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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. Socialism Means True Democracy — The 99% Will Rule! — Not the Few!
Images of the Day:
. . . The war is won, but the peace is not. The great powers, united in fighting, are now divided over the peace settlements. The world was promised freedom from fear, but in fact fear has increased tremendously since the termination of the war. The world was promised freedom from want, but large parts of the world are faced with starvation while others are living in abundance. The nations were promised liberation and justice. But we have witnessed, and are witnessing even now, the sad spectacle of “liberating” armies firing into populations who want their independence and social equality, and supporting in those countries, by force of arms, such parties and personalities as appear to be most suited to serve vested interests. Territorial questions and arguments of power, obsolete though they are, still prevail over the essential demands of common welfare and justice.
. . .It’s impossible for a chicken to produce a duck egg… The system of this country cannot produce freedom for an Afro-American. It is impossible for this system, this economic system, this political system, this social system, this system period. It is impossible for it , as it now stands, to produce freedom right now for the Black man in this country — it is impossible. And if ever a chicken did produce a duck egg, I’m certain you would say it was certainly a revolutionary chicken. — Malcolm X, Harlem ’Hate Gang’ Scare Militant Labor Forum, May 29, 1964
Videos of the Day:
One family’s quest for a Native American tribute A towering monument to one of the most revered figures in Native American history is slowly taking shape in South Dakota. Crazy Horse was among the leaders of the Lakota Sioux, who attacked and destroyed a U.S. Army regiment in 1876 — a two-day battle that went down in history as Custer’s Last Stand. The sculpture’s creation began in 1947, and is likely to take more than a century to cmplete. Mark Albert traveled to Crazy Horse, South Dakota, to show us why.
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!
Viva Puerto Libre!
Mass protests shake Puerto Rican and US political establishmentIn what has been described as the largest demonstration in the history of Puerto Rico, hundreds of thousands of people in the US island territory marched Monday to demand the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló. The daily newspaper El Nuevo Día estimated that a half-million demonstrators participated in the “March of the People,” which paralyzed the capital of San Juan, shutting businesses and halting traffic. The demonstration included a huge procession down the island’s busiest highway, the Expreso Las Américas. By Jerry White
‘The People Have Spoken’: Estimated 400,000 Puerto Ricans Flood Streets to Demand Rosselló Resign Immediately“For him to think he can keep governing for another year and a half as if nothing has happened is insulting to our core.” Hours after Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resisted calls to step down over messages mocking victims of Hurricane Maria and attacking fellow politicians with misogynistic slurs, an estimated 400,000 Puerto Ricans took to the streets Monday and demanded Rosselló’s resignation in what was described as one of the largest protests in the island’s history. “The people have spoken,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose mother was born in Puerto Rico, tweeted in response to video footage of Puerto Ricans flooding miles of the Las Américas highway. By Jake Johnson
‘Unconscionable’: Trump USDA Proposes New Rule to Strip Food Stamps From Over 3 Million AmericansThe proposal, said Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, would “take food away from families, prevent children from getting school meals, and make it harder for states to administer food assistance.” In a move critics denounced as the Trump administration’s latest effort to bypass Congress to attack low-income families, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday proposed a new rule that would strip food stamps from more than three million Americans. By Jake Johnson 
Environment:
During the past decade in the west, tree mortality caused by bark beetles has increased in spruce, lodgepole, pinyon-juniper, and ponderosa forests. This increase is correlated with shifts in temperature and increased water stress, which create conditions within trees that are favorable to beetle survival and growth. A synthesis of climate change effects on native bark beetles, important mortality agents of conifers in western North America, is available at Climate Change and Bark Beetles of the Western United States and Canada.
Database Reveals How Much Pollution Big Oil’s Top Execs Are Responsible for Each YearThanks to recent analysis, we now know how much of global greenhouse gas emissions big oil companies like Exxon and Shell are responsible for. But it’s easy to forget that behind these corporate behemoths are powerful individuals, making decisions about where the companies should drill next. And thanks to a new database, we can now pinpoint how much of the companies’ pollution each executive is accountable for. Dario Kenner, a Visiting Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University and author of the book, Carbon Inequality: The Role of the Richest in Climate Change, took data of fossil fuel companies’ annual emissions, and then worked out how much of each company the director owned — and therefore how much of its pollution they could be accountable for. Kenner found that directors of 19 of the world’s largest fossil fuel and mining companies are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of the petrostate of Bahrain each year. By Mat Hope
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Black Agenda Radio for Week of July 22, 2019 Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
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Reparations Demand: End Capitalism “We cannot negotiate with the system that facilitated our ancestors’ enslavement,” sad William C. Anderson, author of the article, “Reparations is One Step in the Long Fight to End Racial Capitalism.” Said Anderson, “We need something much bigger than a settlement.”
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Institutionalized Impunity for Killer Cops The cops that caused the deaths of Eric Garner, Sandra Bland and countless other Black people are protected by a “social contract” with the rulers of the nation, sais New York City activist Shannon Jones, of Why Accountability. The arrangement provides killer cops with impunity in return for maintaining control over people of color.
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Colonialism is What’s Wrong With Puerto Rico Progressive Puerto Ricans hope the mass protests that have rocked the colonized island will result in more than just the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosello, said Daniel Vila, a veteran New York City activist. Some progressives ultimately want to force creation of a “government of national salvation,” encompassing all of Puerto Rico’s political tendencies. Others seek a constitutional convention to end the colonial relationship with the US.
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Trump’s Message: US is White Man’s CountryDonald Trump’s racist attacks on immigrants and “The Squad” are designed to tell his base that the US is a White Man’s Country and he is the president who’s going to keep it that way,” said Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford.
Economy:
JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon Has Gone to Defcon 1 Over Bank’s Ties to Jeffrey EpsteinYesterday afternoon, Jamie Dimon had his world rocked. And not in a good way. Dimon is the Chairman and CEO of the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, which has over 5,000 retail branches blanketing the U.S. and has scooped up $1.6 trillion in deposits, much of it from moms and pops who have no idea that the bank is a three-time felon. When you’re a 3-count felony bank and still on probation until January of 2020, you really don’t want to see your name appear in the New York Times connected to the most radioactive felon in the United States right now, Jeffrey Epstein, the man newly indicted on July 6 on charges of sex trafficking of underage girls and sexually assaulting dozens of them. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Boris Johnson—Denounced as “Liar, Racist, and Donald Trump’s Poodle”—Elected by Tory Party to Become New UK Prime Minister“Around 100,000 Tory Party members have inflicted on us a prime minister with a record of bigotry, racism, lying, and incompetence, Boris Johnson,” declared Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. “This is not mocracy.” After a Tory Party leadership election in which the British public had no say, right-wing Brexiteer Boris Johnson on Tuesday emerged victorious in the contest to succeed Theresa May as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Johnson defeated British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, winning the support of 92,153 of the 160,000 Conservative Party members. By Jake Johnson,
Why Boris Johnson is Even More Dangerous Than Trump Is the rise of Boris Johnson to be the next prime minister the product of a soft coup? Does Donald Trump’s racist demonisation of four non-white congress members prove him to be a “fascist” leader like Mussolini and Hitler? The two questions should be answered together because political developments in Britain tend to emulate those in the US, and vice versa, though the latter is less frequent. The Thatcher-Reagan years in the 1980s were an example of this cross-infection and it happened again in 2016, when the British electorate voted narrowly for Brexit and American voters (though not a majority of them) chose Trump as president. By Patrick Cockburn 
The Bbc Slanders The English Revolution: A Reply By Alan Woods – Part OneI did not believe that it was possible for the low esteem in which I hold modern academics in general, and bourgeois historians in particular, to sink any lower than it already was. But that belief was misplaced. I have just had the misfortune to watch a three-part series put out by BBC Channel Four with the title: ‘Charles I, Downfall of a King’. I now hold the intellectual qualities of our modern historians at a slightly lower level than those of Mr Bean. At least Mr Bean can be mildly amusing at times, but our self-appointed intellectuals lack even that redeeming virtue. If these opening lines appear to reflect a certain level of disappointment on my part, I can quite understand. I must confess that, when I saw this series advertised, my interest was immediately aroused. To the best of my memory the BBC has never carried a serious documentary about that colossal turning point in our history, a moment that dealt a mortal blow to the old feudal autocracy and thus laid the basis for the democratic rights that we enjoy today. By Alan Woods
The Crimes of Apartheid Israel/Genocide of Palestinians: ‘Ethnic Cleansing With Impunity’: Israel Denounced for Demolishing Dozens of Palestinian Homes in Violation of International Law Global outcry erupted on Monday—with one critic condemning the move as “ethnic cleansing with impunity”—after Israeli forces demolished dozens of homes in Sur Baher, a Palestinian village that straddles East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. “These demolitions are a flagrant violation of international law and part of a systematic pattern by the Israeli authorities to forcibly displace Palestinians in the occupied territories; such actions amount to war crimes,” Saleh Higazi, deputy Middle East and North Africa director for Amnesty International, said in a statement Monday. By Jessica Corbett
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!
‘Liberal’ San Francisco Board of Education Wants to Remove a Part of American Racist History From the Public Schools!:
Whitewashing American History: the WPA Mural Controversy in San Francisco There has a been a controversy percolating the last couple of years over protests against the “Life of Washington” murals painted in 1935-36 by Works Progress Administration (WPA) artist Victor Arnautoff that are on display at George Washington High School in San Francisco. These murals dared to challenge the patriotic stereotype of Washington, instead portraying him as a slaveholder and military commander overseeing the genocide of American Indians. Seeking to portray the brutal reality of U.S. history, a reality that the ruling class – and textbooks – has always sought to falsify and obscure, the radical artist was in many ways far ahead of his time. Yet now, the San Francisco Board of Education has voted to obliterate this militantly anti-racist artist’s depiction of history that the racist rulers sought to deny. By Jack Heyman
Who’s Even Defending the George Washington High Murals At This Point? Colonizers stepping over a dead Native American. Enslaved African Americans shucking corn. Offensive or not? Controversial murals at the Richmond District’s George Washington High School will most likely be covered up — but that didn’t stop a group of mostly white seniors from glossing over the pain of indigenous and Black community members at a Tuesday evening San Francisco Board of Education meeting. The meeting had the sole purpose of hearing from people for or against keeping “Life of George Washington,” a 13-panel fresco from 1936 that depicts enslaved Black folks, and an apparently deceased, bloody Native American — all victims of white colonizers. This mural is located in the lobby of the public high school, a spot where students have allegedly been known to reference by saying “Let’s meet under the dead Indian.” By Ida Mojadad 
Quotes of the Day: