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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.
Always Remember That Obamba Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature, Started the United States Capitalist Austerity Program — The Race to the Botom or the Pauperization of the 99%!
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:
Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative is driving humanity to the brink of extinction. At the present rate of global greenhouse gas emissions, the climate crisis alone could soon end civilization and destroy the biosphere. Biologists report that up to a million species of plants and animals are on the verge of extinction. Global capitalism is not only creating unprecedented extremes of inequality and injustice, it is wrecking the planet.— Essays on the New Global Capitalism
Videos Of the Day:
‘So They Knew’: Ocasio-Cortez Questions Exxon Scientist On Climate Crisis Denial – video House Democrats on Wednesday laid out evidence that the oil behemoth ExxonMobil had known since the 1970s about the potential for a climate crisis and intentionally sowed doubt about it. One of those testifying was Martin Hoffert, a scientist consultant for Exxon Research and Engineering in the 1980s. Responding to the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hoffert testified that in 1982, Exxon scientists predicted how carbon dioxide levels would rise and heat the planet as humans burned more fossil fuels
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.
Saying Goodbye to Sam When I returned to the United States after two decades overseas covering wars and other conflicts as a reporter, I searched out Samuel Hynes at Princeton. Sam, who had been a Marine Corps pilot in World War II, had taught literature at the university and was one of the most important contemporary writers on war. He grasped that war is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers and Marines and others by politicians and of idealists by cynics. We ended up living on the same street and became close friends. We were orphaned by our experiences in war and by our grounding, in the electronic age, in the world of print—two prisms through which we interpreted reality. We spoke in a shorthand filled with literary references and with a visceral understanding of the capacity for human depravity and violence. In war, Sam wrote, “we learn that elements of our nature as human beings we thought were immutable can be diminished or destroyed, and that the human heart may be colder and crueler than our experience has shown us.” Even humor is different, he noted, “because it is full of death.” By Chris Hedges
America’s Infrastructure Crisis Is Really a Maintenance Crisis It’s long been time to focus more on maintaining America’s existing roads and less on building new ones. The National Highway System already connects virtually all of the areas worth connecting. Driving peaked circa 2004—and even earlier in some states. Traffic remains bad in many metros, but by itself expanding road networks can only temporarily alleviate the problem, and over time might even increase By Eric Jaffe
America’s Nuclear Weapons Infrastructure Is Crumbling The aging buildings require constant upgrades and renovations to ensure the safety of the government employees handling the weapons – and secure the weapons themselves. But it’s not happening. There’s a $3.7 billion backlog in deferred essential repairs to the U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure, overseen by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous arm of the Department of Energy. The maintenance problems are “quite alarming” and “pose the risk of a dangerous nuclear accident,” said Congressman Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.), during a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing on infrastructure needs of the nuclear security enterprise.
Paying the Price for Deferred Maintenance “Deferred maintenance is the practice of postponing maintenance activities, such as repairs on both real property — infrastructure — and personal property — equipment and systems — in order to save money, meet budget funding levels, or realign available budget funds. The failure to perform needed repairs could lead to asset deterioration and ultimately asset impairment. Generally, a policy of continued deferred maintenance results in higher costs, higher failure rates, and in some cases, health and safety problems.”
Environment:
The Fight To Stop Nestlé From Taking America’s Water To Sell In Plastic Bottles Creek beds are bone dry and once-gushing springs are reduced to trickles as fights play out around the nation over control of nation’s freshwater supply he network of clear streams comprising California’s Strawberry Creek run down the side of a steep, rocky mountain in a national forest two hours east of Los Angeles. Last year Nestlé siphoned 45m gallons of pristine spring water from the creek and bottled it under the Arrowhead Water label. By Tom Perkins
Sea Urchin Population Soars 10,000% In Five Years, Devastating US Coastline Voracious purple urchins in waters of California and Oregon pose threat to kelp forests and risk upending delicate ecosystems Tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have already chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California are spreading north to Oregon, sending the delicate marine ecosystem off the shore into such disarray that other critical species are starving to death. A recent count found 350m purple sea urchins on one Oregon reef alone – more than a 10,000% increase since 2014. And in northern California, 90% of the bull kelp forests have been devoured by the urchins, perhaps never to return.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Black Agenda Radio for Week of October 28, 2019 With Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford 
Ebola and HIV as “Development” and “Security” Problems Epidemics don’t just kill lots of people, they “take up a lot of space in the national budget” and affect relationships of “security and power,” said Adia Benton, a professor of anthropology at Northwestern University who has done extensive field work in disease-plagued regions of Africa. Benton has authored a book, titled, “HIV Exceptionalism: Development Through Disease in Sierra Leone.” Benton says donor countries, NGOs and ruling elites often focus on every political and economic aspect of deadly epidemics except “the failure of care.”
FBI Never Stopped Unlawful Spying on Dissidents A new report on FBI spying since 2010 shows the Bureau continues to surveil the speech and activities of peace, environmental, and racial and economic justice advocates. Report author Chip Gibbons, of Defending Rights and Dissent, said the FBI’s framing of so-called Black Identity Extremists is especially insidious. “What they’re saying is, if you’re Black and you’re angry about racism, you’re likely to commit a crime” and must be closely watched.
Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression To Go National – Again – at Chicago Conference The Chicago-based activist organization will host a “re-founding” conference, November 22 to 24, to re-establish the national presence that was dissolved, decades ago. Alliance field director Frank Chapman said Angela Davis, an original founder, will speak, “but the overwhelming majority of the people who will be there will be young people, most of whom were not even born when the Alliance was founded” in 1973. “We’re going to build continuity in struggle, and pass it on to the next generation,” said Chapman.
Labor:
UAW/Labor Bureaucracy/Facebook/ GM Collaborate to Fire Militant Workers: After UAW Sellout Of Strike, GM Fires Workers For Social Media Posts Less than twenty-four hours after the United Auto Workers declared its sellout deal ratified and shut down the 40-day strike at General Motors, the auto giant moved immediately to begin firing militant workers for their social media posts. “Just to let everyone know, a [couple] of members have been terminated as of this morning for [Facebook posts] while on strike,” a worker posted to the UAW Solidarity Now Facebook group. “When he reported this morning, his badge wouldn’t work and was escorted to labor. He said labor has a list of names. (Flint Assembly) GM has been monitoring social media (as we know that they do).” The worker posted a screenshot of a statement from the Local 598 chairman who confirmed the firings and acknowledged that “GM global security has been monitoring Facebook [throughout] the strike.” The victimization of militant workers takes place as the auto companies and the UAW threaten 55,000 Ford and 47,200 Fiat Chrysler workers whose contracts come up next. By Tom Hall
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Many minimum-wage workers can’t even afford a modest one-bedroom apartment, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual report.
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The national housing wage for a modest one-bedroom apartment is $17.90, while the federal minimum wageis $7.25.
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A low-income workerearning the federal minimum wage would need 2.5 jobs to afford a one-bedroom apartment.
What do you get when you combine minimum wage with increasing apartment rents? Many workers who can’t afford a place to live.
Economy:
Federal Reserve Spokesman Explains How It Creates Money Out of Thin Air to Pump Out to Wall Street On January 19, 2011, the Federal Reserve released a video on YouTube to quell the public uproar over its unaccountable money creation operations. The spokesman for the Fed in the video was their Senior Adviser at the time, Steve Meyer, now an Adjunct Professor of Finance at The Wharton School. The Fed was in the middle of its second round of quantitative easing (QE2) and Meyer states this: “The Fed will not keep buying large amounts of securities on an ongoing basis.” The Fed was so intent on conveying the “temporary” nature of its unprecedented actions that it put that statement by Meyer on the screen. (See screen shot above.) Meyer then immediately adds this about the Fed: “Its purchases are a temporary measure to help the economy recover.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
World Leaders Congratulate Alberto Fernandez on Argentina Election Victory Congratulations came from Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba. Presidents in Latin America and other parts of the world sent messages of congratulations to the Argentinian president-elect Alberto Fernandez, who will take office in December and expected to turn around the country on a left-wing course in an effort to end the country’s economic crisis and reverse austerity measures introduced by his predecessor Mauricio Macri.
Neither Repression Nor Empty Concessions Have Stopped The Chilean Uprising More than a million people demonstrated in Santiago de Chile on Friday 14 October, in what was called #LaMarchaMásGrandedeChile (Chile’s largest march) – and certainly, it was, being larger than the NO campaign closing rally in 1988 that brought together a million people. The mobilisation on Friday 24 October was repeated in cities and communes throughout the country and took place one week after the declaration of the state of emergency, the militarisation of the streets and the curfew imposed by the Piñera government. A total of more than two million marched against the regime all over the country. By Jorge Martin
Fear on the Streets: Hezbollah and the Protests in Lebanon Those tens of thousands of largely young protesters demanding a non-sectarian Lebanon were joyful, filled with happiness, determined that this time they would change the wretched confessional nature of their state forever. Then the Hezbollah turned up, a truckload of them, dressed in black and shouting through loudspeakers and holding up posters of their all-Shia militia heroes. Squads of Lebanese interior ministry police appeared in the side streets. It was perfectly clear to all of us that the Hezbollah, heroes of the Lebanese resistance until they began sacrificing themselves on the battlefields of Syria, were attempting to sabotage the entire protest movement. The young men and women in the street shouted as one: “The government is corrupt, the sectarian leaders are corrupt, all members of parliament are thieves — thieves, thieves, thieves.” But they never – deliberately – mentioned the name of the Hezbollah chairman Sayed Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah serves in the Lebanese government. By Robert Fisk
The Sectarian Civil Wars in the Middle East are Ending, Replaced by Uprisings Against Corruption The sectarian and ethnic civil wars that have ravaged a large part of the Middle East over the past 40 years are coming to an end. Replacing them is a new type of conflict in which protests akin to popular uprisings rock kleptocratic elites that justify their power by claiming to be the defenders of communities menaced by extreme violence or extinction. I was sitting in my hotel room in Baghdad earlier in October thinking about writing an article about the return of peace to the Iraqi capital after the defeat of Isis. It has been three years since the last big bomb had exploded in its streets killing great numbers, something that used to happen with appalling frequency. By Patrick Cockburn
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!
Quotes of the Day: