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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 Who Profit From Austerity! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico!
Images of the Day:
It is becoming increasingly clear that capitalism has exhausted its progressive potential. Instead of developing industry, science and technology, it is steadily undermining them. Nobody any more believes the constant assurances that we are on the verge of an economic recovery. The productive forces stagnate or decline, factories are closed as if they were matchboxes, and millions are thrown out of work. All these are symptoms that show that the development of the productive forces on a world scale has gone beyond the narrow limits of private property and the nation state. That is the most fundamental reason for the present crisis, which has exposed the bankruptcy of capitalism in the most literal sense of the word. Everywhere the symptoms of crisis are manifesting themselves, economically, socially and politically. The huge Chinese economy, which played an important role in boosting world trade and economic growth, is slowing sharply, while Japan is stagnant. The so-called emerging economies are all in crisis to one extent or another. The USA is passing through a social and political crisis that has no precedent in modern times. On the other side of the Atlantic European capitalism is in a critical state. The plight of Greece provides graphic confirmation of the diseased state of European capitalism. But Portugal and Spain are not much better. And France and Italy are not far behind them. Following its decision to withdraw from the EU, Britain, which used to be seen as one of the most stable countries in Europe has entered a downward spiral of economic crisis, a falling pound and chronic political instability. — Alan Woods, Why we are Marxists
When the United States went to war with Spain in 1898, it did so in a media environment of “yellow journalism,” that played no small part in the advent of the Spanish-American War. Yellow journalism was basically the use of sensationalism and poorly researched reportage to stir up excitement and pad the bottom line. In February on that year, the mysterious sinking of the American cruiser Maine on a quiet night in Havana harbor was seized upon by western media outlets like William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World to create an atmosphere rife with tension, accusation, and defamation. War fever was loosed upon the population. The McKinley administration was soon ensnared in combat, which it won in ten weeks across the Caribbean and Pacific theaters, effectively erasing the Spanish imperial footprint from the Philippines and Caribbean, and delivering American control over Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. American author Mark Twain wasn’t fooled by the jingoistic broadsheets, nor by the administration’s claims of support for Cubans, nor by its claims to want to bring democracy to the Philippines, a former Spanish colony. Twain said, “…we have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.” — Different Century, Same Masterplan — It’s depressingly familiar to see the similarities between the scenario Twain and his anti-imperialist colleagues faced off against and the ones progressives face today. The imperial machine marches on, like W.H. Auden’s driveling ogre, subjugating nation after nation that attempt any sort of freethinking alternative to indentured servitude to the globalists. The tactics of the state and the machinations of the media are little different than they were in 1898. Both seek to cloud the clarity of imperial crimes behind a façade of moral necessity.
To the modern ear, yellow journalism sounds a lot like “fake news,” with its ceaseless reliance on anonymous sources, fake experts, misleading interpretations, and scare tactics. Yellow journalism and fake news are both euphemisms for state propaganda, typically employed to mask the machinery of empire. Whatever we name it, state deceit is in any case slated to grow more pervasive thanks to Barack Obama. Obama, the vacuous charlatan who infested the security state with his pro-war acolytes, signed into law the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act (CDPA) as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This followed the 2013 NDAA which permitted the State Department to aim its public relations efforts directly at the American people, something previously illegal. Overt state propaganda is now legal on domestic turf, as if the state’s media fronts weren’t already busily engaged creating domestic propaganda. — Invisible Empire Beneath the Radar, Above Suspicion
Videos of the Day:
Barclays and Its Executives Are Charged With Conspiracy to Commit Fraud Bill Black, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One says don’t expect much – sadly, the British Serious ‘Farce’ Office that brought about the charges may not have the wits to carry out the prosecution
U.S.:
The Pentagon Says One Civilian Died in Drone Strike on Syrian Mosque. Witnesses Say It Killed Dozens. Earlier the month, the Pentagon announced the results of an internal review into a U.S. drone attack on a mosque in a village in Syria. There had been allegations that at least 38 people, all of them civilians, had been killed in the March 16 attack, but the Pentagon review upheld the Defense Department’s initial statement that it had targeted an Al Qaeda meeting. Only one person — “small in stature” — may have been a child who was killed, the review found. The strike was “legal.” By Murtaza Hussain and Rajaai Bourhan
Moving Closer to Doom The Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has warned that the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear war is closer than since 1953. As explained by the Bulletin, in 1947 it devised the Doomsday Clock “using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet.” By Brian Cloughley 
US Interrogates Prisoners at UAE Torture Sites in Yemen U.S. officials interrogated prisoners at United Arab Emirates-linked secret prisons in Yemen where extreme torture is routine, says Human Rights Watch’s Kristine Beckerle
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
United States Terrorism of the Black Community”
Savage Calculations: On the Exoneration of Philando Castille’s killer by Joseph G. Ramsey
The Castile Doctrine: Cops Without Consequences On June 16, a jury acquitted St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez of all charges in the 2016 killing of motorist Philando Castile. That acquittal was, in a sense, also a death sentence — not for Yanez, but for future motorists unfortunate enough to encounter cops like him. No, this is not a “bad cop” story. It’s a sad tale and I actually feel sorry for Yanez. But the facts are what they are. Yanez killed Castile. The killing was caught on video and neither Yanez nor his attorneys denied it. By Thomas Knapp
Environment:
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Japan to Dump Deadly Fukushima Nuclear Waste into Pacific Ocean Japan has announced plans to dump 920,000 tons of deadly Fukushima nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean, saying that they can no longer contain the waste on land. By Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Labor:
Economy:
World:
Fears for residents as cladding on 14 tower blocks fails fire tests Camden, Manchester and Plymouth among nine local authorities where buildings failed safety tests after Grenfell Tower blaze By Jamie Grierson, Alice Ross, and Jessica Elgot
Where is Venezuela going? It is eighty-five days since the beginning of the current right-wing offensive backed by imperialism against the Venezuelan government of President Maduro, which has left 85 people dead. So far the reactionary opposition has not achieved any of its aims. As its ability to gather large numbers of people in the streets has diminished, rioting has become increasingly more violent and deadly. The government has called Constituent Assembly elections on July 30, which will be a major test of its level of popular support. The opposition has declared it is in “disobedience” and has vowed to prevent the election from taking place. What comes next? By Jorge Martin
The Oily Politics of Unity: Owen Smith as Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary As a man entering his middle-years, if not with dignity, then certainly with a fuller, more rotund figure — it takes rather a lot to make me fall out of my chair. And yet, perusing the news online last week, and happening across the story that Jeremy Corbyn has appointed Owen Smith as shadow Northern Ireland secretary — I went toppling from my seat much in the way of a giant redwood felled in the middle of the Canadian forests. By Tony McKenna
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Tax evasion by the rich more prevalent than ever study finds — The fight for socialism is now! A recent study on tax evasion and inequality carried out by a group of Scandinavian economic researchers reveals just how big a part of the upper 0.01%’s fortunes is hidden in foreign bank accounts. On this basis, the study finds that inequality is probably far higher than originally assumed. This clearly shows how the capitalist system has reached a dead end. These contradictions can only be solved through socialist revolution. By Victor Murray
Thee world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat. The economic prerequisite for the proletarian revolution has already in general achieved the highest point of fruition that can be reached under capitalism. Mankind’s productive forces stagnate. Already new inventions and improvements fail to raise the level of material wealth. Conjunctural crises under the conditions of the social crisis of the whole capitalist system inflict ever heavier deprivations and sufferings upon the masses. Growing unemployment, in its turn, deepens the financial crisis of the state and undermines the unstable monetary systems. Democratic regimes, as well as fascist, stagger on from one bankruptcy to another. The bourgeoisie itself sees no way out. In countries where it has already been forced to stake its last upon the card of fascism, it now toboggans with closed eyes toward an economic and military catastrophe. In the historically privileged countries, i.e., in those where the bourgeoisie can still for a certain period permit itself the luxury of democracy at the expense of national accumulations (Great Britain, France, United States, etc.), all of capital’s traditional parties are in a state of perplexity bordering on a paralysis of will. The “New Deal,” despite its first period of pretentious resoluteness, represents but a special form of political perplexity, possible only in a country where the bourgeoisie succeeded in accumulating incalculable wealth. The present crisis, far from having run its full course, has already succeeded in showing that “New Deal” politics, like Popular Front politics in France, opens no new exit from the economic blind alley. International relations present no better picture. Under the increasing tension of capitalist disintegration, imperialist antagonisms reach an impasse at the height of which separate clashes and bloody local disturbances (Ethiopia, Spain, the Far East, Central Europe) must inevitably coalesce into a conflagration of world dimensions. The bourgeoisie, of course, is aware of the mortal danger to its domination represented by a new war. But that class is now immeasurably less capable of averting war than on the eve of 1914. All talk to the effect that historical conditions have not yet “ripened” for socialism is the product of ignorance or conscious deception. The objective prerequisites for the proletarian revolution have not only “ripened”; they have begun to get somewhat rotten. Without a socialist revolution, in the next historical period at that, a catastrophe threatens the whole culture of mankind. The turn is now to the proletariat, i.e., chiefly to its revolutionary vanguard. The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership. — The Objective Prerequisites for a Socialist Revolution, The Transitional Program
Symbolic ‘Doomsday Clock’ moves closer to midnight
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