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Images Of the Day:
Re: Biden’s Chauvin Trial Speech, —In Africa and World-Wide, The United States is in Economic Competition With China: He Must Present, to the World, the Illusion That It is Not a Racist Contry!
The Power of the Video: Keep Taping and Showing Police Brutality/Terrorisn! Opinion: Caught On Camera
Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 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!
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!
Quotes 0f the Day:
The Power of the Recent Demonstrations Mass Multiracial Floyd Demonstrations/ Rebellion: The Conviction of Chauvin is the Direct Outcome of the Floyd Demonstrations/Rebellion.!:
No one should think otherwise. Rebellions extract concessions from repressive systems, sometimes significant ones. However, rebellions do not dismantle repressive social orders, and the (re)productive systems they rest upon. Only social and productive revolutions can do that. We need a revolution to dismantle capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy, and not be satisfied with the token concessions and reforms that the system has on offer. — Kali Akuno
The impact on the national political agenda has been devastating, For years, the mainstream news has over dramatized its reporting of congressional and White House debate on the national debt and deficit beyond their intrinsic importance. Politicians raised the issue, but it was seized upon and overblown by the major media–media that politicians use as a bellwether on what issues will get them the most public attention and partisan advantage. During these crucial years, the American economy was undergoing an astonishing phenomenon that the mainstream news left largely unreported or actually glamorized in its infrequent references: the largest transfer of the national wealth in American history from a majority of the population to a small percentage of the country’s wealthiest families.— Ben H. Bagdikian1, The Media Monopoly
Videos of the Day:
Deepwater Horizon: Corporate Homicide: Deepwater Horizon – The Untold StoryIf you don’t know about the earlier blow-out, it’s because BP didn’t tell you, didn’t tell anyone but its drilling partners Exxon and Chevron — and in a top secret cable, George W. Bush’s State Department. The oil company chieftains kept the devastating information tightly concealed — even though US law required they report such rig failures to the US Department of Interior. If BP had reported the disaster to Interior, the 11 men would be alive today, because Interior’s experts had tried to stop BP from drilling in the unstable deep waters of the Gulf. … While I had to cross the planet to confirm BP’s cover-up of the prior blow-out, our source for the State Department’s complicity came from another courageous source closer to home. Bradley, now Chelsea Manning, passed the Bush crew’s secret cables to my colleagues at The Guardian.
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!
U.S. Policing Budgets Would Rank As The World’s Third-Highest Military Expenditure $118bn was spent funding police forces in the U.S. in 2018, according to the Security Policy Reform Institute. It collectively makes American police forces the world’s third-most expensive military organization, after the U.S.’s official armed forces and China’s. The chart is somewhat misleading, though, in that the same is basically true of other wealthy countries: per-capita spending on police in Europe is also very high, but the countries are less populous. Police forces in the UK enjoy some $25bn in funding, for example, a spend proportionate to the US total that nonethless places it outside the top ten on the that military spending chart. But there’s one thing that’s plainly different: US police are militarized by policy, trained to treat the public as a threat, and kill people in far greater numbers than their foreign counterparts. The declared enemy of American police forces is the American people, and their war on us claims about 1000 lives a year. By Rob Beschizza
The Real ‘Deciders’: Just 12 Super-Rich Donors Spent $3.4 Billion to Sway US Elections Since 2009: Study “The time is now to get big money out of politics, and move to the public funding of elections,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders in response. By Kenny Stancil
