Skip to content
Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace” Could Still Be Published Today!
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:
Bendib:Reparations
Quotes of the Day:
Global warming is a major contributor to marine disease outbreaks. Some species escape high temperatures temporarily by heading north for cooler water, but many — including abalone, sea snails and sea stars — cannot move. Some species of sea stars appear to developed immunity to sea star wasting disease, but others, including the magnificent sunflower stars that grow up to a meter across, did not, and their populations collapsed. Capitalism’s destructive impact on marine populations can be seen most directly in Harvell’s chapter on wild and farmed salmon where the drive for profit has overridden all ecological concerns. — Book Review: Confronting The Rising Tide Of Marine Disease Warming The Climate And Polluting The Sea Is Leading To Explosive Outbreaks Of New Infectious Diseases
She was amazed at the similarities between Arizona and the prison situation in Palestine, where Israel has incarcerated up to 40 percent of Palestinian men since 1967, and 8,000 children since 2000, in the backdrop of a decades-long military occupation and ongoing colonial settlement. Everything Ramadan was seeing was Southern Arizona’s small but key part along the U.S.-Mexico border, where the Trump administration was locking up a record number of children and separating them from their families. Add to that the factthat Arizona’s own prison system has achieved the fourth-highest incarceration rate in the world, while the U.S. as a whole locks up more people of color than South Africa under apartheid. — Border Patrol Is Using “Virtual Wall” Technology Israel Uses in Palestine
Note that “Iranian aggression.” The rest of the piece, fairly typical of the tone of American media coverage of the ongoing Iran crisis, included sentences like this: “The C.I.A. has longstanding secret plans for responding to Iranian provocations.” I’m sure I’ve read such things hundreds of times without ever really stopping to think much about them, but this time I did. And what struck me was this: rare is the moment in such mainstream news reports when Americans are the “provocative” ones (though the Iranians immediately accused the U.S. military of just that, a provocation, when it came to the U.S. drone its Revolutionary Guard recently shot down either over Iranian air space or the Strait of Hormuz). When it comes to Washington’s never-ending war on terror, I think I can say with reasonable confidence that, in the past, the present, and the future, the one phrase you’re not likely to find in such media coverage will be “American aggression.” — We’re Not the Good Guys
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!
By Trump’s comments, in this article, it is clear, to me, that the inhumane conditions at the border are intentionally done, with that purpose in mind.: ‘Monstrous’: Trump Blames Migrants for Appalling Conditions at Border Patrol Detention Centers“It’s hard to overstate the level of venality and depravity this man is capable of.” In response to photos, news reports, and first-hand accounts of the horrific conditions inside Border Patrol detention centers in Texas, President Donald Trump on Wednesday fired off a tweet blaming migrants themselves for the abuse they are now enduring at the hands of his administration. “If illegal immigrants are unhappy with the conditions in the quickly built or refitted detentions centers, just tell them not to come,” Trump wrote. “All problems solved!” By Jake Johnson
Homeless Rage in America . . . I had my camera on the floor next to my legs, so I grabbed it real quick and took this picture. Being a photojournalist, I simply wanted proof of what I was witnessing. Sitting next to me was Brian Willson, who witnessed U.S. atrocities in Viet Nam. In the back seat was a Nicaraguan woman by the name of Ulda. She was visiting the U.S. for the first time. When she was a small child she remembers eating only banana roots. Her family didn’t have food to eat because of the U.S.-funded Ronald Reagan War. In the past two years, 200,000 people have moved to Portland from all over the country. Rents have gone sky high, just like other cities across the nation. By Mike Hastie
Environment:
Book Review: Confronting The Rising Tide Of Marine Disease Warming The Climate And Polluting The Sea Is Leading To Explosive Outbreaks Of New Infectious Diseases UK-based socialist Sarah Ensor blogs at Herring and Class Struggle. She worked in Iceland’s fishing industry for six years, and is researching the history of the working class in Iceland. In the oceans today, new epidemic diseases are killing wildlife of a massive scale. Ocean Outbreak describes the efforts of scientists — often badly underfunded — to find the causes and propose cures. The author, a professor of marine ecology at Cornell University, looks in depth at “mass mortality events” affecting abalone, sea stars, coral reefs and farmed and wild fish, particularly salmon. She warns that “warming the climate and polluting the sea will give new opportunities to underwater microorganisms, resulting in explosive new outbreaks of infectious disease.” by Sarah Ensor
Citing $69 Trillion Price Tag by 2100, Moody’s Warns Central Banks of Far-Reaching Economic Damage of Climate Crisis“There is no denying it: The longer we wait to take bold action to curb emissions, the higher the costs will be for all of us.” Noting previous warnings that the human-caused climate crisis could cause trillions of dollars in damage to the global economy by the end of the century, a new report from Moody’s Analytics explores the economic implications of the international community’s failure to curb planet-warming emissions. By Jessica Corbett
Congress Has Been Treating Our National Parks and Waters Funding Like a Piggy Bank for DecadesThe 55-year-old Land and Water Conservation Fund needs to be kept safe from lawmakers who suddenly find themselves strapped for cash. With the Fourth of July weekend quickly approaching, many lucky Americans may be planning to visit one or more of our country’s glorious beaches, national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, or monuments. But while they’re soaking in all that serene natural beauty, they should know that keeping nature natural-looking doesn’t come cheap. According to the Office of Management and Budget’s breakdown for the 2018 federal budget, spending under Subfunction 303, which covers the management and improvement of recreational public lands such as national parks and historic areas, came to about $4 billion last year But a 2016 study estimated that Americans derive approximately $92 billion of value per year from these same spaces, which suggests we’re spending way, way less on public lands than they’re actually worth to us. In the face of a discrepancy that large, we need to put every last dollar we can get toward the conservation of America’s “crown jewels.” And that money should be spent making sure that these lands retain their natural character while also remaining accessible to as many of us as possible. At a time when Americans seem more fragmented than ever along political lines, our public lands can still bind us and blend us in ways that are socially and culturally healthy. By Jeff Turrentine
Nuclear: California: Who Is PG&E’s New CEO, Bill Johnson?California’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), has a dubious safety record. PG&E customers have already seen their fair share of environmental threats, mismanagement and costly drama. PG&E has contaminated the groundwaterat Hinkley (you remember Erin Brokovich), was on legal probation for killing eight people when one of its gas lines explodedin San Bruno in 2010, and then last year PG&E’s high voltage transmission line likely failed in high winds causing the Camp Fire that killed more than eighty others. The impacts of that wildfire are still felt to this day. In May 2019, NPRreportedthat, due to the Camp Fire, more than 1,000 families are homeless with most still searching for housing (temporary or otherwise). By Sue Prent and Patrick Moore 
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
A Good Beginning for Reparations Would be to Demand That All Decedents of Slavery Receive Receive 40 Acers and a Mule As Promised!
Community Land Trusts Are a Model for ReparationsThis year has already seen more Democrats talking about reparationsthan ever, including several running for the presidency. Now, rather than writing checks to individuals, more and more people are talking about collective strategies for repair and reparation. Community land trusts, cooperatives and mutual housing associations, for example, might offer a way to transfer some long-promised land and rights to Black communities while making today’s housing economy less speculative.Joining us to discuss those possibilities are Katherine Franke, author of a new book, Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition; Cathy Albisa, co-founder and executive director of the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative; and Jaritza Geigel, senior organizer for Picture the Homeless, a grassroots organization founded and led by homeless people which advocates for social justice on issues like housing and what they call the shelter-industrial complex. The interview that follows has been edited for clarity and length. By Laura Flanders
For Brother Bruce By Raymond Nat Turner , BAR poet-in-residence
Here’s the FOIA requested,
Redacted part of the story they never tell You.Baby Bruce was wandering
the Midwest with Dorothy and Toto—
Before they picked up the Tinman in
Pittsburgh, the Scarecrow on Staten Island,
the Cowardly Lion in Los Angeles
Baby Bruce had a baby brain, a huge
heart and fully formed courage that
would be schooled and steeled at the
point of production—
Molding a straight-up soldier on
The Long March; A rank-in-file,
meet ‘em where they’re at,
shoe leather, serve the people,
door-to-door knocking,
troublemaking organizer;
Chitown stubborn kinda fella—
stubborn as a Georgia mule—
Refusing to slip, on Iceberg Slim
posing as community organizer… More
Bruce Dixon, In His Own Words I was born to working class parents, and raised on the south side of Chicago. By 1967 I was involved in the citywide organizing effort among black high school students demanding the first black history courses and opposing the war in Vietnam. In the fall and winter of 1967 we hooked up with young Marine and Army veterans just back from the war. We took them to nine or ten black high schools on the west and south sides of Chicago where we conducted teach-ins at which they recounted stories of rapes, murders and war crimes they either took part in or witnessed but were powerless to stop. They told us we had a political and moral obligation to resist the war and the draft and not allow us to be used in the shameful way they had been used. In January 1969 I joined the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party , in which I served as part of the education cadre, responsible for conducting the party’s political education classes. I also served as a patient advocate in the party’s free medical center. I left the BPP about August of 1970.
The Democratic Party’s Fatal Contradiction(Audio) By Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
Freedom Rider: U.S. Prisons are Concentration Camps There were already thousands of concentration camps in the United States before Donald Trump began his reign of terror over asylum seekers. They are called prisons. “All of the horrors meted out to Hondurans fleeing the government imposed upon them by the United States are already experienced by the two million people living behind bars.” Most Americans are loathe to condemn their own country. Even when they do they refuse to acknowledge its vast history of criminality and prefer to behave as if the latest outrage is an outlier event. The disgraceful treatment meted out to asylum seekers at the southern border must be condemned unequivocally. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other House members performed their due diligence when they witnessed the horrible conditions first hand. ByMargaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
U.S. Militarism and the One-Sided Class War While the Democratic presidential candidates rehearsed their anti-Trump lines for the debates, most of the Democrats in the Senate voted for Trump’s record-breaking war spending bill. “The lopsided vote indicates that Democrats have fully embraced this insane policy of first-strike.” Despite capitalism’s internal contradictions, it can sustain itself in various forms – even fascism is a capitalist construct – as long as the bourgeois class is a “class for itself” and the working class is subjectively reduced to non-existence as a political force because of its lack of class consciousness. The various methods with which the rulers are able to leverage ideological consent from the oppressed don’t necessarily require extensive study of Gramsci, although it would help. Rather, it is only necessary to remind ourselves of the very simple but accurate observation provided by Marx that the dominant ideas of any society reflect the ideas of its dominant class. By Ajamu Baraka , BAR editor and columnist 
Anti-imperialism is the Only Antidote for Austerity Privatization, predatory lending, and endless war are all preconditions to finance capital’s hegemony. “Any Democrat who dares to challenge the war machine is effectively marginalized.” Black Agenda Report contributor Danny Haiphong delivered he following remarks at BAR’s Left Forum panel, “Black Liberation Strategies in the Empire of Exceptionalism.” Black liberation strategies must arise from the self-determined political activity of Black America. In my experience as an activist and journalist, there exists a pervasive but peculiar political position which argues that Black people cannot take on the entire emotional burden of their own liberation. White Americans must “give up their privilege” and hand it to Black Americans. This is neither an analysis nor a strategy for liberation. It is, however, a good way for individuals like Kamala Harris to grow their political careers. Without a Black liberation movement, the left in the United States will remain in retreat, forever tailing the likes of Harris and the con of diversity. The question is, what is the role for those of us who are oriented toward the struggle of the working class and the struggle for peace; and who invariably take our political cues from the Black liberation movement? By Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
WikiLeaks, the Global Fourth Estate: History Is Happening WikiLeaks made it possible for whistleblowers to expose government and corporate criminals anonymously. “The organization has never been compelled to retract a publication, and it has never busted a source.” Nozomi Hayase dedicated “WikiLeaks, the Global Fourth Estate: History Is Happening ” to “the youth who grew up on the Internet,” then added, “The future of civilization depends on great acts of courage inspired by the heart.” Hayase is a psychologist, essayist, and activist, and her book is a chronological collection of her essays about WikiLeaks, written from 2010 to 2017. It’s a thought- provoking look back at how WikiLeaks made history during these years by publishing leaked documents that exposed the malfeasance of governments from Russia to Australia and most famously that of the US State Department, Pentagon, and Democratic National Committee. Since 2018, I have joined Hayase in a number of actions to defend WikiLeaks and call for the freedom of Julian Assange. ByAnn Garrison , BAR contributor
America’s Triple Addiction: Lies, Race and War A nation that claims to be a force for good should not need 800 military bases around the world to corroborate that claim. “America has earned for itself the dubious distinction of killing more innocents in unprovoked wars of aggression than the rest of the world combined.” In America’s dealing with a world of invented enemies, lies, racism and perpetual wars have morphed into a tricephalic creature requiring uncommon intellectual labors to dissect and isolate the individual elements, with a view to degrading them. American strategies for battling others, especially people of color, have employed a varied mix of these components. To build a culture of war on the weak, patronizing racist rationales — which themselves are falsehoods — are invoked. Addiction to war and an attendant indifference to peace requires an unremitting turnover of enemies, to attract piles of cash to feed the insatiable merchants of death. Racism has fueled violence against diverse nations and peoples through much of American history. By Kweli Nzito
Why Public Schools’ Best Days Could Be Ahead of Us Many school districts that were seized by the states are returning to local control, but without adequate funding. “They will continue to work to undermine the elected board and the public schools.” ormer vice president and current presidential hopeful Joe Biden recently caught a lot of flak for saying if President Trump were to be booted out of office, politics would go back to being sane again. He then suggested that his history of being “civil” with avowed segregationists was an asset worthy of the presidency. Biden’s critics were right to point out his “nostalgia” ignores the assault on democracy that occurred during those mythical “good times” before Trump, and a more important concern is whether years of systemic corruption and intransigence toward democracy have become so ingrained that government of the people, by the people, and for the people is no longer possible. By Jeff Bryant
The Capitalist Coup Called Neoliberalism: How and Why It Went Down Those who orchestrated the coup (the top 1%) claimed about a quarter of all wealth during the 1980s, and now own over 40% of all wealth in the country. “The organizational counterattack of business in the 1970s was a domestic version of Shock and Awe.” Rich people have always had class consciousness because… they want to stay rich. This collective consciousness led the “founding fathers” of the United States to set up systems of governance that would, first and foremost, protect them (the wealthy, landowning minority) from the landless, working majority (slaves, indentured servants, laborers). Since then, the rich have had undue influence on every aspect of US life: housing, food production and distribution, education, media, and politics. As capitalism has developed well into its late stages, this has led to large concentrations in wealth and power, and thus influence. By Colin Jenkins
Labor:
Economy:
Economic Update: China’s Economic Record and Strategy This week on Economic Update, Professor Wolff follows up with part two of his in-depth analyses of the USSR and anti-capitalist governments by providing (1) an overview of China’s economic development mostly over the last 25 years (GDP, real wages, etc.), and (2) its economic strategy: learning but also differing from Soviet strategy along with some relevant, and interesting, historical context.
World:
Life Among the Rubble: Mosul 18 Months after “Liberation” Recent news of drought has brought Mosul, Iraq, to the attention of Western media; for the drought has led to the discovery of ancient ruins of archaeological significance. But let’s not forget the other news: the UN report on returnees. The refugees are returning to the carnage wrought upon the city by the US and its allies under the pretext of “liberating” it from Daesh: carnage that transformed much of the city to modern ruins. By T.J. Coles
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!
