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Images Of the Day:
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 0f the Day:
United States:
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 ownership of the Reublicrats and who profit from war and the war budget, vote 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. Rax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!
The Extraordinary Rendition of Japanese Latin Americans During World War II In 2017, Isamu “Art” Shibayama testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, marking a milestone in a 74-year journey that began when the United States government kidnapped him and more than 2,260 persons of Japanese ancestry from Latin America during World War II. By Diana Morita Cole
An Asylum Mirage: As Biden Continues Trump’s War on Asylum, Danger Mounts in the Deadly Sonoran Desert Diego Iiña Lopez stood in the darkened entryway of the repurposed juvenile detention center, chatting with volunteers as night fell. The 31-year-old program director of Casa Alitas, Tucson’s largest migrant shelter, was approaching the end of another 12-hour day. He had hit the road early that morning to drive more than 130 miles west to the unincorporated community of Ajo, where the Border Patrol recently began dropping off vanloads of asylum-seekers. Piña took three of the new arrivals back to Tucson himself. Others rode in vehicles organized by community groups and local leaders.
Private Stormtroopers: Private Security Firm Accused of Working Illegally to Protect Oil and Gas Pipelines in Five States While pipeline protesters risk harsh new penalties enacted in various states, security companies hired to police fossil fuel projects are operating with little oversight. Leighton Security Services, a private security company accused of working without a license during construction of the controversial Dakota Access pipeline, is facing similar allegations in Virginia. The complaint against Leighton is one of two recently filed against private companies providing security for the Mountain Valley pipeline, a planned 300-mile pipeline that would carry fracked gas from northwestern West Virginia, through pristine mountain streams and Appalachian forests, to the Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company’s (Transco) compressor station in southern Virginia. By Karen Savage
Systemic Police Terrorism:
From: The Historic Role of Police Brutality in the Black Community and African American Oppression”: To begin to understand, the role of the police, the following quotes By Jam Baldwin, which are still true today — they act like a army of occupation.: Harlem (The Black Community) is policed like occupied territory.—James Baldwin, A Report from Occupied Territory And the police are simply the hired enemies of this population. They are present to keep the Negro in his place and to protect white business interests, and they have no other function. They are, moreover — even in a country which makes the grave error of equating ignorance with simplicity—quite stunningly ignorant; and, since they know that they are hated, they are always afraid. One cannot possibly arrive at a more surefire formula for cruelty. — James Baldwin, From ‘Victim’ to ‘Threat’: James Baldwin and the Demands of Self-Respect
Cameras, chokehold bans, ‘retraining’ funds, and similar reform measures do not ultimately solve what is a systemic problem,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “That system will find a way — killings happen on camera, people are killed in other ways, retraining grows $ while often substituting for deeper measures. — AOC Blasts Police Department’s “Accident” Excuse in Daunte Wright’s Death
The Supreme Court Is Also to Blamefor Daunte Wright’s Death Pretext Traffic Stops Enable Racial Profiling In 1996, Antonin Scalia wrote an opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court that legalized racial profiling during traffic stops. The Court authorized pretext stops in Whren v. United States. That means officers can stop cars and temporarily detain motorists on the pretext of enforcing traffic laws, even if a reasonable officer would not have stopped the driver absent some additional law enforcement objective. Even if they are subjectively motivated by racism, officers can stop a car as long as they have probable cause to believe the driver committed a traffic infraction. Whren permits “reasonable”law enforcement objectives to serve as a pretextual justification for subjective suspicion on the basis of race. Pretext stops foster racial profiling, and ultimately, the use of violence against Black people.
Chicago’s Child Killers: Footage of Chicago Police Shooting 13-Year-Old Adam Toledo Fuels Outrage “If you’re shooting an unarmed child with his hands in the air, it is an assassination,” said an attorney for the boy’s family. The civilian oversight agency of the Chicago Police Department on Thursday released videos and other materials that show 13-year old Adam Toledo had his hands raised and was not holding a gun when an officer shot and killed him in the city’s Little Village neighborhood on March 29. By Jessica Corbett
Environment:
22 Disasters, 262 Dead, $95bn in Damages: US Saw Record Year for Climate-Driven Catastrophes Report shows US was battered by punishing extreme weather on both the east and west coasts in 2020 A total of 22 major disasters, defined as each causing at least $1bn in damage, swept the US last year, six more than the previous record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). At least 262 people died, with $95bn in total damages recorded, the federal agency reported on Friday. The year was marked by punishing extremes on both the east and west coasts. It was the most active wildfire year on record in the US west, with California recording five of the six biggest fires in its history, an outbreak that destroyed thousands of homes and caused the sky to turn an apocalyptic orange over the San Francisco Bay Area. By Oliver Milman
New Google Earth Timelapse Feature Offers Devastating View of Climate Emergency “We want this to be very visceral and real for people, and a ray of hope that there’s actually a lot we can do.” Google Earth’s new Timelapse feature, released Thursday, provides a bird’s eye view of nearly four decades of environmental transformation, allowing viewers to see how the climate emergency, a planetary crisis driven by fossil fuel-powered capitalism, has unfolded since 1984. The new tool “was inspired by a desire to show us precisely what climate change looks like,” according to Vogue. Rebecca Moore, a director of Google Earth, wrote Thursday in a blog post that “visual evidence can cut to the core of the debate in a way that words cannot and communicate complex issues to everyone.” By Kenny Stancil
Pacific Ocean World’s Largest Dump Site!: UN Experts Decry Japan’s Plan to Dump Radioactive Fukushima Wastewater Into Ocean “The release of one million tonnes of contaminated water into the marine environment imposes considerable risks to the full enjoyment of human rights of concerned populations in and beyond the borders of Japan.” —U.N. experts “The decision is particularly disappointing as experts believe alternative solutions to the problem are available,” said the three special rapporteurs. By Brett Wilkins,
Fairewinds Nuclear Spring Series: Kaku no Hizumi 核の歪み —Nuclear Distortion in Japan In Japanese, the words Kaku no Hizumi 核の歪み translate to Nuclear Distortion. For Arnie and me, Kaku no Hizumi 核の歪み / Nuclear Distortion is the absolute truth about the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima Meltdowns – 10 Years After. Today, we publish this seventh installment of the Fairewinds Nuclear Spring Series, in which we look at all the atomic power meltdowns that have occurred during springtime. It gives a whole new image to springtime when all species and plant life on the planet are reborn. The impact of such massive amounts of radioactivity on earth has changed our lives on this planet forevr, and will continue to do so. By Maggie Gundersen
Indian Monsoons Becoming More Chaotic Study warns of grave consequences for agriculture and economy, affecting over one billion people (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, April 14, 2021) If global warming continues unchecked, summer monsoon rainfall in India will become stronger and more erratic. This is the central finding of an analysis by a team of German researchers that compared more than 30 state-of-the-art climate models from all around the world. The study predicts more extremely wet years in the future – with potentially grave consequences for more than one billion people’s well-being, economy, food systems and agriculture.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
I would just like to say this in my conclusion. You’ll see terrorism that will terrify you, and if you don’t think you’ll see it, you’re trying to blind yourself to the historic development of everything that’s taking place on this earth today. You’ll see other things. Why will you see them? Because as soon as people realize that it’s impossible for a chicken to produce a duck egg even though they both belong to the same family of fowl–a chicken just doesn’t have within its system to produce a duck egg. It can’t do it. It can only produce according to what that particular system was constructed to produce. The system in this country cannot produce freedom for an Afro-American. It is impossible for this system, this economic system, this political system, this social system, this system, period. It’s impossible for this system as it stands to produce freedom right now for the Black man in this country. And if ever a chicken did produce a duck egg, I’m certain you would say it was certainly a revolutionary chicken! — Malcolm X: This System Can’t Produce Freedom
Capitalism and Slavery:
The effects of slavery aren’t simple. It’s complicated. Its implications on history, society, culture and economics go so much further than the surface-level stuff we’re taught at school. Today, we’re looking at the slave trade’s influence on the British Industrial Revolution. Slavery (and by extension, the Triangular Trade) did more than just create a source of free labor for Britain. It went way beyond that. It built a network of systemic exploitation that became the backbone of the Industrial Revolution. We can see this clearly in the historical development of major cities and seaports like London and Liverpool, the rise of banking and the financial sector, and the growth of key manufacturing industries. — How Slavery Fueled the Industrial Revolution
The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre. It begins with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England’s Anti-Jacobin War, and is still going on in the opium wars against China, &c. The different momenta of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the end of the 17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode of taxation, and the protectionist system. These methods depend in part on brute force, e.g., the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the State, the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power. — Capital, Chapter Thirty-One: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist
Labor:
Economy:
The Roaring Twenties Repeated? The latest data on economic recovery in China and the US suggest that both economies should be back to or above the pre-pandemic levels of national output by the end of this year (in the case of China probably some 10% above). This has renewed optimism that the pandemic slump may quickly be reversed. Keynesians like Larry Summers and Paul Krugman have previously argued that the US economy would bounce back quickly because the COVID slump was more like closing down tourist sites in holiday resorts over the winter. Once the summer comes, service businesses re-open and economies leap forward again as the flowers come into bloom. As one mainstream economics think-tank put it: “Together these improvements in the outlook have led the fund to predict that, as a whole, advanced economies are on course to lose less than 1 per cent of output by 2024 compared with its pre-pandemic forecasts — an outcome that seemed barely plausible last October. The US is top of the pack and now has forecasts showing it on a stronger path than before the pandemic, but other advanced economies are not far behind in the medium term.” By Michael Roberts
World:
The U.S. Could Have Left Afghanistan Years Ago, Sparing Many Lives America will depart without having accomplished its goals and with more Afghan suffering ahead. President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw most U.S. troops from Afghanistan marks a significant reduction in America’s participation in the war. But it is unlikely to mean peace for Afghans themselves, who remain caught between a weak and corrupt central government long propped up by U.S. military might and a resurgent Taliban movement that is stronger than at any time since the United States invaded. The question of timing hung heavily over Biden’s announcement Wednesday that America’s “forever war” in Afghanistan would soon come to an end, with the remaining 2,500 American troops in the country scheduled to come home on the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The violent disintegration of Afghan society began with the 1979 Soviet invasion of the country, but the decision in the early years of this century to occupy Afghanistan and try to transform it into a liberal democracy at great cost in lives and resources has made America a key force in Afghanistan’s fate. The U.S. will leave without having accomplished its goals and with more Afghan suffering ahead. It also doesn’t seem that America’s own “forever war” is actually ending. Biden reserved the right to carry out airstrikes and raids against suspected threats in Afghanistan indefinitely — washing America’s hands of its involvement in inter-Afghan conflict, while signaling that the United States would still be killing people in the country when it deems necessary. By Murtaza Hussain
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
Governments Funded Covid Vaccines — Big Pharma Reaps $rrillions Pandemic, Risk Free, Windfall Profits!: The US government has poured an additional $10.5 billion into various vaccine companies since the pandemic began to accelerate the delivery of their products. The Moderna vaccine emerged directly out of a partnership between Moderna and the NIH laboratory. The US government—and two agencies in particular, the NIH and Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)—has invested, heavily, in the vaccine’s development. BARDA is an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services formed in 2006 in response to—wait for it—SARS-CoV-1 (and other health threats). It provides direct investment in technologies to firms, but also engages in public-private partnerships (PPPs) and coordinates between agencies. A specific part of BARDA’s mission is taking technologies through the “valley of death” between creation and commercialization. The US government has poured an additional $10.5 billion into various vaccine companies since the pandemic began to accelerate the delivery of their products. The Moderna vaccine emerged directly out of a partnership between Moderna and the NIH laboratory. The US government—and two agencies in particular, the NIH and Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)—has invested, heavily, in the vaccine’s development. BARDA is an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services formed in 2006 in response to—wait for it—SARS-CoV-1 (and other health threats). It provides direct investment in technologies to firms, but also engages in public-private partnerships (PPPs) and coordinates between agencies. A specific part of BARDA’s mission is taking technologies through the “valley of death” between creation and commercialization. — COVID Vaccines: Calling the Shots
Colleges Are Using COVID as an Excuse for Austerity. Unions Are Pushing Back. Some union organizers say that recent budget cuts were premature, premeditated, and in some cases, draconian. As COVID-19 swept across the U.S. last winter and spring, colleges and universities adapted swiftly to the situation. Though it was swift, it was not without pain: Just as quickly as professors learned to teach through a screen on Zoom, administrations slashed budgets. In the early days of the pandemic, little was certain about the future — if students would defer fall enrollment, how states might cut education funding or if the federal government would step in to offset the financial impact of the crises. Nevertheless, public and private higher education institutions across the country put in place austerity measures ahead of what they foresaw as a fiscal emergency. By Kerry Cardoza
Who GetS Arrested — Who Gets Murdered 
Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism 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!
Videos of the Day: