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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:
Our study shows that action on climate change demands shuttering vast sections of the military machine. There are few activities on Earth as environmentally catastrophic as waging war. Significant reductions to the Pentagon’s budget and shrinking its capacity to wage war would cause a huge drop in demand from the biggest consumer of liquid fuels in the world. It does no good tinkering around the edges of the war machine’s environmental impact. The money spent procuring and distributing fuel across the US empire could instead be spent as a peace dividend, helping to fund a Green New Deal in whatever form it might take. There are no shortage of policy priorities that could use a funding bump. Any of these options would be better than fuelling one of the largest military forces in history. — US Military Is A Bigger Polluter Than As Many As 140 Countries – Shrinking This War Machine Is A Must
Videos Of the Day:
The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia One year after the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a two-ur FRONTLINE documentary investigates the rise and rule of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia (MBS). Correspondent Martin Smith, who has covered the Middle East for FRONTLINE for 20 years, examines the crown prince’s vision for the future, his handling of dissent, his relationship with the United States — and his ties to Khashoggi’s killing.
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! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich.
The Race to the Botton: Warnings That Millions More Could Go Hungry as Trump Pushes $4.5 Billion in Food Benefit Cuts “The Trump administration’s latest proposal to cut SNAP would leave millions of people, including struggling families, seniors, and people with disabilities, with less help putting food on the table.” In its latest potentially devastating attack on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Trump administration on Tuesday unveiled a proposal that would slash food stamps benefits by $4.5 billion over five years, a move analysts warned would increase hunger for millions of low-income families. By Jake Johnson
Trump Continues Obama’s War on Whistleblowers: Trump’s War on Whistleblowers Donald Trump, campaigning in Iowa in 2015, said that “I’ve had a lot of wars of my own. I’m really good at war. I love war….” Well, for the past three years, we have witnessed Trump’s wars on governance, science, national security policy, and public service. For the past several days, we have witnessed a new war—a war on whistleblowers that will make it particularly difficult for whistleblowers to come forward in the future. By Melvin Goodman
Is the US Political System Beyond Repair Moving ahead with the impeachment of Donald Trump is a good idea. Indeed, the fact that it is moving forward is a sign of the deep fissures in the ruling class. They are very divided. Even if it is done within the limited parameters hoped for by Pelosi and other mainstream Democrats, the process should expose the criminality of one party of the ruling class and the venality of both. By Ron Jacobs
Environment:
US Military Is A Bigger Polluter Than As Many As 140 Countries – Shrinking This War Machine Is A Must The US military’s carbon bootprint is enormous. Like corporate supply chains, it relies upon an extensive global network of container ships, trucks and cargo planes to supply its operations with everything from bombs to humanitarian aid and hydrocarbon fuels. Our new studycalculated the contribution of this vast infrastructure to climate change. Greenhouse gas emission accounting usually focuses on how much energy and fuel civilians use. But recent work, including our own, shows that the US military is one of the largest polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more climate-changing gases than most medium-sized countries. If the US military were a country, its fuel usage alone would make it the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, sitting between Peru and Portugal.
Whistle-blower Reveals Flawed Construction at North Dakota Gas Plants Where Massive Spill Was Downplayed Two North Dakota gas processing plants in the heart of the Bakken oil fields have shown signs of an eroded safety culture and startling construction problems, according to Paul Lehto, a 54-year-old former gas plant operator who has come out as a whistle-blower. He described worrisome conditions at the Lonesome Creek plant, in Alexander, and the Garden Creek plant, in Watford City, where DeSmog recently revealed one of the largest oil and gas industry spills in U.S. history had occurred. Both plants process natural gas brought via pipeline from Bakken wells and are run by the Oklahoma-based oil and gas service company, ONEOK Partners. “The safety culture is embarrassing,” said Lehto, who has described to DeSmog the discovery of dozens of loose bolts along critical sections of piping, and other improperly set equipment, deficiencies he attributes to the frenzied rush of the oil boom that has dominated the state’s landscape and economy. “North Dakota is basically a Petrostate,” said Lehto, who worked at the two plants between 2015 and 2016. “There is regulatory capture, and sure that happens in other areas, but nowhere is it more extreme than in North Dakota.” By Justin Nobel
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Freedom Rider: The Phony Ukraine Scandal Trump’s clumsy and stupid attempts to link Joe Biden and son to corruption in Ukraine has given Democrats a chance to revive their discredited Russiagate crusade. “Trump didn’t know how to leave well enough alone.” The blatant interference in the affairs of Ukraine is just one of the Barack Obama era scandals that the corporate media chose to cover up. In 2014 the United States culminated a decades long project to realize a so-called color revolution in Ukraine. Along with partner NGOs they assisted far right forces in overthrowing that country’s elected president. Ukraine is a failed state with an ongoing civil war because of this effort to pry it away from Russian influence and include it in NATO, the European Union and any other U.S./European axis configuration. By Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist 
Rwanda: Murder of Dissidents Continues as Migrants Are Shipped in Another Rwandan dissident was murdered as African migrants were shipped from Libya to Rwanda to stem mass migration to Europe. “This is the latest in more than two decades of attacks on opponents of this government both inside and outside Rwanda.” Sylidio Dusabumuremyi, a member of the Rwandan opposition party United Democratic Forces of Rwanda (FDU), was murdered on September 23, the day before Rwandan President Paul Kagame addressed the UN General Assembly at its annual gathering. During the same week, 500 African migrants were shipped from Libya to Rwanda, thanks to an agreement between the European Union (EU), the African Union (AU), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). I spoke to Victoire Ingabire, who leads the FDU, about both developments. By Ann Garrison , BAR contributor 
Newark’s Lead-Poisoned Water and the Contradictions of a “Radical” Mayor: How Do We Fight Back? Newark Mayor Amiri Baraka, widely viewed as a “radical,” has worked to deny, suppress, and minimize the existence of this public health crisis. “We need a movement that fights for clean water in Newark and demands the rich pay for the crisis they created.” Newark, New Jersey, which has recorded some of the highest levels of lead-contaminated tap water of any major city, has now emerged as the “next Flint” in the US’s spreading lead-poisoned-water disaster. While the entire country’s infrastructure is in a decrepit state, it is particularly extreme in Newark, where some 29,000 residential units in this city of over 285,000 still have “lead service lines” that connect homes with city water mains and are a primary conduit of lead into the water system. By Jay Arena 
Shooting at Haitian Parliament Surprises Few as Anti-Government Protests Continue The country has been in a state of almost constant upheaval—or more accurately, “uprising”—for over a year. “President Moïse has remained in office only because of the support of Washington and its partners.” An Associated Press photographer and a security guard were both injured when a Haitian senator pulled out a gun and started firing outside the parliament last week. Suddenly news outlets around the world remembered Haiti. The “if it bleeds it leads” adage was proven right once again. But the Haitian people have been bleeding for years now. The shooting was just one more incident in a crisis that arguably began long before President Jovenel Moïse took office in February 2017. The only notable difference on September 23 was that the victim worked for a foreign news agency. By Jane Regan
The Conservative Black Nationalism of Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas most often votes alongside other reactionaries on the High Court, but he may be guided by different reasoning. “Thomas’s conservative black nationalism drives his judicial opinions.” Editor’s Note: Corey Robin recently discussed his new book, The Enigma of Clarence Thomas , with Boston Review co-editor-in-chief Joshua Cohen. Robin is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, the author of The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump and Fear: The History of a Political Idea , and a Boston Review contributor since 2001. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.By Joshua Cohen and Corey Robin 
What Apple Steals from Workers: The iPhone Rate of Exploitation It is necessary to learn how to measure the rate of exploitation so that we know precisely how much workers deliver into the total social wealth produced each year. “Workers who make iPhones in the 21st century are twenty-five times more exploited than textile workers in England in the 19th century.” Karl Marx (1818-1883), like many of his sensitive contemporaries, was concerned with the wretched condition of factory workers and their trade union activity. It was evident that workers who produced goods in factories found themselves unable to save money and improve their lot, while factory owners grew richer. The inequality between owner and worker increased as the years went by. By The Tricontinental
Black Agenda Report’s 13th Anniversary: An Evening of Information and Inspiration for Liberation, and a Tribute to Co-Founder Bruce Dixon Every year presents new challenges to those struggling for human liberation. For Black Agenda Report, the essential task remains the same as when we published our first issue, on October 26, 2006: to sustain a radical, Black-led publication that can effectively intervene in the great debates of our time. We believe BAR has helped shape the Black Left political debate in this turbulent era of late stage, imperial capitalism – a period of economic catastrophe for Black and poor Americans, political disarray among “progressives,” and escalating lawlessness in U.S. foreign policy. Through it all, BAR has steadily increased both our audience and our capabilities, while waging weekly political battle with the ruling Lords of Capital, the ever-conniving “Black Misleadership Class,” and those who would “sheep-dog” the Left into alliance with corporate forces. By BAR staff
Labor:
Economy:
Tom Mueller’s New Book Shows How Whistleblowers Are Increasingly Left to Do the Job that Law Enforcement Won’t Tom Mueller’s new book, Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud is being released today by Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. It’s packed with seven years of research and inspiring personal interviews. Despite its initially intimidating 600-page heft, it’s an enticing read as it connects the dots to how a country like the United States, founded on the premise of “equal justice under law,” as engraved on the front of the U.S. Supreme Court, has become a “banana republic” with only whistleblowers’ pockets stuffed with crinkled documents or secret tape recordings all that stand between resuscitating our democracy or a complete collapse into oligarchy. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Syria Demands Withdrawal of All U.S., Turkish Forces Syria’s top diplomat on Saturday demanded the immediate withdrawal of American and Turkish forces from the country and said his government reserves the right to defend its territory in any way necessary if they remain. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem’s remarks to the United Nations General Assembly were made as Turkey and the United States press ahead with a deal to create a safe zone along Syria’s border with Turkey. By Aya Batrawy and Edith M. Lederer
Petition Filed at ICC to Probe Saudi Ruler MBS for Role in Murder of Jamal Khashoggi “Nothing of significance happens in the kingdom absent the crown prince’s direction or approval.” As human rights advocates marked the one-year anniversary Wednesday of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-based law firm revealed that it filed in July a petition at the International Criminal Court to investigate Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman over his role in the killing and other crimes against humanity. According to CNN, Attorneys Bruce Fein, a former associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, and W. Bruce DelValle drafted the petition on behalf of the National Interest Foundation, a Washington nonprofit frequently critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East, saying Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “has ruthlessly and systematically persecuted his political detractors, opponents, or rivals,” since being elevated to his position in June 2017. The petition was submitted in July but had not been made public. By Andrea Germanos 
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!
University Inc.—The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education OSI hosted a forum to mark the publication of University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education (Basic Books), by journalist and former OSI Individual Project fellow Jennifer Washburn. During the past two decades, commercial forces have transformed virtually every aspect of academic life. Corporate funding of universities is growing and the money comes with strings attached. In return for corporate largesse, universities are acting more and more like for-profit patent factories, while professors are behaving more like businessmen. Secrecy is replacing the free flow of basic knowledge, university funds are shifting from the humanities to more commercially lucrative science labs, and the skill of teaching is valued less and less. The consequences of the new academic-industrial complex are wide-ranging and disturbing.
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