Green New Deal

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls for a “Green New Deal” with decarbonization in a decade or less and guarantees a job for every American. This is the WWII-scale climate mobilization we need!

This is a short (2 min.) very clear description of the Green New Deal straight from the horses mouth.




This was found on the Climate Mobilization's web site and very important.
https://www.theclimatemobilization.org/

Alexandria also mentions the Sunrise Movement in the video so I followed that as well and found a Bay Area Sunrise movement that is in fack offering trainings.  It is an unabashed young peoples movement

Obama's record is not good despite popularity

This is from Linda Carpenter Sexauer on facebook and I forward it not for its analysis or brilliant argument but simply as a resource of ideas and articles and research that together supports the conclusion about what Obama really did -- not how popular he was as the ABC poll does.

Americans rank Barack Obama as best president of their lifetimes: Poll

I don't hate or despise Obama as I do Trump (my gut just wrenches with Trump's style of bigotry) but it is clear who Obama really worked for and we need no more politicians like this.  Enjoy your retirement Mr. Obama and please do no more harm.

The brilliance of American propaganda.
Here's a list of Obama's accomplishments -
* Gave Bush absolute immunity for everything.
* Launched 20,000 air strikes his first term. 60,000 in total.
* Repealed the Propaganda ban, making it legal to spread government propaganda via news outlets.
* Signed the Monsanto Protection Act into law, thus doing the exact opposite of labeling GMO's as promised.
* Pushed for the TPP Trade Pact.
* Did a TV commercial promoting "clean coal"
* Opened up deepwater oil drilling, even after the BP disaster.
*Opened up dumping fracking wastewater directly into ocean.
* Bragged about his use of drones - I'm "really good at killing people."
*Assassinated 4 US civilians with drone strikes.
* Deported a modern-record 3 million immigrants. More than all other presidents combined.
* Used Espionage Act to prosecute more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined.
* Sold $30 billion of weapons to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia.
* Promised $38 billion dollars to Israel while committing humanitarian crimes against Palestine
* Despite campaign pledges, planned a $1 trillion program to add smaller "usable" nuclear weapons to the US arsenal in the next 30 years.
* Dropped bombs in 7 Muslim countries.
* Didn't bring justice to Wall Street for the economic crash.
* Backed neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
* Despite campaign pledges, did not close Guantanamo.
* Put troops on the ground in Syria, despite 16 times saying "no troops on the ground."
* Started a new war on terror - this one on ISIS.
*Admitted to directly funding ISIS, and other terrorist groups
* Said, “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being.”
* Started a new war in Iraq.
* Initiated, and personally oversees a 'Secret Kill List.'
* Supported Israel's wars and occupation of Palestine.
* Deployed Special Ops to 134 countries - compared to 60 under Bush.
* Drastically escalated the NSA spying program.
* Signed the NDAA into law - making it legal to assassinate and imprison Americans w/o charge or trial.
* Signed an agreement for 7 military bases in Colombia.
* Opened a military base in Chile.
* Touted nuclear power, even after the disaster in Japan.
* Mandated the Insider Threat Program which orders federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues.
* Defended body scans and pat-downs at airports.
* Signed the Patriot Act extension into law.
* Started covert drone war in Yemen.
* Continued Bush's rendition program.
* Said the U.S. is the "one indispensable nation" in the world.
* Waged war on Libya without congressional approval.
* Started a covert drone war in Yemen.
* Escalated the proxy war in Somalia.
* Escalated the CIA drone war in Pakistan.
* Sharply escalated the war in Afghanistan
Added
Enacted deceptive unaffordable health care (ACA), instead of providing affordable healthcare, that was designed by healthcare industries with their interest in mind. His greatest accomplishment is to force everyone to buy health insurance for which they can barely afford the premium much less the deductible making ACA the most sweeping price of corporate welfare ever enacted in the
Don’t forget:
* Allowed Citigroup to pick his cabinet
* Ignored Standing Rock.
* Flint, Michigan.
* complete silence on election fraud committed by DNC
* protected DWS
* killed the public option rather than use it as a bargaining chip to get better health care.


https://www.theguardian.com/…/barack-obama-legacy-presidency
https://www.counterpunch.org/…/obama-a-hollow-man-filled-w…/
http://www.dividedstates.com/list-of-obama-failures-of-ob…/…
https://www.counterpunch.org/…/barack-obamas-great-tower-o…/
https://www.counterpunch.org/…/face-it-progressives-obama-…/
https://nypost.com/…/its-time-to-face-facts-obamas-presid…/…
https://www.stpete4peace.org/obama-fact-sheet
http://www.okayplayer.com/…/cornel-west-criticizes-obama-fo…
https://www.salon.com/…/cornel_west_he_posed_as_a_progress…/
https://www.theguardian.com/…/barack-obama-legacy-presidency
http://www.dividedstates.com/list-of-obama-failures-of-oba…/
https://www.businessinsider.com/barack-obama-michelle-obama…
https://ghionjournal.com/my-political-awakening/
https://www.counterpunch.org/…/obama-a-hollow-man-filled-…/…
https://www.youtube.com/watch…
https://www.longislandpress.com/…/obamas-legacy-historic-w…/

A Socialist Response to Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers’ Report

What an amazing crock of shit in the report that is being responded to in this article.  It is laughably predictable anti socialist claptrap! I am so please that we are now able to respond rationally to this harmful an worn out meme that has enslaved the American psyche for so long.


Text of article  https://truthout.org/articles/a-socialist-response-to-trumps-council-of-economic-advisers-report/

Government report:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/The-Opportunity-Costs-of-Socialism.pdf

The stated purpose of the Council of Economic Advisers says it all:

The Council of Economic Advisers, an agency within the Executive Office of the President, is charged with offering the President objective economic advice on the formulation of both domestic and international economic policy. The Council bases its recommendations and analysis on economic research and empirical evidence, using the best data available to support the President in setting our nation's economic policy.

Thus they cherry pick junk economic so called"science" to justify whatever the fuck the President wants. If you are at all educated about the spectrum of socialist experiments in the world a reading of this report will leave you gaping in disbelief.

Bolton Hails Bolsonaro as Welcome Ally in Crushing Latin American Left

Do I have to tell you how evil and dangerous this guy is?

Declaring not just sympathy but outright admiration for a fascist who has threatened violence against his leftist political opponents, celebrated the use of torture, and promised to give the police free rein to murder at will, US national security adviser John Bolton on Thursday praised Brazil’s newly elected strongman President Jair Bolsonaro as a “like-minded” partner who shares the Trump administration’s commitment to so-called “free market principles.”

This article says enough.  Bolton has a horrible history in foreign policy, mostly in the middle east.  Crushing the left in Latin America, including indigenous defenders, environmentalist activist, Venezuela, Cuba, liberation theology, progressives opposition parties and organized labor has been going on throughout  the region for over 30 years.  It really pisses me off that he now gets a chance to make things worse in the global south.

I will here just refer the reader by linking to several background blogs on the run up to the Bolsonaro coup in Brazil.
https://smashingcapitalism.blogspot.com/2018/10/possible-election-of-far-right.html
https://smashingcapitalism.blogspot.com/2018/10/brazils-far-right-candidate-jair.html

Bernie Sanders

✔@SenSanders

Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro is a far-right authoritarian who has praised the former military dictatorship and referred to black activists as “animals.”

It's very troubling that Bolton sees Bolsonaro as “like-minded” with Trump. Even more troubling, he’s probably right.

POLITICO

✔@politico

John Bolton said the presidential victory of Jair Bolsonaro, the bombastic, far-right nationalist who triumphed in Brazil's election, should be seen as a welcome development in the region https://politi.co/2QjDsck 

6:31 AM - Nov 2, 2018

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Red-State Senate Democrats Are Top Recipients of Wall Street Donations

Michael Corcoran, November 2, 2018

And, that means they will do their bidding.

Corcoran is always good, and this one is pretty exhaustive.  There remains no doubt about who wins in this game and it's big banks and Wall Street.  What Corcoran does not assess is what happens next.  Assuming Democrats get control of the House and some of the Senate even if not a majority.  There will ensue a payday for donors for sure and that is bad for the rest of us but the democrats will do nothing else to help us either and this being very transparent are very likely to lose the Presidency in 2020.  Progressives in congress and the senate are just too small to get any policy passed that could help people and without real change we will lose it all perhaps even bigger next time out.  Do I blame the Democrats for this.  Very definitely yes.  They simply do not work for any of us.

As for the content of the article I will let you read it yourself.



https://truthout.org/articles/red-state-senate-democrats-are-top-recipients-of-wall-street-donations/

Brazil's Far-Right Candidate Jair Bolsonaro Is a Threat to the World

By Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben, Guardian UK 26 October 18

Brazil is going through the worst crisis in its history since the civil-military coup and the establishment of the dictatorship in 1964. On 7 October, in the first round of the presidential election, far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro obtained an impressive 46.03% of the votes cast, or one-third of the registered voters. This result triggered a first wave of hate violence: more than 70 attacks were recorded against LGBT people, against women, against any opponents of extreme rightwing candidates or against journalists.

On the evening of the first round, capoeira master Moa do Katendê, an antiracist activist and educator, was stabbed to death by a Bolsonaro supporter. Katendê had declared that he had voted for leftwing candidate Fernando Haddad. In the south of the country, a 22-year-old woman was attacked on the street. We fear that this is only a foretaste of a deadlier wave of violence.

People demonstrate against presidential candidate
Jair Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 29, 2018.

This hatred and violence is clearly being stirred up by Bolsonaro and his party’s elected representatives. By repeating their misogynous, racist, homophobic and transphobic speeches and provocations, by displaying their firearms, by glorifying the military dictatorship, by spreading false information, they implicitly call for the brutalisation, even murder, of all those who do not resemble them: women and LGBT activists, human rights defenders and indigenous peoples, progressive activists or journalists.

If Bolsonaro is elected head of the Brazilian state, this hatred risks becoming institutionalised and this physical violence unleashed. Brazil is already, unfortunately, one of the most violent countries in the world: 61,619 homicides were committed in 2017 according to the Brazilian Public Security Forum, representing nearly 170 people killed every day, including a young black man every 23 minutes. Human and environmental rights defenders were already particularly threatened and increasingly targeted.

Furthermore, Brazilian democratic institutions have also been dangerously weakened by the political-financial scandals affecting all political parties and the controversial dismissal of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016. We fear that these institutions will not be able to enforce the democratic rule of law in the event of Bolsonaro’s victory.

As the second round approaches on 28 October, the far-right candidate enjoys the support of the most conservative and reactionary sectors of Brazilian society: the pro-weapons lobby, representatives of large landowners, many industrialists, powerful evangelical churches, part of the army and police forces. They will bear their responsibility for what awaits Brazil.

The international community, and in particular France and the European Union, must take action and support Brazilian democrats, regardless of the outcome of the presidential election. This is particularly so because Bolsonaro’s ideas represent a deadly threat to freedom, fundamental rights, achieving any Earth balance to climate change and Brazil’s young democracy.

This piece was drafted by the Paris-based Association Autres Brésils, and signed in support by:

Celso Amorim, diplomat, Brazilian; Frei Betto, author, Brazilian; José Bové, member of the European parliament (Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance), French; Chico Buarque, musician, Brazilian; Noam Chomsky, linguist, American; Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona; Karima Delli, member of the European parliament (Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance), French; Benoît Hamon, politician, French; Naomi Klein, journalist, Canadian; Noel Mamère, politician, French; Joana Mortágua, MP (Left Bloc), Portuguese; Bill McKibben, author, educator, environmentalist, and co-founder 350.org; Bresser Pereira, economist, Brazilian; Carol Proner, lawyer, Brazilian; Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, diplomat, Brazilian; Chico Whitaker, co-founder of the Brazilian World Social Forum.

Bend Over And Kiss Your Ass Goodbye: IPCC Report Version

This is just a reprint of Ian's comments with which I concur.



Once more. Climate change is settled science. Climate change is past the point of no return. (If you believe that nations are even going to keep the Paris agreement targets, you’re such a fool you’ll be sold all the world’s bridges.)

These numbers are catastrophic, and the IPCC reports are always over-optimistic. Always.

There are quite a number of scenarios where this stuff happens faster. You’ll notice that this chart has straight line assumptions. That’s—almost certainly wrong. What will actually happen is that we’ll get some feedback loop like arctic or permafrost methane release and that will lead to parabolic increases. When it breaks, it will break hard.

At that point a lot of other problems could also blow up, the most serious of which would be the Oceans losing their ability produce oxygen. If that happens, well, we’re dead.

Even if it doesn’t, things like the thermohaline currents flipping or shutting off are possible. Europe could, in the middle of everyone else getting hot, have a mini-ice age.

People don’t realize how far north Europe is. If it didn’t have warm currents, it would be like parts of Canada that are, well, almost uninhabited, and for damn good reasons.

This will also, certainly, screw with weather systems. Imagine Indian monsoons failing for even three years in a row. Can you say hundreds of millions of deaths. Move your lips.

And it isn’t that we are decelerating, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who will likely win election, has essentially promised to chop down what remains of the Amazon jungle as fast as possible (and also, to commit genocide on the remaining indigenous tribes. No, don’t pretend, that’s what he means.)

We are so far up shit creek we are never seeing clear waters again.

Be very clear on this, and if you want to survive (deciding to not bother is a legitimate decision and if you’re old you may die before the worst of it) start doing what you can for yourself.

We are long past (a good 10 years past, at a minimum) any possibility of stopping this.

This is triage time. Are you going to survive? Your family, friends and loved ones?

http://www.ianwelsh.net/bend-over-and-kiss-your-ass-goodbye-ipcc-report-version/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IanWelsh+%28Ian+Welsh%29