Blogosphere

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: New Attacks on Venezuela
Margaret Kimberley: The Democratic Party’s “left” wing is mute on the latest US aggression against the people and government of Venezuela, thus giving assent to Trump by their silence. ... the U.S. sent a group of hapless dupes to sneak into Venezuela where they intended to arrest president Nicolas Maduro ... This embarrassing episode is the end result of Donald Trump administration’s desperation to get rid of a leftist government supported by its people. ... Of course the U.S. is always plotting. If they aren’t lodging phony drug charges against Maduro they are stealing Venezuela’s assets. ... But the presence of left wing governments in this hemisphere is anathema to the United States, which still makes claims about other countries being in its “backyard.”... [ Visit Website ]
May 13, 2020, 3:54pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Joe Biden and the Black Misleaders
Margaret Kimberley: Black Agenda Report was quite intentional in coining the term black misleadership class. The misleaders include Democratic Party politicians and allies in civil rights organizations, journalism, churches, and the foundation world. This group is entirely self-interested as they work to get funding for pet projects, well paid jobs, election to office, media attention, or all of the above. ... They are subservient to the Democratic Party and its donor class while giving the impression of working in the interests of black people. ... Joe Biden’s position as presumptive democratic party presidential nominee is a direct result of these corrupt relationships... [ Visit Website ]
May 7, 2020, 2:53pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Fighting COVID-19 with Mass Action and a People’s Strike
Margaret Kimberley: COVID-19 has exposed the fraudulence of American democracy. The neo-liberal austerity regime even targets unemployment benefits , the one program which is thought of as being untouched by the relentless race to the bottom. There is no right to housing or health care or work place safety in this country and millions of people are suffering. The safety net is thread bare ... Now is the time to narrow the focus. It is relevant to debate how this illness should be prevented and to ask hard questions about every decision being made by the federal and local governments and by the medical community. ... The call for a People’s Strike beginning on May 1 is a significant call to action... [ Visit Website ]
Apr 29, 2020, 4:16pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: COVID-19 and Deadly Health Care for Black People
Margaret Kimberley: Even if the United States had a strong public health system, Black and brown people would be plagued by racist medical practices. ... When black people need medical care they are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. The ferocity of anti-black racism is such that even an effort to spare one’s life can still end in death. Medical professionals are no more enlightened than anyone else and often join in meting out the harshest treatment possible for black people. ... Black workers are less likely to be able to quarantine during the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Instead men and women who work in fields such as mass transit, the postal service, retail, and in health care itself are exposing themselves to the COVID-19 virus. When they do seek treatment they often receive inadequate care... [ Visit Website ]
Apr 15, 2020, 12:27pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Standing with Venezuela and Iran
Margaret Kimberley: The Trump administration wants a hot war with Iran or Venezuela, or both, and those of us claiming to be anti-war must be on our guard and ready for action. ... All previous attempts to dislodge the elected president of Venezuela have ended in failure. ... When Trump and his attorney general weren’t making up charges out of thin air against Maduro, they muttered about Iranian “sneak attacks.” Not content to murder Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, they have refused to leave Iraq when that country’s parliament ordered them to do so. ... The United States is a failed state, but one which still has the largest military in the world and for now the most economic power. It has nothing else to offer except destruction and death as its crumbling infrastructure kills its own people, as can be seen in the COVID-19 outbreak... [ Visit Website ]
Apr 8, 2020, 3:06pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: COVID-19 and Black Workers
Margaret Kimberley: The gross inequalities and declining standards of life in the US are magnified by the corona crisis, pushing already marginalized populations to the brink. ... There is an old saying that if America catches a cold, black people get pneumonia. The communicable disease reference is especially relevant now that the COVID-19 corona virus pandemic has created a crisis in this country. A privatized health care system worsened a medical emergency whose impact could have been mitigated if the United States was as advanced as it claims to be... In neighboring Canada the government provides $2,000 per month for four months to assist workers with the COVID economic downturn. $1,200 is chump change for people who are once again treated like chumps. ... [ Visit Website ]
Apr 1, 2020, 12:21pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Revolutionary Change and COVID-19
Margaret Kimberley: The coronavirus pandemic has upended the economy and the lives of millions of people. In so doing it has exposed the wreckage of a country living under the rule of billionaires and the military industrial complex. The health care system is controlled by corporations and therefore cannot meet human needs. The United States gave up its large scale manufacturing to China, the country which it both demonizes as the source of infection but also begs to produce more ventilators, masks and other medical equipment. ... The chaos will eventually end but life will not be the same. ... COVID-19 is an opportunity to demand change while the people are paying attention to the crisis.... The genie cannot be stuffed back into the bottle.... [ Visit Website ]
Mar 25, 2020, 12:37pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: COVID-19 Covers Up War and Financial Collapse
Margaret Kimberley: the United States and the United Kingdom both sent more troops to Yemen in recent days. They did so to help the failing Saudi Arabian intervention there. ... The COVID-19 news story is legitimate, but using it to avoid covering Trump’s dangerous escalations certainly is not. ... Nor is it a reason to hide the financial crisis that has been brewing for some time. ... The banks who created the crisis get more and more public funds. ... There is no discussion about the nature of the American economy which makes its people so vulnerable in emergencies. ... COVID-19 is not just a health emergency. It has exposed the causes of inequality and suffering in this country. Foreign policy is shunted to the side and the threats to peace created by the U.S. go unexamined... [ Visit Website ]
Mar 18, 2020, 3:20pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Corona Virus and the Failed American State
Margaret Kimberley: The only thing more frightening than the COVID-19 virus spreading around the world is the knowledge that this country is woefully unprepared to protect people from it. ... We are constantly told that socialism doesn’t work. But it is socialist China, where the virus began, that has made the most headway in slowing its spread. ... While Americans can’t find hand sanitizer at any price, the Chinese government built new hospitals in just one week’s time. ... Nearly every solution presented as addressing this crisis places burdens on the people. The “gig” economy and low wage hourly jobs don’t allow workers to take time off if they feel ill. The high price of health care is an impediment to treating all kinds of illnesses... [ Visit Website ]
Mar 11, 2020, 4:16pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: U.S. Continues Its War on the Rest of the World
Margaret Kimberley: The presidential campaign is a farce, as foreign policy is treated like a frill that need not be mentioned. ... The foreign crises that are treated like background music are in fact very important. No one knows if Turkey’s rampage on behalf of the United States can start a hot war that candidates will suddenly have to address. ... The consensus for imperialism is no accident. The military industrial complex makes sure that its gravy train continues in Afghanistan and elsewhere and presidential candidates don’t even pretend to change a corrupt system. ... After inauguration day on January 20, 2021 the United States will continue to be the biggest threat to peace in the world... [ Visit Website ]
Mar 4, 2020, 3:42pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Bernie Sanders' Foreign Policy Trap
Margaret Kimberley: Sanders is certainly the most progressive Democratic party candidate on domestic issues but he has shown no such inclinations regarding foreign policy. It is time for leftists to stop giving him a pass and make demands on him and all other candidates for office. ... Leftists must demand that candidates for office pledge that they will work to end imperialism, cut the military budget, close foreign military bases and end the militarization of law enforcement in this country. ... If anti-imperialist forces are not consistent in their actions, their words are meaningless. Let’s leave hypocrisy to the politicians... [ Visit Website ]
Feb 26, 2020, 5:05pm

Blogosphere
Methane Emissions Crisis and Rapid Global Heating: It is all Fossil Fuel Drilling and Fracking
Juan Cole: So of the nearly 200 teragrams of methane that are put into our atmosphere every year, it is oil and gas drilling and fracking that are responsible for almost all of it. ... (methane is 80 times more powerful as a heat-trapping gas than carbon dioxide) ... Fracking or hydraulic fracturing is particularly thuggish. Another recent paper in Nature used satellite imaging to prove that “In the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, methane columns showed maxima over regions with the highest natural gas production.” ... The conclusion is that we should replace fossil fuels as quickly as possible with wind and solar and geothermal. ... But the other conclusion is that we should outlaw fracking immediately... [ Visit Website ]
Feb 20, 2020, 11:56am

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Bloomberg is Worse Than Trump
Margaret Kimberley: Billionaire Bloomberg was a lifelong Democrat who ran (for Mayor of New York) as a Republican in order to avoid a democratic primary that he feared losing. He won with the help of his bottomless pit of campaign money ... But Bloomberg unleashed the police in ways that Giuliani only dreamed of doing. His notorious stop and frisk policy victimized black New Yorkers millions of times. ... Bloomberg still has the right, influential people in his pocket. The media will endorse him. He has already bought off the Democratic National Committee and Emily’s List. ... past history tells us that Bloomberg is a Trump with more money and better manners. Yet his entrance into the race is proof that the billionaires will give up nothing. ... Bloomberg doesn’t have enemies because he buys them off... [ Visit Website ]
Feb 19, 2020, 3:23pm

Blogosphere
Israel’s Netanyahu boasts of having Destroyed US 1st Amendment and Free Speech
Juan Cole: Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been indicted for corruption and is facing an election soon, just boasted that his ministry of strategic affairs has managed to undermine first amendment protections for free speech in the United States by lobbying state legislatures to pass laws forbidding the boycott of Israel. ... Anti-boycott laws of the Old South were used against Martin Luther King, Jr. and other activists in the Civil Rights movement ... Some 28 US states have passed laws prohibiting the boycott of Israel and attempting to punish this action by denying such individuals state contracts. ... University professors invited to speak on campus in the states with these horrid laws have been asked to sign statements they don’t boycott Israel before being allowed to speak. These procedures are the most dangerous assault on free speech in the United States since the McCarthy era... [ Visit Website ]
Feb 14, 2020, 12:34pm

Blogosphere
Freedom Rider: Trump Has No Opposition
Margaret Kimberley: The Bloomberg cash onslaught and the anti-Bernie conspiracy have laid bare the degree of collusion among the rulers. ... The Democratic Party is every bit as corrupt as its pretend rival, the Republican Party. ... The impeachment show, Iowa caucuses, and State of the Union address all put a spotlight on the fraud of democracy in this country. ... The rank and file are largely taken in by the nonsense. Any semblance of ideological difference occurred so long ago that there is little expectation of real change. ... The cheating has begun in earnest, and the only thing Democrats are resisting is any turn to the left. ... Even a little bit of reformism is off limits for the supposed leaders who are little more than errand boys and girls for the billionaires... [ Visit Website ]
Feb 12, 2020, 2:17pm

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