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. Socialism Means True Democracy — The 99% Will Rule! — Not the Few!
Robert Kennedy Jr. notes: For Americans to really understand what’s going on, it’s important to review some details about this sordid but little-remembered history. During the 1950s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers — CIA Director Allen Dulles and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles — rebuffed Soviet treaty proposals to leave the Middle East a neutral zone in the Cold War and let Arabs rule Arabia. Instead, they mounted a clandestine war against Arab nationalism — which Allen Dulles equated with communism — particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies that they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism [and those that possess a lot of oil]. At a White House meeting between the CIA’s director of plans, Frank Wisner, and John Foster Dulles, in September 1957, Eisenhower advised the agency, “We should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect,” according to a memo recorded by his staff secretary, Gen. Andrew J. Goodpaster. — Middle Eastern Wars Have Always Been About Oil
Editor’s Note from Pam Martens: From 1996 to 2001, I was in and out of Federal Courts in New York attempting to overturn Wall Street’s private justice system called mandatory arbitration. Sexual assaults against young, vulnerable adult women working at Wall Street firms were being shielded from public scrutiny because deeply conflicted arbitrators beholding to Wall Street were allowed to function as judge and jury without any of the procedural protections of our nation’s courts. Other than keeping the case and the atrocities in front of the media for five years, myself and others were stymied by the same kind of cronyism and corruption that is so evident in the Epstein case. Wall Street has now morphed into such an entrenched culture of revolving doors and captured regulators and prosecutors that depravity has been defined down to such a point that we must now confront the horrors of not just sex trafficking of children within the borders of our own country but the horror of the credible allegation that Epstein turned other underage girls into recruiters of more underage girls in order to amuse his sexual depravity multiple times a day. Until a large segment of America recognizes that the moral fiber and financial stability of this country is under a real and dangerous threat from this kind of ingrained corruption, meaningful and lasting change will not occur.
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!
Scapegoating IranA little more than a year ago, Chris Hedges interviewed the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and wrote about the situation between the United States and Iran. Now, amid even greater tension and threats of war between the two nations, Truthdig reposts that June 10, 2018, column. Hedges is on vacation and will return with a new article Aug. 12. NEW YORK—Seventeen years of war in the Middle East and what do we have to show for it? Iraq after our 2003 invasion and occupation is no longer a unified country. Its once modern infrastructure is largely destroyed, and the nation has fractured into warring enclaves. We have lost the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban is resurgent and has a presence in over 70 percent of the country. Libya is a failed state. Yemen after three years of relentless airstrikes and a blockade is enduring one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. The 500 “moderate” rebels we funded and armed in Syria at a cost of $500 million are in retreat after instigating a lawless reign of terror. The military adventurism has cost a staggering $5.6 trillion as our infrastructure crumbles, austerity guts basic services and half the population of the United States lives at or near poverty levels. The endless wars in the Middle East are the biggest strategic blunder in American history and herald the death of the empire. By Chris HedgesU.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses Today’s world is at war on many fronts. The rules of international law and order put in place toward the end of World War II are being broken by U.S. foreign policy escalating its confrontation with countries that refrain from giving its companies control of their economic surpluses. Countries that do not give the United States control of their oil and financial sectors or privatize their key sectors are being isolated by the United States imposing trade sanctions and unilateral tariffs giving special advantages to U.S. producers in violation of free trade agreements with European, Asian and other countries. By Michael Hudson
Trump May Be a White Nationalist, but American Racism Is Bipartisan. . . But the congresswomen’s lands of origin and naturalization were beside the point. For Trump and his supporters, the key facts are that, unlike Melania Trump, they aren’t white and are speaking up against racist, sexist and capitalist oppression in the United States. In the white nationalist worldview, the United States is a white country and citizenship here is a racial, not a civil, matter. People of nonwhite identity and ancestry are viewed as inherently broken and inadequate, incapable of civilized self-governance. If they want to be tolerated and taken seriously in “our country,” they need to play by rich and powerful white males’ rules and know their place. Those who get uppity need to “go back where they came from.” It’s a very old racist and nativist trope. Never mind that North America’s original inhabitants were brown-skinned people who were almost completely wiped out by European invaders between 1500 and 1900. Or that the genocidal white (un-)settlers—those Native American writer and activist Ward Churchill understandably labeled simply as “Predator”— brought black slaves in chains from Africa — people who never chose to come here in the first place. By Paul Street
Reports expose Trump administration’s “Border Patrol to emergency room” pipelineThousands of people arrested by the US Border Patrol crossing the US-Mexico border are released from detention centers only to go directly to the emergency rooms of local hospitals, according to two damning press reports issued this past week. The Atlantic magazine reported Sunday on what it termed “The Border Patrol–to–Emergency Room Pipeline,” describing immigrants, frequently exhausted, dehydrated or otherwise weakened by crossing the border in remote desert areas, then thrown into detention centers where they can’t wash their hands, even after using the bathroom, and are frequently denied clean drinking water and hot food. By Patrick Martin
Environment:
Fighting Climate Change Means Ending War“The easy movement of high ranking military officers into jobs with major defense contractors and the reverse movement of top executives in major defense contractors into high Pentagon jobs is solid evidence of the military industrial-complex in operation.” By Robert Koehler
Bestowed With “Freedom Prize,” Greta Thunberg Holds Up D-Day Veteran’s Call to Avert Collapse of Civilization Climate activist praises “the most powerful words on the climate and ecological emergency I’ve ever heard.” Climate activist Greta Thunberg on Sunday urged people to recognize “the link between climate and ecological emergency and mass migration, famine, and war” as she was given the first “Freedom Prize” from France’s Normandy region for her ongoing school strikes for climate and role in catalyzing the Fridays for future climate movement. By Andrea Germanos
Pollution is Personal As health risks mount and citizens get vocal, cities need to innovate to improve air quality Air quality inside the big, yellow school buses can contain up to 8.5 times more diesel exhaust than what you might typically breathe in California. The air in the back of the bus was slightly worse than in the front and closing the windows didn’t necessarily help. The soot leaks through floorboards and exhaust swirls so much it seeps into bus interiors. That’s a big deal, since the school transportation industry provides 10 billion student rides annually, the largest form of public transportation in the United States. The thing that troubles Trimble is that she is knowingly raising her children in a city where she knows precisely how bad the air-quality is and there is now more evidence about how detrimental it can be to the physical development of young children. As a Director for Urban Development at Siemens, Trimble has keen insight on how global cities tackle greenhouse gasses and air pollution. She’d been actively working on the Siemens City Performance Tool projects, helping cities around the globe understand how technology can improve urban infrastructure and quality of life.
Air quality inside the big, yellow school buses can contain up to 8.5 times more diesel exhaust than what you might typically breathe in California. The air in the back of the bus was slightly worse than in the front and closing the windows didn’t necessarily help. The soot leaks through floorboards and exhaust swirls so much it seeps into bus interiors. That’s a big deal, since the school transportation industry provides 10 billion student rides annually, the largest form of public transportation in the United States.
Emergency Alert For the Wild Rockies The Trump Administration, many western politicians, the timber industry, and collaborative environmental groups complain that the Alliance for the Wild Rockies files and wins too many lawsuits on illegal national forest timber sales. Isn’t it odd that none of these groups have a problem with the Forest Service, BLM, or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services breaking federal laws when they propose to clearcut forests that provide habitat for elk, native fish, and grizzly bears — but they do have a problem with a very small non-profit group exercising our First Amendment rights to challenge government decisions? By Mike GarrityTo Call Attention to “What’s Being Lost” to Climate Crisis, Former Glacier to Receive Monument” With this memorial, we want to underscore that it is up to us, the living, to collectively respond to the rapid loss of glaciers and the ongoing impacts of climate change.” A climate change victim in Iceland is set to be memorialized with a monument that underscores the urgent crisis. The victim is the former Okjökull glacier in Borgarfjörður, which scientists say is the nation’s first glacier lost to the climate crisis. Its plight was also the subject of the 2018 documentary “Not Ok” produced by Rice University anthropologists Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer. By Andrea Germanos,
The Conniving at the EPA Has Gotten KafkaesqueThe agency aims to stop citizens from challenging pollution permits—while continuing to allow challenges from polluters who want to pollute more. In his dark masterpiece The Trial, Franz Kafka depicted a surreal universe in which the legal system has abandoned any principles of fairness or justice and instead operates chaotically, according to a set of inscrutable rules. The story of Josef K.’s arrest on unspecified charges and his path through a perverse, uncaring jurisprudence has become such a famous indictment of nightmarish bureaucracy that it’s given us the adjective Kafkaesque to describe systems in which humanity, compassion, and even basic logic have been tossed out the window. So, I wonder what Kafka would have made of the latest bit of news about recent doings at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Last week, the New York Timesrevealed that the EPA has been quietly planning to weaken Americans’ ability to fight back against polluting industries that have set up shop in their neighborhoods. According to the article, which was reported with the aid of anonymous sources (presumably from within the agency), the EPA intends to do away with rules—set up 27 years ago under the administration of George H. W. Bush—that allow individuals or their advocates to challenge pollution permits issued to factories, power plants, and other facilities that spew or leach poison into their communities. By Jeff Turrentine
SPRINGDALE, PENNSYLVANIA – OCTOBER 27: Marti Blake speaks to the postman in front of the smoke stack of the 47-year old Cheswick coal-fired power plant October 27, 2017 in Springdale, Pennsylvania. Blake complains about the amount of sulphur-dioxide, nitrogen oxide and coal particles originating from the NRG-owned 565-MW power plant that have effected her health as well as those in the surrounding area. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
Babies Born Near Oil and Gas Wells Are Up to 70% More Likely to Have Congenital Heart Defects, New Study ShowsResearchers at the University of Colorado studied pregnant women who are among the 17 million Americans living within a mile from an active oil or gas well Proximity to oil and gas sites makes pregnant mothers up to 70 percent more likely to give birth to a baby with congenital heart defects, according to a new study. Led by Dr. Lisa McKenzie at the University of Colorado, researchers found that the chemicals released from oil and gas wells can have serious and potentially fatal effects on babies born to mothers who live within a mile of an active well site—as about 17 million Americans do. By Julia ConleyGiving ‘Upper Hand to Corporate Polluters,’ EPA Drops Surprise InspectionsThe agency “is just chucking aside any flimsy pretense that they care about upholding environmental laws, enforcing against big polluters, or protecting Americans,” says one observer. President Donald Trump’s EPA is provoking criticism once again, this time over a new “no surprises” policy stopping unannounced visits to power, chemical, and waste facilities. By Andrea Germanos
Greek elections: Syriza defeat the cost of betrayalThe left-wing Syriza party in Greece has been defeated in the polls after capitulating to the capitalists and carrying out austerity whilst in government. This is a vital lesson for the left in Britain and internationally.Last Sunday’s elections in Greece have returned the right-wing New Democracy party to power after four years of ‘left-wing populist’ rule under Alexis Tsipras’ Syriza-led coalition. International media have heralded the much anticipated result as a ‘sweeping victory’ and even a ‘landslide’ (according to the Guardian), and point to the victory of the new prime minister, Kiriakos Mitsotakis, as a vindication of ‘centre-ground’ politics. But beyond the spin the real story of these elections is the mass rejection of all parties and the opening up of a fresh period of instability and class struggle in Greece, which carries important lessons for the Corbyn movement today. By Josh Holroyd
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!
‘Those That Pay the Piper Call the Tune’:
Nick Melvoin was elected to the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District with the most money ever spent on a school board election in American history. The money came from the charter lobby. It was not hard to assume that he owed an enormous debt of gratitude to Eli Broad, Reed Hastings, Richard Riordan, Bill Bloomfield, and the other uber-rich who funded his election. Yet, I feel sorry for Nick, whom I have never met. Michael Kohlhaas just posted emails from his treasure trove of leaked materials that show that Nick was so indebted to the charter lobby that he asked them to write the resolutions that would benefit them. He didn’t write them himself. He asked the California Charter Schools Association to do it for him. This has got to be deeply humiliating because it shows him to be a complete sellout, a tool. — Diane Ravitch, Los Angeles: I Feel Sorry for Nick Melvoin
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and The Iron Heel.
U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses Today’s world is at war on many fronts. The rules of international law and order put in place toward the end of World War II are being broken by U.S. foreign policy escalating its confrontation with countries that refrain from giving its companies control of their economic surpluses. Countries that do not give the United States control of their oil and financial sectors or privatize their key sectors are being isolated by the United States imposing trade sanctions and unilateral tariffs giving special advantages to U.S. producers in violation of free trade agreements with European, Asian and other countries. By Michael Hudson
To Call Attention to “What’s Being Lost” to Climate Crisis, Former Glacier to Receive Monument” With this memorial, we want to underscore that it is up to us, the living, to collectively respond to the rapid loss of glaciers and the ongoing impacts of climate change.” A climate change victim in Iceland is set to be memorialized with a monument that underscores the urgent crisis. The victim is the former Okjökull glacier in Borgarfjörður, which scientists say is the nation’s first glacier lost to the climate crisis. Its plight was also the subject of the 2018 documentary “Not Ok” produced by Rice University anthropologists Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer. By Andrea Germanos,
World: