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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 Those 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:
Quote of the Day:
. . . 2017 — US General Favors Boost in Troops in Afghanistan — Selling Trump a New Afghan Commitment — Taliban Tap New Income Stream: Collecting Bills for Afghan Utilities — U.S. Military Drops 22,000-Pound Bomb on Islamic State Forces in Afghanistan — America Keeps on Failing in Afghanistan — Taliban Seize Two More Afghan Districts in Sustained Fighting — A Peace ‘Surge’ to End War in Afghanistan — Blackwater’s Founder Wants Trump to Outsource the Afghanistan War — Joint Taliban-ISIS Attack Kills Dozens, Afghan Officials Say — Trump Finds Reason for the U.S. to Remain in Afghanistan: Minerals — No Way Out: Trump’s Crude View of Afghanistan Won’t Solve U.S.’s Longest-Running War — The final headline is as appropriate now as it was when it was printed in 2011: “Futility in Afghanistan.” — Ralph Nader, The 16 Year War in Afghanistan: Headlines Tell the Story
Videos of the Day:
Witnessing the Terror in Charlottesville At the scene of Saturday’s car attack on anti-racist protesters, Michael Payne of the Charlottesville Democratic Socialists of America walks us through what he witnessed
U.S.:
The 16 Year War in Afghanistan: Headlines Tell the Story Since 2001 the US has been at War in Afghanistan – the longest war in US history. Headlines concisely tell the story of this cruel boomeranging quagmire of human violence and misery. Below are some newspaper headlines from 2010 to the present to show that a militarized foreign policy without Congress’s constitutional duties and steadfast public engagement will drift on, costing our soldiers’ lives and limbs, nearly three-quarters of a trillion taxpayer dollars, hundreds of thousands of Afghani lives and millions of refugees, with no end in sight. by Ralph Nader
Donald Trump Has Been a Racist All His Life — And He Isn’t Going to Change After CharlottesvilleMuch of the frenzied media coverage of what CNN dubbed “48 hours of turmoil for the Trump White House” has overlooked one rather crucial point: Trump doesn’t like being forced to denounce racism for the very simple reason that he himself is, and always has been, a racist. By Mehdi Hasan
Charlottesville: Outrage, Hypocrisy & Obama’s Betrayal The ugly scenes that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia did so in response to a decision by the city’s authorities to remove a statue of that other famed confederate general, Robert E Lee, from a park there. Those scenes and the controversy surrounding the memorials, statues and monuments in tribute to the US Confederacy are proof that the Civil War never really ended – and certainly not in the victory for the forces of anti-slavery and racism that history would have us believe. by John Wight
The Racism at Charlottesville is a Symptom of a Nation Built on White Supremacy The racism and white supremacy that were on full display at the Charlottesville white supremacist rally is symptomatic of a United States culture that has whitewashed its history, ignored it’s rampant human rights abuses and stowed away the darkest corners of its past to formulate a distorted view of American exceptionalism predicated on white supremacy. America was built on slavery, genocide, violence, and white male supremacy that exploited others for profit and power for centuries, and still do to this day. The moral high ground of American exceptionalism that some people have taken to condemn the rally’s hate, with claims of “this is not America,” demonstrate a historical obliviousness or refusal to accept responsibility for this history. by Michael J. Sainato
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
The Story of Charlottesville was Written in Blood in the Ukraine Some of the neo-Nazis President Obama helped put in power in Ukraine carried Confederate flags. U.S. society has been moving rightward for decades — and pulling much of Europe with it. By Ajamu Baraka , BAR editor and columnist
Freedom Rider: The Root and Russophobia In the old Negro minstrel tradition, The Root is a shuffling mimic of the Washington Post. Since the white folks in corporate media are bad-mouthing Russia, The Root does the same – claiming a “Black” twist. by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Kaepernick Shows Why Black Lives Will Never Matter under US imperialism “Kaepernick made a clear statement that police brutality and the various ills experienced by Black America are no anomalies.” Colin Kaepernick’s struggle with the NFL corporation continues to make headlines. In recent weeks, the 29-year-old quarterback came close to signing with the Baltimore Ravens. Retired linebacker Ray Lewis obstructed the signing in consultation with the Raven’s ownership. Lewis advised Kaepernick to keep his activism “private.” The most publicized example of employment discrimination appears to have no end in sight. Kaepernick’s example shines light on why Black lives will never matter as long as the social relations that sustain the US imperialism remain intact. By Danny Haiphong
Locked and Loaded: War with North Korea Cannot be Contained but Must Be Prevented: Interview with K. J. Noh “Unless attacked, North Korea will not strike the U.S. However, “given their own history, not to mention the examples of Libya and Iraq, the North Koreans are unlikely to give up their deterrent.” By Ann Garrison , BAR contributor
Every US President Makes Unilateral Nuclear Threats. It’s an American Tradition This week marks the anniversary of two monstrous war crimes, the nuking of two undefended Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. The fake history I learned as a child in the 50s and 60s was that the bombings saved the lives of a million Japanese and Americans who would have perished in a land invasion of Japan. That was a lie. The US anticipated turning its World War 2 ally the Soviet Union into its postwar enemy, and hoped to scare the scare the Soviets with the terrible carnage its new nuclear weapons would inflict. A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Black Agenda Radio for Week of August 15, 2017
Black Control of the Police is a Democratic Right: The Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations held its annual conference in Chicago, highlighting its 19-point National Black Political Agenda for Self-Determination. Philadelphia coalition organizer Diop Olugbala said Point #3, demanding Black community control of the police, “is a democratic demand, in that it places control of the police directly in the hands of those most affected by police behavior. That means,” said Olugbala, “that the police will cease to be an invading force that comes into the Black community looking for trouble, but will have to live in the community and share the contradictions of the community.”
Black Chicago Politicians are “in the Mayor’s Pocket”: Veteran activist Frank Chapman of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression united with the Black Is Back Coalition on community control of the police. His organization is pushing a measure to take “all the power away from the mayor, away from the independent police review authority, and putting that power in the hands of the people.” However, few of the measure’s supporters in the city legislature are Black. “Most of the Black aldermen are in the mayor’s pocket,” said Chapman, “and we have to change that.”
Flipping the Script on the NYPD: When the New York City Police Department held a community-oriented “Night Out Against Crime” in The Bronx, activists with the Freedom Cities movement staged a “Night of Safety and Liberation” counter-event. “It’s about a community vision that people don’t need a violent occupation force to keep the Black community safe,” said Albert St. Jean, of Freedom Cities and the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. “The community can cope with its own need for safety.”
Political Scientist Rejects Organizing Based on “Purely Ethnic Affinity”: Cedric Johnson, a political scientist and associate professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago, has no confidence in the long term effectiveness of organizing based on “a purely ethnic affinity.” Dr. Johnson told the Dead Pundits Society podcast: “There are many different interests that are operating within the Black population at any given moment. Whenever we have these sorts of national agenda-setting exercises, what you get is a portrait of some of the different things that Black people want, but it’s not really a functioning agenda.”
Mumia: Trump’s America Shows Its Nasty Butt: The events in Charlottesville, Virginia, reveal the raw racism endemic to the United States, said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, in an essay for Prison Radio. To ask Trump to condemn white supremacists “is like asking grapes to condemn jelly,” said Mumia. “They are part of him, and he is part of them.”
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
Environment:
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Labor:
Economy:
Putting an End to the Rent Economy . . . The economy itself has not recovered. All economic growth since 2008 has accrued only to the top 5% of the economy. 95% of the economy has been shrinking by about 3% per year… and continues to shrink, because the debts were kept in place. President Obama saved the banks and Wall Street instead of saving the economy by Michael Hudson 
Both Wall Street and Its Regulators Fire Whistleblowers According to continuing reports from the trenches, buttressed by a Bloomberg News article out today by Neil Weinberg, Wall Street’s largest firms are still firing whistleblowers for having the temerity to bring corrupt conduct to their superiors’ attention — despite whistleblower protection statutes embedded in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
The Tragedy of the Missing C: The (Colonial) Fiscal Control Board in Puerto Rico There have been quite a few names for it, pseudonyms protecting its top secret identity, barely revealing, if not completely concealing, the truth behind its seemingly impenetrable Armani fortress. Financial Oversight and Management Board, a deceptive title feeding the gullible fantasies of hands-off supervision and horizontal guidance. La Junta de Cobro, or The Collection Board, a somewhat more critical epithet, highlighting the greedy and profit-filthy fingers of the committee under discussion. Fiscal Control Board, the top hit single, in Spanish widely used in acronym-form: JCF[1], counteracting the first name, underscoring the authority and domination hiding under the covers. by Ana Portnoy 
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
Trump On Charlottesville: Make America White Again
