Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Now Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World!
Always Remember: That President Obama, With a Majority Democrat Legislature Supported the Wall Street Bailout and Remember, That he Established, in writing, the United States Capitalist Austerity Program. — The Race to the Bottom/Pauperization of the 99%!
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 1% Who, Profit From Austerity!! Under Austerity, All of the World Will Eventually Be Pauperized, Humbled, and Desecrated Like Greece and Puerto Rico.! Socialism Means True Democracy, that the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few!
Quotes of the Day:
How many people know that, unlike Gandhi and King, she refused to rule out the righteous use of force? Not only did she admire Malcolm X, she flew down to Monroe, North Carolina, just a few years ago for the funeral of Robert Williams, the outspoken advocate of armed self-defense by the black community. — Diane McWhorter, Rosa Parks: The Story Behind Her Sitting Down
Videos of the Day:
On Contact: Judicial Lynching On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was removed from his post after he made public the widespread use of torture by the Uzbek government and the CIA. Murray has since become one of Britain’s most important human rights campaigners, a fierce advocate for Julian Assange and a supporter of Scottish independence. His coverage of the trial of former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, who was acquitted of sexual assault charges, saw him charged with contempt of court and sentenced to eight months in prison. The very dubious sentence, which upends most legal norms, was delivered, his supporters argue, to prevent him from testifying as a witness in the Spanish criminal case against UC Global Director David Morales. The company founder is being prosecuted for allegedly installing a surveillance system in the Ecuadorean Embassy when Julian Assange found refuge, that was used to record the privileged communications between Assange and his lawyers. Morales is alleged to have carried out this surveillance for the CIA.
The United States is not a Democracy (A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly)! Only the 1%, through. their ownershipof the Reublicrats, who profit from war and the war budget, voted for War and the war budget — A policy, which Gore Vidal called a Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. — The 99% Should Decide On War — Not Just The 1% Who Profit From War! Under a Democracy, The 99% would have the right to vote on the policy of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace! The United States takes from the poor and gives to the Rich. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!
A Vote for the Republicrates is a Vote for More War and Austerity!: Fresh Demands for Immediate US Withdrawal as Biden Administration Bombs Iraq, Syria “The easiest way to protect U.S. forces in Iraq is… for there not to be any U.S. forces in Iraq.” The U.S. military’s latest bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria on Sunday was met with fresh demands for the immediate withdrawal of American forces from both Middle East countries, as the Biden administration attempted to justify the airstrikes as “defensive” in nature. By Jake Johnson
American Democracy Will Remain a Mirage Without a Dramatic Overhaul of the Political and Economic System The progressive forces fighting for a democratic future have a truly herculean task ahead of them. It is no longer an unknown fact or a view propounded by a handful of radical historians and political scientists: the American political system has such severe structural flaws that it is potentially antithetical to democracy and surely detrimental to the promotion of the common good. By C.J. Polychroniou
Shape-Shifting Birds in US Skies Surprise Science The seasons are changing: American avian migrants are now increasingly shape-shifting birds. Their corpses tell an odd story. America’s migratory birds are setting off for the breeding grounds ever earlier. That’s not the only change. As global temperatures creep ever higher, the birds’ bodies are getting smaller − but their wings are getting longer. And, a little unexpectedly, the changes producing these shape-shifting birds may not be connected, according to new research. By Ted Radford
Lethal Heat Hits the Planet The news does not get much worse than a recent scientific report that the planet is trapping twice as much heat as it did only 14 years ago. If this one report does not turn heads and create a sense of panic to get off fossil fuels, as soon as yesterday, then nothing will ever move the needle to fix the planet’s broken climate system. (Source: Norman G. Loeb, et al, Satellite and Ocean Data Reveal Marked Increase in Earth’s Heating Rate, Geophysical Research Letters – Advanced Earth and Space Science, June 15, 2021). Scientists have been warning about the consequences of human-generated greenhouse gases ever since James Hansen testified before a Congressional committee 33 years ago: “The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now.” In fact, the warnings have been coming for 44 years. Prior to James Hansen’s testimony before the Senate committee, the most publicized report came from the National Academy of Sciences in 1977 when it warned that burning coal would crank up global temperatures to intolerable levels by 2050. By Robert Hunziker
Toxic Corporations are Destroying the Planet’s Soil A newly published analysis in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science argues that a toxic soup of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides is causing havoc beneath fields covered in corn, soybeans, wheat and other monoculture crops. The research is the most comprehensive review ever conducted on how pesticides affect soil health. By Colin Todhunter
Nuclear legacy is a Costly Headache for the Future How do you safely store spent nuclear waste? No-one knows. It’ll be a costly headache for our descendants. Many states are leaving future generations an unsolved and costly headache: how to deal with highly dangerous nuclear waste. The decision to start closing down the United Kingdom’s second generation of nuclear power stations earlier than originally planned has highlighted the failure of governments to resolve the increasingly expensive problem of the waste they leave behind them. By Paul Brown
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Econmy:
Capitalists Turn to Tricks and Illusions as Inflation Starts To Rise The pandemic has had the effect of intensifying the crisis of overproduction that began in 2008, further exacerbating the contradictions of the capitalist system. As a result, we are witnessing a sharp change in the policies being carried out by the ruling classes of the main imperialist countries. Austerity, the economic policy of the last few years, has been temporarily put to one side. It would have been economically and politically unsustainable to carry on with austerity policies under the current conditions. By Alessandro GiardielloIn general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living. — John Williams, Shadow Government Statistics
Inflation, Interest Rates and Debt Inflation of the prices of goods and services is good or bad news depending on your relation to the means of production. For labour, with no ownership of the means of production and only making a living from selling its power to work, inflation is not good news, because it eats into real incomes by increasing the prices of necessaries. Currently, as the major economies come out of the pandemic slump, employers are increasingly complaining that they cannot get staff to return to their low-paid jobs in the leisure, hospitality and other service industries. They are being forced to bid up wage rates to attract people back into jobs with little satisfaction, poor conditions, no unions, no sick pay, no holiday pay etc. The prospect of higher wages sounds like good news for layers of workers previously on minimum wage levels or even below. But higher wages are a monetary or prices illusion if at the same time prices for food and other necessaries start to rise sharply. And they are. The official US inflation rate hit 5% yoy in May. This was the highest reading since August 2008. It’s the same story in the UK and Europe. Even though the level of inflation is only about 2% a year there, that rate is the highest for over seven years. By Michael Roberts
JPMorgan Chase Spent $59.5 Billion Buying Back Its Stock from 2017-2019 while Its Bank Tellers Didn’t Make Enough to Pay for Basic Living Expenses According to the 10-K (Annual Report) forms that JPMorgan Chase has filed with the SEC for years 2017, 2018, and 2019, it has bought back a total of $59.5 billion of its own common stock, thus inflating its share price by that sum of money. In 2019 the bank bought back a whopping 212,975,185 shares for $24.12 billion; 181,504,483 shares in 2018 for a total of $19.98 billion; and 166,557,198 shares in 2017 for $15.4 billion. Notice that the growth in the dollar amount of the buybacks grew by 56.6 percent from 2017 to 2019. Who benefitted tremendously from this boosting of the share price? Insiders! According to the proxy JPMorgan Chase filed with the SEC on April 7, Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, owns 9,385,141 shares of the bank’s common stock – the bulk of which he obtained under “performance” awards given to him by his Board of Directors. (Never mind that Dimon’s “performance” has included racking up an unprecedented five felony counts against the bank and paying out more than $43 billion in fines and settlements for egregious financial abuses since 2014.) As of Friday’s closing price, Dimon’s shares had a market value of $1.44 billion, illustrating how handsomely crime pays on Wall Street. By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:
Education, Health, Science, and Welfare:
The government of the United States can pass laws in a few days to spend tens of trillions of dollars for war and the bailout of Wall Street and the bankers. Yet, those who pass universal healthcare for themselves, but cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People Vote on Healthcare!
The Evolutionary Genetics of SARS-CoV-2 and the Murderous Stupidity of the Bourgeoisie The ruling class is doing everything in its power to assist the evolutionary development of COVID-19, to become more virulent and vaccine resistant. In their myopic incompetence and sheer disregard for human life and scientific evidence, the capitalists are helping to ensure this pandemic drags on for years and continues to wreak havoc on billions of lives. By Alex Grant
\Another Example of Capitalism as a Failed System: World CaAnpilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 Years Ago and Did Nothing!: Under Capitalism — Human Lives Don’t Matter Capitalism Does Not, and Never Has, Worked for the Masses! In Its Death Agony, Capitalism Is Traveling About The World Like The Four Horsemen of the The Apocalypse, Spreading Racism, War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”
During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three-Point Political Program: 1.Austerity,2. Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3. The Iron Heel! For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel! Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!
In general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living. — John Williams, Shadow Government Statistics
World:
