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Yesterday was Bastille Day: The Conspiracy of Equals and the birth of communism (Jean Léger examines the history of Gracchus Babeuf and his ‘Conspiracy of Equals’, a communist organisation which emerged during the French Revolution. English version from The Commune: first appeared as ‘Babeuf et la naissance du communisme ouvrier’ in issue 2 of critical Marxist journal Socialisme ou Barbarie , May-June 1949.) Babeuf was the first example of a militant formulating a coherent socialist doctrine, struggling for a “plebeian” socialist revolution, in his view indispensible for the reorganisation of the economy and society as a whole. These attempts at the first communist party and doctrine are of great importance to us: they allow us to understand how revolutionary thought has developed. They moreover offer the opportunity for a concrete analysis of the link between the revolutionary militant and the working class in a given historical period [1].
Images of the Day:
. . . The relation of poverty to the very process of accumulation is dismissed by conventional economic theory. The resulting liberal virus, which pollutes contemporary social thought and annihilates the capacity to understand the world, let alone transform it, has deeply penetrated the various lefts constituted since the Second World War. The movements currently engaged in social struggles for “another world” and an alternative globalization will only be able to produce significant social advances if they get rid of this virus in order to construct an authentic theoretical debate. As long as they have not gotten rid of this virus, social movements, even the best intentioned, will remain locked in the shackles of conventional thought and therefore prisoners of ineffective corrective propositions—those which are fed by the rhetoric concerning poverty reduction. The analysis sketched above should contribute to opening this debate. This is because it reestablishes the pertinence of the link between capital accumulation on the one hand and the phenomenon of social pauperization on the other. One hundred and fifty years ago, Marx initiated an analysis of the mechanisms behind this link, which has hardly been pursued since then — and scarcely at all on a global scale. —World Poverty, Pauperization and Capital Accumulation (2003)
Nearly a century after Americans hailed the kaiser’s abdication, more than seventy years after they celebrated Hitler’s suicide, and almost thirty years after they cheered the fall of the Berlin Wall, a thoroughly pacified Europe cannot muster the wherewithal to deal even with modest threats such as post-Soviet Russia. For the United States to indulge this European inclination to outsource its own security might make sense if Europe itself still mattered as much as it did when the War for the West began. But it does not. Indeed, having on three occasions over the course of eight decades helped prevent Europe from being dominated by a single hostile power, the United States has more than fulfilled its obligation to defend Western civilization. Europe’s problems need no longer be America’s. Finally, there is this old lesson, evident in each of the four wars that make up our alternative narrative but acutely present in the ongoing War for the Greater Middle East. That is the danger of allowing moral self-delusion to compromise political judgment. Americans have a notable penchant for seeing U.S. troops as agents of all that is good and holy pitted against the forces of evil. On rare occasions, and even then only loosely, the depiction has fit. Far more frequently, this inclination has obscured both the moral implications of American actions and the political complexities underlying the conflict to which the United States has made itself a party. Indulging the notion that we live in a black-and-white world inevitably produces military policies that are both misguided and morally dubious. In the Greater Middle East, the notion has done just that, exacting costs that continue to mount daily as the United States embroils itself more deeply in problems to which our military power cannot provide an antidote. Perseverance is not the answer; it’s the definition of insanity. Thinking otherwise would be a first step toward restoring sanity. Reconfiguring the past so as to better decipher its meaning offers a first step toward doing just that. — American Imperium: Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual war
U.S.
The Iron Heel by Obama’s Fiat: Obama Signs Executive Order Allowing Military To Fight US Citizens: President Obama has signed an executive order that allows for the US military to use force against American citizens for the first time in history. by Sean Adl-Tabatabai
The Network: Leaked Data Reveals How the U.S. Trains Vast Numbers of Foreign Soldiers and Police With Little Oversight: On a gray winter Monday, the State Department officials began certifying the names at a rate of one every two minutes and 23 seconds. In rapid succession, they confirmed that 204 police officers, soldiers, sailors, and airmen from 11 countries had committed no gross human rights violations and cleared them to attend one of more than 50 training efforts sponsored by the U.S. government. The programs were taking place at a wide variety of locations, from Italy, Albania, and Jordan to the states of Louisiana and Minnesota. By Douglas Gillison, Nick Turse, Moiz Syed 
Doublespeak form the White House: In Attempt to Dodge Suit, White House Argues Funding War Makes War Legal: U.S. Army captain sued President Obama over legality of sprawling ISIS conflict: A lawsuit filed earlier this year charging President Barack Obama with waging an illegal war against the Islamic State (or ISIS) was met on Tuesday with a motion from the Obama administration asking the court to dismiss it.In its motion to dismiss (pdf), the administration argues that congressional funding for the war amounts to congressional approval for it. by Nika Knight
Environment:
The New Attack On Climate Scientists: Drain Their Funds With Frivolous Lawsuits: The average cost to hire an attorney in the United States is around $300 per hour. The average lawsuit, not including class action or mass tort cases, takes between one and two years to reach a conclusion. These financial and time-related costs quickly become a huge burden for anyone on the receiving end of a subpoena, and that’s why climate change denial groups are using the court system as a means to put the brakes on the work of climate scientists. By Farron Cousins 
Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters:
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Sanders Didn’t Lose the Black Vote: He Never Had It, and Never Asked Why: On the issues, Bernie Sanders should have won the black vote. But presidential politics isn’t just about issues, it’s about entrenched alliances and relations of power. Without understanding why the most left wing constituency in the US delivers its vote reliably to the most right wing interests in the Democratic party, Bernie wasn’t even knocking on the door of the black vote. He was knocking on the wall, unable to find the door. by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon 
Rulers Shocked by Dallas Attack: Black Folks Keep on Stepping: Blacks were righteously outraged at two horrific killings, but were then urged to stand down when a lone Black man exacted his own retribution on Dallas police officers. When activists escalated their protests, the powers-that-be and the Black Misleaders that serve them tried to change the subject to gun control. However, the problem of police shootings of Black people is not about gun control, but who controls the police. by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“America! America! God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!” — Police Have a License to Terrorize and Commit Murder:
Economy:
Citigroup Has More Derivatives than 4,701 U.S. Banks Combined; After Blowing Itself Up With Derivatives in 2008: According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), as of March 31, 2016, there were 6,122 FDIC insured financial institutions in the United States. Of those 6,122 commercial banks and savings associations, 4,701 did not hold any derivatives. To put that another way, 77 percent of all U.S. banks found zero reason to engage in high-risk derivative trading. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Greek Destruction by Austerity is an Example of the 1%’s Pauperization of the World, Due to the Profit Drive of the Capitalist System — As Humanity is losing Its’ Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Greece in crisis – Part three: Capitalism kills, especially Greek capitalism:The suffering of the Greek people is deep, very deep. Austerity is pushing larger and larger sections of the population into poverty. With this comes also a seriously worsening healthcare situation which is a direct consequence of the cuts imposed by the Troika, and suicides have also been going up in line with the increase in unemployment. by Fred Weston 
Two Labour Parties – The right wing is heading for a split: We are living in a period of sharp and sudden changes. The result of the British EU referendum was yet another such sharp and sudden changes. In a further dramatic turn of events yesterday the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party voted by a majority of 14 to 18 to allow Jeremy Corbyn to defend his position as Labour leader without having to seek nomination by Labour MPs. by Alan Woods
Corbyn on the ballot: let the battle commence: Yesterday evening, as Theresa May prepared to move into 10 Downing Street and continue the Tories’ programme of austerity, privatisation, and attacks on workers and migrants, Jeremy Corbyn emerged from a tense meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to confirm that he would be automatically on the ballot paper in the upcoming Labour leadership contest. With hundreds of thousands of new members joining the Party over the past year because of Corbyn’s leadership, the Blairite back-stabbers are now resigned to the fact that their attempted coup has failed. by Socialist Appeal – Britain
Attempts to Reform Capitalism Fail in Venezuela: Venezuela in Crisis: Too Much US intervention, Too Little Socialism: In terms of socialist development, food sovereignty typifies wealth produced for all through work. The government apparently lacked the vision or capacity to move beyond the short-term, capitalist way of doing things. It remains stuck in generating wealth almost exclusively through the extraction of oil. by W. T. Whitney
Health, Education, and Welfare:
‘Lessor Evil’: Cartoon by John Darkow 
Quotes of the Day:
· Viral photo shows Cleveland cop pointing gun at two unarmed black women at scene of hit-and-run
Labor: