and a comb, the desperate man will be confused and angry. Africa too is lost. It wanders aimlessly in international capitalism’s vast wasteland of economic lunacy. The continent’s widespread poverty, disease, failing/failed infrastructure and many other economic challenges caused by centuries of imperialist underdevelopment and exploitation can be remedied by only one thing — socialism. Africa is as thirsty for socialism as the man in the desert is for water. Yet, those who purport to come to Africa’s rescue resist all socialist initiatives. Instead they offer foreign aid, exploitative loans, weapons and military advice, structural adjustment programs, trade agreements, and endless pronouncements that Africa’s entire economic mess is the fault of corrupt African leadership. By Mark P. Fancher
Los Angeles: City of Segregation Only white Americans have the freedom to use their wealth to buy a home wherever they like, and they use that freedom to isolate themselves from others. “Capital has been structured by race.” Los Angeles is a vast, sprawling, fragmented American metropolis, which has been etched into the consciousness of the modern world with the glamorous veneer of Hollywood stars alongside the stylized mean streets of South Central depicted in Straight Outta Compton (2015). It is a “checkerboard of desperate poverty and immense wealth” (p.1) with segregation as the linchpin of racial stratification. By Adam Tomes
Fake News Empire: Unlearning the Lies at the Heart of American ideology. Black Agenda Report’s Danny Haiphong examines the lies at the root of the story America tells itself – as the corporate media obscures the reality of social relations at the base of American power, our collective notions of exceptionalism and innocence mask the exploitation that occurs around us everyday, and the exploiting class at the top of American society. Danny is author of the book American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News—From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror from Skyhorse Books.
Black Agenda Radio, Week of May 22, 2019
Labor:
World:
Austria: snap elections and political explosions Last Saturday, the Austrian government, made up of the main bourgeois party, ÖVP and right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ), stepped down and announced re-elections. In a spontaneous demonstration, 10,000 people gathered in Vienna to celebrate. This is a setback for the bourgeois bloc, who have been diligently working on attacking the working class to prepare the capitalists for the next crisis. But it was not the mobilised working class who brought down the government, and the capitalists and their politicians are adamant on continuing their agenda. The Left, starting with the Socialist Youth, must use this opening to bring down the bourgeois bloc for real. By Emanuel Tomaselli
British Steel should be nationalised, urges Labour Labour has urged the government to nationalise British Steel in order to protect jobs and the steel industry. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the collapse of British Steel would have a “devastating impact” on Scunthorpe. British Steel is on the verge of administration as it continues to lobby for government backing, sources say.
Economy:
Debt, Underemployment, and Capitalism: The Rise of Twenty-First-Century Serfdom Systemic contradictions of capitalism have only intensified in the neoliberal era. Structural unemployment, a phenomenon directly related to capitalist modes of production, has continued unabated, creating a massive and ever-growing “reserve army of labor” that has been disenfranchised on an unprecedented scale. By Cherise Charleswell and Colin Jenkins
Health, Education, Science, 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!
Private equity is a driving force behind devious surprise billing By Surprise medical bills are in the news almost daily. Last Thursday, the White House called for legislation to protect patients from getting surprise doctor bills when they are rushed to the emergency room and receive care from doctors not covered by insurance at an in-network hospital. By Eileen Appelbaum
