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During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: 1. Austerity, 2. Scapegoating Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal Immigrants’ for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel.
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!
Images of the Day:
I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes. It would spread a lively terror. — Winston Churchill, 1920, with regard to the uprising in Iraq.
It is frequently said that Americans are the most patriotic population in the world. From childhood we are taught that we are the highest-minded, richest, most free, most democratic country, and therefore most fit to be the global hegemon. School kids don’t get ‘hegemon’, so they are taught that their country is the world’s sole superpower, and, for the safety of the world, must remain so. Surely something to be proud of. Since the end of the Second World War, a swollen media and entertainment establishment has drummed this message into our heads ceaselessly. The effectiveness of this kind of indoctrination is evident in a uniquely American henomenon, the display of the flag everywhere – at checkout counters, on cars, on lawns, from home windows. Only in America. Even as Americans disapprove of this or that war, the flag is never taken down. Most of us are inclined to call this an expression of super-patriotism. But nationalism is what is at work in America. Patriotism is an inexact term, connoting love of country. But do Americans “love their country”, however one construes that phrase, more than do the French or Brazilians? ‘Nationalism’ is not so vague. The phenomenon is a major political force, yet it no longer receives the attention from the Left that it did in the old days. Perhaps the broadest usage of the term was during the First World War, when (most) Marxian socialists opposed the war as a paradigm case of inter-imperialist rivalry, with colonial powers scrambling to carve up the world to the economic and political competitive advantage of their ruling classes. Socialists, communists and anarchists urged their fellow nationals to oppose the war on the grounds that its only beneficiaries were the initiators of the war, the ruling classes. Support for the war entailed the perverse conviction that working people had more in common with their class rulers than with the other workers of the world. The “national interest” was in fact the interest of the ruling class, and support for the war, put forward as commitment to the nation, was in fact an identification with one’s class masters rather than with those with whom one shared one’s deepest interests, the global working class. . . . — On Economic Patriotism: Capitalist Nationalism and the Making of American Political Identity
Videos of the Day:
U.S.:
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
‘Legal’ Terrorism By the US Occupying Army in the Black and Brown Communities: With Nighttime Raids, Police Wage War on Black and Brown Families in New York Large-scale raids on public housing in New York City have left families and communities of color throughout the city divided, displaced and devastated. Like the myth of the “super predator,” gang membership is used to justify massive state violence against young men of color. Now, families, activists and academics are uniting in order to fight back. By By Ashoka Jegroo
Environment:
Climate change: global reshuffle of wildlife will have huge impacts on humanity Mass migration of species to cooler climes has profound implications for society, pushing disease-carrying insects, crop pests and crucial pollinators into new areas, says international team of scientists. By Damian Carrington, Guardian Environment Editor 
Pesticides are “global human rights concern”, say UN experts urging new treaty Two United Nations experts are calling for a comprehensive new global treaty to regulate and phase out the use of dangerous pesticides in farming, and move towards sustainable agricultural practices. They say: “excessive use of pesticides are very dangerous to human health, to the environment and it is misleading to claim they are vital to ensuring food security.” The Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, and the Special Rapporteur on Toxics, Baskut Tuncak, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that widely divergent standards of production, use and protection from hazardous pesticides in different countries are creating double standards, which are having a serious impact on human rights. 
In California, salt taints soil, threatening food security. By Erica Gies
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Labor:
Economy:
Puerto Rico Students Strike Against US-Imposed University Cuts
Puerto Rican Students Take on Wall Street vultures This week, students at the University of Puerto Rico located in the metropolitan area of Río Piedras declared a strike which has effectively closed down the main campus of the island’s public university system. The students are protesting a plan to cut $450 million in funding to the university system which was demanded by a seven-person Fiscal Control Board imposed under the Obama administration and agreed to by the current colonial administration of Ricardo Rosselló. The planned cuts represented about a third of the public university system’s total budget and would directly affect academic programming, tuition costs and staffing. by Carlos Borrero
South Africa: Zuma’s soft coup — a leap into the dark! South Africa is in turmoil. President Jacob Zuma has effectively carried out an overnight soft coup. By purging the opposing big business faction from the cabinet and replacing it with stooges from his own faction he has brought the ANC infighting to a head. The consequences will be monumental, not just for the factions involved but for the class struggle in general. By Ben Morken
Imperialist coup plotters rail against a coup — what is really happening in Venezuela? Venezuela! Maduro has carried out a power-grab!” Just a few days before the 15th anniversary of the short lived coup against the democratically elected president Chavez (11-13 April, 2002), those who carried out that coup (the Venezuelan oligarchy, their masters in Washington and its lapdogs in Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Santiago de Chile and Lima, cheered on by the media wolf pack in Madrid and the US) are now shouting and screaming like hyenas against an alleged “self coup” by president Maduro. By Jorge Martin 
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
The U.S. Imperialist Dream: Pax American
Quotes of the Day: 
On Economic Patriotism: Capitalist Nationalism and the Making of American Political Identity by Alan Nasser 
False Flag Dog-Wag Warning I’ve been thinking since the Inauguration of the Orange Haired Beast as President of the United States: the time has never been riper for a false flag terror attack. Reality television product Donald Trump and his top political advisor, Steve Bannon, a veteran right wing propaganda filmmaker, need a dog to wag. by Paul Street
Violence: Theirs and Ours By Vijay Prashad
World:
White House Proposes Immediate Cuts To Pell Grants, HIV Research, Food Assistance The Trump Administration isn’t waiting until 2018 to try to slash federal spending that it has deemed unnecessary. The White House is proposing an immediate $18 billion in cuts to government programs that promote education, scientific research, health, job training and diplomacy, programs already approved for 2017. 
