Always Remember: 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!
Building Power Together: Rise Against Militarism, Racism and the Climate Crisis A National Conference, hosted by The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) February 21-23, 2020 The People’s Forum 320 West 37th Street New York, NY 10018 (between 8th & 9th Avenues)
Quote of the Day:
According to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post Tuesday, employees are bracing for job cuts under the program, which will consolidate multiple workers’ responsibilities into single roles with hourly pay staying the same or even going down in some cases. “Associates worry Walmart is using the ‘Great Workplace’ to cut costs by reducing overall staffing and the general number of mid-level store managers,” said United for Respect in a press statement. “Walmart has deliberately been pursuing a part-time strategy for more than a decade. In 2005, 80% of Walmart’s associates were full-time. By 2018, an estimated 50% of Walmart’s U.S. workforce were part-time.”The group is focusing its attention on the Walton family because, with a combined net worth of $191 billion, they are the biggest beneficiaries of Walmart’s stock buyback program. If funds from the program were divided among workers instead, one million Walmart workers could have benefited from a $5.66 per hour pay raise in 2018, according to the Roosevelt Institute. — Walmart Workers Demand Fair Pay and Hours at Protest Outside Alice Walton’s Penthouse as Retail Giant Cuts Jobs
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.
Most people don’t know that the big energy companies control most of the water in the San Joaquin Valley. Now, with fracking profitable in California due to the high price of fuel, they want to frack California and our water resources required by the fracking process. (As they are trying to do in the rest of the country.) This table if from pages 133-135 of Two Californias: the truth about the Split-State Movement by Michael DiLeo, Eleanor Smith:
Big Oil is Thristy: At the peak of California production in 1985, Kern County producers needed roughly four-and-a-half barrels of water to produce a single barrel of oil. . . . Today, that ratio has jumped to almost eight barrels of water per barrel of oil. This use has been sanctioned despite the three-year drought that has ravaged the valley, causing reductions in the water delivered by the State and Central Valley projects canals. Not only are farmers generally short of water, dozens of small poor agricultural hamlets —including Alpaugh, Seville, East Orosi and Kettleman City — have been forced to tap groundwater. And that groundwater is often contaminated with agricultural pollutants, including arsenic and nitrates. — Oil and Water Don’t Mix with California Agriculture
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
The Supreme Court’s Failure To Protect Blacks’ Rights Throughout the history of Black America, progress has often required breaking the law. For this reason, it’s worth questioning why, in sanitized mainstream narratives (for example, those shared in schools and government functions during Black History Month), the story of Black struggle is often divorced from incendiary, illegal acts. Most Black people in the United States are descended from enslaved Africans, and being Black in this country has never been wholly separated from that history. In fact, it still haunts us daily as we navigate its afterlife. This is a legacy that was demarcated by restrictions that continually pierced the everyday experience of living. For many Black people during the time of slavery, to be free was illegal itself — and in many ways, that reality has extended into every era following “emancipation.” Since then, the necessity of extralegal acts has continued for a people still constantly being ensnared by a society stacked against them. By William C. Anderson
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
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends — Martin Luther King, Jr
As Coretta Scott King stated: There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court’s unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. “This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.. . . .
Pepper went a step beyond saying government agencies were responsible for the assassination. To whom in turn were those murderous agencies responsible? Not so much to government officials per se, Pepper asserted, as to the economic powerholders they represented who stood in the even deeper shadows behind the FBI, Army Intelligence, and their affiliates in covert action. By 1968, Pepper told the jury, ’And today it is much worse in my view’ — ’the decision-making processes in the United States were the representatives, the footsoldiers of the very economic interests that were going to suffer as a result of these times of changes [being actived by King].’ To say that U.S. government agencies killed Martin Luther King on the verge of the Poor People’s Campaign is a way into the deeper truth that the economic powers that be (which dictate the policies of those agencies) killed him. In the Memphis prelude to the Washington campaign, King posed a threat to those powers of a non-violent revolutionary force. Just how determined they were to stop him before he reached Washington was revealed in the trial by the size and complexity of the plot to kill him. — Jim Douglass, The Martin Luther King Conspiracy Exposed in Memphis
I first started to write about Malcolm X’s assassination, after I watched the 1992 CBS documentrary, The Real Malcolm X, An Intimate Portrait of the man, narrated by Dan Rather. I then saw that Spike Lee’s documentary movie, Malcolm X, had left out the most of the events in the last year of Malcolm’s life, starting with March 12, 1964 Press Statement By Malcolm X. When Denzel Washington, acting as Malcolm X, is shown addressing this press conference, right after Malcolm’s statement: “There can be no black-white unity until there is first some’ black unity”, Denzel Washington did not state what Malcolm X said next, which was “There can be no workers solidarity until there is first some racial solidarity,” The statement about ’workers solidarity’ showed some of Malcolm’s thinking and outlook at that time — he was becoming anti-capitalist in his political thinking.
