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:
This coronavirus originated from one of Wuhan’s many live-animal markets. Over 100 different animals are sold here, including wolf pups, civet cats, poultry and snakes. These animals are kept in cramped, dirty conditions, with direct contact with humans. These markets are referred to as ‘wet markets’ – so called because animals are often slaughtered directly in front of customers.Aside from the obvious issues with having a high population density made up of humans and animals – a hotbed for disease outbreak – these markets are repulsive places. They are filled with caged, frightened animals, many of which have been captured illegally in the wild. — Perfect Storm — The animals are skinned and slaughtered, sending a cocktail of microorganisms into the air. The dreadful, cramped conditions and mix of wild and domestic creatures, alongside the throngs of people choosing their victims, is a pandemic in the making. It was an inevitable consequence of poor hygiene, cross-contamination, and low animal welfare. The saddest part of this story is that scientists saw this coming. Researchers have been stressing the link between human and wildlife health for decades and, in particular, the potential threat of coronaviruses was first identified following the 2003 SARS outbreak (also caused by a virus jumping from animals to humans). Scientists studying bats in the Yunnan Caves realised that the coronavirus was making the jump from bats to humans. It is now thought that the virus spread from bats to snakes, which are then captured and taken to live animals markets and eaten as a local delicacy. Eating Animals Will Be the Death of Us
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.
‘Doctor Trump’: As CDC Says ‘Do Not Go to Work,’ Trump Says Thousands With Coronavirus Could Go to Work and Get Better “Trump has had briefings from the nation’s best doctors and scientists on COVID-19 and he still spouts total, dangerous bullshit.” —Peter Gleick Running roughshod over the advice of trained medical professionals and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, President Donald Trump Wednesday night suggested to millions of Fox News viewers that people infected with coronavirus could still go to work and recover, comments that were immediately condemned as irresponsible and dangerous. By Jake JohnsonEnvironment:
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
Fear Pervades Black Politics, and Makes Us Agents of Our Own Oppression Many Black voters recoiled in abject terror at the very thought that the Democratic Party – “our” party, in many Black folks’ minds – might fracture under the challenge of the Sandernistas. “The screechingly raucous, out-of-control Democratic debate in Columbia just days before the South Carolina primary appears to have scared the hell out of Black voters.” Black voters in South Carolina kicked off Joe Biden’s political resurrection last Saturday, and stuck with the worthless corporate hack through Super Tuesday’s primary contests. Although the craven Black Misleadership Class will no doubt shout hallelujahs that “hands that picked cotton now pick presidents” and claim Black voters exercised brilliant “strategic” judgment in making themselves indispensable to the corprate Democratic party establishment, the true motivator of Black Biden supporters is a pervasive and deeply corrosive fear. Not just dread of four more years of Trump, although that is central to Black political behavior, but abject terror at the very thought that the Democratic Party – “our” party, in many Black folks’ minds – might fracture under the challenge of the Sandernistas. By Glen Ford , BAR executive editorFreedom Rider: U.S. Continues Its War on the Rest of the World The duopoly corporate parties enforce silence and ignorance on foreign policy to ensure that Americans have neither the knowledge nor the tools to resist their country’s policy of endless war. “The average voter seldom thinks about foreign policy for the simple reason that they aren’t asked to do so.”It isn’t clear who the next president of the United States will be but the terrible handiwork of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump are creating terrible suffering for millions of people around the world. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnistWhy it is Unlikely Sandernistas Will Catch Russiagate Fever and Why He Should Be Held Accountable Anyway Bernie Sanders’ rise to frontrunner status has done nothing to challenge the endless wars waged by the US, yet he is sure to face more smears and attacks the more his campaign succeeds. “When his opponents smear him with wild Russiagate charges, Sanders take the bait.” Just a day before the Nevada caucus, the U.S. intelligence apparatus briefed Bernie Sanders about an attempt by the Russian government to interfere in the process on his behalf. The Washington Post, a trusted mouthpiece of the C.I.A. in the corporate media, reported the story without any evidence to support the claim. This was in keeping with the last four years of the U.S. intelligence apparatus’ Russiagate operation. Russiagate has served as a McCarthy-esque attack on any inconvenience to imperial rule both domestic and foreign. And Bernie Sanders took the bait. By Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing EditorCalifornia Flags Alienated, Idealistic Kids of Color as Potential Violent Extremists The program deputizes teachers to spy on students and recruits social service agencies to assemble dossiers on them while providing mental health services. “The state is is lipsticking the pig for federal agencies that rely on racist stereotyping.” California’s “Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE)” program flags teenage kids “feeling alienated from their peers,” “having a strong sense of being troubled by injustice,” and suffering from “depression” as also having “tendencies to extremism” that should be closely monitored. And surprise surprise, these kids are disproportionately Black and Brown. The program deputizes teachers to spy on them and recruits social service agencies to assemble dossiers on them while providing mental health services. By Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing EditorPennsylvania Supreme Court Smacks Abu-Jamal Again The Justices used extraordinary authority to delay Mumia’s appeal of his murder conviction. “The request for King’s Bench intervention came from the widow of Officer Daniel Faulkner.” Recently the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania again underscored its willingness to impede justice in the contentious case of imprisoned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal through issuance of an unusual decision that utilized a rarely employed power of that court. By Linn Washington JrTeaching Theory, Talking Community For centuries, Indigenous and African peoples in the Americas have theorized for their lives and so collectively crafted a revolutionary praxis. “If the axis of the universe remains the same in reform, what would it mean to revolutionize theory?” Erasure in Academic Theory[P]eople of color have always theorized—but in forms quite different from the Western form of abstract logic . . . our theorizing (and I intentionally use the verb rather than the noun) is often in narrative forms, in the stories we create . . . [in] dynamic rather than fixed ideas . . . . How else have we managed to survive with such spiritedness the assault on our bodies, social institutions, countries, our very humanity? And women, at least the women I grew up around, continuously speculated about the nature of life through pithy language that unmasked the power relations of their world . . . . My folk, in other words, have always been a race for theory—though more in the form of the hieroglyph, a written figure which is both sensual and abstract, both beautiful and communicative. —Barbara Christian, “The Race for Theory” By Joy JamesFormer UN Rapporteur on Human Rights: US Sanctions Have Killed More Than 100 Thousand Venezuelans Catastrophic death and massive emigration are due to Washington’s financial suffocation and blockade of the socialist-governed country.“Unilateral coercive measures constitute a crime against humanity.” The Swiss-American historian and Human Rights expert, Alfred de Zayas, said that more than 100,000 Venezuelans have died as a result of the sanctions implemented by the United States government and that such deaths were due to the impossibility of timely access to medicines. By Orinoco TribuneMessage to the US Corporate Media: Capitalism is Responsible for the Deaths of Millions of People Corporate media snake-oil salesmen/women are doing their best to convince the masses that socialism is the devil itself. “They are not real journalists, they are liars for hire.” The United States’ corporate media is a well-oiled machine, engineered to effectively distribute misinformation to masses of politically domesticated Americans. Like apex predators, they feast upon the minds of those who are gullible enough to believe anything their pundits spew from their duplicitous mouths. Many of the corporate media talking heads are highly skilled in the art of deception. They regularly champion convenient narratives given to them from various departments within the United States’ government. This is routine regardless of the cable network. If the greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince humankind that he didn’t exist, then the corporate media’s greatest trick may have been convincing Americans that there was a huge difference between the likes of Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, and the like. These networks are similar to the two corporate political parties, Democrats and Republicans. They are more alike on significant issues, such as war/imperialism, than they are dissimilar. Perhaps this is why many antiwar activists refer to the Democrats and Republicans as the “War Party.” By Solomon ComissiongThe Gift of India and the Violence of the West Corporate media snake-oil salesmen/women are doing their best to convince the masses that socialism is the devil itself. “They are not real journalists, they are liars for hire.” The United States’ corporate media is a well-oiled machine, engineered to effectively distribute misinformation to masses of politically domesticated Americans. Like apex predators, they feast upon the minds of those who are gullible enough to believe anything their pundits spew from their duplicitous mouths. Many of the corporate media talking heads are highly skilled in the art of deception. They regularly champion convenient narratives given to them from various departments within the United States’ government. This is routine regardless of the cable network. If the greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince humankind that he didn’t exist, then the corporate media’s greatest trick may have been convincing Americans that there was a huge difference between the likes of Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, and the like. These networks are similar to the two corporate political parties, Democrats and Republicans. They are more alike on significant issues, such as war/imperialism, than they are dissimilar. Perhaps this is why many antiwar activists refer to the Democrats and Republicans as the “War Party.” By R. Divya NairThe Difference Between Yams and Sweet Potatoes Is Structural Racism The confusion goes all the way back to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. “Most American supermarkets are selling you sweet potatoes, not yams.” When Adaorah Oduah attended her first American Thanksgiving feast at an aunt’s house in San Bernardino County in 2018, she was looking forward to one dish in particular: candied yams. Oduah had recently moved from Nigeria to California to study for a master’s in Global Communication at USC, and the yam was a food that reminded her of home. By Margaret EbyLabor:
Economy:
The Coronavirus Could Wreck the Economy. These Steps Would Help Limit the DamageThough we don’t yet know the extent of its threat, a widespread coronavirus epidemic in the United States is increasingly possible. In addition to the downright scary health consequences, we think the virus will quickly do serious damage to the U.S. economy, reducing growth in at least the first half of this year, pushing up unemployment and possibly ending the historically long expansion. And we’re far from alone. By Jared Bernstein and Dean Baker
What Coronavirus Could Mean for the Global Economy Having largely ignored Covid-19 as it spread across China, global financial markets reacted strongly last week when the virus spread to Europe and the Middle East, stoking fears of a global pandemic. Since then, Covid-19 risks have been priced so aggressively across various asset classes that some fear a recession in the global economy may be a foregone conclusion. In our conversations, business leaders are asking whether the market drawdown truly signals a recession, how bad a Covid-19 recession would be, what the scenarios are for growth and recovery, and whether there will be any lasting structural impact from the unfolding crisis. In truth, projections and indices won’t answer these questions. Hardly reliable in the calmest of times, a GDP forecast is dubious when the virus trajectory is unknowable, as are the effectiveness of containment efforts, and consumers’ and firms’ reactions. There is no single number that credibly captures or foresees Covid-19’s economic impact. by Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, Martin Reeves, and Paul Swartz
Demand for Fed’s Repo Loans Surges Past $100 Billion a Day as 10-Year Treasury Hits Lowest Rate in 149 Years Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell certainly has an odd notion of what constitutes an “orderly” market. At his press conference on Tuesday, following the announcement that the Fed was cutting its Fed Funds rate by a half point without waiting for its regularly scheduled meeting when rate cuts are normally deliberated, Powell said that “financial markets are functioning in an orderly manner and all that sort of thing.” Challenging Powell’s assessment of “orderly,” the Dow dropped 603 points in the span of less than 30 minutes while he was speaking at his press conference and trying his best to bolster confidence in the market. That didn’t seem very orderly. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Yield on 10-Year U.S. Treasury Note Over Past 10 Days
World:
The Long History of Elite Rule: What Will It Take To End It? Elites have ruled over people and commanded the surplus produced by their labor for many millennia. It is this long history we have to contend with in today’s crisis of capitalism that has produced endless wars and environmental catastrophes as corporate billionaire rulers continue to promote business as usual while preparing to fight each other with armed forces and nuclear weapons. This has all been “normalized.” Concentrated elite power ends up massively distorting people’s understanding of the nature of big business rule. Their highly paid spokes people even shamelessly deploy concepts like “freedom” and “liberty” to rationalize the enslaving and killing of millions for profits in resource wars. By Chuck Churchill
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!
To Understand America’s Broken Health Care System, Look at Colorado Over the last year, health care costs nationwide have grown dramatically. From January 2019 to January 2020, prices for hospital services jumped 3.8 percent and health insurance rose 4.8 percent, much faster than overall inflation, which was 2.5 percent.1 While the health care system is complex and prices for procedures vary across the country, one major contributor to these price increases is hospital consolidation. A study of 366 hospital mergers from 2007 to 2011 showed that prices increased 6 percent when those hospitals were less than five miles apart but not at greater distances, which strongly suggests that more concentration in a given market leads to higher prices2. This is a big problem all across the US, as 90 percent of metropolitan areas have “highly concentrated” hospital markets3. Specifically, the number of community hospitals that merged into a hospital system rose from a little over half of community hospitals in 1999, to two-thirds by 20164. These trends help to explain part of the reason why Americans face higher prices for comparable health services, leading to US health spending being substantially higher than other high-income countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)5. By Jared Gaby-Biegel
Environment:
Freedom Rider: U.S. Continues Its War on the Rest of the World The duopoly corporate parties enforce silence and ignorance on foreign policy to ensure that Americans have neither the knowledge nor the tools to resist their country’s policy of endless war. “The average voter seldom thinks about foreign policy for the simple reason that they aren’t asked to do so.”It isn’t clear who the next president of the United States will be but the terrible handiwork of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump are creating terrible suffering for millions of people around the world. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
Why it is Unlikely Sandernistas Will Catch Russiagate Fever and Why He Should Be Held Accountable Anyway Bernie Sanders’ rise to frontrunner status has done nothing to challenge the endless wars waged by the US, yet he is sure to face more smears and attacks the more his campaign succeeds. “When his opponents smear him with wild Russiagate charges, Sanders take the bait.” Just a day before the Nevada caucus, the U.S. intelligence apparatus briefed Bernie Sanders about an attempt by the Russian government to interfere in the process on his behalf. The Washington Post , a trusted mouthpiece of the C.I.A. in the corporate media, reported the story without any evidence to support the claim. This was in keeping with the last four years of the U.S. intelligence apparatus’ Russiagate operation. Russiagate has served as a McCarthy-esque attack on any inconvenience to imperial rule both domestic and foreign. And Bernie Sanders took the bait. By Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
California Flags Alienated, Idealistic Kids of Color as Potential Violent Extremists The program deputizes teachers to spy on students and recruits social service agencies to assemble dossiers on them while providing mental health services. “The state is is lipsticking the pig for federal agencies that rely on racist stereotyping.” California’s “Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE)” program flags teenage kids “feeling alienated from their peers,” “having a strong sense of being troubled by injustice,” and suffering from “depression” as also having “tendencies to extremism” that should be closely monitored. And surprise surprise, these kids are disproportionately Black and Brown. The program deputizes teachers to spy on them and recruits social service agencies to assemble dossiers on them while providing mental health services. By Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Smacks Abu-Jamal Again The Justices used extraordinary authority to delay Mumia’s appeal of his murder conviction. “The request for King’s Bench intervention came from the widow of Officer Daniel Faulkner.” Recently the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania again underscored its willingness to impede justice in the contentious case of imprisoned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal through issuance of an unusual decision that utilized a rarely employed power of that court. By Linn Washington Jr
Teaching Theory, Talking Community For centuries, Indigenous and African peoples in the Americas have theorized for their lives and so collectively crafted a revolutionary praxis. “If the axis of the universe remains the same in reform, what would it mean to revolutionize theory?” Erasure in Academic Theory[P]eople of color have always theorized—but in forms quite different from the Western form of abstract logic . . . our theorizing (and I intentionally use the verb rather than the noun) is often in narrative forms, in the stories we create . . . [in] dynamic rather than fixed ideas . . . . How else have we managed to survive with such spiritedness the assault on our bodies, social institutions, countries, our very humanity? And women, at least the women I grew up around, continuously speculated about the nature of life through pithy language that unmasked the power relations of their world . . . . My folk, in other words, have always been a race for theory—though more in the form of the hieroglyph, a written figure which is both sensual and abstract, both beautiful and communicative. —Barbara Christian, “The Race for Theory” By Joy James
Former UN Rapporteur on Human Rights: US Sanctions Have Killed More Than 100 Thousand Venezuelans Catastrophic death and massive emigration are due to Washington’s financial suffocation and blockade of the socialist-governed country.“Unilateral coercive measures constitute a crime against humanity.” The Swiss-American historian and Human Rights expert, Alfred de Zayas, said that more than 100,000 Venezuelans have died as a result of the sanctions implemented by the United States government and that such deaths were due to the impossibility of timely access to medicines. By Orinoco Tribune
Message to the US Corporate Media: Capitalism is Responsible for the Deaths of Millions of People Corporate media snake-oil salesmen/women are doing their best to convince the masses that socialism is the devil itself. “They are not real journalists, they are liars for hire.” The United States’ corporate media is a well-oiled machine, engineered to effectively distribute misinformation to masses of politically domesticated Americans. Like apex predators, they feast upon the minds of those who are gullible enough to believe anything their pundits spew from their duplicitous mouths. Many of the corporate media talking heads are highly skilled in the art of deception. They regularly champion convenient narratives given to them from various departments within the United States’ government. This is routine regardless of the cable network. If the greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince humankind that he didn’t exist, then the corporate media’s greatest trick may have been convincing Americans that there was a huge difference between the likes of Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, and the like. These networks are similar to the two corporate political parties, Democrats and Republicans. They are more alike on significant issues, such as war/imperialism, than they are dissimilar. Perhaps this is why many antiwar activists refer to the Democrats and Republicans as the “War Party.” By Solomon Comissiong
The Gift of India and the Violence of the West Corporate media snake-oil salesmen/women are doing their best to convince the masses that socialism is the devil itself. “They are not real journalists, they are liars for hire.” The United States’ corporate media is a well-oiled machine, engineered to effectively distribute misinformation to masses of politically domesticated Americans. Like apex predators, they feast upon the minds of those who are gullible enough to believe anything their pundits spew from their duplicitous mouths. Many of the corporate media talking heads are highly skilled in the art of deception. They regularly champion convenient narratives given to them from various departments within the United States’ government. This is routine regardless of the cable network. If the greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince humankind that he didn’t exist, then the corporate media’s greatest trick may have been convincing Americans that there was a huge difference between the likes of Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, and the like. These networks are similar to the two corporate political parties, Democrats and Republicans. They are more alike on significant issues, such as war/imperialism, than they are dissimilar. Perhaps this is why many antiwar activists refer to the Democrats and Republicans as the “War Party.” By R. Divya Nair
The Difference Between Yams and Sweet Potatoes Is Structural Racism The confusion goes all the way back to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. “Most American supermarkets are selling you sweet potatoes, not yams.” When Adaorah Oduah attended her first American Thanksgiving feast at an aunt’s house in San Bernardino County in 2018, she was looking forward to one dish in particular: candied yams. Oduah had recently moved from Nigeria to California to study for a master’s in Global Communication at USC, and the yam was a food that reminded her of home. By Margaret Eby
Labor:
