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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!
Image of the Day:
In his new book, Gore Vidal makes a scathing attack upon the bipartisan domestic and foreign policies of the US government. The introduction to this book sets its theme, that the bombings of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 and the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City on September 11, were used, respectively, to justify the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 and the current “war on terrorism”. Vidal explains that these bombings were in response to the more than 200 acts of war and (ongoing) worldwide military incursions by the US government since 1945, and the concurrent erosion of the Bill of Rights. Vidal refers to Newton’s theory “that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. — Gore Vidal, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace (2002)
Last year, the Anthropocene Working Group voted overwhelmingly (34 votes to 1) that a “geologically real” new global epoch began in the second half of the twentieth century. As Colin Waters of the British Geological Survey told the International Geological Congress in August: “Changes to the Earth System that characterize the potential Anthropocene Epoch include marked acceleration to rates of erosion and sedimentation, large-scale chemical perturbations to the cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and other elements, the inception of significant change to global climate and sea level, and biotic changes such as unprecedented levels of species invasions across the Earth. Many of these changes are geologically long-lasting, and some are effectively irreversible.” — Anthropocene scientists reply to critics
The striking differences in the rate of abstention in France, Puerto Rico and the UK reflect the levels of class dissatisfaction and rejection of electoral politics. The UK elections provided the electorate with something resembling a class alternative in the candidacy of Jeremy Corbyn. The Labor Party under Corbyn presented a progressive social democratic program promising substantial and necessary increases in social welfare spending (health, education and housing) to be funded by higher progressive taxes on the upper and upper middle class. Corbyn’s foreign policy promised to end the UK ’s involvement in imperial wars and to withdraw troops from the Middle East. He also re-confirmed his long opposition to Israel ’s colonial land-grabbing and oppression of the Palestinian people, as a principled way to reduce terrorist attacks at home. In other words, Corbyn recognized that introducing real class-based politics would increase voter participation. This was especially true among young voters in the 18-25 year age group, who were among the UK citizens most harmed by the loss of stable factory jobs, the doubling of university fees and the cuts in national health services. In contrast, the French legislative elections saw the highest rate of voter abstention since the founding of the 5th Republic. These high rates reflect broad popular opposition to ultra-neo liberal President Francois Macron and the absence of real opposition parties engaged in class struggle. — James Petras
Videos of the Day:
Hersh: Trump Ignored Intel Before Bombing Syria In an exclusive interview, veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh discusses his new report that President Trump bombed a Syrian military airfield in April despite warnings that U.S. intelligence had found no evidence that the Assad regime used a chemical weapon
Only Community Control Will Stop Police from Killing with Impunity Black Agenda Report’s Glen Ford discusses the recent failed prosecutions of the officers who killed Samuel DuBose, Sylville Smith and Philando Castile
U.S.:
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace Since 2002: The US at War Since 9/11: Reality or Reality TV? The headlines arrive in my inbox day after day: “US-led airstrikes in Syria killed hundreds of civilians, UN panel says.” “Pentagon wants to declare more parts of world as temporary battlefields.” “The US was supposed to leave Afghanistan by 2017. Now it might take decades.” There are so many wars and rumors of war involving our country these days that it starts to feel a little unreal, even for the most devoted of news watchers. And for many Americans, it’s long been that way. For them, the meaning of war is closer to reality TV than it is to reality. By Rebecca Gordon
The Death of Democracy Both Here and Abroad and All Those Colorful Sneakers CIA Director Pompeo believes that “… folks like WikiLeaks, [are] out there trying to steal American secrets for the sole purpose of undermining the United States and democracy,” (“Trump CIA director blames ‘worship of Edward Snowden’ for rise in leaks,” The Guardian, June 24, 2017). That’s actually kind of funny, well, at least in a sardonic sort of way, especially when readers think about the secret CIA-run prisons of the very recent past and torture programs carried out in those prisons.by Howard Lisnoff 
Hersh’s New Syria Revelations Buried From View Veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the man who exposed the Mai Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and the US military’s abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib in 2004, is probably the most influential journalist of the modern era, with the possible exception of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the pair who exposed Watergate. by Jonathan Cook
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Environment:
One meal a day. As Lake Chad vanishes, seven million people are on the brink of starvation. Not so long ago, Lake Chad was one of the largest bodies of water in Africa. The thick reeds and vital wetlands around its basin provided vast freshwater reserves, breeding grounds for fish, fertile soil for agriculture, and grasslands where farmers grazed their animals. In 1963, it spanned almost 10,000 square miles, an expanse roughly the size of Maryland. But as climate change has taken its toll, the lake has shrunk by 90 percent. Today, only 965 square miles remain. Wetlands have given way to sand dunes. Farmers have abandoned their fields. Those who still live by the lake struggle to survive, beset by chronic drought and the slow onset of ecological catastrophe. By Lisa Palmer
Anthropocene scientists reply to critics A comprehensive response to scientific objections to formally recognizing a new unit of geological time shows that the Anthropocene cannot be dismissed as a scientific fad
Trump EPA Weakens TSCA Rules to Favor Chemical Industry The Trump-Pruitt Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a set of rules today that will make it easier to ignore chemical risks and disregard harmful exposures. The final rules introduce loopholes that could allow EPA to ignore important exposure routes and chemical product uses. This opens the door for EPA to disregard exposures to the most vulnerable and susceptible populations such as pregnant women and children or highly-exposed workers, which the Toxics Substances Control Act (TSCA) had sought to protect. By Jennifer Sass
Toxic Exposure: Chemicals Are in Our Water, Food, Air and Furniture Are the Chemicals We Encounter Every Day Making Us Sick? The UC San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PHRE) For example, research over the past 10 years by UCSF scientists and others has showed that bisphenol A (BPA) – an industrial chemical used since the 1950s to harden plastics in baby bottles, toys and other products – is found in the blood of those exposed to items made with BPA and that it can harm the endocrine systems of fetuses and infants. As a result, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) outlawed BPA in baby products in 2012, and some manufacturers developed BPA-free products. But now scientists believe the chemicals that replaced BPA may be just as harmful. Furthermore, BPA is only one in a long, long list of chemicals we encounter every day in our homes, schools, workplaces and communities. And scientists have barely scratched the surface of understanding them. Of the thousands and thousands of chemicals registered with the EPA for use by industry, the agency has regulated only a few. By Molly Miller
The Causes of Forest Fires: Climate vs. Logging The timber industry and the U.S. Forest Service aggressively market the idea that reducing fuels through logging/thinning programs will result in a significant decrease in acreage burned, firefighting costs and the number of high-severity fires. However, it is climate/weather, not fuels, that drive all large wildfires. The factors responsible for all large wildfires are drought, low humidity, high temperatures and, most importantly, wind. If you have those ingredients in the same place with an ignition, you get a wildfire that can’t be stopped — until the weather changes. By George Wuerthner
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
More than 30 nuclear experts inhale uranium after radiation alarms at a weapons site are switched off. The government scientists didn’t know they were breathing in radioactive uranium at the time it was happening. In fact, most didn’t learn about their exposure for months, long after they returned home from the nuclear weapons research center where they had inhaled it. by Patrick Malone, Peter Cary, and R. Jeffrey Smith
Labor:
The story of mass displacement of workers by robots is a story of rapid productivity growth. Robots are supposed to be doing the work formerly done by people. This means that we should be seeing far more output for each hour of human labor. This is something we can easily check, since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts out data on productivity growth every quarter. Rather than going through the roof as the robot story would imply, productivity growth has fallen through the floor. It’s averaged just 1.2 percent annually in the last 10 years and 0.6 percent in the last five years. By comparison, productivity growth averaged 3 percent in both the decade from 1995 to 2005 and the long Golden Age from 1947 to 1973. — Myths of Job-Killing Robots Obscure Real Causes of Inequality
Economy:
Media Focus on Trump Blindsides the Public from Rising Wall Street Risks There are some very serious undercurrents at work in the U.S. financial markets but they are getting short shrift on the front pages of newspapers as the President’s travails dominate the news. That’s working out well for Wall Street, which wants to keep the public slumbering as long as possible in hopes of gutting more financial regulations. By Pam martens and Russ Martens
World:
New U.K. Government Held Together by Fear — of a Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn After weeks of wrangling, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party agreed on Monday to give Prime Minister Theresa May the votes she needs to stay in office and push through legislation ensuring that the United Kingdom exits the European Union. While the Democratic Unionist leader, Arlene Foster, spoke of the deal being “in the national interest” of the U.K. as a whole, commentators pointed to what looked like a massive concession to Northern Ireland’s local government — an additional 1 billion pounds in social welfare spending. By Robert Mackey
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
California Scheming: Democrats Betray Single-Payer Again Nothing better illustrates the political bankruptcy of the Democratic Party—for all progressive intents and purposes—than California State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon’s announcement on Friday afternoon that he was going to put a “hold” on the single-payer health care bill (SB 562) for the state, effectively killing its passage for at least the year. by Jim Kavanagh
Absolutely Devastating’: CBO Predicts 22 Million Less Insured Under Trumpcare The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Monday concluded the Senate’s version of Trumpcare would leave 22 million more people uninsured by 2026, a verdict that was immediately characterized as a “devastating” blow to a party scrambling to secure the support necessary to pass the legislation by the end of this week. By Jake Johnson
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