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 Deaths in the Entire World!
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!
This is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it…. It is their innocence which constitutes the crime. . . This innocent country set you down in a ghetto in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity…. You have, and many of us have, defeated this intention; and, by a terrible law, a terrible paradox, those innocents who believed that your imprisonment made them safe are losing their grasp on reality. But these men are your brothers—your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what it must become. It will be hard, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off…. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you, and safe are losing their grasp on reality. But these men are your brothers—your lost, younger brothers. And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what it must become. It will be hard, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity. You come from a long line of great poets since Homer. One of them said, The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off…. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you, and Godspeed. — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, Chapter 5, The New Jim Crow: Obama—the Promise and the Peril By Michelle Alexander
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. Rax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!
How to Do More Than Panic About Voter Suppression Trump’s attacks on Black protesters and Black people are inextricably bound to the arguments he will make to try to invalidate the election. In this episode, Truthout’s Kelly Hayes talks with voting rights activist Anoa Changa about how you can defend voting rights in the homestretch of the presidential race. . By Kelly Hayes‘One of the Most Callous Sentiments Ever Uttered’ by US President: Trump Falsely Says Covid Death Toll Not So Bad ‘If You Take Blue States Out’ “Trump thinks of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans like a poll number or a stock market price.” In yet another attempt to evade responsibility for the nation’s disastrous coronavirus response as the U.S. death toll approaches 200,000, President Donald Trump late Wednesday said the fact that millions of Americans haven’t died of Covid-19 is a sign of success and declared, “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.” By Jake Johnson
Aligning Ignorance With Bigotry: Trump Attempts to Rewrite History In what appears to be a blatant appeal to the white supremacists in his base, President Donald Trump has made clear his attempt to both defend and rewrite the history of racial injustice in the United States while eliminating the institutions that make visible its historical roots. As Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, recently pointed out: “Not in generations has a sitting president so overtly declared himself the candidate of white America.” By Henry GirouxCorporations That Have Been Fined More Than $13 Billion in Penalties for Misdeeds Have Pocketed COVID Bailouts In implementing the CARES Act passed by Congress to rescue the economy from the effects of the pandemic, the Trump Administration has directed tens of billions of dollars in aid to companies with a track record of misconduct. This transfer of public wealth to private bad actors will likely turn out to be more expensive than the TARP bailout of the banks a decade ago, given that much of the new aid will not be repaid. By Phil Mattera
Environment:
Oil Industry’s Shift to Plastics in Question as Report Warns $400 Billion in Stranded Assets Possible Aldabra is a UN World Heritage Site that’s home to a stunning array of wildlife, including tens of thousands of wild giant tortoises, far more tortoises than in the Galapagos Islands. Sir David Attenborough, the documentary filmmaker, has called Aldabra “one of the wonders of the world.” The atoll is exceedingly difficult to visit, not only because it’s so remote, but also because new arrivals must contend with a $225 per-visitor daily environmental impact fee — as well as piracy in the region.This wild, protected place is also, according to newly published research from Oxford University, littered with over 500 tons of plastic waste. By Sharon Kelly‘Unplanned Gas Release’ at Controversial Gas Facility in Weymouth, South of Boston The standard, pre-operational testing of a new natural gas compressor station in the Massachusetts community of Weymouth, south of Boston, had barely begun last week when a gasket failure prompted an emergency shutdown of the facility and resulted in an unintentional gas leak. Weymouth’s compressor station, once open, would keep gas pumping through a regional pipeline system, but even before this gas leak, its road to get there has been bumpy, with outcries over its air pollution permit and health concerns from the surrounding community.Enbridge, the Canadian-based energy pipeline corporation behind the controversial Weymouth compressor station, sent a written notice to Massachusetts state regulators on Friday, September 11 informing them of the mechanical failure and “unplanned” gas release. The compressor station’s approval plan requires this notification when there is an unplanned gas release exceeding 10,000 standard cubic feet in volume. According to Enbridge, 265,000 standard cubic feet of gas and 35 pounds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were leaked during the incident. By By Dana DrugmandBayonne New Jersey RefinariesA New Jersey Law Makes a Clean Environment a Right. Other States Should Follow. The far-reaching environmental justice bill acknowledges and aims to reduce harm from pollution on communities of color. On August 27, the New Jersey legislature approved a far-reaching new environmental justice bill intended to reduce the harmful effects of pollution in low-income communities and communities of color. Gov. Phil Murphy has announced he will sign the bill into law on September 18. The new law establishes a right to a clean environment for all New Jersey residents, stating: “all New Jersey residents, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, color, or national origin have a right to live, work, and recreate in a clean and healthy environment.” Further, the law states that, “no community should bear a disproportionate share of the adverse environmental and public health consequences that accompany the State’s economic growth.” By Peter Montague
Life in Cancer Alley State and local powers have approved a 14-plant plastics-production complex that would more than triple the levels of carcinogens in the region. It’s up to the residents to fight back to save their community. Shut up and let corporate America—and also, for that matter, corporate Taiwan—get on with its business. We have ethane to crack and plastic to produce. We dare not let America run out of shopping bags! — Environmental Racism? — Don’t be ridiculous. This is the message the activists of Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”—a heavily industrialized, 85-mile strip of land along the Mississippi River, between New Orleans and Baton Rouge—have gotten from the local powers that be regarding their determination to prevent the construction of a gigantic, highly toxic, 14-plant plastics-production complex in their midst. The plant would be built by Formosa Plastics, a Taiwanese company, in St. James Parish, one of the Louisiana River Parishes, a low-income, primarily black community that already has far more than its share of industrial pollution. Hence the name: Cancer Alley. The proposed facility, which Formosa calls the Sunshine Project (named after a local bridge), would be one of the largest plastics plants in the world. It has been given both state and local approval—after all, it represents an investment of $9.4 billion—so it’s up to the residents to fight back on their own to save their community By Robert C. Koehler
Civil Rights/ Black Liberarion:
US Cops Are Treating White Militias as “Heavily Armed Friendlies” The ongoing protests against police violence have made overt the long historical ties between cops and white militias. Avideo from the uprising in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shows police giving water to a group of armed white men. One officer uses his vehicle’s loudspeaker to tell them, “We appreciate you guys. We really do.” Soon thereafter, one of the group, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, shot three protesters, killing two. Among the many effects of the ongoing wave of protests against police violence and racial inequality, one of the most striking is the increasingly overt cooperation between the police and armed right-wing groups, surpassing anything we have seen in decades. By Kristian WilliamsForced Sterilization Is Nothing New to Criminalized People in the US The United States has long used citizenship status and perceived criminality as a means to determine whether individuals deserve basic human rights. This week’s egregious allegations of mass hysterectomies at an immigrant jail in Georgia are consistent with the long U.S. tradition of state-sanctioned eugenics, medical abuse and forced sterilizations against those whose humanity the state does not recognize or value. By Jenn M. Jackson
Black Agenda Report Presents: The Left Lens On this episode of The Left Lens, co-hosts Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley analyze the record of Kamala Harris and why she represents a negation of everything that the Black liberation movement and U.S. political prisoners currently fighting for freedom stand for. Freedom Rider: Democrats’ Climate Change Lies The Republicans lie about the harm they do to the planet, and the Democrats lie and pretend they’re not doing the very same things. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnistTribute to Kevin Zeese: Life and Loss in the Struggle for Liberation Zeese never wavered in his opposition to the corporate duopoly, white supremacy, and the forces of militarism. By Danny Haiphong , BAR contributorWill a Biden Foreign Policy Make a Difference for the World? For the people of the world the real fascism of anti-democratic, brutal regimes supported by the U.S., murderous sanctions, and right-wing coups will continue unabated. Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnistFourteen Martyrs in the Struggle Against Racist Terror and Trumpism-Fascism Their names are not as familiar as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, but these victims have paid the ultimate price, dying in the line of anti-racist and anti-fascist citizenship duty. By Paul Street1st 100 Days— Portland By Raymond Nat Turner I have a friend—some- time bandmate—Daily… Whining, wringing his hands. Distressed and depressed. I have a friend — some-time bandmate — Daily… Whining, wringing his hands. Distressed and depressed— anxious and agitated—he Knows nuclear war and Armageddon are on theagenda if Boss Tweet’s Back—big lies, gas-lightinganother four years…
Police use tear gas and impact munitions to disperse protesters in downtown Portland during 4th of July demonstrations against systemic racism and police violence
The Great White Heist Just because enslaving and stealing labor from Black people was perfectly legal prior to 1868, America should not get to ignore descendants of the people who supplied this nation with 246 years of free labor. By Michael Harriot Water Poverty and the Growing Conflict between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia The Ethiopian government made a strategic decision to control most of the Nile River that flows into Egypt and Sudan. By Julian Vigo Ungovernable: An Interview with Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin Black anarchists organized around the things that we still see happening today: mass imprisonment of Black people and murderous shootings by the police or fascist vigilantes. By William C. Anderson Multinationals and Oil Companies Are Imposing Their Greed on Mozambique IMF financing has impoverished Mozambique’s once proudly revolutionary government, forcing it to hire mercenaries to put down rebellion. By Vijay Prashad NYPD Promoted Cop Accused of Vicious Strip Searches of Over a Dozen Black and Latino Men Of at least 77 allegations made against McCormack in 26 separate CCRB complaints, 29 were unsubstantiated; five were ‘unfounded.’” By By Joaquin Sapien, Topher Sanders, Nate Schweber and Daniel ZenderAmerican Democracy Is in the Mail The post office could again become a platform for savings banks . while advancing broadband access to underserved communities. By Daniel Carpenter Labor Must Make Defense of Black Lives Its Own Imperative
Some local unions have started to stand up to militias in much the same way as they have against police brutality. By King Downing and Frances Madeson
Members of the 32BJ union participate in a “Strike for Black Lives” rally in New York City, one of the many demonstrations for racial and economic justice that took place across the U.S. on Monday.
Labor:
Economy:
The Majority of These Pre-pandic Debts Will Most Likely Defailt
The State of the American Debt Slaves, Q1 2020: How Are Consumers Positioned Going into the Crisis? Student loans: stalling repayments & hoping for loan forgiveness. Most of the first quarter was still the Good Times, but in later February and early March it hit the fan, as markets were crashing. In mid-March lockdowns started to roll across the country, and the layoffs by the tens of millions commenced. So how were consumers positioned going into this crisis? Many of them, up to their eyeballs in debt. Consumer debt – student loans, auto loans, and revolving credit such as credit cards and personal loans but excluding housing-related debts such as mortgages and HELOCs – jumped by $153 billion at the end of the first quarter, compared to Q1 a year earlier, or by 3.8%, to $4.15 trillion (not seasonally adjusted), according to Federal Reserve data: By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.Pre-Pandemic Household Debt at Record High
Federal Reserve Will Maintain Its 0.00% to 0.25% Targeted Fed Funds Rate and
“At Least” the Current Pace of Asset Purchases, For the Duration
Broad FOMC Outlook Appears Little Changed in Wake of September Meeting
Policies Will Continue Until Both Full Employment and
Targeted, Prospective Inflation Running Above 2.0% Are Attained
FOMC Projections Suggest No Return to Normal Conditions Before 2024;
Expectations Are for GDP Recovery of Pre-Pandemic Levels Around Fourth-Quarter 2021
ShadowStats Conclusions: Policy Effects Will Mean a Continued Money Supply Spike,With Consumer Inflation Mounting Rapidly in the Next Six-to-Nine Months
Nasdaq and Big Tech Tank as Fed Chair Powell Speaks at His Press Conference Nasdaq and its biggest stock components stomped their feet and gave the Fed Chairman a big thumbs down for his remarks at his press conference yesterday.As Fed Chairman Jerome (Jay) Powell began to speak at the press conference that commenced at 2:30 p.m. yesterday, the Nasdaq Composite stood at 11,204.36. By the time Powell stopped speaking at around 3:30 p.m., the Nasdaq stood at 11,066.15, down 138 points from an hour earlier. After a failed attempt to rally, the Nasdaq slumped to the closing bell, ending the day just 4 points from its low of the day, closing at 11,050.47. (See chart above.) As of 7:20 a.m. this morning, Nasdaq futures were suggesting a further big decline at the open. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
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 ‘:’, 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
Excellent news from Philadelphia on the same day Donald Trump came to tell voters at the city’s Constitution Center that a lot of people don’t like masks. Philadelphia had only 84 new coronavirus cases, a steep downward trend getting us to a number not seen since mid-March. And guess what? Grumpy, peevish, ornery Philadelphians wear masks more often than do the grumpy, peevish, ornery citizens of other U.S. cities. It has paid off even if we aren’t the most, umm, adept at wearing them.
Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”
Quotes of the Day:
‘One of the Most Callous Sentiments Ever Uttered’ by US President: Trump Falsely Says Covid Death Toll Not So Bad ‘If You Take Blue States Out’ “Trump thinks of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans like a poll number or a stock market price.” In yet another attempt to evade responsibility for the nation’s disastrous coronavirus response as the U.S. death toll approaches 200,000, President Donald Trump late Wednesday said the fact that millions of Americans haven’t died of Covid-19 is a sign of success and declared, “If you take the blue states out, we’re at a level that I don’t think anybody in the world would be at.” By Jake Johnson
Corporations That Have Been Fined More Than $13 Billion in Penalties for Misdeeds Have Pocketed COVID Bailouts In implementing the CARES Act passed by Congress to rescue the economy from the effects of the pandemic, the Trump Administration has directed tens of billions of dollars in aid to companies with a track record of misconduct. This transfer of public wealth to private bad actors will likely turn out to be more expensive than the TARP bailout of the banks a decade ago, given that much of the new aid will not be repaid. By Phil Mattera
‘Unplanned Gas Release’ at Controversial Gas Facility in Weymouth, South of Boston The standard, pre-operational testing of a new natural gas compressor station in the Massachusetts community of Weymouth, south of Boston, had barely begun last week when a gasket failure prompted an emergency shutdown of the facility and resulted in an unintentional gas leak. Weymouth’s compressor station, once open, would keep gas pumping through a regional pipeline system, but even before this gas leak, its road to get there has been bumpy, with outcries over its air pollution permit and health concerns from the surrounding community.Enbridge, the Canadian-based energy pipeline corporation behind the controversial Weymouth compressor station, sent a written notice to Massachusetts state regulators on Friday, September 11 informing them of the mechanical failure and “unplanned” gas release. The compressor station’s approval plan requires this notification when there is an unplanned gas release exceeding 10,000 standard cubic feet in volume. According to Enbridge, 265,000 standard cubic feet of gas and 35 pounds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were leaked during the incident. By By Dana Drugmand
Bayonne New Jersey Refinaries
A New Jersey Law Makes a Clean Environment a Right. Other States Should Follow. The far-reaching environmental justice bill acknowledges and aims to reduce harm from pollution on communities of color. On August 27, the New Jersey legislature approved a far-reaching new environmental justice bill intended to reduce the harmful effects of pollution in low-income communities and communities of color. Gov. Phil Murphy has announced he will sign the bill into law on September 18. The new law establishes a right to a clean environment for all New Jersey residents, stating: “all New Jersey residents, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, color, or national origin have a right to live, work, and recreate in a clean and healthy environment.” Further, the law states that, “no community should bear a disproportionate share of the adverse environmental and public health consequences that accompany the State’s economic growth.” By Peter Montague
Forced Sterilization Is Nothing New to Criminalized People in the US The United States has long used citizenship status and perceived criminality as a means to determine whether individuals deserve basic human rights. This week’s egregious allegations of mass hysterectomies at an immigrant jail in Georgia are consistent with the long U.S. tradition of state-sanctioned eugenics, medical abuse and forced sterilizations against those whose humanity the state does not recognize or value. By Jenn M. Jackson
Freedom Rider: Democrats’ Climate Change Lies The Republicans lie about the harm they do to the planet, and the Democrats lie and pretend they’re not doing the very same things. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
Tribute to Kevin Zeese: Life and Loss in the Struggle for Liberation Zeese never wavered in his opposition to the corporate duopoly, white supremacy, and the forces of militarism. By Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
Will a Biden Foreign Policy Make a Difference for the World? For the people of the world the real fascism of anti-democratic, brutal regimes supported by the U.S., murderous sanctions, and right-wing coups will continue unabated. Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Fourteen Martyrs in the Struggle Against Racist Terror and Trumpism-Fascism Their names are not as familiar as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, but these victims have paid the ultimate price, dying in the line of anti-racist and anti-fascist citizenship duty. By Paul Street
1st 100 Days— Portland By Raymond Nat Turner I have a friend—some- time bandmate—Daily… Whining, wringing his hands. Distressed and depressed. I have a friend — some-time bandmate — Daily… Whining, wringing his hands. Distressed and depressed— anxious and agitated—he Knows nuclear war and Armageddon are on theagenda if Boss Tweet’s Back—big lies, gas-lightinganother four years…
American Democracy Is in the Mail The post office could again become a platform for savings banks . while advancing broadband access to underserved communities. By Daniel Carpenter
Pre-Pandemic Household Debt at Record High
Shadow Government Stistics Flash Commentary No. 1449
