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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 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!
Quotes of the Day:
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. ― George Orwell
. . . And this brings us to the nub of the question. In one sense it rather revolves around the phrase heard frequently along Madison Avenue: “The Corporate Image.” I am not precisely sure what this phrase means, but I would imagine that it reflects a desire on the part of the corporations who pay the advertising bills to have a public image, or believe that they are not merely bodies with no souls, panting in pursuit of elusive dollars. They would like us to believe that they can distinguish between the public good and the private or corporate gain. So the question is this: Are the big corporations who pay who pay the freight for radio and television programs to use that time exclusively for the sale of goods and services? Is it in their own interest and that of the stockholders so to do? The sponsor of an hour’s television program is not buying merely the six minutes devoted to his commercial message. He is determining, within broad limits, the sum total of the impact of the entire hour. If he always, invariably, reaches for the largest possible audience, then this process of insulation, of escape from reality, will continue to be massively financed, and its apologists will continue to make winsome speeches about giving the public what it wants, or letting the public decide. . . . — Edward R. Murrow
If people trained and conditioned and given experience burning down buildings were found to be burning down buildings, I think someone would care. Mother Jones is interested in the gender of the shooters, in their mental health history, and various other factors. None of these factors is a complete explanation of anything, any more or less than veteran status is. Yet they are of interest. The problem in trying to interest people in the veteran factor, no doubt, is the war culture and the troop propaganda that engulfs the United States.— Yet Another Mass Shooter Was a Military Veteran
Videos of the Day:
Images of the Day:
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’s Real Base Is the Ruling Class Don’t blame the Trump presidency on the white proletariat. The real responsibility for this epically transgressive administration — headed by an individual Noam Chomsky rightly describes as “the most dangerous criminal in human history” — lies with the billionaire class. According to a mainstream media myth long believed by intellectuals who ought to know better, Donald Trump rode into the White House on a great upsurge of support from poor, white, working-class voters drawn to the Republican candidate’s populist anti-Wall Street pitch in key deindustrialized battleground states. This conventional Rust Belt rebellion wisdom was proclaimed on the front page of the nation’s newspaper of record, The New York Times, a day after the 2016 election. The Times called Trump’s victory “a decisive demonstration of power by a largely overlooked coalition of mostly blue-collar white and working-class voters.” That same day, Times political writer Nate Cohn wrote that “Donald J. Trump won the presidency by riding an enormous wave of support among working-class whites.” This storyline — repeated ad nauseam and taken for granted in the mainstream media and even in much of the progressive left — is flatly contradicted by credible data. There was no mass white working-class outpouring for Trump in 2016. Slate writers Konstantin Kilibarda and Daria Roithmayr noted weeks after the election: “Donald Trump didn’t flip working-class white voters,” they wrote. “Hillary Clinton lost them. … Relative to the 2012 election, Democratic support in the key Rust Belt states [Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin] collapsed as a huge number of Democrats stayed home or (to a lesser extent) voted for a third party.” Paul Street
American Fuhrer—Corrupt Rampage Against Americans Delusionary, dictatorial Donald Trump is drunk on power. Trump’s monarchical and lawless actions are a clear and present subversion of our Republic and its Constitution. As soon as the impeachment trial ended and Trump was acquitted by the Senate’s supine Republican courtiers (except for Senator Mitt Romney), vengeance flooded Trump’s fevered mind. Ignoring warnings from his advisors, Trump is lashing out in all directions, unleashing torrents of foul-mouthed tweets. Note with alarm how this American Fuhrer is consolidating control and using his presidential power to smash all opposition. Remember that last July Trump declared “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.” He wasn’t kidding, America. By Ralph Nader
Honesty Isn’t Just a Campaign Attribute, It’s a Prerequisite for Change Last week, after Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ victory in the Nevada caucus, long time human rights activist Brian Concannonwrote: “The Democratic candidates missed the opportunity last week in Nevada—a state with a 30 percent Latino population—to address the root causes of our immigration crisis. They predictably criticized the worst Trump administration immigration policies, such as families separated at the border and chronic uncertainty for undocumented people in the U.S., many of whom arrived decades ago as children. How we treat people at or inside our border certainly deserves attention, but we cannot ignore that many people come to the United States in the first place because our foreign policies—by both Democrats and Republicans—force them to leave their homes in Latin America and elsewhere.” By Jake Johnston
Yet Another Mass Shooter Was a Military Veteran Thursday yet another mass shooting was committed by a military veteran, this one in Milwaukee. Virtually all military veterans are not mass shooters. Many peace activists are veterans. Many everything under the sun are veterans. But mass shooters are very disproportionately military veterans. By David Swanson
Environment:
Water is a Privilege Not a Right: Bleeding the Deschutes River The Deschutes River was once one of the gems of the West. Due to numerous springs, its flow was nearly constant throughout the year. Clean and cold, it supported huge numbers of native trout, and other associated wildlife like the river otter, mink, bald eagles, and Oregon spotted frog. Sadly, the river has been degraded by water removal, primarily for agricultural irrigation. The Deschutes River flow regimes are severely compromised, and its water is polluted by excessive sedimentation. By By George Wuerthner 
Many Leaks Unreported in Northeastern BC, Over 10% of Oil and Gas Wells Are Leaking Methane There is no monitoring program for abandoned wells, so they can leak for a long time before emissions are detected and repaired. Northeastern British Columbia has been a major centre of conventional oil and gas production since the 1960s. More recently, the shale gas sector has also targeted the region. One of the issues the oil and gas industry faces is the leakage of gases from wellbores—the holes drilled into the ground to look for or recover oil and natural gas. Methane leakage from wellbores has become an important issue because this greenhouse gas is far more potent than carbon dioxide. By Romain Chesnaux
The Call for an Extinction Rebellion In the age of coming climate apocalypse, the narcissistic self-regard of humans in their exploitive relationship with the natural world is so disgusting, so utterly reprehensible, so vain and vacuous and unworthy of intelligent beings that it makes me want to repudiate humanism altogether and call for humans to be wiped off the goddamn planet. The film Planet of the Apes, issued in 1968, had it right when the apes quoted their sacred scrolls: “Beware the beast man, for he is the Devil’s pawn. Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours.” By Christopher Ketcham
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Labor:
Economy:
Timeline of How Fed Chair Powell Knocked 603 Points Off the Dow Yesterday We write this with some trepidation that after this appears in print Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will stop taking questions at his press conferences or that all media questions will have to be routed through Vice President Mike Pence’s press office, as is now occurring with matters pertaining to the coronavirus. (We say that with only some facetiousness.) However, in this age of spin, facts matter more than ever. First, a little background. After losing 3600 points the prior week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average staged a monster rally (more likely a short squeeze) on Monday, climbing 1293 points to close at 26,703. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Venezuela: Struggle of the Fogade Union Delegates Members of the Sutrabfogade union (including the general secretary) are facing dismissal from the state company Fogade, following a slew of false allegations from the management. These attacks on unionists are evidence of the anti-labour drift of the Maduro government. The IMT sends its solidarity to the comrades affected by the case. After being permitted access their respective case files (with an unjustified delay from the Labor Inspectorate), William Prieto (General Secretary of Sutrabfogade and leader of Lucha de Clases), and William Guzmán (Health and Safety Rep), found that – in addition to the allegations of psychological violence against the General Manager of Administration and Finance of the institution, Mileydi Galán and Infrastructure Manager, Verónica Mujica – they are accused of breaching working hours. The union delegates strongly deny this. The lack of evidence of the alleged “verbal aggression” against the aforementioned managers, and the legal impossibility of sustaining the removal of the comrades from their jobs until the allegations in the case are settled definitively, forced the Fogade management to resort to this last-minute fallacy. This evinces employer retaliation and determination to behead Sutrafogade by any means necessary.
A World No Longer Shaped by Atlantic Powers The annual Munich Security Conference that took place February 14-16 this year turned out to be an iconic event, drawing comparison with the one held in the same Bavarian city on February 10, 2007, where in a prophetic speech Russian President Vladimir Putin had criticized the world order characterized by the United States’ global hegemony and its “almost uncontained hyper use of force—military force—in international relations.” If Putin’s 2007 Munich speech was prescient about an incoming new Cold War and the surge of tensions in Russia’s relations with the West, 13 years later, at the event this year, we witnessed that the transatlantic ties that evolved through the two world wars in the last century and blossomed into a full-fledged alliance system have reached a crossroads. By M. K. Bhadrakumar 
Femicide in Mexico: Symptom of a Sick System The rise of femicides and violence against women in Mexico is evidence of a sick, oppressive system that must be transformed, root and stem, through class struggle. Alma Chavarría Farel, was 13 years old when she was killed after being raped. That happened on 23 January 1993; it was the first documented case of femicide in Mexico. Ciudad Juárez, a manufacturing hub located on the US border would sadly become famous because more cases of missing and murdered women were occurring. Farel’s death only anticipated a terrifying nightmare. Cases that might seem isolated at first showed that they had a lot in common. We are talking about women who were predominantly from poor families, who were workers, and who were often migrants from other states in the country.
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!
National Nurses United Statement:Nation’s hospitals Unprepared for COVID-19 UC Davis case just one example as one patient sends 124 nurses and health care workers home on self quarantine Despite University of California medical facilities being generally better prepared and equipped to treat challenging medical cases, the recent UC Davis Medical Center COVID-19 case highlights the vulnerability of the nation’s hospitals to this virus and the insufficiency of current Centers for Disease Control guidelines. The single COVID-19 patient admitted to the facility on Feb. 19 has now led to the self-quarantine at home of at least 36 RNs and 88 other health care workers. These 124 nurses and health care workers, who are needed now more than ever, have instead been sidelined. Lack of preparedness will create an unsustainable national health care staffing crisisworkers, and the public.
Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Trump Vows to ‘See If We Can Help’ the Uninsured as He Attempts to Rip Insurance From 20 Million “The number of uninsured Americans has gone up by seven million people during Trump’s presidency, complicating the response to the coronavirus. But don’t worry, they’re gonna see if they can help them out.” President Donald Trump said during a press briefing Tuesday that the White House will “see if [it] can help” uninsured people in the U.S. who contract the coronavirus, a remark that—as observers hastened to point out—came as his administration is supporting a Republican lawsuit currently before the Supreme Court that could rip Affordable Care Act protections from more than 20 million Americans.
U.S.: