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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!
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:
The Fiscal Year 2021 defense budget is composed of two parts: a base budget of $671 billion and a warfighting, or Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), budget of an additional $69 billion.4 This compares to a base budget of $665 billion and an OCO budget of $73 billion in FY 2020. This means that the United States will increase the base budget by $6 billion, or 1 percent, and will spend essentially the same amount on conducting its wars in the Middle East next year as it did this year. — The Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2021 Budget More Than Meets U.S. National Security Needs
The United States is ranked #1 in global warming emitions (Ranking Global Warming Contributions by Country) but, actually, the United States has contributed far more global warming admission, if you consider the 800 U.S. military bases and wars, throughout the world. From The Military Pumps Out Staggering Quantities of Toxic Waste, Water and Air Pollution and Radiation Environmentalists are ignoring the elephant in the room … the world’s largest polluter: . . . The Pentagon is also one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world … and yet has a blanket exemption from all greenhouse gas treaties.The defense department also uses open-air burn pits which send a parade of horribles into the air. Sea life is not exempt. And the military has long been is a flagrant user of chemical weapons and depleted uranium . . . which can trash ecosystems and human health. And Despite our unorthodox presidential election, America’s overseas military bases are largely taken for granted in today’s foreign policy debates. The U.S. maintains a veritable empire of military bases throughout the world— about 800 of them in more than 70 countries. Many view our bases as a symbol of our status as the dominant world power. But America’s forward-deployed military posture incurs substantial costs and disadvantages, exposing the U.S. to vulnerabilities and unintended consequences. — Why We Should Close America’s Overseas Military Bases)
Videos of the Day:
Cabinet Of The Living Dead Biden’s cabinet picks so far read like a murderers’ row of detested Clintonites, Obamaites, and neoliberal zombies. Is anyone surprised?
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. Rax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!
The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire Or what it means to fall on a failing planet. As in Election Campaign 2016, Donald Trump isn’t the cause but a symptom (though what a symptom!) of an American world going down. Then as now, he somehow gathered into his one-and-only self so many of the worst impulses of a country that, in this century, found itself eternally at war not just with Afghans and Iraqis and Syrians and Somalis but increasingly with itself, a true heavyweight of a superpower already heading down for the count. By Tom Engelhardt
United States: To defeat Trumpism, We Must Fight Until We Win In a recent Monmouth University survey, 77% of Trump backers said Joe Biden had won the presidential election because of fraud. Many of these same people think climate change is not real. Many of these same people believe they don’t need to listen to scientific experts on how to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. By Malik Miah
How Us Media (Monopoly) Manipulates Iran’s Nuclear Program Into a Sinister Myth Misleading and false reporting about Iran’s nuclear program gives Americans ammunition to support hawkish policies and war at worst, or at best, inflate the Iranian threat, which only serves to help block diplomatic efforts and maintain the antagonistic status quo. By Ben Armbruster
The Bipartisan War for Iraq’s Oil: Trump’s Support for Israel’s Killing of Iranian Scientist Could Lead to War In the weeks remaining before Joe Biden’s inauguration, Donald Trump is taking actions — including aiding and abetting murder — to prevent his successor from pursuing diplomacy with Iran. On November 27, Israel assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist. International law expert Richard Falk called it “an outrageous act of state terrorism.” Although the Israeli government has not claimed credit for the illegal killing, there is little doubt of its culpability. Trump implicitly praised the assassination, retweeting a comment by Israeli journalist and intelligence expert Yossi Melman that the killing was a “major psychological and professional blow” to Iran. This was an “implicit approval if there ever was one,” according to Sina Toossi, a senior research analyst at the National Iranian American Council. By Marjorie Cohn
Environment:
Flood Risk for Low-Income Housing in U.S. Could Triple by 2050 The number of affordable housing units in the United States at risk of flooding could triple over the next three decades due to climate change, to nearly 25,000 by 2050, according to a new study from the research group Climate Central. Low-income residents in New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey are particularly vulnerable, with each state containing thousands of affordable housing units at risk of chronic coastal flooding in the coming decades.
Nuclear Waste Repository: Stay up! “In summary, there is no safe method of disposal or “final” storage of radioactive waste.” What to do with the ever-increasing amount of radiation waste from the 442 nuclear reactors in 31 countries around the world? If one follows the common narrative, then for decades it has been a matter of finding a “safe repository”, and according to the latest announcements, 54 percent of Germany’s underground is suitable for such a repository. But this debate is a classic smoke screen: it is misleading. By “In summary, there is no safe method of disposal or “final” storage of radioactive waste.”
Contaminants In New Jersey Soil and Water Are Toxic, Documents Reveal Documents made public by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show that PFAS compounds the chemical company Solvay has released in New Jersey are toxic to lab animals and people, stay in the human body for years, and were found in the blood of workers at two of Solvay’s plants.According to a December 2019 letter Solvay sent to the EPA, blood monitoring of workers at two of its plants between 2011 and 2019 showed that the compounds were present at high levels and had harmful effects. The same compounds have been found in soil and private well water near the company’s plant in West Deptford, New Jersey. By
Sharon Lerner
$Trillions for Perpetual War, Nothing to Begin to End Global Warming Why Do We Wage Decades-Long Futile Wars in the Middle East but Refuse to Declare War on the Looming Climate Crisis? If humanity faces so grave a crisis—now almost universally recognized—why does the citizenry not unite in defense of survival? The United States is engaged in forever hot wars. The war in Afghanistan now nears the end of its second decade. Why US history is so saturated—some would say polluted—by war has recently become an object of both academic and activist interest. By John Buell
Tests Reveal Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Aerial Pesticide Showered Over Millions of Acres in US “These findings shock the conscience.” A national nonprofit revealed Tuesday that testing commissioned by the group as well as separate analysis conducted by Massachusetts officials show samples of an aerially sprayed pesticide used by the commonwealth and at least 25 other states to control mosquito-borne illnesses contain toxic substances that critics call “forever chemicals.” By Jessica Corbett
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Modern U.S. Racial Capitalism Some Theoretical Insights In recent years, “racial capitalism” has ascended across the humanities and social sciences. It has arisen as a conceptual framework to understand the mutually constitutive nature of racialization and capitalist exploitation, inter alia, on a global scale, in specific localities, in discrete historical moments, in the entrenchment of the carceral state, and in the era of neoliberalization and permanent war. By Charisse Burden-Stelly
Labor:
Over Last 30 Years, Wages for Top 1% Soared by 160% While Wages of Bottom 90% Actually Went Down It is way past time to remake wage pattern with economic policies that generate robust wage-growth for vast majority. Newly available wage data tells a familiar story: In every period since 1979, wages for the bottom 90% were continuously redistributed upwards to the top 10% and frequently to the very highest 1.0% and 0.1%. For last year, 2019, the data show a continuation, with annual wages rising fastest for those in the top 10% while those in the bottom 90% saw below-average wage growth. By Lawrence Mishel and Jori Kandra 
Economy:
Another Slow Recovery from Economic Disaster The lesson learned from the Great Recession was that the initial stimulus was far too small. The subsequent austerity during the recovery directly obstructed a return to full employment. There had been hopes that a Biden administration would quickly implement an aggressive stimulus. In addition to measures to control the pandemic, the hoped-for stimulus would also include a large clean energy component and major expenditures on childcare and health care. By Dean Baker
A Credit Crash Ahead? The pandemic slump also has a different ‘proximate’ cause. In a sense, this unprecedented global slump, affecting 97% of the world’s nations, kicked off because of an ‘exogenous event’ – the spread of a deadly virus. But, as has been argued by ecologists and in this blog, the rapacious drive for profits by capitalist companies in fossil fuel exploration, timber logging, mining and urban expansion without regard for nature, created the conditions for the emergence of a succession of pathogens deadly to the human body to which it lacked immunity. In that sense, the slump was not ‘exogenous’. By Michael Roberts
Shadow Government Statistics Gross Domestic Product
Senator Menendez: “3.3 Million Small Businesses Have Closed” and “1.1 Million Local and State Employees Have Lost their Jobs” as a Result of Pandemic The Orwellian nature of U.S. politics as well as the delusional Republican narrative that the U.S. economy has made a robust recovery and “turned the corner” was on tortuous display at yesterday’s Senate Banking hearing. Trump’s loyal devotees on the Senate Banking Committee continued to promote the narrative that job growth is stellar. It isn’t job “growth,” it’s simply some people being called back to the same jobs after their employers reopened after a shutdown because of the pandemic. The Trump administration’s own Department of Labor reported on November 25 that the total number of people claiming unemployment benefits in all unemployment benefit programs for the week ending November 7 was 20,452,223. The 20.4 million figure is 13.7 times where that number stood for the same week in 2019 before the pandemic struck. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
UK Economy In Crisis: Make the Bosses Pay! Outlining the government’s latest spending plans on November 25, Rishi Sunak announced a wave of new austerity measures, including attacks on wages and welfare. The labour movement must fight for a bold socialist alternative, With a COVID vaccine on the horizon, the establishment media is desperately trying to reassure us that our lives will soon get back to ‘normal’. But beneath these soothing words is the reality that the British economy is shattered, and therefore any return to ‘normality’ is ruled out. By James Kilby
Education, Health, Science, 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 pass universal healthcare for themselves, but 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
Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”
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! For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel! Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!
Quotes 0f the Day: