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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 Biden administration and the Democrats – for the most part – stand quiet in fighting Trumpism. They hope old guard Republicans will do so or Trump will simply fade away. Long shot, but… African Americans know from history that Trumpism and anti-Black violence will not disappear without a struggle – legally and by protests in the streets. The NAACP lawsuit is one weapon in this fight. It aims to put pressure on the government and courts to act against Trump and his right-wing base. The NAACP case may be a long shot but, combined with the BLM movement, success is possible. — United States: Anti-Klan Act of 1871 Takes On The Enemy From Within
Videos of the Day:
Deathbed Letter From Former Cop Claims NYPD, FBI Helped Kill Malcolm X Ray Wood first shared his confession with family when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2011. At the time, he asked his cousin, Reggie, not to share the letter until after he died. Ray Wood died in November, and Reggie Wood shared his cousin’s confession publicly on Saturday, flanked by a group that included Malcolm X’s daughters, Qubiliah Shabazz, Ilyasah Shabazz and Gamilah Shabazz, and civil rights attorneys Benjamin Crump, Ray Hamlin and Paul Napoli.
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
Legal/Extra-legal Terrorism Has Been a Tool of the United States 1% to Subjugate Black People By Roland Sheppard. 2021 Update: Modern Day Police Terrorism! — White Supremacists Groups Have Become Part of Law Enforcement: FBI Warned of White Supremacists In Law Enforcement 15 Years Ago. Has Anything Changed? Increased attention toward the killing of black men and women by police throughout the past year has ignited national conversations on racism and law enforcement. From Freddie Gray in April 2015 to Deborah Danner — an “emotionally disturbed” woman fatally shot this week by an NYPD officer — protests around the country have forced many Americans to reassess how police engage with communities of color. In light of — or perhaps despite — the increased scrutiny, FBI director James Comey told police officers at a national conference last Sunday that because of insufficient data on use of force, “Americans actually have no idea” whether racial bias in policing is really an epidemic. Pointing to current public outrage over police killings of African-Americans, Comey said “the absence of good information” and data has aided in the growing belief that police officers target particular communities. By Kenya Downs
United States: Anti-Klan Act of 1871 Takes On The Enemy From Within Mississippi Congressperson Bennie Thompson filed a federal lawsuit on January 16, accusing former United States president Donald Trump, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and white supremacist outfits the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers of conspiring to incite the violent riot at the US .Capitol on January 6. Mississippi Congressperson Bennie Thompson filed a federal lawsuit on January 16, accusing former United States president Donald Trump, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and white supremacist outfits the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers of conspiring to incite the violent riot at the US Capitol on January 6. By Malik Miah
Harvard Newspaper to Biden: Cancel More Than $10K in Student Debt and Don’t Use Ivy League as Excuse Not To“It’s not our student debt—but we still want Biden to forgive it.”The editorial board of Harvard University’s daily student newspaper on Tuesday pushed back against President Joe Biden’s misleading claim that Ivy League graduates would be the primary beneficiaries of bold debt cancellation and urged the president to support forgiveness beyond the $10,000 he has vowed to pursue. In an editorial published late Tuesday, The Harvard Crimson rejected as “misguided” Biden’s recent attempt to justify his opposition to cancelling $50,000 in student loan debt by claiming the move would forgive “billions of dollars of debt for people who have gone to Harvard and Yale and Penn.” By Jake Johnson
Environment:
United States: Texas Ice Storm a Climate Wakeup Call The severe Arctic blast and storms that came down the central part of the United States are another example of extreme weather due to global warming. The event in Texas, in particular, reveals that the country’s basic infrastructure is not up to effectively dealing with the effects of climate change now and into the future, as more extreme weather develops. Scientists say that particular events cannot be reduced to climate change alone, but portend more extreme weather worldwide. However, this current event is directly connected to the fact that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe. As global warming reduces the amount of Arctic ice, a vicious spiral has developed, which accelerates Arctic warming. The ice cap is white, which reflects sunlight back into space during the summer. As the ice cap melts and shrinks due to global warming, it reflects less sunlight and exposes the water of the Arctic Ocean to warming, which contributes to climate change. The cycle reinforces itself. By Barry Sheppard
Restoring And Reimagining Investment In Public Water: Executive Summary As the COVID-19 pandemic has acutely highlighted, water is essential to life and health. Without affordable, clean, and safe water, the ability of people to wash their hands, bathe, wash and cook food, clean clothes, prepare infant formula, stay hydrated, and do other everyday activities that keep them healthy is severely compromised, if not impossible. However, threats of aging water infrastructure in desperate need of repair, combined with declining federal funding, have contributed to a water affordability crisis across the country, especially for low-income communities and communities of color. This policy brief examines the connections between the current state of water infrastructure, the unaffordability of water, and the harms caused by privatization, with a focus on how these issues impact vulnerable communities, especially those of color. Specifically, in reviewing available research, the brief highlights several important issues:
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Many water facilities are aging and need repair, replacement, and re-engineering to ensure they meet health, safety, and environmental standards and can withstand current and future challenges linked to climate change. In 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the country’s drinking water systems a grade of “D.”1 This infrastructure gap contributes to serious public health issues, including lead leaching from pipes into drinking water and other forms of toxic water contamination.
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Federal support for water infrastructure has declined 77 percent in real terms since its peak in 1977.2 In 1977, 63 percent of total capital spending for water and wastewater systems came from federal agencies. Today that number is less than 9 percent. This decline has pressured states and localities to fill the gap. But most local governments have been unable to raise sufficient funds for critical repairs. This lack has meant that water systems are more reliant on user rates, which places upward pressure on rates and can make water unaffordable. Recent research from Michigan State University shows that in 14 million U.S. households, or 12 percent of homes, water bills are too expensive.3
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Some struggling systems in need of repairs have turned to water privatization, but research and numerous anecdotal examples show that private water corporations often cut corners to reduce operating costs, negatively impacting water or service quality, or both. A 2015 study by Food and Water Watch found that, on average, private utilities charged typical households 59 percent more than local governments charged for drinking water service.4 These impacts are particularly felt by low-income communities and communities of color, since struggling systems disproportionality serve these communities.5 Moreover, privatization schemes also harm the workers who run these systems, as corporations often reduce wages and benefits, or even the number of workers, in an effort to cut operating costs. FEBRUARY 2021 RESTORING AND REIMAGINING INVESTMENT IN PUBLIC WATER 2
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Many of the systems with the most pressing need for investment serve marginalized, low-income communities, many of which are communities of color.6 Recent research shows that water systems notorious for being serial violators of the Safe Water Drinking Act were 40 percent more likely to be found in communities with higher percentages of people of color.7 These severe infrastructure and funding gaps fall particularly hard on rural areas, tribal communities, and lowincome areas, especially communities of color, since their residents are often unable to absorb additional rate increases.8 Water systems that serve lower-income communities of color are especially vulnerable to unaffordable rates and rate hikes, and these residents disproportionately face threats such as service shutoffs, water liens, evictions, and foreclosure of their homes.9
Corporate Climate Polluters Must Pay For Damage Who should pay the huge costs of climate change’s damage? There’s a case for corporate climate polluters to contribute. By extension, the actions of these corporate giants stand accused of contributing to floods and droughts and other climate-related disasters around the globe, extremely costly in both human and financial terms. By Quintin Rayer
Civil Rights/Black Liberation: 
Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist: Freedom Rider: No Human Rights in TexasThe people of Texas suffer unnecessarily from bad weather because their state puts oligarchs first and does not recognize the human right to health and safety.
BLACK CITIZENSHIP FORUM: The Roots of Xenophobic Violence in South Africa—A Pan African ResponseBlack Agenda Review Editors: South Africa must dismantle and transcend the colonial nation-state through creation of a Pan-African federation that stretches across the Southern African sub-continent.
He’s under suspicion… By Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
The rioters all knew him— it had to be an inside job— ‘cause to a man they spoke to him by name as they breached the building. Read their lips…
Joy James: Revolutionary Love in Shades of Darkness Combined with Revolutionary Love, we grow power through mutual aid, political education, release of the incarcerated, and community control over police.
Minkah Makalami: Cedric Robinson and the Origins of Race
To dismiss the logic of Robinson’s “racial capitalism,” one must ignore the only history of capitalism we have.
Pam Africa: Judas and the Black Messiah, A Missed Opportunity
The film framed Hampton as a victim instead of a pro-active freedom fighter and revolutionary.
Geoffrey Jacques: A New Civil Rights Movement, a New Journal
By the end of its run, Freedomways had become something close to a journal of record of the mid-to-late 20th Century African American freedom movement.
Sarah Anderson, Scott Klinger, and Brian Wakamo: Black Families Have a Major Stake in the Future of the Postal Service If there is any source of mass employment that has provided Black workers with decent wages and upward mobility, it is the US Postal Service, the target of corporatist assault.
The Left Lens Presents: An Interciew with Filmon Zerai The U.S. and West have for centuries waged ideological warfare on the African continent to satisfy their aims of imperialist expansion. Filmon Zerai joins Danny Haiphong on the latest Internationalist Transmission to discuss pressing issues relating to the Horn of Africa and why a deeper understanding of the region is critical toward forging solidarity among the oppressed across continents. Filmon Zerai is an independent commentator on the Horn of Africa & Global Politics. His work has appeared on Aljazeera, Sputnik, and Black Agenda Report.
Labor:
Figures Don’t Lie, But Liard Can ‘Figure’!: New Report Estimating $15 Minimum Wage Will Cost 1.4 Million Jobs Is Wrong A much-cited Congressional Budget Office estimate doesn’t reflect the best economic evidence. Opponents of raising the minimum wage have seized on a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office that estimated that increasing it to $15 an hour by 2025 would cause 1.4 million Americans to lose their jobs. These “significant job losses,” according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president, provide reason enough to abandon the Biden administration’s plan to help low-income workers. First, it important to recognize the CBO also observes that income gains resulting from the wage increase are substantially greater than the reduction in income from job losses, thereby lifting nearly a million people out of poverty. Nonetheless, the report’s assumptions about job losses are problematic — significantly out of step with modern research on the subject. By Arindrajit Dube
Economy:
Lawless Coup on Wall Street Continues: GameStop Doubles in Price in One Day It’s not just the nation’s Capitol that saw a lawless attempted coup this year. There’s an ongoing lawless coup taking place on Wall Street among stock manipulators who seem to be sending the message to the Biden administration, “we dare you to catch us.” We continue to write about GameStop because it stands at the intersection of everything that is corrupt and broken in U.S. markets: from payment-for-order flow, to high frequency trading, to front-running, to Dark Pools, to hedge funds masquerading as market makers and lack of an audit trail at the Securities and Exchange Commission to shed daylight on the whole corrupt mess. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Within a Matter of Months, the Fed’s Balance Sheet Will Hit $8 Trillion; These Charts Tell the Rest of the Story Every Thursday, at approximately 4:30 p.m., the Federal Reserve provides a report on its balance sheet as of the prior day. It’s known as the H.4.1 report or the Wednesday Level report.On Thursday, September 4, 2008, the Fed’s H.4.1 report showed a $935 billion balance sheet as of Wednesday, September 3, 2008. That was 12 days before iconic financial institutions on Wall Street began to blow up in what became the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. As of last Wednesday, February 17, 2021, the Fed’s balance sheet stood at $7.6 trillion – an increase of 712.83 percent in less than 13 years. Every Thursday, at approximately 4:30 p.m., the Federal Reserve provides a report on its balance sheet as of the prior day. It’s known as the H.4.1 report or the Wednesday Level report. On Thursday, September 4, 2008, the Fed’s H.4.1 report showed a $935 billion balance sheet as of Wednesday, September 3, 2008. That was 12 days before iconic financial institutions on Wall Street began to blow up in what became the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. As of last Wednesday, February 17, 2021, the Fed’s balance sheet stood at $7.6 trillion – an increase of 712.83 percent in less than 13 years. The Federal Reserve was created in 1913 and such a staggering growth in its balance sheet has not occurred at any other period in U.S. history — not during the Great Depression, not even during or after World War II. @hat has changed the course of economic history in the United States and put the country on a debt-fueled disaster course is the Wall Street crash of 2008 and the bailouts, both monetary and fiscal, that have followed ever since, together with the unwillingness of Congress to confront this reality. The charts above showing the unprecedented growth in the federal debt and federal debt versus GDP since the Wall Street crash of 2008 confirm this thesis. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
South Africa: SAFTU General Strike – “Capitalism Fails The Working Class and the Poor, Not by Default, But by Design” On Wednesday, 24 February, 21 unions of the South African Federation of Trade Unions went on a general strike against deep and sustained cuts in the living standards of workers, and to fight for a radical change in the country’s economic policies. Frustration runs high amongst the working class over mass retrenchments, wage freezes and brutal austerity measures in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. By Ben Morken
What Planet Is NATO Living On? The February meeting of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Defense Ministers, the first since President Biden took power, revealed an antiquated, 75-year-old alliance that, despite its military failures in Afghanistan and Libya, is now turning its military madness toward two more formidable, nuclear-armed enemies: Russia and China. This theme was emphasized by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a Washington Post op-ed in advance of the NATO meeting, insisting that “aggressive and coercive behaviors from emboldened strategic competitors such as China and Russia reinforce our belief in collective security.” By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
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
Majority of US Voters Want Government to Invest More in Healthcare, Education, and Fighting Poverty: Poll 57% of the electorate thinks the government doesn’t spend enough on anti-poverty initiatives, while 56% want to see more investment in education and healthcare. Lawmakers working on a new relief package to mitigate the ongoing coronavirus crisis shouldn’t hesitate to go big considering that a majority of U.S. voters say the government spends “too little” on healthcare, education, and anti-poverty measures, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll released Tuesday. By Kenny Stancil
Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!: Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter 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 Racism, War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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: