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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:
Quotes of the Day:
Just what part of America’s “great” past do Trump and his backers most want to restore – when children toiled in coal mines and textile mills? When Black people were tortured and exploited under the savage regimes of chattel slavery? The Jim Crow years, which included Black disenfranchisement, strict racial segregation, and savage anti-Black violence in the South through the 1960s? When women couldn’t vote and were expected to remain in their homes and died in back-alley abortions? When single adult women were pitied as “old maids”? When gay people were beaten and consigned to the closet? When Chinese people were beaten in the Western United States because of their race? When Japanese Americans were herded into internment camps? When left union organizers and political activists were taken out into the desert and left to die? When armed Pinkertons and state militias beat and shot union organizers? When labor organizers and intellectuals were fired, blacklisted, jailed, imprisoned, and shamed for holding (or allegedly holding) left views? When white North American settlers butchered Native Americans and pushed them off their ancestral lands to make way for slave plantations and commodity farming? When the United States criminally and unnecessarily atom-bombed two cities in the already defeated nation of Japan? When the U.S. crucifixion of Southeast Asia liquated as many as 5 million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia? — Paul Street, Why Study History?
The U.S. government segregates terrorism cases into two categories — domestic and international. This database contains cases classified as international terrorism, though many of the people charged never left the United States or communicated with anyone outside the country. Since the 9/11 attacks, most of the 796 terrorism defendants prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice have been charged with material support for terrorism, criminal conspiracy, immigration violations, or making false statements — vague, nonviolent offenses that give prosecutors wide latitude for scoring quick convictions or plea bargains. 523 defendants have pleaded guilty to charges, while the courts found 175 guilty at trial. Just 2 have been acquitted and 3 have seen their charges dropped or dismissed, giving the Justice Department a near-perfect record of conviction in terrorism cases. Today, 345 people charged with terrorism-related offenses are in custody in the United States, including 58 defendants who are awaiting trial and remain innocent until proven guilty. — Trial and Terror
. . . When I undertook to write this book (War and Empire: The American Way of Life), I could not imagine that it would ever be translated into Farsi or Mandarin Chinese. Over the course of my teaching career I had become increasingly concerned about the vacancy of knowledge about their nation’s past on the part of my students and by extension many millions of my fellow American citizens. This condition of ignorance is the effect of the incomplete and, too often, dishonest orthodoxy in required school texts and by the distortion of the real past by popular culture, Hollywood films and corporate controlled network television, especially the purported “news.” George Orwell was correct. “Who controls the present controls the past.” What the majority of Americans are conditioned to think they know about their past (and that of many other peoples) is myth, and too often, sheer illusion. Misdirection and manipulation about proclaimed threats from abroad since 1945 has led directly into wars and unjust armed interventions and coups in many other nations. The results are always tragic on a colossal scale. None of this is accidental or new. Since the end of World War II the U.S. ruling elites have set forth an agenda claimed to foster what they call a “liberal world order” in which democracy and human rights for all are the declared goals. But little about real U.S. actions in the world supports these claims. Washington has overthrown elected governments and waged catastrophic war upon helpless civilians in many nations since 1945. The public is told that national security and “vital interests” are at stake and the corporate controlled media ensure that key realities are omitted, or distorted. It is no secret that today much of the human species is living in existential crisis-whether from war, economic exploitation or dire effects of climate change- and the profound ignorance about how the past shapes the present is a major factor in our failure to fashion a more peaceful and beneficial future. This volume is simply an attempt to illuminate much of the hidden history of the United States in the hope that more citizens in the United States will realize that we cannot continue on this destructive path and must find a way to cooperate with other nations instead of seeking to dominate them or outcompete them in a self-defeating contest for diminishing resources. Many American officials pay lip service to international cooperation but they really mean collaboration with the overarching American agenda. . . . — War and Empire: the American Way of Life by Paul Atwood
Videos of the Day:
U.S.:
War and Empire: the American Way of Life by Paul Atwood Horror Story To paraphrase Marx on the occasion of the accession of Napoleon III, the class struggle has created circumstances that have conspired to give the Presidency of the United States to a grotesque mediocrity – a reality-show host now surrounded by his family, a beautiful, entrepreneurial daughter and her handsome real-estate developer husband, the First Lady (an ice princess from a distant kingdom), and a ten year old princeling, speculatively named Baron. Banished, fairy-tale (or reality-show) style, is second daughter Tiffany, reputedly to be sequestered shortly at Harvard Law School. by John Davis
Human Rights and the Arrogance of Power International policy statements sometimes attract attention because they deal with serious matters, such as human rights, concerning which an important speech was made to the UN Security Council on April 18 by US Ambassador Nikki Haley. Ambassador Haley declared that “When a state begins to systematically violate human rights, it is a sign, it is a red flag, it’s a blaring siren – one of the clearest possible indicators that instability and violence may follow and spill across borders.” She singled out Burma, Cuba, Burundi, Iran, North Korea and Syria for censure and urged the nations of the world to adopt a policy of “standing for human rights before the absence of human rights forces us to react.” by Brian Cloughley
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Convicted for Protesting Jeff Sessions is No Laughing Matter On May 1st, I stood on trial for having “greeted” Jeff Sessions in Congress before the start of his confirmation hearing in January. I was convicted along with my fellow activists, Lenny Bianchi and Desiree Fairooz. We each face up to $2,000 in fines,12 months in prison, or both. The sentencing will take place on June 21sby Tighe Barry 
Environment:
United States Says ‘Yes’ to Nuclear Weapons Tests, ‘No’ to a Treaty Ban Twice in seven days the United States shot nuclear-capable long-range missiles toward the Martial Islands, but the same government refused in March to join negotiations for a new treaty banning nuclear weapons. by John Laforge
Do Climate Activists Have a Legal Justification for Civil Disobedience? With the U.S. still on track to miss its commitment to the Paris Agreement’s target of 2 degrees Celsius warming, many climate protesters are attempting to extend their struggle to the courtroom. Arguing that their acts of civil disobedience were justified by the government’s failure to adequately address global warming, they seek acquittals based upon the common law defense of necessity. by Ted Hamilton – Bill Quigley
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Labor:
Economy:
The 1% Collect $245 Billion Tax-Free Income Interest From Federal Debt Payments: GAO: Biggest Fiscal Threat to U.S. Is Interest on Treasury Debt – Not Social Welfare Programs The GAO cited a simulation that showed net interest payments on U.S. debt increasing “from $248 billion in fiscal year 2016 to $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2045 in 2016 dollars.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
The Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Unemployment Rate for April 2017 is 22.1%. 
Shadow Government Statistics No. 884: March 2017 Trade Deficit, Construction Spending, Real-World Employment Real-World Activity Continues to Signal an Intensifying Downturn. Beyond various private and public alternative measures to the federal government‟s headline employment, unemployment and GDP reporting, discussed in No. 859 Special Commentary, The Conference Board‟s Help Wanted OnLine® (HWOL) simply is one of the best leading indicators—private or public—of economic activity. First fully covered by ShadowStats in Commentary No. 820 of July 16, 2016, the HWOL is updated here through April 2017 (published May 3rd). As a leading economic indicator, help-wanted advertising had its roots as far back in time as the initial reporting of industrial production, post-World War I. The Conference Board has adapted the concept to reflect the fundamental shift of help-wanted advertising from printed newspapers to online advertising. The prior newspaper-based series simply was the best leading indicator of its day. Graph 1: The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® to April 2017
World:
Caracas May Day, the march the media did not report On May Day, hundreds of thousands marched in Caracas in defence of workers’ rights and the Bolivarian revolution. The mass media internationally, which has been paying a lot of attention to Venezuela and had correspondents in Caracas at the time, was unanimous in its silencing of this demonstration. Here’s my account. By Jorge Martin
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
The Forgotten History of Cinco de Mayo: It’s Not About Beer, It’s About Rich Countries Strangling Poor Ones But here’s important part for everyone else to remember today: France was invading Mexico essentially because Mexico owed France money. Mexico had borrowed enormous amounts from Europe during the Mexican-American War from 1846-8 and in a civil war from 1858-61. By 1862 it was impossible for the government to make timely payments on the loans without starving the country, and Mexican president Benito Juárez declared that all payments on foreign debt would be suspended for two years. By Jon Schwarz 
Nader Rips Sanders and Democrats for Putting Single-Payer on Back Burner In putting single payer on the back burner, Sanders has reverted to his November 2016 position when his staff told activists that no single payer bill would be introduced in the Senate because the Democrats wanted to focus on defeating the Republicans. by Russell Mokhiber