Every ‘Tax Reform’ , Since President Kennedy. Has Resulted the Greatest Transfer of Weath From The Working and and the Poor in History! Tax Stock Returns: If Biden Really Wants to Close Corporate Income Tax Loopholes President Biden has indicated that he wants to raise much of the money to cover the cost of his infrastructure program by raising the corporate income tax. The amount of money raised through the corporate income tax plummeted following the Trump tax cut in 2017. In non-recession years it had been averaging close to 2.0 percent of GDP. It had plummeted to just 1.0 percent of GDP in 2018 and 1.1 percent of GDP in 20019. If we could get the corporate income tax back to 2.0 percent of GDP, it would add over $200 billion a year to government revenue. Over the ten-year budget planning horizon, this would add more than the projected $2.3 trillion projected cost of President Biden’s infrastructure program. This would be real money. By Dean Baker
Environment:
No More Factory Farms!: Earth Abuse and the Next Pandemic Escaping ecological catastrophe and reducing the frequency of pandemics that might be lurking in the decades ahead is well within our capability, but it will require assiduous respect for ecological limits and great restraint in our interactions with nature. By Stan Cox
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Derek Chauvin’s Conviction Was a Relief — But Courts Cannot Deliver Racial Justice! The killing of a Black girl, Ma’Khia Bryant, just minutes before Chauvin’s conviction is a reminder of how violent the broader system is. Twenty minutes before a Minnesota jury convicted George Floyd’s killer of murder, a 16-year-old Black girl, Ma’Khia Bryant, was shot and killed by police in Columbus, Ohio. The Columbus police released body camera footage with unusual swiftness, as if a gesture toward transparency could take the place of accountability. The police have stressed the fact that Bryant can be seen in the video with a knife. By Natasha Lennard
Chauvin Convicted for George Floyd’s Murder—But There Can Be No Real Justice in a Racist System! Last summer, tens of millions of people in the US participated in the Black Lives Matter movement sparked by the racist police murder of George Floyd. Nearly one year later, on 20 April 2021, his killer Derek Chauvin was convicted of three charges: second-degree unintentional felony murder; third-degree “depraved mind” murder; and second-degree manslaughter. Chauvin’s conviction is a far cry from justice for George Floyd and all those constantly facing police brutality. One individual cop being “held accountable” for his actions is a symbolic gesture that comes in response to the enormous energy expended by the masses during the movement last year. But the uprising last summer was not just caused by George Floyd’s murder—it was an explosion of all the pent-up anger from the constant harassment and exploitation that millions of oppressed people experience every day. By Erika Roedland and Arman Ebrahimi
Borders of Racial Capitalism: Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste Isn’t This a Time! Pardon beginning with jargon. Under racial capitalist social and power relations, stated policy intentions are inverted relative to social outcomes, and pandemic inequality reigns with a deadly life of its own. This is the rotten fruit of a poisoned neoliberal model of the relationship between the state and finance. We should dump it and live differently. Let me try to explain. By Thomas Stephens
Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 19, 2021 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Criminal Neglect of Mumia’s Health Supporters of Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, held a press conference last Thursday demanding medical treatment for his damaged arteries, yet Pennsylvania prison officials refused to even confirm that heart surgery was scheduled. Abu Jamal will mark his 67th birthday on April 24. Dr. Ricardo Alvarez, Abu Jamal’s longtime physician, noted that “in some states, close to 20 percent” of the prison population are elderly.
Maroons Sought Freedom on Ocean CurrentsJustin Dunnavant, a post- doctoral scholar who has researched maroon cultures in the Caribbean, Central America and African, said “there is a Black history that occurs on the ocean – its’ not just land-based.” Dunnavant authored a recent article titled, “Have Confidence in the Sea: Maritime Maroons and Fugitive Geographies.” Escaped enslaved people found opportunities on the high seas, as well as in the mountains and swamps.
Blacks and the US: a History of Resistance The United States has been in constant conflict with its Black population, which has been the greatest source of its wealth, said Dr. Gerald Horne, the prolific author who teaches African American Studies and history at the University of Houston. Enslaved and free African Americans often “collaborated with the real and imagined enemies” of the United States, to undermine the nation’s systems of oppression. “So, this was a troublesome property,” that consistently resists its subordination by a hostile government.
Labor:
Economy:
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Redefined, Revamped and Revised Money Supply –Fully Updated Tables and Graphs; Massive Annual Growth Distortions Ahead in Jobs,
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GDP, Money Supply, Etc., Against Year-Ago Pandemic Shutdown
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Intractable and Deteriorating Conditions Still Signal No Imminent Economic Recovery, Irrespective of Some Bounces in March Activity Against Weather-Driven February Collapses
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Monthly Annual and Post-Pandemic Payroll Declines Have Stabilized Around Minus Six-to-Seven Percent for the Last Eight Month, Weakest Showing Since 1946
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Annual-Change Gyrations Are Just Beginning for Economic, Inflation, Money Supply and Financial Return Numbers, as the Pandemic-Driven Collapse Passes It First Anniversary
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Beyond Year One, Multi-Year, Beyond Year One, Multi-Year, Crisis-Driven Collapses Need to Be Assessed Against Pre-Crisis Levels, or Stacked Two-Year Change, As Well As Year-to-Year Change
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The Federal Reserve Overhauled Its Money Supply Reporting, Redefining Traditional M1 from 34.8% to 93.4% of a Not-Redefined Total M2
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This Masked Accelerating Flight-to-Liquidity in Traditional M1 from Non-M1 Components of M2
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ShadowStats Defined ―Basic M1‖ — Combined Currency and Demand Deposits — Still Reflects the Extraordinary Liquidity Flight to, and Surge in the Narrower Money Supply
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Expanded Federal Reserve Accommodation Remains Likely Well Into 2023, Given the Increasingly Negative Outlook for Imminent U.S. Economic Recovery
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Fed Chair Powell Noted That Surging Money Supply No Longer Boosts the Economy
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That Is Because the Current Collapse Is Pandemic, Not Business-Cycle Driven; Surging Money Growth in a Non-Business-Cycle Collapse Can Trigger Hyperinflation
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Surging Monetary Base, Reserves and Currency Indicate Intensifying Systemic Problems
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Underlying Fundamentals Remain Extremely Strong for Gold and Silver, and Weak for the U.S. Dollar and Stocks, Despite Central Bank or Other Systemic Machinations to the Contrary
Senator Elizabeth Warren Appears to Know Something About Wall Street’s Dark Pools and the Collapse of Archegos Hedge Fund On Tuesday, March 30, Senator Elizabeth Warren provided the following statement to CNBC regarding the blowup of the Archegos Capital Management hedge fund. “Archegos’ meltdown had all the makings of a dangerous situation — largely unregulated hedge fund, opaque derivatives, trading in private dark pools, high leverage, and a trader who wriggled out of the SEC’s enforcement.” All of the elements of that statement were well known at that point, except one. No one in mainstream media at that time, or since, was talking about Wall Street’s Dark Pools in connection with the implosion of Archegos. (Dark Pools are opaque, thinly regulated trading platforms that function much like private stock exchanges operating inside the biggest banks on Wall Street. Through some twisted reasoning by the SEC, the banks are even allowed to trade shares of their own bank’s stock.) By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Pomp and Circumstance In UK: UK’s Society of the Spectacle: Mourning Prince Philip CounterPuncher Binoy Kampmark has given us an unsparingly accurate snapshot of the late Prince Philip in action at a Cambridge University event in 2006, while placing that event in the supervening context of the old brute’s habitual racism, misogyny, and regal condescension. The BBC gave saturation coverage of Philip’s death, as did the main commercial channel ITV. Following Philip’s death at Windsor Castle aged 99, the BBC scrapped its schedules across both BBC One and BBC Two to run an endless succession of mirrored programmes about him. By Kenneth Surin
‘It Is About Saving Lives’: Doctors Without Borders Calls on US, EU to Stop Blocking Vaccine Patent Waiver “It is about saving lives at the end, not protecting systems.” —Dr. Maria Guevara, Doctors Without Borders. “We urge all countries in opposition to this, including the U.S. and the E.U., to stand on the right side of history and join hands with those in support.” By Jake Johnson
South Africa: Cape Town Fires – Capitalism’s Criminal Negligence Huge fires have inflicted massive damage on Cape Town, destroying priceless cultural artefacts and forcing thousands to evacuate. This preventable disaster was a product of the decrepit capitalist system, and has thrown the deep inequality and social rot in South African society into sharp relief. At 8:45 am on Sunday morning, a fire broke out that burned vast areas of Cape Town’s Table Mountain, historical landmarks and a University of Cape Town library that held priceless collections of African antiquities and irreplaceable historical manuscripts. Within hours, several buildings of the university, including some student residences, were engulfed in flames. Around 4,000 students had to be evacuated from the from the campuses. By Ben Morken
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
When the Rich Paid Taxes in California, Colleges Were Tutition Free!: Sanders, Jayapal Plan Would Tax Wall Street Speculation to Fund Tuition-Free College The Vermont senator’s office described the proposal as “the most substantial federal investment in higher education in the modern history of the United States.” Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced legislation Wednesday morning that would make public colleges and universities tuition-free for students from families earning less than $125,000 a year—a proposal President Joe Biden ran on during last year’s general election.The bill—titled the College for All Act of 2021 (pdf) and funded by a tax on financial transactions in the stock market—would also guarantee tuition-free community college for all and invest $10 billion annually in under-funded education institutions. By Jake Johnson
Shadow Government Statistic s Benchmark Commentary, Issue No. 1459