Skip to content
Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World! And Now the Total Caronavirs Deaths in the United States are Over 20% of the Total Death in the Entire World!
Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!
Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!
Images of the Day:
Trump and his people were never subtle about their desire to place the executive branch above the law, and Trump himself has been conspicuously enchanted with the absolute power enjoyed by authoritarian leaders all over the world. Now, amid the grinding roar of a pandemic that has no end in sight, they are sweeping away any lingering vestiges of oversight as they assert a 21st-century version of the divine right of kings. Make no mistake: The country is not “falling apart.” It is being torn apart, with clear deliberation and intent, while the Treasury is looted and masses wail for succor in unemployed cloister behind tightly closed doors. We are approaching the crescendo of calamity many have feared was coming since 2016, and almost nothing is left to stand in its way. —Trump’s Assaults on Government Watchdogs Expose His Authoritarian Ambitions
We cannot wish this thing away, though we are apparently going to try, because Donald Trump tells us we have prevailed and will soon return to greatness. As of this week, all 50 states have “reopened” to one degree or another. Each state is winging it when it comes to safety rules, because the federal government under Trump’s “leadership” has washed its hands of providing conscientious guidance and assistance. In fact, if Mitch McConnell has his way, even the entirely insufficient help that has been provided will be rolled back in the name of ideological purity. Florida and Georgia have blown their economic doors wide open to COVID, and have tampered with their infection numbers to dupe the public into believing they will be safe. In doing so, these states have put not only their residents but the entire nation in deep peril. — Florida, Georgia and Trump Are Lying. COVID Is Far From Over
Videos of the Day:
United States:
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 Reublicrats 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 1% and Their Media Monopoly Are Clearly the Force Behind the Armed Demonstrations Opposed to the Coronavirus Stay at Home Safety Precautions: ‘Ticking Time Bomb’: Corporate Lawyers Openly Discussing Suing Nations Over Profits Lost to Covid-19 Measures “It’s so unbelievably shocking to see corporate lawyers actively discussing having foreign investors use ISDS to challenge countries over their coronavirus lockdown measures, and try to extract ‘expected future profits’ from them.” By Jake Johnson
Very Old, Almost Dead This week, Pres. ‘Jim Jones’ Trump announced he’s taking hydroxychloroquine – probably like he’s a stable genius, self-made billionaire and faithful family man who had yuge inauguration crowds, never cheats or lies, has had many, so many people tell him what a swell job he’s doing and weighs 180 pounds – because a study that found the drug’s only effect on Covid-19 patients could be it made more of them die was a plot by his enemies and those patients were “very old. Almost dead” and he’s not a paranoid sociopath at all. Trump’s wild but dubious claim, which bewildered even some Fox News folks, referenced a study of 368 Covid-19 patients at VA hospitals treated with hydroxychloroquine, Trump’s favorite drug (after Adderall) which is why he reportedly ordered 30 million doses of it. Alas, the study found not only did the drug not prevent patients from needing ventilators; it likely killed over twice as many of them as those receiving standard care. The findings led the FDA to caution against its use; several other studies, including a larger one of 1,438 patients in New York, concurred. Still, Trump said that, while not a doctor, “I’ve worked with doctors,” and don’t forget he had an uncle at MIT which is just like being a doctor, and though the VA is part of his government, anyway the “only bad survey” looked at people “in very bad shape. They were very old. Almost dead. It was a Trump enemy statement.” By Abby Zimet
Lockdown Delays Contributed to Massive US Death Toll, Says Modeling, Suggesting Lessons to Be Learned as States Reopen Implementing social distancing policies two weeks earlier could have saved nearly 54,000 lives, the new study found. By Andrea Germanos
How the United States Government Failed to Prepare for the Global Pandemic There were two immediate reasons for the U.S. to blame China for the novel coronavirus global pandemic. First, it was a convenient way to divert attention from the fact that the U.S. government had done nothing—despite months of notice—to effectively prepare for the arrival of the virus. Second, it was a necessary way to undermine the remarkable way China had been able to tackle the epidemic, with massive infusions of personnel and equipment as well as relief into Wuhan and Hubei province. U.S. President Donald Trump’s attack on China is explained not as the rant of an unstable individual, but as part and parcel of the agenda of the U.S. government to displace its own incompetence onto China, and to ensure that China does not receive credit or associated benefits on the world stage from its own swift public health response. By Vijay Prashad
Environment:
Safety Can’t Be a ‘Pretext’ for Regulating Unsafe Oil Trains, Says Trump Admin explanation of its May 11 decision striking down a Washington state effort to regulate trains carrying volatile oil within its borders. A state cannot use “safety as a pretext for inhibiting market growth,” wrote Paul J. Roberti, the chief counsel for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). By Justin Mikulka
Civil Rights/BlackLiberation: 
Indict and Punish the Perpetrators of Covid Mass Death Not just Trump, but the whole US ruling class must pay for the mass Covid death toll among Blacks, because only the ruling class has the power to systematically allocate life-death chances for whole populations over generations. “To limit the indictment to Donald Trump and his administration would be an insult to today’s dead and dying.” The United States finds myriad ways of killing Black people – of negating the term “Black lives matter.” The novel, or new, coronavirus is ending the lives of African Americans at a nationwide rate that is 2.6 times that of whites, 2.3 times the death toll among Asian Americans and 2.2. times that of Latinos, according to the APM Research Lab’s breakdown of mortality by race. Collectively Blacks have suffered 27 percent of all Covid-19 deaths in the United States, which would mean that 24, 930 of the 92, 333 total U.S. deaths from the virus as of this week, were African Americas, who make up only 13 percent of the population. By Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
Freedomrider: Obamagate is Real Obama’s fans like to think of the First Black President as scholarly and above the fray of dirty politics, but he appears to have conspired with the FBI to set up the incoming administration. “Trump’s twitter rants about what he calls Obamagate are in fact accurate.” Donald Trump is a vile racist and a con man. He always hated Barack Obama and he led the “birther” effort in an attempt to prove that the president was not born in the United States. Trump’s animus towards Obama is obviously racial. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
American Exceptionalism and the American Left’s China Double Standard The threat that the American Left sees in China aligns with the white supremacist underpinnings of American exceptionalism. “The American Left adopted a worldview that positions China as an existential threat to their goal of a better world.” The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the contradictions of U.S. imperialism, including those that continue to render the American left politically isolated and ineffectual. China has found itself at the center of this process. U.S. imperialism has successfully convinced many of its so-called “citizens” to believe that the U.S. government is the principle arbiter of bourgeois freedoms such as the right to individual liberty and free speech. China, on the other hand, has long been depicted by the U.S. ruling class as an “authoritarian regime” where the rights of individuals are crushed under the weight of a centralized state. This Cold War era dichotomy persists into the present day. A strong yet often unspoken belief in the ideology of American exceptionalism within the American Left has created a massive double standard when it comes to China. By Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
Neoliberalism, Intervention and Anti-Blackness: A Webinar* Presentation The elevation of anti-blackness as a kind of universal problem eliminates the basis for solidarity among the colonized and puts some African Americans on the side of U.S. imperialism. “The revival of racialism has been the death of genuine solidarity.” “The reality is we are a country built on a racist house of cards, and the pandemic is showing us how racism — specifically anti-Blackness — impairs our ability to respond, hurting all of us .” – Jhumpa Bhattacharya By Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Trump vs. Biden: The China-Hating Contest Is On Like Donkey Kong Trump and Biden promise their fans a roaring hate-fest this election cycle, as they vie for the honor of defending America’s right to full spectrum dominance of every corner of the globe. “I’m not eager to see how Trump might respond to Biden’s accusation that he’s “all talk and no action on China.” The Trump camp is now calling Joe Biden “Beijing Joe” and “Beijing’s ideal candidate,” and it looks like China-hating will be the main plank of his platform. Stupid will get stupider, dangerous will get more so. By Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Identity Politics and Elite Capture he trouble is that identity politics is the victim of elite capture in the service of their own interests. “Elite capture of identity politics requires uncritical support for political figures without regard for their politics.” In an April 2020 op-ed for the Washington Post, recent Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang argues that Asian Americans ought to “step up ” and visibly support relief efforts in order to combat the racist hostility that has accompanied the rise of COVID-19. The appeal is an example of identity politics, though not of the sort that the terms calls to mind for most people. Identity politics is usually thought of as advocacy on behalf of a group, rooted in the group’s collective victimization. But often, whether by accident or design, identity politics serves a narrower set of interests, such as the electoral goals of a Democratic candidate. Yang’s argument, for instance, tasks the very group targeted by racism with proving itself worthy of being American, while at the same time asking little of the country’s non-Asian majority, whose votes his political future depends upon. By Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
Pivot to Mass Struggle: A Lesson from Ferguson We are entering a terrifying and daunting time that requires a change in approach and tactics.“The situation calls for a shift from case work to mass politics, and a pivot away from the presidential race.” In a seven-week period ending , a staggering 33.5 million people have lost their jobs, and those numbers are expected to soar as companies begin to enter a deep economic crisis and more businesses permanently close. In 2008, over 37 million Americans were food insecure and that number has increased to 54 million due to rising food prices and supply chain disruption. Almost 50% of states have already exhausted almost half of the funds set aside for unemployment payments. This calls into question how unemployment insurance programs will last and the extent of the wave of budget cuts that is looming. We are entering a terrifying and daunting time, which also requires a change in approach and tactics from the period of low struggle but rising class consciousness. By Ashton Rome
Cancel the Rent We have to reverse the strange alchemy where markets turn land, concrete, steel, and glass into money, while turning people out into the streets.“There is an inherent conflict between the human right to housing and making housing available based on what the market will provide.” It is now clear that the twin prescriptions of social isolation and shuttering large parts of the national economy have lowered the death toll of the novel coronavirus in the United States from the direst predictions. But in a country where the “social safety net” is more a distant memory than a source of actual provision or support, large swaths of the public now face the threat of hunger and homelessness. Each passing week brings more questions about what our cities and states will look like when the shelter-in-place orders are lifted; they also bring us one week closer to the rent coming due. By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
A Universal Appeal for Humanity to End Militarism and Stop War A bloc of countries, led by the United States of America, is stubbornly persisting in using force to maintain and extend their global dominance. “While US and other imperial powers continue to ramp up militarization, the international movement against militarism is even more important.” On March 15, 1950, the World Peace Council sent out the Stockholm Appeal, a short text that called for a ban on nuclear weapons and that would eventually be signed by almost 2 million people. The appeal was made up of three elegant sentences: By Abdallah El Harif and Vijay Prashad
Prisons Are Using the Pandemic to Impose Lockdowns More than 300,000 people in prisons or jails are under “full or partial lockdown” in response to the pandemic. “Rights groups say these supposed public health measures are both ineffective and inhumane.” When New Jersey issued its stay at home order in response to the coronavirus pandemic, residents holed up in their homes and businesses shuttered. But for the thousands of residents whose home is behind bars, it was a different kind of “lockdown.” By Michelle Chen 
Why is Sam Husseini Channeling Neocon Conspiracy Theories on Covid-19? The authors charge a progressive journalist with acting as a “shill” for neocon propaganda and disinformation on China. (Husseini’s article is also published, below.) “Husseini is mistaken–or deeply dishonest–in suggesting that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing biowarfare research.” Journalist Sam Husseini was once known for challenging the Neocon warmongers on the Iraq War in a former lifetime. He now seems to have joined them, becoming a promoter of anti-China neo-con conspiracy theories on the origins of Covid-19. By K.J. Noh and Claudia Chaufan
Labor:
Economy:
In Last Bailout, the Fed Outsourced Management to the Banks Being Bailed Out – then Paid them Huge Fees for their Work Many of the darkest secrets of the Federal Reserve’s bailout of Wall Street banks during the 2007 to 2010 financial crisis are cryptically contained in the government audit of the Fed’s emergency lending programs that was released to the public on July 21, 2011. A careful reading shows that some of the very same Wall Street mega banks that were in desperate need of, and receiving, bailout funds from the Fed were given assignments by the Fed to oversee parts of the bailout. Making the situation even more ludicrous, those same firms were paid huge fees by the Fed for their work. There is good reason to believe that the same plan is in the works for the Fed’s latest bailout. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
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 to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People Vote on Healthcare
Battle Covid-19, Not Medicare for All: Doctors Demand Hospital Industry Stop Funding Dark Money Lobby Group “The AHA should immediately leave the PFAHCF and redirect that money to supporting patients and frontline healthcare workers.” A progressive organization of 23,000 physicians from across the U.S. demanded Thursday that the American Hospital Association (AHA) divest completely from a dark-money lobbying group that has spent millions combating Medicare for All and instead devote those financial resources to the fight against Covid-19 and to better support for patients and healthcare workers. By Jake Johnson
Quotes of the Day: