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Images Of the Day:
History of Deforestation in the United States 1620-2112 (Video)
If You Want Pandemics, Build Factory Farms It should be made clear that the source of COVID-19 is still unknown, despite much of our media claiming the source to be the infamous wet market in Wuhan and the UN subsequently calling to end all of such markets 1. True; many of the first cases had links to the wet market in Wuhan. However the first known case – patient zero – emerged in November 2019, with no links whatsoever to the Wuhan market. Animals too were tested from this market, again no positive tests 2, 3, 4. The jury is out.
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!
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:
Rachel Deutsch, a worker justice advocate with the Center for Popular Democracy, called the Biden administration’s position on the emergency jobless benefits “appalling” and said the White House is “siding with employers that want to coerce people into bad jobs.” “Some will be forced into into abject poverty because no amount of deprivation can make them work right now,” Deutsch added, pointing to testimony from unemployed workers who are either unable to find a job or unable to work due to family circumstances. — Biden Faces Backlash Over ‘Shameful’ Capitulation to GOP Governors as They End Unemployment Lifelines
Videos 0f the Day:
Biden’s Tax Plan Fails to Account For Race Dorothy Brown, Asa Griggs Candler Professor at Emory University School of Law and author of The Whiteness of Wealth, joins Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers and Alexis Christoforous to discuss how tax policies impact the racial wealth gap.
Does Tennis Care About Players? Naomi Osaka Quits French Open After Mental Health Plea Ignored Athletes around the globe are voicing support for tennis superstar Naomi Osaka, who withdrew from the French Open after being fined and threatened with disqualification for declining to take part in press conferences due to their effect on her mental health. Prominent athletes, from Stephen Curry to Serena Williams, have come forward to support 23-year-old Osaka, who is a four-time Grand Slam tournament winner. The escalating fines and criticism Osaka faced from tennis officials were “a disproportionate response” to her actions, says Amira Rose Davis, an assistant professor of history and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Penn State and co-host of the sports podcast “Burn It All Down.” She adds that Black women athletes are often subjected to insensitive questioning from the media that can perpetuate racist and sexist narratives. “The media is overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly older, overwhelmingly male,” Davis says.
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 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!
Biden’s Proposed World 15% World Corporate Flat Tax Rate: The international deal setting a minimum 15% tax rate on corporate profits just signed up to by the G7 is full of holes. First, most countries have higher rates than 15%, so it does not affect them. “It’s absurd for the G7 to claim it is ‘overhauling’ a broken global tax system by setting up a global minimum corporate tax rate that is similar to the soft rates charged by tax havens like Ireland, Switzerland and Singapore,” said Oxfam’s executive director Gabriela Bucher. “They are setting the bar so low that companies can just step over it.” Second, the pact supposedly will make companies pay more tax in the countries where they are selling their products or services, rather than wherever they end up declaring their profits, thus curbing the use of tax havens by corporations But that only applies to profit ‘margins’ above 10%, and accounting tricks can ensure that breaking this threshold can be avoided. And anyway only 20% of any margin above 10% will be reallocated. Moreover, it seems that ‘sales’ will be defined as where they are exported not where they are consumed, thus hitting poorer countries and actually boosting profits to G7 nations. Ironically, a 15% minumum tax means that Biden in the US will now not proceed to raise corporate taxes in the US as originally promised! Anyway, it is not higher corporate taxes that are needed so much as ownership and control of the multi-nationals and the closure of tax haven operations. No deal there. — Michael Roberts 
The breathing space afforded by the demented orange crime boss’s defeat and departure is welcome and worth celebrating. But modest adjustments of tax rates, bringing them back to George W. Bush levels, can no more save us from neoliberal-era fascism than modest reductions in carbon emissions can rescue us from climate disaster. The solutions lay beyond the ideological purview and institutional reach of what the nation’s two major parties, either neoliberal-fascist (the Republicans) or neoliberal-constitutional (the Democrats), are willing or able to consider. As Dr. Joan Benach counsels, a major, mass, prolonged, dedicated, mobilized, and coordinated intervention against the capitalist-imperial order (including that order’s arcane constitutional rules in the U.S.) and on behalf of the common good is urgently, existentially required. To repeat, we organize for radical societal reconstruction and transformative (eco-) socialism or its “barbarism if we’re lucky.” The imperative is indeed, “revolution, nothing less.” — No Time to Relax: Dark Clouds in Biden’s America
Biden Faces Backlash Over ‘Shameful’ Capitulation to GOP Governors as They End Unemployment Lifelines “You only take back the lifeline when people aren’t drowning,” said Claire Guzdar of the Groundwork Collaborative. Biden administration officials publicly signaled Friday that they have no intention of putting up a fight as the Republican governors of 25 states prematurely cut off emergency unemployment programs, yanking key lifelines from millions of jobless workers and depriving local economies of billions of dollars. By Jake Johnson
Environment: 
Global Task Force Says to Stop Next Pandemic Humanity Must End Destruction of Nature “We can choose to transform this moment into an opportunity to learn from our recent tragic mistakes… We can choose to invest in prevention.” More than a year into the pandemic that’s still raging across much of the world, an independent task force of scientists said government leaders are doing far too little to stop future pandemics at their source by ending the exploitation and destruction of nature. The task force was convened by Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI) and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Climate Health and the Global Environment (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE)—the academic affiliates of the Coalition for Preventing Pandemics at the Source (PPS). By the end of the summer, scientists from all over the world plan to present the coalition with an action plan to stop pandemics “at the point of spillover of pathogens from animals to humans, well before they can become global pandemics, epidemics, or even localized outbreaks.” “Covid-19 was a warning shot from nature to our species,” tweeted Dr. Aaron Bernstein of Harvard Chan C-CHANGE, who is leading the task force. “We need greater investment in science and actions to stop viruses from spilling into humans in the first place.” By Julia Conley
Food waste reduction offers multi-faceted wins for people and planet, improving food security, addressing climate change, saving money and reducing pressures on land, water, biodiversity and waste management systems. Yet this potential has until now been woefully under-exploited. This potential may have been overlooked because the true scale of food waste and its impacts have not been well understood. Global estimates of food waste have relied on extrapolation of data from a small number of countries, often using old data. Few governments have robust data on food waste to make the case to act and prioritize their efforts. Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 (SDG 12.3) captures a commitment to halve food waste at the retail and consumer level and to reduce food loss across supply chains. This Food Waste Index Report aims to advance progress on SDG 12.3 in two ways:
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Firstly, it presents the most comprehensive food waste data collection, analysis and modelling to date, generating a new estimate of global food waste. Country-level food waste estimates have been calculated, and while confidence intervals for estimates vary by region and by sector, they offer new insight into the scale of the problem and into thesubstantial prevention potential in low-, middle- and high-income countries.
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Secondly, this report publishes a methodology for countries to measure food waste, at household, food service and retail level, in order to track national progress towards 2030 and to report on SDG 12.3. Countries using this methodology will generate strong evidence to guide a national strategy on food waste prevention, food waste estimates that are sufficiently sensitive to pick up changes in food waste over two- or four-year intervals, and that enables meaningful comparisons among countries globally.
In complement to the Food Loss Index, developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Food Waste Index covers the later stages of food’s journey – food waste – occurring at household, food service and retail level. .
The evidence presented in this Food Waste Index Report has demonstrated that food waste at the consumer level is everybody’s problem. In all countries for which data was available, food waste, particularly at the household level, was substantial. Food waste is a waste of resources, time and money. Food waste means all of theenvironmental impacts of food production without any of the benefits of people being fed. With widespread food insecurity for many hundreds of millions around the globe, addressing food waste is a critical issue to creating low-impact, healthy and resilient food systems.
Earlier narratives of global food waste suggested that consumer food waste took place largely in developed countries, while production, storage and transportation losses were concentrated in developing countries. However, this report has found that household food waste per capita is similar across high-income, upper middle-income and lower-middle income countries, with insufficient data to make conclusions on low-income countries. The global estimates in the Food Waste Index suggest global consumer food waste could be approximately twice the size of previous estimates. This demonstrates that action on consumer food waste is needed worldwide. 
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:What Else?
Labor:
Where Have All The Workers Gone? — The Uncounted: Total Wages Salary Workers
Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through May 2021, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 61.6 percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (Udated)Fred Labor Force Participation Rate 
Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Unemployment Charts The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment. May 2021 ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment is 26.0%
Economy:
Michael Roberts: The Law of Profitability The LTRPF has a double-edge. As the rate of profit falls in a capitalist economy, it is perfectly possible, indeed likely, that the mass of profit will rise. It’s arithmetical really: a falling rate implies a rising mass. So the mass of profit can and will rise as the rate of profit falls, keeping capitalist investment and production going. But as the rate of profit falls, the increase in the mass of profit will eventually fall to the point of ‘absolute over-accumulation’, the tipping point for crises.
Pam Martens and Russ Martens: Wall Street on Parade
Crypto: Congress Dawdles as $1.7 Trillion Con-Game Goes Unregulated, Threatening Reputation of U.S. Markets If you want to get your hair cut outside of your home in the United States, the job has to be done by a licensed worker at a regulated business. The same thing applies to plumbers, electricians, home inspectors, real estate and insurance agents. They all require a license and are subject to regulatory scrutiny. Likewise, commodities like corn, sugar, wheat, lumber and oil are all traded on regulated exchanges which are overseen by a federal regulator. But, for reasons that have yet to be explained to the American people, when it comes to the $1.7 trillion cryptocurrency market – which is effectively a con-game based on the greater fool theory, nothing is regulated. Not the crypto currency; not the promoters; not the crypto exchanges; and not the firms that are providing as much as 100 times leverage to fuel this “rat poison squared,” as the legendary investor Warren Buffett has characterized Bitcoin. (See The Smartest Guys in the Room Call Bitcoin “Rat Poison Squared,” “a Colossal Pump-and-Dump Scheme” and “a Big Criminal Scam” but Federal Regulators Look the Other Way.)
Crypto Will Be Put Under the Microscope at June 30 House Hearing The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, chaired by Congressman Al Green of Texas, will hold a hearing on June 30 titled: “America on ‘FIRE.’ Will the Crypto Frenzy Lead to Financial Independence and Early Retirement or Financial Ruin?”
World:
Workers Call for New Mobilizations in Colombia The Duque administration and the National Committee of Paro have established a dialogue roundtable to create a solution to the conflict, but no agreement has yet been reached. The Colombian streets show that the key is popular mobilization. Colombia has now been on national strike for more than a month. In these 36 days of mobilizations, which began April 28, there have been 5,575 rallies, 2,180 marches, 2,924 blockades, 598 mobilizations, and 22 assemblies in 809 municipalities. Also, in this period, more than 2,000 demonstrators have been injured, and according to the NGO Temblores and the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz), there have been 60 deaths during Colombian protests in the last month. The blockades in particular have been incredibly effective, having cost the economy about $2.68 billion. This Wednesday, June 2, a new day of mobilizations was called for in the main cities of Colombia: Bogota, Cali, Manizales, Bucamaranga, Barranquilla, and Cartagena, among others. Over a month ago, a space was convened in Montería to gather representatives from different regions, proposing to listen to the communities and build consensus to solve ongoing problems. The Duque administration is betting that discussions with union representatives and different social organizations leading the anti-government protests will quell the unrest. Last week, the committee reached an agreement, but on Tuesday, June 1, they accused the government of backtracking and ended the talks. In the same way that the Duque administration subdued some of the more militant activists in the movement by engaging in ultimately fruitless discussion, the union leaderships grouped together to form the National Strike Committee (CPN), demobilizing the youth and workers who continue on the front lines. Despite denouncing the discussions, saying that the “dialogue is a trap,” the National Strike Committee has still been engaging in failed negotiations with the Colombian government, while the more militant sectors continue to protest in the streets, especially young urban workers.
Peru: Presidential Election Reveals Deep Social and Political Polarisation With just a few days until the second round of the presidential election in Peru, Pedro Castillo has only a very narrow advantage over his rival, Keiko Fujimori. The election reveals the enormous political polarisation in the Andean country, which has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. By Jorge Martin
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!
Slow Death — Work Place Cancer!: Firefighters Denied Coverage by Veterans Affairs After Exposure to Pfas Firefighting Foam The VA and insurers have rejected claims from firefighters despite evidence linking PFAS foam and disease. While almost everyone has PFAS in their blood through exposure to water, dust and everyday products that contain the chemicals, firefighters may have greater contact with PFAS than any other group of workers. In addition to using — and often getting doused with — AFFF, it has become clear in recent years that the clothing that was supposed to protect them while fighting fires, known as turnout gear, is also saturated with PFAS. Given the frequent contact with the toxic chemicals, which accumulate in the body and cause kidney cancer, depressed immune function, and elevated cholesterol, among other health problems, it may not be surprising that firefighters have both relatively high levels of the chemicals in their blood and elevated rates of cancer diagnoses. Firefighters also have a death rate from cancers that is 14 percent higher than that of the general population, according to a study by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. By Sharon Lerner
From: We Must Choose: Capital Or Life!: Abolish Vaccine Patents Now!: The corporate economy, blind faith in the market and the pursuit of profit have proven to be incompatible with the well-being of Humanity. Health is not a commodity. Economic recovery cannot be at the expense of health or the rights of the majority. We must choose: capital or life. We must act quickly and forcefully, create a global strategy of equal access and universal guarantee to high quality health care.
For all these reasons, we demand :
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The suspension of private patents on all technologies, knowledge, treatments and vaccines related to Covid-19.
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The elimination of trade secrets and the publication of information on the production costs and public investments used, in a clear and publicly accessible manner.
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Transparency and public scrutiny at all stages of vaccine development.
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Universal, free and open access to vaccination and treatment.
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The expropriation and socialization under popular control of the private pharmaceutical industry as a basis for a universal public health system that promotes the production of generic treatments and medicines.
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Increased public investment and budgets for public health and community care policies, including more staff, higher salaries and improved working conditions in these sectors.
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The introduction of taxes on wealth (wealth and income of the richest 1%) to finance the effort against the pandemic and to ensure a socially just and ecologically sustainable exit from the various crises of global capitalism.
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The suspension of sovereign debtpayments for the duration of the pandemic and the cancellation of illegitimate debts and those contracted to finance the fight against the virus.