I felt compelled to write this essay to show why this government, “the assassination leader of the world “ assassinated Malcolm X. But when I began to read more of what King had stood for at the end of his life, that he also was becoming anti-capitalist in his political thinking, before his life was ended, I realized the United States Government had the same motive to kill both Malcolm X Martin Luther King. When I discovered and realized the complicity, of the government, in both assassinations, I then felt compelled to write this essay, based upon what I learned and my own personal experience.
“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
Italian Dock Workers Refuse to Resupply Saudi ‘Weapons’ Ship Italian dock workers have refused to load electricity generators onto a notorious Saudi cargo ship suspected of carrying arms to be used in the war in Yemen.This is the latest in a string of protests by anti-war activists against the ship as it has made its way to various European ports. At the end of last month, the Bahri Yanbu was blocked from docking in Bremerhaven, Germany, after Amnesty International sought legal action through the courts. It was then prevented from docking in Antwerp, Belgium, by “citizen weapons inspectors” before moving onto Britain where it was faced with further protests; it had to dock in Sheerness, instead of the scheduled stop at Tilbury. Sailing onto the French port of Cherbourg, the Bahri Yanbu was greeted with yet more activists holding signs saying “War crimes in Yemen” and “Made in France”, a reference to French weapons which were suspected of being loaded onto the ship. In the Spanish port of Bilbao, Greenpeacereported that explosive material had been put on board.
A Second Straight, Negative Holiday-Shopping Season, as the Revised Fourth-Quarter Real Retail Sales Contraction Deepened to 0.6% (-0.6%), the First Quarterly Downturn Since the 2014 to 2016 Mini-Recession
January 2020 Real Retail Sales gained 0.1% in the Month, but Declined by 0.1% (-0.1%),
Net of Revisions, Amidst Slowing Annual Growth Downside Historical Revisions to Retail Sales Should Surface in the Just-Scheduled April 27th Annual Benchmarking (See Flash Update No. 21) Collapsing off Peak Levels, Industrial Production Capacity Utilization Timed the Great Recession
Onset of December 2007, the 2014-2016 Mini-Recession Onset of December 2014, and November 2018 Onset of the Currently Unfolding Recession January 2020 Mining Activity Rose, but Weaker Manufacturing and Irregularly, Weather-Depressed Utilities, Knocked Aggregate Production Lower by 0.3% (-0.3%) in the Month Downside Historical Revisions to Manufacturing (Industrial Production) Loom in Annual Benchmarkings Scheduled for This Summer On the Upswing for Four Straight Months,
January 2020 Unadjusted Year-to-Year Consumer Price Inflation (CPI-U) Jumped to a 15-Month High of 2.5%, from 2.3% in December 2019 Subject to Revised Seasonally Adjusted CPI and Payroll Revisions, Related January 2020 Year-to-Year Real Earnings Held Flat for All Non-Farm Employees.
Graph 1: Real Average Weekly Earnings, Production and Supervisory, Deflated by CPI-W vs. ShadowStats
World:
Health, Science, 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 ‘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!
Building Power Together: Rise Against Militarism, Racism and the Climate Crisis A National Conference, hosted by The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) February 21-23, 2020 The People’s Forum 320 West 37th Street New York, NY 10018 (between 8th & 9th Avenues)
Shadow Governmeny Statistics Flash Update No. 22
