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During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1, Austerity,2 Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel
Always Remember: That Obama That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing, the United States Capitalist Austerity Program, The Race to the Bottom/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 , thet the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!
Images of the Day:
My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years, especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, and rightly so, “What about Vietnam?” They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent — MartinLuther King, Beyond Vietnam
Congress endorsed Trump’s assassination and is fully as guilty as he is for having approved the Pentagon’s budget with the Senate’s removal of the amendment to the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that Bernie Sanders, Tom Udall and Ro Khanna inserted an amendment in the House of Representatives version, explicitly not authorizing the Pentagon to wage war against Iran or assassinate its officials. When this budget was sent to the Senate, the White House and Pentagon (a.k.a. the military-industrial complex and neoconservatives) removed that constraint. That was a red flag announcing that the Pentagon and White House did indeed intend to wage war against Iran and/or assassinate its officials. Congress lacked the courage to argue this point at the forefront of public discussion. Behind all this is the Saudi-inspired 9/11 act taking away Congress’s sole power to wage war – its 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force, pulled out of the drawer ostensibly against Al Qaeda but actually the first step in America’s long support of the very group that was responsible for 9/11, the Saudi airplane hijackers. The question is, how to get the world’s politicians – U.S., European and Asians – to see how America’s all-or-nothing policy is threatening new waves of war, refugees, disruption of the oil trade in the Strait of Hormuz, and ultimately global warming and neoliberal dollarization imposed on all countries. It is a sign of how little power exists in the United Nations that no countries are calling for a new Nurenberg-style war crimes trial, no threat to withdraw from NATO or even to avoid holding reserves in the form of money lent to the U.S. Treasury to fund America’s military budget. — America Escalates Its “Democratic” Oil War in the Near East
Videos Of the Day:
George Carlin: “We Like War!” We like war! We’re a war-like people! We like war because we’re good at it! You know why we’re good at it? Cause we get a lot of practice. This country’s only 200 years old and already, we’ve had 10 major wars. We average a major war every 20 years in this country so we’re good at it! And it’s a good thing we are; we’re not very good at anything else anymore! Huh? Can’t build a decent car, can’t make a TV set or a VCR worth a fuck, got no steel industry left, can’t educate our young people, can’t get health care to our old people, but we can bomb the shit out of your country all right! Huh? Especially if your country is full of brown people; oh we like that don’t we? That’s our hobby! That’s our new job in the world: bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya, you got some brown people in your country, tell them to watch the fuck out or we’ll goddamn bomb them! Well when’s the last white people you can remember that we bombed? Can you remember the last white— can you remember ANY white people we’ve ever bombed? The Germans, those are the only ones and that’s only because they were trying to cut in on our action. They wanted to dominate the world! BULLSHIT! THAT’S OUR FUCKING JOB! !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.
Trump Says US Will Not Leave Iraq Until Baghdad Pays for American Air Base, Threatens Sanctions The Iraqi parliament voted on Sunday to support the expulsion of all foreign troops from the Iraqi territory and cutting off ties with the US-led international anti-terrorist coalition due to the Friday’s assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the elite Quds Force of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Bagdad. “We have a very extraordinarily expensive airbase that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it […] We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame”, US President Donald Trump said Sunday, while he was traveling from Florida
This Is Alarming’: Iranian-Americans Reportedly Detained, Asked About Political Views at US Border“Deeply disturbed by reports that Iranian-Americans, including U.S. citizens, are being detained at the Canadian border with WA State,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. On Sunday, the Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it is “assisting more than 60 Iranians and Iranian-Americans of all ages who were detained at length and questioned at the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine, Wash.” Those detained, according to CAIR, were returning from an Iranian pop concert that took place Saturday in Vancouver, Canada By Jake Johnson
America Escalates Its “Democratic” Oil War in the Near East The mainstream media are carefully sidestepping the method behind America’s seeming madness in assassinating Islamic Revolutionary Guard general Qassim Suleimani to start the New Year. The logic behind the assassination was a long-standing application of U.S. global policy, not just a personality quirk of Donald Trump’s impulsive action. His assassination of Iranian military leader Suleimani was indeed a unilateral act of war in violation of international law, but it was a logical step in a long-standing U.S. strategy. It was explicitly authorized by the Senate in the funding bill for the Pentagon that it passed last year. By Michael Hudson
Ocasio-Cortez Says Trump Is a ‘Monster’ for ‘Threatening to Target and Kill Innocent Families, Women, and Children’ in Iran “This is a war crime,” said the New York Democrat. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Saturday night called President Donald Trump a “monster” for threatening to target more than 50 Iranian sites—including some he said are ” important to Iran and the Iranian culture”—if Tehran retaliates for the U.S. assassination of General Qasem Soleimani. “This is a war crime,” Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, tweeted in response to the president’s warning. “Threatening to target and kill innocent families, women, and children—which is what you’re doing by targeting cultural sites—does not make you a ‘tough guy.’ It does not make you ‘strategic.’ It makes you a monster.” By Jake Johnson
Trump Threatens Iraq—Previously Decimated by US Sanctions—With Sanctions ‘Like They’ve Never Seen’ “First we invade you, then we break you, and then sanction you.”Progressive anti-war voices expressed fresh condemnation of President Donald Trump overnight after he told reporters late Sunday that the people of Iraq would be sanctioned “like they’ve never seen before ever” if they follow through with an effort to force all U.S. military forces out of the country. By Jon Queally
Iran and US State Terrorism You can’t kill the national hero of a third country and get away with it. Especially not of an ancient and powerful country like Iran that threatens no one. Not only did the US strike kill the second most powerful man of Iran, beloved General Qassem Soleimani, chief of the Revolutionay Guards-Quds Force on the road to the Baghdad Airport. The US helicopter killed also Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandi, Deputy Head of Iraq’s PMU, Popular Mobilization Units and seven others. Clearly an unprovoked act of state terrorism. Persia, as Iran was once called, was one of the greatest empires of the ancient world. It is still distinct from the main body of the Islamic world in that it has maintained its language, Farsi, or Persian, and is of the Shia strain of Islam as is the majority of the population of its neighbor, Iraq. By Gaither Stewart
America Escalates Its “Democratic” Oil War in the Near East The mainstream media are carefully sidestepping the method behind America’s seeming madness in assassinating Islamic Revolutionary Guard general Qassim Suleimani to start the New Year. The logic behind the assassination was a long-standing application of U.S. global policy, not just a personality quirk of Donald Trump’s impulsive action. His assassination of Iranian military leader Suleimani was indeed a unilateral act of war in violation of international law, but it was a logical step in a long-standing U.S. strategy. It was explicitly authorized by the Senate in the funding bill for the Pentagon that it passed last year. By Michael Hudson
Ocasio-Cortez Says Trump Is a ‘Monster’ for ‘Threatening to Target and Kill Innocent Families, Women, and Children’ in Iran “This is a war crime,” said the New York Democrat. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Saturday night called President Donald Trump a “monster” for threatening to target more than 50 Iranian sites—including some he said are ” important to Iran and the Iranian culture”—if Tehran retaliates for the U.S. assassination of General Qasem Soleimani. “This is a war crime,” Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, tweeted in response to the president’s warning. “Threatening to target and kill innocent families, women, and children—which is what you’re doing by targeting cultural sites—does not make you a ‘tough guy.’ It does not make you ‘strategic.’ It makes you a monster.” By Jake Johnson
Trump Threatens Iraq—Previously Decimated by US Sanctions—With Sanctions ‘Like They’ve Never Seen’ “First we invade you, then we break you, and then sanction you.”Progressive anti-war voices expressed fresh condemnation of President Donald Trump overnight after he told reporters late Sunday that the people of Iraq would be sanctioned “like they’ve never seen before ever” if they follow through with an effort to force all U.S. military forces out of the country. By Jon Queally
Iran and US State Terrorism You can’t kill the national hero of a third country and get away with it. Especially not of an ancient and powerful country like Iran that threatens no one. Not only did the US strike kill the second most powerful man of Iran, beloved General Qassem Soleimani, chief of the Revolutionay Guards-Quds Force on the road to the Baghdad Airport. The US helicopter killed also Abu-Mahdi al-Muhandi, Deputy Head of Iraq’s PMU, Popular Mobilization Units and seven others. Clearly an unprovoked act of state terrorism. Persia, as Iran was once called, was one of the greatest empires of the ancient world. It is still distinct from the main body of the Islamic world in that it has maintained its language, Farsi, or Persian, and is of the Shia strain of Islam as is the majority of the population of its neighbor, Iraq. By Gaither Stewart
Environment:
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Economy:
Pumping the Bubble: Federal Reserve Admits It Pumped More than $6 Trillion to Wall Street in Recent Six Week Period If the Federal Reserve was looking for a media lockdown on news about the trillions of dollars in cumulative repo loans it has funneled quietly to Wall Street’s trading houses since September 17 of last year, it could not have found a better cloud cover than Donald Trump. First the impeachment proceedings bumped the Fed’s money spigot from newspaper headlines. Then, this past Friday, as the Fed released its December meeting minutes at 2:00 p.m., with its highly anticipated plans to be announced for the future of this vast money giveaway to Wall Street, that news was ignored as the media scrambled to cover Trump’s “termination” of General Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, which raised the immediate specter of a retaliatory strike against the U.S. by Iran. The Fed’s minutes revealed that after multiple expansions of this vast money spigot, which was previously set to lapse in January after getting the Wall Street trading houses through the year-end money crunch, instead it may be extended through April. The minutes read as follows: By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Iran: the killing of Qassem Soleimani – Oppose US Imperialist Aggression Early Friday morning (3 Jan 2020), in an act of supreme arrogance the Trump administration carried out the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, as well as top Iraqi paramilitary leader Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes in Baghdad airport. Yet again, US imperialism is adding to the instability in the Middle East.Trump has tried to paint the attack, which also killed eight other Iranians and Iraqis, as a defensive measure. But it is nothing but the summary execution of leaders of two sovereign states on foreign soil, one which was carried out without even seeking congressional approval. According to Donald Trump, Soleimani was planning an imminent attack, which could cost hundreds of US lives. The only evidence to back this up is that Soleimani had visited Iranian supported militia groups in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, followed by a visit to Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran. What part of this translates into an imminent attack on the US is anyone’s guess. By Hamid Alizadeh
Iraqi Parliament Votes to Expel All American Troops, Submit UN Complaint Against US for Violation of Sovereignty “What happened was a political assassination. Iraq cannot accept this.” Iraq’s parliament voted in an extraordinary session Sunday to expel all American troops from the country and file a United Nations complaint against the U.S. for violating Iraq’s sovereignty with its assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad. By Jake Johnson
Jeremy Corbyn Urges Government To Stand Up To The ‘Belligerent’ Us After Iran General Killing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has told the Government to stand up to the “belligerent actions and rhetoric” from the US after the nation killed Iran‘s top general. Mr Corbyn described the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani as “an extremely serious and dangerous escalation of conflict in the Middle East”. He also called on all countries to “ratchet down the tensions to avoid deepening conflict”. By Stephanie Cockroft
Israel Floods Gaza Farmlands Farmlands With Wastewater The Israeli occupation authorities have opened water dams and channeled wastewater toward Palestinian farmlands on the eastern border of the Gaza Strip, Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture said on Sunday. Adham al-Basyouni, the ministry’s spokesman, said in a statement to Anadolu Agency that the Israeli wastewater has flooded agricultural lands, dairy farms 
Mexican President Calls For Julian Assange’s Freedom Speaking At A Press Conference In Mexico City On Friday Morning, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Called For Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange To Be “Pardoned And Freed” From Prison In Britain. Lopez Obrador Called For An End To The “Torture” Of Assange. By Kevin Reed
Education, Health, Science, 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 ‘governn’, 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!
Education and the Breakdown of Democracy We applaud Ronald J. Daniels’ Washington Post op-ed (December 31, 2019) on the shortcomings of American tertiary education. As professionals with a deep commitment to educating next-generation citizens and leaders, we concur with his critique of American education and join his call to universities to enable young people to “participate in the daily business of our democracy” and redress our educational system’s longstanding failures. President Daniel’s op-ed has special meaning in the context of our missions. We work closely with young people to fill in critical gaps between classroom learning and the skills and knowledge they will need to serve as independent agents in the real world, and not pawns of a (broken) business system. For indeed, American tertiary education has become Big Business. American universities were the original source of technology for defense at the outset of the Cold War. Following its end, they morphed into a vital source of capital formation. American tertiary education is the centerpiece of what former President Eisenhower famously called the military industrial complex—as historican Margaret O’Mara painstakingly documented in her 2005 book, Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley. By Creston Davis and Ann Rutledge
Martin Luther King: The Greatest Purveyor of Violence In Thr World Today: My Own Government
Quotes of the Day: