Monthly Archives: February 2021

2021-02-10: News Headlines

Alan Macleod (2021-02-10). Media Frames Teen Using College Savings To Save Mom From Eviction as Uplifting Puff Piece. mintpressnews.com Corporate media outlets appear to have so completely internalized the grim logic of neoliberal capitalism that they see single mothers being evicted, children in debt, or octogenarians working in the gig economy as unremarkable facts of life, not damning indictments of a broken system.

Party for Socialism and Liberation (2021-02-10). PSL Statement: Solidarity with Newsclick and the people's movements of India! liberationnews.org Photo: Farmers protest in India. Credit — Newsclick The Party for Socialism and Liberation joins with progressive organizations and media around the world in demanding that the Indian government cease its repression of leading media outlet Newsclick. Newsclick is read and watched by millions every day and is facing persecution for the key role it …

MEE and agencies (2021-02-10). Yemen's Houthis attack Saudi Arabia's Abha airport. middleeasteye.net Yemen's Houthis attack Saudi Arabia's Abha airport | Yemen rebels say four of its drones targeted Abha airport located around 120km from the border, leaving an aircraft in flames | Wed, 02/10/2021 – 13: 26 | The Houthis have previously hit Abha international airport, and regularly launch drones and missiles into Saudi Arabia (AFP) | Yemen's Houthi movement has claimed responsibility for a…

Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi (2021-02-10). A Death on the Anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. counterpunch.org Haleh Lajevardi, an Iranian professor of sociology, died last week in Tehran at the age 56. Her brother who tweeted the news of her passing did not reveal the cause of death. People close to her knew that she had dealt with bouts of depression for many years, particularly after she was dismissed from her

_____ (2021-02-10). What Ever Happened To Class Struggle? popularresistance.org As the fight amongst the oligarchs heats up over Trump's 2nd impeachment, one must wonder what ever happened to the days when the poor and the working class were clear-eyed enough to see their real struggle was against the rich? Wall Street banksters, the weapons warlords, Hollywood moguls, oil barons, real estate developers and the like. | Instead we see the Lumpenproletariat on their knees scratching and clawing each other – defending one side of the elite mobsters who are armed against the other in Washington's usual sideshow that distracts the nation from the ever present reality of capital accumulation.

_____ (2021-02-10). Why A War In Yemen? popularresistance.org The Saudis decided to enter an ongoing civil war in Yemen in 2015 for several reasons. The two countries share a long border at the southern end of their peninsula. This length of this border is matched by Yemen's coastline on the Arabian Sea, an access to ocean waters that Saudi Arabia does not have. | Even more important is that the southeast corner of Yemen sits at the point where the Red Sea flows into the Arabian Sea through a very narrow passageway. This would enable the Saudis to control shipping through the Red Sea. | Furthermore, Yemen has oil that generates revenue from contracts with private producers.

WSWS (2021-02-10). UK Labour Party wades deeper into the nationalist sewer. wsws.org Elected Labour leader in September 2015 on a massive wave of popular demand for socialism, Corbyn's five years in office ended with Labour led by witch-hunters and flag-waving anti-communists.

Online News Editor (2021-02-10). Indonesia says mechanical failure caused Sriwijaya Air plane crash. laprensalatina.com Jakarta, Feb 10 (efe-epa).- Indonesian authorities reported this Wednesday that a mechanical failure in an engine throttle lever could cause the crash of the Boeing 737 of the Indonesian airline Sriwijaya Air on January 9 with 62 people a board. The preliminary report, published Wednesday by the National Committee on Transportation Safety, said that as …

teleSUR (2021-02-10). Brazilian Court To Try Marielle Franco's Murderers. telesurenglish.net The Rio de Janeiro Justice Court (TJRJ) on Tuesday confirmed that a court will try former police officer Ronnie Lessa and former military officer Elcio Queiroz, both of whom are charged with the murder of Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes. | RELATED: | "This is an important step… Unanimously, the TJRJ decided that the defendants will be tried," PSOL counc…

Prof Rodrigue Tremblay (2021-02-10). The Relationship Between Income and Wealth Disparities and Negative Real Interest Rates. globalresearch.ca All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the "Translate Website" drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). | *** | "The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing …

Adam Robertson Charlton (2021-02-09). Climate Crisis and Water Conflict: How Saudi's water insecurity led to war in Yemen. juancole.com Stavanger, Norway (Special to Informed Comment) — In the early hours of 14 September 2019, a fleet of drones attacked the Abqaiq-Khurais oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, the largest oil stabilisation plant in the world. The attack came shortly before Saudi Aramco —the Kingdom's state-owned oil company — was floated on the market, and Riyadh …

Jay Stanley (2021-02-09). New Government Tracking System Paves the Way for Expanded Role of Drones. aclu.org The Federal Aviation Administration recently took a major step toward expanding the prevalence of aerial drones in American life by creating a system for identifying and tracking them. The new system is part of a steady march by the FAA to Since drones first came to real public attention about a decade ago, the technology hasn't lived up to either its promise or its threat, primarily due to the FAA's cautious approach to allowing…

Liberation Staff (2021-02-09). Asheville, NC, locals reject Raytheon's blood money jobs. liberationnews.org Although the protest was primarily focused on nuclear proliferation, these recent demonstrations spearheaded by Veterans for Peace, are part of a larger movement in opposition to Raytheon's plans to bring a plant to Asheville.

MEE staff (2021-02-09). 'Immoral': UK approved $1.9bn arms sales to Saudi Arabia after ban was lifted. middleeasteye.net 'Immoral': UK approved $1.9bn arms sales to Saudi Arabia after ban was lifted | Anti-arms trade campaigners say figures show UK officials are putting 'profit before Yemeni lives' | Tue, 02/09/2021 – 20: 38 | UN has said conflict in Yemen has led to world's worst humanitarian disaster (AFP) | The British government has been accused by campaigners of "putting profit before Yemeni lives" after it authorised the e…

Ralph Nader (2021-02-09). Democrats Disarm Themselves Before Trump's Senate Impeachment Trial. counterpunch.org Donald Trump, has with luck, eluded the consequences of being a failed gambling czar with no respect for the law. But his luck has reached a new level with Congressional Democrats refraining from holding him accountable for breaking the law and violating the Constitution as regularly as the rising and setting of the sun for

_____ (2021-02-09). Striking Workers Halt Construction At Future Amazon Warehouse. popularresistance.org Roughly 75 workers walked off the job on Thursday at the construction site of a future Amazon fulfillment center in southern California—forcing most of the construction operations, including a large crane, to come to a halt. | Workers are striking at the future Amazon fulfillment center in Oxnard, California, because an Amazon contractor at the site, Building Zone Industries, has hired non-union, out-of-state workers to work on the project. This comes amid high rates of unemployment stemming from the COVID-19 in the predominantly agricultural, working-class Latinx community.

Online News Editor (2021-02-09). The soup kitchen providing for a town with 93% unemployment. laprensalatina.com The Compassionate Hearts soup kitchen provides food aid for many residents of Touws River in South Africa, which has a 93% unemployment rate, according to humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers Foundation. During the lockdowns for the pandemic, the majority of the town's residents have become unemployed with what few businesses existed now closed. The …

Alice Slater (2021-02-09). Time to Negotiate for Peace in Space. commondreams.org A legally binding international treaty banning the basing of weapons in space should be the global objective of all. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/astronaut_0.jpg

Online News Editor (2021-02-09). Pilot in Kobe Bryant helicopter crash violated rules, NTSB say. laprensalatina.com Los Angeles, Feb 9 (efe-epa).- Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven other passengers were killed in a helicopter accident caused after the pilot became disoriented while flying in cloudy conditions, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ruled on Tuesday. Federal regulators said that pilot Ara Zobayan suffered spatial disorientation while he navigated through clouds and …

WSWS (2021-02-09). UK unemployment rises to highest level in four years. wsws.org This year will see thousands more job losses in retail, following the closure of 320 stores every week in 2020. The Centre for Retail Research forecasts 200,000 job losses in 2021.

Prof Michel Chossudovsky (2021-02-09). The 2020 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d'État and the "Great Reset" globalresearch.ca We are at the crossroads of one of the most serious crises in modern history. We are living history, yet our understanding of the flow of events since January 2020 has been blurred. Worldwide, people have been misled both by their governments and the media.

Michael T. Hertz (2021-02-09). Can we have a fair society under capitalism? nationofchange.org Even though capitalism could work, the wealthy won't compromise enough to make it work.

WSWS (2021-02-08). Capitalism versus socialism: The pandemic and the global class struggle. wsws.org &nbsp…

F. William Engdahl (2021-02-08). The "Great Zero Carbon" Conspiracy. globalresearch.ca The globalist Davos World Economic Forum is proclaiming the necessity of reaching a worldwide goal of "net zero carbon" by 2050. Yet transformations underway from Germany to the USA, are setting the stage for creation of what is called the New Word Order. In reality it is a blueprint for a global technocratic totalitarian corporativism, that promises huge unemployment, deindustrialization and economic collapse.

Eds. (2021-02-08). Breaking the Glass Screen — Framing monopoly capitalism in global commodity chains. mronline.org In 2007—a digital time not spatially long ago—a month before the iPhone was production scheduled, the late Steven Jobs took some of his staff to an office. He had been carrying a prototype of the device in his pocket daily for weeks.

Dean Baker (2021-02-08). Unemployment Falls to 6.3 Percent, But Job Growth Remains Weak. counterpunch.org Trump is the first president to leave office with a loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover. The unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points in January to 6.3 percent. Much of this decline was due to people leaving the labor market as the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) only rose by 0.1 percentage point. The EPOP now

_____ (2021-02-08). Collective Hysteria: Western Leaders Work to Alter the Definition of Reality. strategic-culture.org U.S. leaders seek to suggest that America still has the power to alter 'reality' to fit to its own exceptionalist myth, Alastair Crooke writes. | President Putin in 2007 (at Munich) challenged the West: 'We didn't. You did; You continuously attack Russia; but we shall not bend'. The audience sniggered. Now, speaking at (a virtual) Davos this last month, after an absence of twelve years from that forum, President Putin held up a mirror to the key 'influencers' of the West: 'See what you have become in the interim; Look at yourself, and be worried'. | This was not so much a be-gloved slap, prefacing duel-by-weapons…

Dave Zirin (2021-02-08). The Super Bowl's Woke Capitalism. thenation.com The Super Bowl's Woke Capitalism…

2021-02-09: News Headlines

Jay Stanley (2021-02-09). New Government Tracking System Paves the Way for Expanded Role of Drones. aclu.org The Federal Aviation Administration recently took a major step toward expanding the prevalence of aerial drones in American life by creating a system for identifying and tracking them. The new system is part of a steady march by the FAA to Since drones first came to real public attention about a decade ago, the technology hasn't lived up to either its promise or its threat, primarily due to the FAA's cautious approach to allowing…

Adam Robertson Charlton (2021-02-09). Climate Crisis and Water Conflict: How Saudi's water insecurity led to war in Yemen. juancole.com Stavanger, Norway (Special to Informed Comment) — In the early hours of 14 September 2019, a fleet of drones attacked the Abqaiq-Khurais oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, the largest oil stabilisation plant in the world. The attack came shortly before Saudi Aramco —the Kingdom's state-owned oil company — was floated on the market, and Riyadh …

_____ (2021-02-09). Striking Workers Halt Construction At Future Amazon Warehouse. popularresistance.org Roughly 75 workers walked off the job on Thursday at the construction site of a future Amazon fulfillment center in southern California—forcing most of the construction operations, including a large crane, to come to a halt. | Workers are striking at the future Amazon fulfillment center in Oxnard, California, because an Amazon contractor at the site, Building Zone Industries, has hired non-union, out-of-state workers to work on the project. This comes amid high rates of unemployment stemming from the COVID-19 in the predominantly agricultural, working-class Latinx community.

Liberation Staff (2021-02-09). Asheville, NC, locals reject Raytheon's blood money jobs. liberationnews.org Although the protest was primarily focused on nuclear proliferation, these recent demonstrations spearheaded by Veterans for Peace, are part of a larger movement in opposition to Raytheon's plans to bring a plant to Asheville.

Ralph Nader (2021-02-09). Democrats Disarm Themselves Before Trump's Senate Impeachment Trial. zcomm.org If the Democrats do not go full throttle in this trial — this last clear chance to exercise the Constitution against Tyrant Trump — they will be remembered as profiles of infamy…

Online News Editor (2021-02-09). The soup kitchen providing for a town with 93% unemployment. laprensalatina.com The Compassionate Hearts soup kitchen provides food aid for many residents of Touws River in South Africa, which has a 93% unemployment rate, according to humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers Foundation. During the lockdowns for the pandemic, the majority of the town's residents have become unemployed with what few businesses existed now closed. The …

Online News Editor (2021-02-09). Pilot in Kobe Bryant helicopter crash violated rules, NTSB say. laprensalatina.com Los Angeles, Feb 9 (efe-epa).- Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven other passengers were killed in a helicopter accident caused after the pilot became disoriented while flying in cloudy conditions, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ruled on Tuesday. Federal regulators said that pilot Ara Zobayan suffered spatial disorientation while he navigated through clouds and …

Michael T. Hertz (2021-02-09). Can we have a fair society under capitalism? nationofchange.org Even though capitalism could work, the wealthy won't compromise enough to make it work.

Prof Michel Chossudovsky (2021-02-09). The 2020 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d'État and the "Great Reset" globalresearch.ca We are at the crossroads of one of the most serious crises in modern history. We are living history, yet our understanding of the flow of events since January 2020 has been blurred. Worldwide, people have been misled both by their governments and the media.

WSWS (2021-02-09). UK unemployment rises to highest level in four years. wsws.org This year will see thousands more job losses in retail, following the closure of 320 stores every week in 2020. The Centre for Retail Research forecasts 200,000 job losses in 2021.

Juan Cole (2021-02-08). Global heating from CO2 breaks Himalayan Glacier, floods sweep away Scores, destroy Hydroelectric Plant. juancole.com Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) — A huge chunk of the Nanda Devi glacier in the Himalayas broke off Sunday morning, melting and crashing down on villages around Joshimath in India's Uttarakhand state, leaving nine dead and 140 unaccounted for. The turbulent grey deluge of water, ice and rocks slammed into two hydro-electric plants, destroying one …

F. William Engdahl (2021-02-08). The "Great Zero Carbon" Conspiracy. globalresearch.ca The globalist Davos World Economic Forum is proclaiming the necessity of reaching a worldwide goal of "net zero carbon" by 2050. Yet transformations underway from Germany to the USA, are setting the stage for creation of what is called the New Word Order. In reality it is a blueprint for a global technocratic totalitarian corporativism, that promises huge unemployment, deindustrialization and economic collapse.

WSWS (2021-02-08). Capitalism versus socialism: The pandemic and the global class struggle. wsws.org &nbsp…

_____ (2021-02-08). Bolivia Heading Towards Cooperative Politics and Economy. strategic-culture.org Half of the country's revenues still come from natural gas and oil. Agricultural production is second. Arce wishes to diversify the economy, Ron Ridenour writes. | Communtarian-indigenous based Movement toward Socialism (MAS) regained governmental control of the country, October 18, 2021, defeating the U.S.-backed rightest coup government. (1) | Luis Arce, President Evo Morales' (2006-2019) minister of economy and public finance, and David Choquehuanca, Morales' foreign minister, won the presidency and vice-presidency with 55% of the vote (3.4 million). The closest opposition candidate was former conservative pre…

Dean Baker (2021-02-08). Unemployment Falls to 6.3 Percent, But Job Growth Remains Weak. counterpunch.org Trump is the first president to leave office with a loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover. The unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points in January to 6.3 percent. Much of this decline was due to people leaving the labor market as the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) only rose by 0.1 percentage point. The EPOP now

_____ (2021-02-08). Collective Hysteria: Western Leaders Work to Alter the Definition of Reality. strategic-culture.org U.S. leaders seek to suggest that America still has the power to alter 'reality' to fit to its own exceptionalist myth, Alastair Crooke writes. | President Putin in 2007 (at Munich) challenged the West: 'We didn't. You did; You continuously attack Russia; but we shall not bend'. The audience sniggered. Now, speaking at (a virtual) Davos this last month, after an absence of twelve years from that forum, President Putin held up a mirror to the key 'influencers' of the West: 'See what you have become in the interim; Look at yourself, and be worried'. | This was not so much a be-gloved slap, prefacing duel-by-weapons…

Dave Zirin (2021-02-08). The Super Bowl's Woke Capitalism. thenation.com The Super Bowl's Woke Capitalism…

_____ (2021-02-08). Time To Negotiate For Peace In Space. popularresistance.org The U.S. mission to dominate and control the military use of space has been, historically and at present, a major obstacle to achieving nuclear disarmament and a peaceful path to preserve all life on earth. | Reagan rejected Gorbachev's offer to give up Star Wars as a condition for both countries to eliminate all their nuclear weapons when the wall came down and Gorbachev released all of Eastern Europe from Soviet occupation, miraculously, without a shot. | Bush and Obama blocked any discussion in 2008 and 2014 on Russian and Chinese proposals for a space weapons ban in the consensus-bound Committee for Disarmame…

Grace Woods (2021-02-07). Brooklyn community fights food gentrification, demands "Save our supermarket!'. liberationnews.org Capitalism creates "food deserts."

Alex MacDonald (2021-02-07). Ali al-Nimr and two other Saudis jailed as minors have death sentences commuted. middleeasteye.net Ali al-Nimr and two other Saudis jailed as minors have death sentences commuted | Rights group Reprieve welcomes the news but calls for others imprisoned as minors to receive similar treatment | Sun, 02/07/2021 – 14: 11 | Ali al-Nimr, a Saudi youth facing the death penalty for taking part in pro-reform protests, posing for a photo at an unknown location (AFP) | Saudi Arabia on Sunday commuted th…

Joe Gould (2021-02-07). Biden to Stop Selling Smart Bombs to Saudi Arabia, Will Keep Supplying It With Everything Else. anti-empire.com Editor's note: If Saudis run out of smart bombs and go to dumb ones, how is that any better? |
| The Biden administration has paused indefinitely two precision guided munition sales to Saudi Arabia, worth as much as $760 million, as part of a new policy aimed at curtailing violence in Yemen, Defense News has learned. | However, that policy, announced Thursday by President Joe Biden, left open the possibility for future sales that are considered vital for Saudi Arabia's national defense, a fine line that would mean some munitions sales will continue. | "We are ending all American support for offensive operati…

Vishwas Satgar (2021-02-07). Trump May Be Gone, But Neofascism Remains. socialistproject.ca At last, the Donald Trump Presidency has crash landed and he is out of the White House. Now, we can all start dealing with 'Trump trauma' and shock. What did we live through over the past four years? This is a planetary question. It is a question we are all grappling with because the world …

Vladimir Danilov (2021-02-07). How Does Washington Rob the Entire World? Weapons Exports, Military Spending. globalresearch.ca All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the "Translate Website" drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). | *** | Against the backdrop of the recent change in the White House …

Robert Hughes (2021-02-06). There Are Still 14 Million Americans on Federal Unemployment, Down Just 2 Million From Shutdown High. anti-empire.com Initial claims for regular state unemployment insurance totaled 847,000 for the week ending January 23, down 67,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised tally of 914,000 (see first chart). Claims have been above 800,000 for three consecutive weeks, in the 700,000 to 1 million range for 22 consecutive weeks, and well above the pre-pandemic level of 212,000 in early 2020 for 45 weeks. | The four-week average rose again, up 16,250 to 868,000. The four-week average has drifted higher since hitting a low of 740,500 for the week of November 28, rising in eight of the last ten weeks. Persistent initial claims at su…

_____ (2021-02-06). Lessons From The November 2019 U.S.-Backed Coup In Bolivia. popularresistance.org In October of 2020, the Movement Towards Socialism (acronymed MAS in Spanish) returned to power 11 months after the U.S.-backed far-right coup regime of Jeanine àÅñez ousted Evo Morales and his government during Bolivia's November 2019 elections. The MAS party restored majority control over Bolivia's legislature, and MAS candidate Luis Arce won the presidential election by a landslide victory, earning about 55% of the vote against the two main anti-MAS candidates, center-right ex-president Carlos Mesa (who received almost 29%) and far-right Luis Camacho (who received only 14%). | The right-wing opposition h…

Caitlin Johnstone (2021-02-06). The Empire Must Die: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix. thealtworld.com Q: What is a liberal? | A: A liberal is a violent white supremacist extremist who supports and participates in the mass slaughter of brown-skinned human beings overseas while tweeting that white supremacist extremists are bad. | ‚ùñ | Q: What is capitalism? | A: Capitalism is a wonderful economic and political system which has given us powerful technology, a wide assortment of breakfast cereals, and near term human extinction. | ‚ùñ | Q: What is China? | A: China is a large Asiatic nation which westerners use as an emotional punching bag for their capitalism-induced rage, p…

Josh Bivens (2021-02-06). The Biden Rescue Plan Is Neither Risky Nor a Distraction From Structural Issues. commondreams.org The risks of going too-big are trivial. The risks of going too-small are large—letting the unemployment shock from Covid-19 linger for years. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/gettyimages-12188626381_0.jpg

RT (2021-02-06). 5yo child suffers 'life-threatening injuries' in car crash involving Kansas City Chiefs coach Britt Reid hours before Super Bowl. rt.com Just hours before the Kansas City Chiefs look to secure their second straight Super Bowl, defensive coach Britt Reid was involved in a multi-car pileup leaving two children with injuries, with one described as "life threatening". | Reid, 35, the son of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, is now not expected to travel with the team on Saturday to Super Bowl LV in Florida, where they face Tom Brady's Tampa Bay Buccaneers after an incident which is understood to have occurred on Thursday evening. | According to a police report from the Kansas City Missouri Police Department (KCPD), the accident happened after a car ran…

_____ (2021-02-06). The Q-Word: Weapon of Choice for Smearing Opponents. strategic-culture.org By Trevor Scott FITZGIBBON | –ûne of the most effective information-operation weapons during the 2016 presidential election was to smear political targets as "Russian bots" working on behalf of the Kremlin. Journalists were de-platformed, presidential candidates were The art of attacking political targets by using open-sourced guilt-by-association is not new — nor is using Russians as foils: Joseph McCarthy and his ilk did it in the…