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!
This is no Chinese exceptionalism, however. The U.S. and Europe have served as ground zeros for new influenzas as well, recently H5N2 and H5Nx, and their multinationals and neocolonial proxies drove the emergence of Ebola in West Africa and Zika in Brazil. U.S. public health officials covered for agribusiness during the H1N1 (2009) and H5N2 outbreaks. Perhaps then we should refrain from choosing between one of two cycles of capital accumulation: the end of the American cycle or the start of the Chinese one (or, as Reid appears to do, both). At the risk of accusations of third campism, choosing neither is another option. If we must partake in the Great Game, let’s choose an ecosocialism that mends the metabolic rift between ecology and economy, and between the urban and the rural and wilderness, keeping the worst of these pathogens from emerging in the first place. Let’s choose international solidarity with everyday people the world over.Let’s realize a creaturely communism far from the Soviet model. Let’s braid together a new world-system, indigenous liberation, farmer autonomy, strategic rewilding, and place-specific agroecologies that, redefining biosecurity, reintroduce immune firebreaks of widely diverse varieties in livestock, poultry, and crops. Let’s reintroduce natural selection as an ecosystem service and let our livestock and crops reproduce on-site, whereby they can pass along their outbreak-tested immunogenetics to the next generation. — Connecting the Coronavirus to Agriculture
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 Five Member Media Moopoly: Reform Information CenterCorporate Media Is Practically Baying for a Police State The New York Police Department (NYPD) can generally rely on corporate media as allies on controversial police issues. A case in point was the New York subway protests earlier this month, in which the activist group Decolonize This Place organized hundreds of people to occupy New York City subway stations to demand free transit for all and an end to racialized overpolicing on the subway system. There was one injury reported. The prospect of an event overtly critical of police tactics had Fox News (1/31/20) scandalized. “Antifa Plans Massive Anti-Cop Action in NY Subways,” its headline read. Quoting the Police Benevolent Association, it claimed that the “anti-police movement” is aiming for the “destruction of public order.” Like Fox, Britain’s Daily Mail (2/1/20) appeared particularly appalled that demonstrators were covering their faces: “Masked Anti-Cop Protesters Storm Grand Central During Rush Hour and Vandalize Subway Stations Across New York,” ran its headline. By Alan MacLeodPuerto Rico’s Uprisings Have Empowered a New Leadership Among the Oppressed The U.S. federal government’s disastrous response to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria illustrates a longstanding history of an exploitative domestic policy on the island. Recent earthquakes have not only rocked Puerto Rico’s infrastructure but have emphasized the United States’s negligence of its own citizens. Journalist and Columbia University professor, Ed Morales, describes Puerto Rico as the “symbol of marginalized communities all over the U.S. and the world.” He joins activist and scholar Rosa Clemente to discuss the personal and political implications of the island’s ongoing debt crisis, recovery efforts, and an intersectional movement that challenges the political establishment. By Laura Flanders
Environment:
Connecting the Coronavirus to Agriculture A new deadly coronavirus 2019-nCoV, related o SARS and MERS and apparently originating in live animal markets in Wuhan, China, is starting to spread worldwide. Chinese authorities have reported 5974 cases nationwide, 1000 of them severe. With infections in nearly every province, authorities warned 2019-nCoV appears to be spreading fast out of its epicenter. By Rob WallaceTrojan Horse Timber Sales on the Bitterroot The proposed Darby Lumber Timber Sale Phase Two on the Bitterroot National Forest is a Trojan Horse being implemented under the guise of “forest health” based on numerous false assumptions. The proposal displays the Forest Service’s Industrial Forestry bias and its subterfuge of science.The timber sale is being litigated by the Friends of the Bitterroot, in part, because the proposed logging will increase logging road densities above the Forest’s own elk security cover limits. By George WuerthnerTo Many’s Dismay, Permian Produces More Gas and Condensate Instead of Oil and Profits As oil prices plummet, oil bankruptcies mount, and investors shun the shale industry, America’s top oil field — the Permian shale that straddles Texas and New Mexico — faces many new challenges that make profits appear more elusive than ever for the financially failingshale oil industry. Many of those problems can be traced to two issues for the Permian Basin: The quality of its oil and the sheer volume of natural gas coming from its oil wells. The latter issue comes as natural gas fetches record low prices in both U.S. and global markets. Prices for natural gas in Texas are often negative — meaning oil producers have to pay someone to take their natural gas, or, without any infrastructure to capture and process it, they burn (flare) or vent (directly release) the gas. By Justin MikulkaExposé Shows Rise of Heartland Institute’s Climate Denial Efforts Overseas, Using Dark Money and a YouTuber A recent German news report has shed light on the inner workings of the Heartland Institute’s international efforts to sow doubts about climate science using the dark money group Donors Trust. Part of those efforts include the climate science-denying organization touting its newest representative, a young German YouTube “influencer,” Naomi Seibt, whom Heartland markets as the deniers’ answer to breakout youth climate activist Greta Thunberg. The U.S.-based Heartland Institute receives millions of dollars a year to fund its climate denial efforts and is looking to expand them in Germany, according to the undercover joint investigation by German tlets CORRECTIV and Frontal21. By Sharon Kelly
Big Oil Has Been Thristy—It Owns Colorado Water!:
Oil companies have gained control over billions of gallons of water from Western rivers in preparation for future efforts to extract oil from shale deposits under the Rocky Mountains, according to a new report by an environmental group that opposes such projects. The group, Western Resource Advocates, used public records to conclude that energy companies are collectively entitled to divert more than 6.5 billion gallons of water a day during peak river flows. The companies also hold rights to store, in dozens of reservoirs, 1.7 million acre feet of water, enough to supply metro Denver for six years. —Stephanie Simon, Department: Oil, Water Are Volatile Mix in West (2009)
Oil companies have amassed more than 250 water rights for oil-shale development, giving them a key share of the flow of the Colorado River and the White River, according to a Western Resource Advocates study. Many of the water rights are also more senior than those held by Front Range water suppliers, and that could hamper plans to bring more water over the mountains for towns and cities, the study said. “Large-scale oil-shale development could create problems for us and other users,” said Denver Water manager Chips Barry. Six oil companies have filed for 7.2 million acre-feet of water rights on the Colorado and White rivers — equal to the entire allocation for the Upper Colorado River Basin. The companies also control 104 agricultural irrigation ditch companies in the region, the Boulder-based environmental law center found. Oil companies “have cornered the market” on the Western Slope water rights, said Karin Sheldon, Western Resource Advocates executive director. Denver And The West Oil-shale Plans Create Ripple Companies Accrue More Than 250 Water Rights on Western Slope for Energy Development (2009)
Colorado River Has Lost 1.5 Billion Tons of Water to the Climate Crisis, ‘Severe Water Shortages’ May Follow“A decline in flows of this magnitude will present a significant challenge to all inhabitants in the Colorado River Basin.” Millions of people rely on the Colorado River, but the climate crisis is causing the river to dry up, putting many at risk of “severe water shortages,” according to new research, as The Guardian reported. Longer periods of drought and rising temperatures have decreased the river’s annual flow by 20 percent compared to the last century. The researchers, who published their study in Science, say that global heating has caused mountain snowpacks that feed the river to disappear, which leads to increased evaporation, as The Washington Post reported.By Jordan DavidsonDry February sends California back to drought: ‘This hasn’t happened in 150 years’ San Francisco and Sacramento have not seen a drop of rain this February, and climate scientists are expecting that disturbing dry trend to hold, in what is typically one of the wettest months of the year for California. “This hasn’t happened in 150 years or more,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “There have even been a couple wildfires – which is definitely not something you typically hear about in the middle of winter.” By Susie Cagle
Sierra snow pack is below normal for February. Photograph: NWS Sacramento
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Case 993 (This Documentary Will Open Later This Year)
Case 993 is a gripping citizen-detective story following the quest of Shareef Nasir to resolve the contested history surrounding https://slidex.tips/download/hdf18-case-993 the assassination of Malcolm X This first act of the documentary continues to develop Malcolm through the eyes of Shareef, and presents the questions that drive his investigation. Shareef’s search takes its first dramatic turn when he befriends Abdullah Abdur-Razzaq, Malcolm’s personal secretary, who had never spoken before about what he knew of the threats against Malcolm prior to his death. Abdullah believes the real killers were not brought to trial, and introduces Shareef to people and sources that begin to build a powerful story about multiple threats to Malcolm’s life. He points Shareef to evidence that as Malcolm moved further away from the separatist teachings of Elijah Muhammad, and toward a global human rights perspective, he was perceivedas a more potent threat to the US government. The second act opens with news that Abdullah has died, leaving Shareef with the responsibility to carry on the search for answers. He tracks down aging FBI and NYPD detectives, and women who were intimately tied to the leadership of the Nation of Islam, now in their 90s, who have never spoken. The third act moves toward resolution as Malcolm’s daughter, Qubilah, becomes invested in his search and Shareef meets people close to the men suspected, but never tried, for the murder. In a climactic scene, Qubilah has the opportunity to ask the daughter of one of the suspects about her knowledge of her father’s murder, and their empathy for each other and the history they share is an unexpected revelation in Shareef’s search, which has become more about reconciliation than retribution.
A Play About Slavery Pushes Boundaries in a New York Prison A group of familieS and New York state officials gathered on a workday morning last month for a theatrical performance of a historical drama about slavery and human freedom. But it was an unusual setting for a play, especially for one pondering the question of liberation, because the stage was deep inside a maximum-security prison, and the actors were a group of incarcerated men, many of whom still face decades behind bars.At the end of the play, the two-dozen cast members lined up at the front of the stage as one actor after the other removed their costumes: a simple, white T-shirt with the word “slave” or the character’s slave name written across the chest. Below the stage, in the first row, a group of suited senior corrections officials looked on uncomfortably. By Alice Speri
Labor:
Economy:
World:
Canada: solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en – revolution, not reconciliation! Members of the indigenous Wet’suwet’en Nation and their supporters are locked in struggle over a planned pipeline to be built through their territory. As explained here, the full force of the Canadian state has been brought to bear against the protesters. The following article explores Wet’suwet’en struggle, the mood of anger it has tapped into, the protest movement it has provoked, and the way forward. By Rob LuonThe Zionist Colonization of Palestine The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the product of ancient ethnic hatreds. It is the tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same land. It is a manufactured conflict, the outcome of a 100-year-old colonial occupation by Zionists and later Israel, backed by the British, the United States and other major imperial powers. This project is about the ongoing seizure of Palestinian land by the colonizers. It is about the rendering of the Palestinians as non-people, writing them out of the historical narrative as if they never existed and denying them basic human rights. Yet to state these incontrovertible facts of Jewish colonization — supported by innumerable official reports and public and private communiques and statements, along with historical records and events — sees Israel’s defenders level charges of anti-Semitism and racism. Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, in his book “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonization and Resistance, 1917-2017” has meticulously documented this long project of colonization of Palestine. His exhaustive research, which includes internal, private communications between the early Zionists and Israeli leadership, leaves no doubt that the Jewish colonizers were acutely aware from the start that the Palestinian people had to be subjugated and removed to create the Jewish state. The Jewish leadership was also acutely aware that its intentions had to be masked behind euphemisms, the patina of biblical legitimacy by Jews to a land that had been Muslim since the seventh century, platitudes about human and democratic rights, the supposed benefits of colonization to the colonized and a mendacious call for democracy and peaceful co-existence with those targeted for destruction. By Chris Hedges
Pakistan: factory worker killed for protesting illegal job terminations A worker in Lahore was murdered last week by thugs on the payroll of Ravi Autos, following protests against illegal layoffs and low pay. The Red Workers’ Front has issued this statement of solidarity with the workers, and condemnation of this brutal capitalist crime. On 17 February, hired goons sent by the owner of a factory named “Ravi Autos” near Lahore broke into the living quarters of the workers and opened fire indiscriminately, killing one worker and severely injuring two. Ravi Autos manufactures auto parts for bigger companies and multinationals like Millat Tractors (Massey Ferguson Ltd.), Suzuki Corporation and others. It is a large factory that until recently employed around 1,400 workers. For the past few months, the factory owners have been illegally laying off workers in large numbers under the pretext of an economic slowdown. They were also paying workers below the national minimum wage. When the workers’ union protested against these injustices, they were threatened by the owners with dire consequences. It was in this context that this killing took place.
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!
The World is Not Divided Between East And West
NATO’s Arctic War Exercise Unites Climate Change and WWIII
Corporate Media Is Practically Baying for a Police State The New York Police Department (NYPD) can generally rely on corporate media as allies on controversial police issues. A case in point was the New York subway protests earlier this month, in which the activist group Decolonize This Place organized hundreds of people to occupy New York City subway stations to demand free transit for all and an end to racialized overpolicing on the subway system. There was one injury reported. The prospect of an event overtly critical of police tactics had Fox News (1/31/20) scandalized. “Antifa Plans Massive Anti-Cop Action in NY Subways,” its headline read. Quoting the Police Benevolent Association, it claimed that the “anti-police movement” is aiming for the “destruction of public order.” Like Fox, Britain’s Daily Mail (2/1/20) appeared particularly appalled that demonstrators were covering their faces: “Masked Anti-Cop Protesters Storm Grand Central During Rush Hour and Vandalize Subway Stations Across New York,” ran its headline. By Alan MacLeod
Puerto Rico’s Uprisings Have Empowered a New Leadership Among the Oppressed The U.S. federal government’s disastrous response to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria illustrates a longstanding history of an exploitative domestic policy on the island. Recent earthquakes have not only rocked Puerto Rico’s infrastructure but have emphasized the United States’s negligence of its own citizens. Journalist and Columbia University professor, Ed Morales, describes Puerto Rico as the “symbol of marginalized communities all over the U.S. and the world.” He joins activist and scholar Rosa Clemente to discuss the personal and political implications of the island’s ongoing debt crisis, recovery efforts, and an intersectional movement that challenges the political establishment. By Laura Flanders
Trojan Horse Timber Sales on the Bitterroot The proposed Darby Lumber Timber Sale Phase Two on the Bitterroot National Forest is a Trojan Horse being implemented under the guise of “forest health” based on numerous false assumptions. The proposal displays the Forest Service’s Industrial Forestry bias and its subterfuge of science.The timber sale is being litigated by the Friends of the Bitterroot, in part, because the proposed logging will increase logging road densities above the Forest’s own elk security cover limits. By George Wuerthner
To Many’s Dismay, Permian Produces More Gas and Condensate Instead of Oil and Profits As oil prices plummet, oil bankruptcies mount, and investors shun the shale industry, America’s top oil field — the Permian shale that straddles Texas and New Mexico — faces many new challenges that make profits appear more elusive than ever for the financially failingshale oil industry. Many of those problems can be traced to two issues for the Permian Basin: The quality of its oil and the sheer volume of natural gas coming from its oil wells. The latter issue comes as natural gas fetches record low prices in both U.S. and global markets. Prices for natural gas in Texas are often negative — meaning oil producers have to pay someone to take their natural gas, or, without any infrastructure to capture and process it, they burn (flare) or vent (directly release) the gas. By Justin Mikulka
Exposé Shows Rise of Heartland Institute’s Climate Denial Efforts Overseas, Using Dark Money and a YouTuber A recent German news report has shed light on the inner workings of the Heartland Institute’s international efforts to sow doubts about climate science using the dark money group Donors Trust. Part of those efforts include the climate science-denying organization touting its newest representative, a young German YouTube “influencer,” Naomi Seibt, whom Heartland markets as the deniers’ answer to breakout youth climate activist Greta Thunberg. The U.S.-based Heartland Institute receives millions of dollars a year to fund its climate denial efforts and is looking to expand them in Germany, according to the undercover joint investigation by German tlets CORRECTIV and Frontal21. By Sharon Kelly
Dry February sends California back to drought: ‘This hasn’t happened in 150 years’ San Francisco and Sacramento have not seen a drop of rain this February, and climate scientists are expecting that disturbing dry trend to hold, in what is typically one of the wettest months of the year for California. “This hasn’t happened in 150 years or more,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. “There have even been a couple wildfires – which is definitely not something you typically hear about in the middle of winter.” By Susie Cagle
