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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:
As the United State enters the twenty-first century, power over the American mass media is flowing to the top with such devouring speed that it exceeds even the accelerated consolidations of the last twenty years. For the first time in U.S. history, the country’s most widespread news, commentary, and daily entertainment are controlled by six firms that are among the world’s largest corporations, two of them foreign. Even with the dramatic entry of the Internet and the cyber world with their uncounted hundreds of new firms, the controlling handful of American and foreign corporations now exceed in their size and communications power anything the world has seen before. Their intricate global interlocks create the force of an international cartel. There are pernicious consequences. While excessive bigness itself is cause for economic anxieties, the worst problems are political and social. The country’s largest media giants have achieved alarming success in writing the media laws and regulations in favor of their own corporations and against the interests of the general public. Their concentrated power permits them to become a larger factor than ever before in socializing each generation with entertainment models of behavior and personal values. The impact on the national political agenda has been devastating, For years, the mainstream news has over dramatized its reporting of congressional and White House debate on the national debt and deficit beyond their intrinsic importance. Politicians raised the issue, but it was seized upon and overblown by the major media–media that politicians use as a bellwether on what issues will get them the most public attention and partisan advantage. During these crucial years, the American economy was undergoing an astonishing phenomenon that the mainstream news left largely unreported or actually glamorized in its infrequent references: the largest transfer of the national wealth in American history from a majority of the population to a small percentage of the country’s wealthiest families.” — 2002, Roland Sheppard, Book Review, The Media Monopoly
Science and technology are not an obstacle to maintaining a safe environment. The barrier to a safe environment is capitalism and its paramount principle of production and science for profit. Most environmental studies demonstrate that environmental destruction has become globally intertwined within our society and that the globalization of capitalism has quickened the destruction of the planet. Under the conditions of global capitalist competition, it is not economically feasible to invest the capital necessary to reverse this destruction. In the present world, the rights of the capitalists to make a profit are in direct conflict with our basic rights. In this sense, the capitalist system has become a threat to humanity. Jefferson’s words, from the Declaration of Independence, that human rights are unalienable, mean that these rights can never be superseded. At all points of conflict the rights of humanity to survive must supersede the right of the few to make a profit. The right to a safe environment is an unalienable human right! Since environmental illness and destruction are a global concern, it requires all of humanity to act collectively, in our overall interests for our survival as a species, to correct the problem and to remove the obstacle of capitalism. It requires a society where humanity has social, economic, and political control over the entire environment. Such a society, a socialist society, is needed to ensure that all decisions affecting the environment are under the democratic control of humankind so that the production of goods will be done for the needs and survival of humanity instead of the production and the destruction of humanity and other species for profit. With common ownership of the means of production, and common control and protection of all property and wealth, science and society will be in harmony with the ecosystem and humanity’s future. With these goals we can begin to build a more effective environmental movement. As we continue to organize against capitalism and its destructive course, we can and will transform the world. — Roland Sheppard, Whither Humanity? The Environmental Crisis of Capitalism (1999)
Videos of the Day:
U.S.:
The U.S. State of War: July 2017 This is the state of war in the United States in July 2017. The US bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria is now the heaviest since the bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s-70s, with 84,000 bombs and missiles dropped between 2014 and the end of May 2017 That is nearly triple the 29,200 bombs and missiles dropped on Iraq in the “Shock and Awe” campaign of 2003. by Nicolas J S Davies
Wall Street Journal: People Are Dying Here’: Federal Hospitals Fail Tribes Indian Health Service facilities sanctioned for dangerous, faulty care, leaving often-impoverished patients on remote reservations without services required by law By Dan Frosch and Christopher Weaver
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Moving the Needle on Black Liberation The crisis of police brutality facing Black communities receives the most attention in the media, but the mass incarceration of nearly 1 million Black people is the most widespread destructive effort against Black lives in the US. Incarcerated community organizer Emile DeWeaver argues that “to make Black lives matter … we need to center incarcerated people in the conversations about Black lives.” By Mark Karlin
Environment:
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Labor:
Economy:
Flash Crashes Are a Permanent Part of U.S. Markets: Should You Worry? Over the past year, there have been flash crashes in multiple markets, raising concerns that fat fingers, algorithms and/or rogue hedge fund traders are still running amok. We’ll get to the specifics in a moment, but to put the unusual trading patterns in context, you need some important background information. Wall Street On Parade began reporting on flash crash activity following the Granddaddy of all flash crashes thus far – the event on May 6, 2010 when the stock market did a bungee jump, briefly plunging 998 points, with hundreds of stocks momentarily losing 60 per cent or more of their value and knocking out stop-loss orders for retail investors. Former SEC Chair Mary Schapiro estimated at the time that individual investors had lost more than $200 million in these improperly triggered stop loss orders on May 6. (Read our skepticism on the official regulatory report here.) By Pam and Tuss Martens
World:
This is an ugly picture. Why focus a sharp light on it – especially by a foreigner. There are two reasons. First, this phenomena of unspeakable social callousness, undergirded by doctrines aggressively and successfully promoted across the Western world, is becoming pervasive. In addition, the Grenfell affair demonstrates that the United States is not alone in its tolerance for actions that should be a national disgrace but are slighted by a political class incapable of feeling shame. The callous, off-hand treatment given the Grenfell victims is reminiscent of how colonial administrators dealt with expendable natives. If a proper criminal process were undertaken, a reasonable verdict would be Involuntary Manslaughter. Criminal negligence could be another charge both for the calculated failure to act on warnings of mortal risk – and for any harm as might be caused survivors of the fire who have been denied appropriate care. — Grenfell Tower: All Fall Down
Dismantling Power: The Zapatista Indigenous Presidential Candidate’s Vision to Transform Mexico from Below by Benjamin Dangl
Josh Walker Fought Against ISIS. He Almost Got Killed. Now He’s Charged With Terrorism. Walker, a 26-year-old university student from Wales in the United Kingdom, was in Syria volunteering with the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, a Kurdish-led militia that has been a leading force in the ground battle against the Islamic State. He had made the long journey to Syria after flying out of a London airport on a one-way ticket to Istanbul, appalled by the Islamic State’s brutal fascism and inspired by the YPG’s democratic socialist ideals. By Ryan Gallagher
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Eating Our Way to Disease The animal agriculture industry knows its products are harming us, but it, along with the medical and drug industries, is making billions from illnesses caused by our diet. By Chris Hedges
The Media Monopoly is Constantly Propagandizing for the 1%
Quotes of the Day: