Skip to content
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!
Image of the Day:
Imposing or propping up dictators subservient to the U.S. has long been, and continues to be, the preferred means for U.S. policymakers to ensure that those inconvenient popular beliefs are suppressed. None of this is remotely controversial or even debatable. U.S. support for tyrants has largely been conducted out in the open, and has been expressly defended and affirmed for decades by the most mainstream and influential U.S. policy experts and media outlets. The foreign policy guru most beloved and respected in Washington, Henry Kissinger, built his career on embracing and propping up the most savage tyrants because of their obeisance to U.S. objectives. Among the statesman’s highlights, as Greg Grandin documented, he “pumped up Pakistan’s ISI, and encouraged it to use political Islam to destabilize Afghanistan”; “began the U.S.’s arms-for-petrodollars dependency with Saudi Arabia and pre-revolutionary Iran”; and “supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America.” Kissinger congratulated Argentina’s military junta for its mass killings and aggressively enabled the genocide carried out by one of the 20th century’s worst monsters, the Indonesian dictator and close U.S. ally Suharto. — Glen Greenwald, Trump’s Support and Praise of Despots Is Central to the U.S. Tradition, Not a Deviation From It
Video of the Day:
Afghanistan: The Longest U.S. War is Deadlier Than Ever Matthew Hoh, a military veteran and diplomat who resigned his State Department post in protest of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, says the 16-year Afghan war won’t end until the U.S. drops its strategy of sporadic escalation and insistence on Taliban surrender, with Afghan civilians suffering the worst consequences.
U.S.:
Why Civil Resistance Works and Why the Billionaire-Class Cares To live for 101 glorious years like the recently departed David Rockefeller (1915–2017) is a pleasantry that most of us will never enjoy. Every year untold millions of lives are unnecessarily cut short because of poverty and war; all because a ruling, billionaire class, feels obliged to inflict violence upon the rest of us to enhance their own profit margins. by Michael Barker 
Trump’s Support and Praise of Despots Is Central to the U.S. Tradition, Not a Deviation From It Since at least the end of World War II, supporting the world’s worst despots has been a central plank of U.S. foreign policy, arguably its defining attribute. The list of U.S.-supported tyrants is too long to count, but the strategic rationale has been consistent: In a world where anti-American sentiment is prevalent, democracy often produces leaders who impede rather than serve U.S. interests. By Glenn Greenwald
Apartheid in the Shadows: the USA, IBM and South Africa’s Digital Police State by Michael Kwet
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Killer Cops Get Immunity, No Matter Who’s in the White House The U.S. Justice Department, now led by Republicans, has officially declined to prosecute the cops that killed Alton Sterling, on video, in Baton Rouge, last year. That’s no surprise. The Obama Justice Department only brought charges against one killer cop – and only after local authorities in South Carolina had already done so. Trump can hardly do worse. “When it comes to killer cops, the best of evidence is never enough.” A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford 
Freedom Rider: Obama Gets Paid Obama opposed reparations for Black slavery, but gladly pockets payback for his work in ensuring that banks are “too big to jail.” Obama has been on the Lord’s of Capital’s payroll, coming and going, having won the presidency with the largest contributions from Wall Street in history. “The fact that his defenders so casually shrug their shoulders and defend kleptocracy ought to be debated.” by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Trump’s First 100 Days: The War Party Lives On Donald Trump has been brought to heel, as Hillary Clinton might say. “Trump has learned in his first 100 days in office that war is the primary marker of Presidential legitimacy.” The War Party’s anti-Russia campaign has crushed any hopes of lessening international tensions. “Where Obama succeeded in neutralizing the left, Trump is succeeding in dropping all so-called populist pretenses in favor of the warm embraces of the ruling elite.” by Danny Haiphong
Bruce Dixon: Don’t Let Democrats Drive You to Desperation Noted Black public intellectual Dr. Cornel West recently gave the nod to backers of a new, People’s Party. But Green Party activist and BAR managing editor Bruce Dixon says that trying to build a new progressive electoral force by “poaching” Democrats is the wrong way to go. In an interview with the author, Dixon said the Green Party’s “political positions are reflective of what enormous numbers, perhaps majorities, of Americans, want.” by Ann Garrison 
Who Is Behind the Assault on Public Schools? The author believes that school privatization, in the guise of “reform,” is primarily “led by organized coalitions of major corporations, who seek a curriculum suited to their own economic and political hegemony.” Corporate groups like the Business Roundtable took the lead early on, but later deferred to edu-philanthropists and edu-business outfits, including some that thrive on profits from gentrification. by Howard Ryan 
Whiteness and the Legitimacy Crisis of Global Capitalism “The Trump-right,” say the authors, “has sought to make up for the loss in the material wages of white workers through an increase in their ‘public and psychological wage’ (as W.E.B. Du Bois described it) —via the promotion of racism and xenophobia.” Since Trump is wedded to the transnational capitalist class that has orchestrated the global race to the bottom, all he can provide is “a more blatant normalization of bigotry” — and war. by Salvador Rangel – Jeb Sprague-Silgado
Global Capitalist Crisis and Trump’s War Drive Human extinction by war becomes more likely because the transnational capitalist class has militarized the process of accumulation. “The so-called wars on drugs, terrorism, and immigrants; the construction of border walls, immigrant detention centers, and ever-growing prisons; the installation of mass surveillance systems, and the spread of private security guard and mercenary companies, have all become major sources of profit-making.” by William I. Robinson
Africa Has No Stake in the French Election From de Gaulle in 1958 to Hollande in 2017, and for all members of the French establishment, the operational principle of the French towards Africa has been: “invade, intimidate, manipulate, install, antagonize, ingratiate, indemnify, expropriate.” Nothing in this election will change that – only Africans can. by Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
Environment:
Labor:
Economy:
Readers Pummel New York Times Writer Over His Big Bank Stance Andrew Ross Sorkin, the New York Times business writer who created a meme against breaking up the big Wall Street banks out of a mountain of grossly inaccurate facts, was pummeled by readers yesterday for doubling down on his out-of-touch position. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens 
World:
The Prisoners’ Revolt: The Real Reasons behind the Palestinian Hunger Strike Gaza is the world’s largest open air prison. The West Bank is a prison, too, segmented into various wards, known as areas A, B and C. In fact, all Palestinians are subjected to varied degrees of military restrictions. At some level, they are all prisoners. East Jerusalem is cut off from the West Bank, and those in the West Bank are separated from one another. By Ramzy Baroud 
Puerto Ricans protest on May Day as debt deadline nears Thousands of protesters blocked roads and marched in Puerto Rico’s capital Monday to vent their anger over a decade-long economic crisis and looming austerity measures. By Danica Coto
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Quote of the Day: 
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis: