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!
Global action is needed to solve a global problem, but capitalist governments are impotent. Some world leaders have declared a ‘climate emergency’. But this is an empty phrase when uttered from the lips of these big business politicians. After all, under capitalism, it is not they that really decide. Instead, the future of humanity and our planet is left to the caprices of the so-called ‘invisible hand’ of the market. Greta Thunberg has pointed out that scientists are being ignored, and asks for governments to listen to the scientific evidence and advice. Similarly, activists from the Extinction Rebellion movement have tried to ‘raise awareness’ and convince politicians through a strategy of highly visible direct actions. But the capitalists and their politicians will not be persuaded by moral arguments, nor by facts and figures. At the end of the day, we cannot expect this out-of-touch elite to do anything to protect the earth, as their only criterion is maximising profit at the expense of the rest of us. Corporations will cut corners and ride roughshod through regulations wherever necessary in order to reduce costs, outcompete their rivals, capture new markets, and maximise their profits. — IMT statement: for revolutionary change, not climate change!
“People pay for what they do, and, still more for what they allowed themselves to become. . . And they pay for it very simply by the lives they lead. The crucial thing, here, is that the sum of these individual abdications menaces life all over the world. For, in the generality, as social and moral and political and sexual entities, white Americans are probably the sickest and certainly the most dangerous people, of any color, to be found in the world today.” — James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (1972)
Videos of the Day:
Economic Update: Injustice, Race and Class This week: Updates on on the 3 deadly failures of capitalism; the investigation of hi-tech monopolies by the U.S. DOJ; the franchising of worker co-ops; the social inequalities that income inequality breeds; Prof. Wolff interviews Bob Hennelly, an investigative reporter whose recent work includes revelations into the Eric Garner, Epstein and Kushner cases
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! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich
Environment:
(Democratic Party Controlled) Congress Gives Sacred Apache Land to Foreign Mining Company San Carlos Apache Leader Seeks Senate Defeat of Copper Mine on Sacred Land Congress is poised to give a foreign mining company 2,400 acres of national forest in Arizona that is cherished ancestral homeland to Apache natives. Controversially, the measure is attached to annual legislation that funds the US Defense Department.This week, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees quietly attached a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would mandate the handover of a large tract of Tonto National Forest to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of the Australian-English mining company Rio Tinto, which co-owns with Iran a uranium mine in Africa and which is 10-percent-owned by China. THE FUTURE OF WIND TURBINES? NO BLADES It’s no longer surprising to encounter 100-foot pinwheels spinning in the breeze as you drive down the highway. But don’t get too comfortable with that view. A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless is proposing a radical new way to generate wind energy that will once again upend what you see outside your car window. Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as conventional wind turbines: To turn breezes into kinetic energy that can be used as electricity. But it goes about it in an entirely different way. Instead of capturing energy via the circular motion of a propeller, the Vortex takes advantage of what’s known as vorticity, an aerodynamic effect that produces a pattern of spinning vortices. Vorticity has long been considered the enemy of architects and engineers, who actively try to design their way around these whirlpools of wind. And for good reason: With enough wind, vorticity can lead to an oscillating motion in structures, which, in some cases, like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, can cause their eventual collapse. Where designers see danger, Vortex Bladeless’s founders—David Suriol, David Yáñez, and Raul Martín—see opportunity. “We said, ‘Why don’t we try to use this energy, not avoid it,’” Suriol says. The team started Vortex Bladeless in 2010 as a way to turn this vibrating energy into something productive. They just launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise awareness of the technology.IMT statement: for revolutionary change, not climate change! The international climate strike movement has created waves across the world. Over the past year, during the course of several global days of action, millions of young people from over 100 countries have walked out of school in order to join the ‘Fridays for Future’ protests, demanding immediate action against the climate crisis By taking to the streets en masse, occupying roads, and shutting down cities, these demonstrations have forced politicians to sit up and take notice. What’s more, these mobilisations have filled a new generation with a sense of confidence, power, and purpose. For the protestors, the idea of mass, militant action is now the norm, not the exception. The word ‘strike’ is now firmly at the forefront of young people’s minds. The lesson is clear: if you want something, you must organise and fight for it.At Least 5 Dead in Bahamas as Hurricane Dorian Unleashes ‘One of Most Catastrophic 24-Hour Periods of Weather in Recorded World History’Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said Monday that at least five people have been confirmed dead as Hurricane Dorian, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record, stalled over Grand Bahama Island, unleashing massive flooding and destroying thousands of homes. During a press conference, Minnis broke down in tears as he said Monday was “probably the most sad and worst day of my life” and described Dorian as a storm “we’ve never seen in the history of the Bahamas.” By Jake JohnsonChaos and Old Night: Fracking’s Hell Fires Still Burn Bright in Colorado A funny thing happened on the way to the Colorado Capitol this past winter. The new Democratic majority passed a bill that would end the oil industry’s reign of terror over the people in the fracking fields of Colorado. The new law, known as SB 181, made the protection of public health, safety, and the environment a condition that had to be met before any new oil and gas wells could be drilled or other infrastructure approved. When the smoke cleared and the jubilant Democratic legislators had gone home to be crowned with laurel, the new governor, Jared Polis, a centrist Democrat, took over administration of the new law. Lo and behold, it was only a matter of days thereafter that the future started to look a lot like the past, a past that was and is a living hell for those in the fracking fields. By Phil Doe
Brazil: death and destruction in Bolsonaro’s AmazonIn the last month, the Amazon rainforest has been the centre of attention for Bolsonaro’s government. After a prolonged arm-wrestling match that culminated with the sacking of Ricardo Galvão as Director of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the Bonaparte wannabe is putting on a show of bravado in a spat with some of the wealthiest countries in Europe about the region’s conservation. The dispute started when the INPE revealed the annual deforestation rate, which has increased 40 percent over the previous one-year period. The numbers were growing above average especially since May. July witnessed the largest loss of vegetation in any single month since 2015, with a deforested area 212 percent higher than that of July 2017. Unable to come up with a plausible defence, Bolsonaro accused INPE of publishing fake data and said that the government would reveal the “real data”, which never happened. In response to the government’s policy, Germany and Norway suspended their donations to the Amazon Fund, a major source of funding for the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) and the state-level environmental agencies in the Legal Amazon region and in five other Brazilian states. By Felipe LibórioHailstorms at 109°F Wreck Farming in Latur, India“There is a hailstorm or unseasonal rain every 16-18 months,” says his mother Dhondabai, 60, sitting on the steps outside her two-room stone and mortar house in Ambulga. In 2001, her family shifted from cultivating pulses (urad and moong) to nurturing mango and guava orchards across their 11 acres. “We need to look after the trees through the year, but an extreme weather event of just a few minutes destroys our entire investment.” It wasn’t a one-off phenomenon that occurred this year. Extreme weather episodes, including torrential rainfall and even hailstorms, have showed up in this part of Maharashtra’s Latur district for over a decade now. Uddhav Biradar’s small one-acre mango orchard, also in Ambulga, collapsed in a 2014 hailstorm. “I had 10-15 trees. They died with that storm. I made no effort to revive them,” he says. By Parth M.N.Week 136: Trump Gives a Pass to One of the Nation’s Worst PollutersAlso, the self-styled environmentalist-in-chief skips a climate summit, and the EPA’s Science Advisory Board misses a big, big deadline. In 2011 the Sierra Club used a combination of air quality monitors and modeling techniques recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to show that the coal plant was emitting so much sulfur dioxide that the surrounding areas were well outside the legal parameters for clean air. Concentrations of the pollutant, which inhibits lung function and contributes to heart disease, were in some cases double the levels prescribed by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. During the waning months of the Obama administration in 2016, the EPA reviewed and accepted the calculations, then gave the plant’s owner one year to develop a plan to reduce air pollution. The company stalled. Over the past three years, the plant owner’s parent company, Vistra Energy, has spent well over $1 million on lobbying and begged the EPA to reconsider its case. The agency accommodated Vistra by declining to press the company or penalize its failure to improve. Earlier this month, the Sierra Club finally filed an intent to sue over the EPA’s inaction. Rather than enforce its initial order, the agency reversed its three-year-old finding of non-attainment of air quality standards and let the coal plant off the hook. The EPA now claims it shouldn’t have relied on Sierra Club’s modeling work, even though the models were done in accordance with the agency’s own recommended procedures. By Brian Palmer
UNITED STATES – FEBRUARY 26: The coal-fired TXU Corp. Martin Lake plant in Tatum, Texas, is seen Monday, Feb. 26, 2007. Investors led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group will buy TXU Corp., the largest power producer in Texas, for $45 billion in the biggest-ever leveraged buyout. (Photo by Mario Villefuerte/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
America’s White Problem Revisited Almost three decades ago when Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. penned The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society (1991), the threat of American white extremism was, if not quite unimagined, profoundly underestimated. Instead, Schlesinger lays the blame for what he calls the “decomposition of America” on the rise of “tribalism,” with Afrocentrism, “multiculturalists” and “ethnocentric separatist,” who in Schlesinger’s view see “the western tradition [as] inherently racist, sexist, ‘classist,’ hegemonic; irredeemably repressive, irredeemably oppressive,” presenting a clear and present danger. By John G. Russell
Sole Anti-War Candidate Dropped From Democratic DebateThe only anti-war candidate in the Democratic Party’s presidential lineup has been kicked off of the third televised debate, set for September 13th. Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was among those cut from the debate roster, which has now been winnowed down to ten. But, there is not one genuine anti-war voice among them.
California Ethnic Studies Bill SidelinedPowerful interests don’t want students to “interrogate the systems of power and privilege that are at stake” in today’s struggles, said Dr Gilda Ochoa, a key player in crafting legislation requiring all students in California’s public university system to pass an ethnic studies course before graduation. The bill was put on hold in the face of fierce opposition. Seventy-five percent of the state’s K1-12 students are non-whites, but few students or teachers “have learned this crucial history,” said Ochoa, a professor of Chicano/Latino Studies at Pomona College.
Muslims Always Blamed in White Men’s Mass Shootings Even when white men are the perpetrators, Muslims are always somehow brought into the discussion, said Dr Maha Hilal, co-director of the Justice for Muslims Collective and author of an article titled “Leave Muslims Out of This; Let’s Discuss White Violence on It’s Own Terms.” Corporate media cover mass shootings “as if white violence can only be understood within a context of violence by Muslims,” said Hilal, although whites have historically committed horrific violence in the US.
Everywhere in the Diaspora, Blacks are Treated as “the Enemy” “It’s always been important for us to be seen as enemies of whatever is considered decent, right or correct” by the white patriarchy,” said Cheryl Rodriguez, co-editor of “Trans-Atlantic Feminism: Women and Gender Studies in Africa and the Diaspora.” Rodriquez’s co-editors included women scholars and activists from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Ghana and Uganda.
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.
Labor:
Economy:
A One-Year Treasury Bill Beat the Stock Market Over the Past YearOne year ago, investors could have purchased a one-year U.S. Treasury Bill with a yield of 2.47 percent. As of this past Friday’s closing price of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Treasury Bill would have beaten the performance of the Dow over the past year by more than three-quarters of a point (not taking into account dividends on the Dow stocks). On Friday, August 31, 2018, the Dow closed at 25,964.82. This past Friday, August 30, 2019, the Dow closed at 26,403.28 That’s a gain of 438.46 points in a year or a return of 1.68 percent versus earning 2.47 percent on a T-bill. By Pam Martens abd Russ Martens
World:
Boris Johnson News – Live: PM Loses Majority as Tory Crosses Floor in Dramatic Defection During Leader’s Commons SpeechBoris Johnson has lost his majority in the Commons after the Tory MP Dr Phillip Lee crossed the floor to sit with the Liberal Democrats. It came after the leading Tory rebel Philip Hammond confirmed he would vote for legislation designed to block a no-deal Brexit and claimed “there will be enough people for us to get this over the line today”. No 10 officials have indicated Boris Johnson will call a general election for 14 October if he loses today’s crunch vote. Jeremy Corbyn said: “Labour wants to prevent a no-deal Brexit, and to have a general election”.
Roger Waters and John Pilger make powerful defence of Julian Assange in London Pilger stated: “By defending Julian Assange, we defend our most sacred rights. Speak up now or wake up one morning to the silence of a new kind of tyranny.” Up to 1,000 people gathered last night in central London to hear internationally acclaimed musician Roger Waters deliver a musical tribute to imprisoned WikiLeaks’ publisher Julian Assange. Performing outside the UK Home Office, just miles from Belmarsh Prison where Assange is being held as a Category A prisoner, Waters sang Pink Floyd’s iconic song “Wish You Were Here.” He was accompanied by guitarist Andrew Fairweather Low.
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!
The Last Act of the Human Comedy/Tragedy There is nothing new to our story. The flagrant lies and imbecilities of the inept and corrupt leader. The inability to halt the costly, endless wars and curb the gargantuan expenditures on the military. The looting of a beleaguered populace by the rich. The destruction of the ecosystem. The decay and abandonment of a once-efficient infrastructure. The implosion of the institutions, from education to diplomacy, that sustain a functioning state. The world has seen it before. It is the familiar disease of the end of a civilization. At first it is grimly entertaining, even amid the mounting suffering. But no one will be laughing at the end. By Chris Hedges Good News! Illinois Governor Pritzker Signs Bill Abolishing State Charter School Commission Mike Klonsky, veteran activist in Chicago, reports that Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a bill abolishing the state Charter School Commission. As Mike says, “We count our victories one by one,” and this is a big one. It spells the end to the reckless charter expansion encouraged by Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and Democratic Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel, concentrated in Chicago. Rauner and Rahm believed in the magic of privatization. No doubt about it, the glow is off the charter school hoax. The bloom is off the rose, or as we said in years past in New York City, the bloom is off the berg. By Ddiane Rravitch
THE FUTURE OF WIND TURBINES? NO BLADES It’s no longer surprising to encounter 100-foot pinwheels spinning in the breeze as you drive down the highway. But don’t get too comfortable with that view. A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless is proposing a radical new way to generate wind energy that will once again upend what you see outside your car window. Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as conventional wind turbines: To turn breezes into kinetic energy that can be used as electricity. But it goes about it in an entirely different way. Instead of capturing energy via the circular motion of a propeller, the Vortex takes advantage of what’s known as vorticity, an aerodynamic effect that produces a pattern of spinning vortices. Vorticity has long been considered the enemy of architects and engineers, who actively try to design their way around these whirlpools of wind. And for good reason: With enough wind, vorticity can lead to an oscillating motion in structures, which, in some cases, like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, can cause their eventual collapse. Where designers see danger, Vortex Bladeless’s founders—David Suriol, David Yáñez, and Raul Martín—see opportunity. “We said, ‘Why don’t we try to use this energy, not avoid it,’” Suriol says. The team started Vortex Bladeless in 2010 as a way to turn this vibrating energy into something productive. They just launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise awareness of the technology.
IMT statement: for revolutionary change, not climate change! The international climate strike movement has created waves across the world. Over the past year, during the course of several global days of action, millions of young people from over 100 countries have walked out of school in order to join the ‘Fridays for Future’ protests, demanding immediate action against the climate crisis By taking to the streets en masse, occupying roads, and shutting down cities, these demonstrations have forced politicians to sit up and take notice. What’s more, these mobilisations have filled a new generation with a sense of confidence, power, and purpose. For the protestors, the idea of mass, militant action is now the norm, not the exception. The word ‘strike’ is now firmly at the forefront of young people’s minds. The lesson is clear: if you want something, you must organise and fight for it.
At Least 5 Dead in Bahamas as Hurricane Dorian Unleashes ‘One of Most Catastrophic 24-Hour Periods of Weather in Recorded World History’Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said Monday that at least five people have been confirmed dead as Hurricane Dorian, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record, stalled over Grand Bahama Island, unleashing massive flooding and destroying thousands of homes. During a press conference, Minnis broke down in tears as he said Monday was “probably the most sad and worst day of my life” and described Dorian as a storm “we’ve never seen in the history of the Bahamas.” By Jake Johnson
Chaos and Old Night: Fracking’s Hell Fires Still Burn Bright in Colorado A funny thing happened on the way to the Colorado Capitol this past winter. The new Democratic majority passed a bill that would end the oil industry’s reign of terror over the people in the fracking fields of Colorado. The new law, known as SB 181, made the protection of public health, safety, and the environment a condition that had to be met before any new oil and gas wells could be drilled or other infrastructure approved. When the smoke cleared and the jubilant Democratic legislators had gone home to be crowned with laurel, the new governor, Jared Polis, a centrist Democrat, took over administration of the new law. Lo and behold, it was only a matter of days thereafter that the future started to look a lot like the past, a past that was and is a living hell for those in the fracking fields. By Phil Doe
Hailstorms at 109°F Wreck Farming in Latur, India“There is a hailstorm or unseasonal rain every 16-18 months,” says his mother Dhondabai, 60, sitting on the steps outside her two-room stone and mortar house in Ambulga. In 2001, her family shifted from cultivating pulses (urad and moong) to nurturing mango and guava orchards across their 11 acres. “We need to look after the trees through the year, but an extreme weather event of just a few minutes destroys our entire investment.” It wasn’t a one-off phenomenon that occurred this year. Extreme weather episodes, including torrential rainfall and even hailstorms, have showed up in this part of Maharashtra’s Latur district for over a decade now. Uddhav Biradar’s small one-acre mango orchard, also in Ambulga, collapsed in a 2014 hailstorm. “I had 10-15 trees. They died with that storm. I made no effort to revive them,” he says. By Parth M.N.
Week 136: Trump Gives a Pass to One of the Nation’s Worst PollutersAlso, the self-styled environmentalist-in-chief skips a climate summit, and the EPA’s Science Advisory Board misses a big, big deadline. In 2011 the Sierra Club used a combination of air quality monitors and modeling techniques recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to show that the coal plant was emitting so much sulfur dioxide that the surrounding areas were well outside the legal parameters for clean air. Concentrations of the pollutant, which inhibits lung function and contributes to heart disease, were in some cases double the levels prescribed by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. During the waning months of the Obama administration in 2016, the EPA reviewed and accepted the calculations, then gave the plant’s owner one year to develop a plan to reduce air pollution. The company stalled. Over the past three years, the plant owner’s parent company, Vistra Energy, has spent well over $1 million on lobbying and begged the EPA to reconsider its case. The agency accommodated Vistra by declining to press the company or penalize its failure to improve. Earlier this month, the Sierra Club finally filed an intent to sue over the EPA’s inaction. Rather than enforce its initial order, the agency reversed its three-year-old finding of non-attainment of air quality standards and let the coal plant off the hook. The EPA now claims it shouldn’t have relied on Sierra Club’s modeling work, even though the models were done in accordance with the agency’s own recommended procedures. By Brian Palmer
