Capitalism is Now a Worldwide Threat to Humanity! It is on the Fast Track to Global Warming and/or Nuclear War Catastrophes!
Images of the Day:
Editorial – Stopping Child Labor The International Labor Organization estimates that worldwide, 120 million children between the ages of 5 to 14 are engaged in illegal forms of labor, mainly in agriculture and the informal economy. About half of the children are working in severely hazardous conditions, according to the ILO. Many of the children are engaged in domestic work, often unpaid. Others are forced into the flesh trade.
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”, is Still True for Today’s World!
Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capitalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming Over 5 Decades 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 very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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:
A white NYC subway rider strangled to death an unhoused black man named Jordan Neely by gripping his neck in a chokehold for nearly fifteen minutes. Most of the other subway riders watched passively as Neely flailed his arms to get loose and struggled futilely for breath. (One subway rider actually helped hold Neely down, until he was asphyxiated into unconsciousness.) The killer, who walked out of the police station without being charged, was a former US Marine, his victim a mentally-distressed man, who used to entertain people for years as a street dancer, often impersonating Michael Jackson. The killing reminded many people of the subway vigilante Bernard Goetz. But you can’t whitewash this homicide as an act of vigilante justice. Jordan Neely didn’t attack or threaten to assault anyone. At worst, he was having a bad day, an episode of despair, where he was trying to tell anyone who would listen that he was tired, hungry and thirsty. Apparently, this expression of existential anguish was all it took to ignite the murderous resentment of the white ex-Marine. He didn’t want to hear it. Apparently, this is the way white men fight, after all, Tucker. — Roaming Charges: How White Men Fight
When it comes to higher education, Massachusetts isn’t a democracy — it’s a plutocracy, in which a few wealthy private universities, such as Harvard, MIT and Tufts, hoard resources while the underfunded public higher education system is forced to shift costs to students. — Harvard Has Become a Tax Shelter for Billionaires as Public Education Languishes
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
Scott Ritter on the Drone Attack Against the Kremlin
De-dollarization is About More Than Currencies: As Dollar System Declines, What Comes Next? De-dollarization is about more than currencies: As dollar system declines, what comes next?
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 Republicrats 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. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay! Both Parties Support U.S. Capitalism’s Wars! (The Only War the Democrats Opposed was the Civil War!)
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both. — Louis D. Brandeis Quotes
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. MLK, Beyond Vietnam
As US-China Tensions Mount, We Must Resist the Push Toward Interimperialist War What would it look like to build international solidarity against imperial rivalry from below? The daily news is filled with stories about the spiraling conflict between the U.S. and China over everything from trade to geopolitical squabbles and dueling military exercises. All of these converge over Taiwan — a small nation claimed by China as a renegade province, backed by the U.S., and home to the most advanced microchip manufacturing plants in the world. These plants produce chips that power everything from iPhones to Washington’s F-35 fighter bomber, and other high-tech weaponry. That fact raises the stakes of a long-simmering dispute punctuated with periodic “Taiwan Strait Crises,” turning it into a volatile diplomatic, economic and military confrontation.
Chris Hedges: Julian Assange and World Press Freedom Day This is a talk Chris Hedges gave in New York City at rally calling for the immediate release of Julian Assange on World Press Freedom Day. The detention and persecution of Julian Assange eviscerates all pretense of the rule of law and the rights of a free press. The illegalities, embraced by the Ecuadorian, British, Swedish and U.S. governments are ominous. They presage a world where the internal workings, abuses, corruption, lies and crimes, especially war crimes, carried out by corporate states and the global ruling elite, will be masked from the public. They presage a world where those with the courage and integrity to expose the misuse of power will be hunted down, tortured, subjected to sham trials and given lifetime prison terms in solitary confinement. They presage an Orwellian dystopia where news is replaced with propaganda, trivia and entertainment. The legal lynching of Julian, I fear, marks the official beginning of the corporate totalitarianism that will define our lives.
How Much Longer Can Biden Policy on Ukraine Be Maintained?Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has not fundamentally altered U.S. national interests, but it has shifted the means by which Washington pursues those interests. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the United States quickly moved to support the government in Kyiv. With Joe Biden in the White House, having replaced someone who made no effort to conceal his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, this U.S. support was no surprise. Prior to the invasion, the Biden administration had been warning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly for a month and privately for several months of the likelihood of an intervention. It had helped Ukraine bolster its defense with $400 million in military aid in 2021, on top of the $2 billion provided between 2014 and 2020. After Russia invaded, that figure skyrocketed to over $31 billion (plus more than twice that amount in non-military assistance).
Things Fall Apart The US is currently on the precipice of WWIII, Americans are dying from preventable diseases at far higher rates than the citizens of nations with functioning governments, the Biden administration is ‘fighting racism’ by racially targeting Black Socialists for arrest, large banks are once again being bailed out, nearly all of the hysterical charges leveled against the American right in recent years have been disproved, the Biden administration is doing its best to bury dissent with propaganda and censorship, and the politicians in line to assume political control are the most corrupt, least capable, people in the country. The US is in a bad way.
‘Corruption. Plain and Simple’: Ginni Thomas Took Secret Payments Ahead of Landmark Voting Rights Case “When you’re saying things like ‘No mention of Ginni, of course’ when talking about paperwork for the wife of a Supreme Court Justice—you’re probably doing a crime.”
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
In ‘Cancer Alley’, US Chemical Giants Mount Campaign Against Grassroots Organizers After residents of America’s “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana put a national spotlight on their fight for a healthy environment, the state’s economic interests and petrochemical giants are backing the creation of a new “sustainability council” to counter grassroots activists, documents show.
EPA Report on Neonics Proves US Has ‘Five-Alarm Fire’ on Its Hands, Green Groups Say “There’s now no question that neonicotinoids play an outsized role in our heartbreaking extinction crisis,” said one advocate. The EPA must “ban these pesticides so future generations don’t live in a world without bees and butterflies and the plants that depend on them.”
Melting Glaciers in Alps Threaten Biodiversity of Invertebrates, Says Study Overlooked animals vital for alpine ecosystems could lose most of their habitat and disappear, research suggests. Invertebrates living in the cool meltwater rivers of the European Alps could lose most of their habitat and disappear, as the mountain range’s glaciers melt at an unprecedented rate due to climate change, according to a study. Although they are often overlooked, these animals are crucial for alpine ecosystems.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
ACLU, Allies Warn Internet Bills ‘Would Undermine Free Speech, Privacy, and Security’ While these bills’ supporters aim to hold tech giants accountable for not protecting vulnerable communities, one expert warned, “increasing censorship and weakening encryption would not only be ineffective at solving these concerns, it would in fact exacerbate them.”
“It Was Dehumanizing,” Says Woman Who Was Illegally Denied Emergency Abortion “It was terrifying,” said a woman who was denied an abortion. “It was horrible not to get the care to save your life.” The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are currently investigating two hospitals in Missouri and Kansas that violated federal law by refusing to provide an emergency abortion to a woman who was experiencing premature labor, according to The Associated Press. The woman, Mylissa Farmer, was forced to travel to Illinois to terminate her pregnancy, despite the risk of serious infection or losing her uterus if she did not undergo an abortortion.
Labor:
Child Trafficking 27% of trafficking victims are children. The majority of human trafficking victims are involved in forced labor. Labor trafficking involves the use of fraud, coercion, or force in order to get a victim to provide labor or services. More than two-thirds of trafficking victims fall into this category, including more than 10 million adults and nearly 4 million children. The International Labor Organization reports that forced labor generated USD $150 billion in illegal profits per year. “Specifically, $51.8 billion USD in forced labor profits come from the Asia-Pacific region.” (IBLA 2019)
UAW Holds Off on Endorsing Biden in Bid to Secure Just EV Transition “We need to get our members organized behind a pro-worker, pro-climate, and pro-democracy political program that can deliver for the working class,” says a memo from the union’s new president.
Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Unemployment Charts April 2023 ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment held at 24.6% on top of U.6 easing to 6.6% from 6.7%. 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.
Economy:
Rates Up, Economy Down The two main central banks in the advanced capitalist economies, the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB), raised their ‘policy’ interest rates again this week. The policy rate sets the floor for all borrowing rates in these economies. Both central banks hiked their rates by another 0.25%, so the Fed’s rate now stands at 5.25% and the ECB’s at 3.7%. This compares with just 0.25% and 0% respectively two years ago. The professed aim of these hikes is to ‘control’ inflation and drive the currently high rates back to the so-called target rate that both central banks have of 2%. I and others have argued firmly, with evidence, that this monetary tightening policy will have little effect on getting inflation down because the causes of inflation do not lie in excessive money supply (the monetarist theory) or in excessive wages driving up prices (the Keynesian theory). Neither of these theories is backed up empirically. The reason for the accelerating inflation of the last two years is to be found in the restriction of supply, both in production and transportation, partly from supply-chain blockages after the COVID slump, partly from the Russia-Ukraine war and partly from very low productivity growth in the major goods sectors of the world economy. The shortage of supply has enabled the multi-national energy and food producers to raise prices to extremes –see the huge profits made by the oil majors. These raw material costs have then been fed through by corporations in price rises to the ‘end consumer’ – mostly households. It’s been profits that have gained the most from the inflationary spiral, not wages. Real wages (ie after deducting inflation) in just about every economy have fallen in the last two years.
World:
‘Incredibly Alarming’: Peaceful Protests Not Fit For a King ‘We’re now living in a dystopian nightmare’ Thousands of King Charles III’s subjects protested against the monarchy Saturday in London — and heavy-handed police detained many of them for “suspicion of breaching the peace.”
Barry Sheppard: South Korea Created a Brutal Sex Trade for American Soldiers The above was a front page headline for a story that appeared in the May 3 New York Times. The “comfort women”, a euphemism for Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese colonial government during the Second World War, are well known. Now newly released South Korean government documents, formerly kept secret, reveal that the “sexual exploitation of another group of women continued long after Japan’s colonial rule ended in 1945 — and it was facilitated by their own government,” the Times reports. “There were ‘special comfort women units’ for South Korean soldiers, and ‘comfort stations’ for American-led U.N. troops during the Korean War. In the post-war years, many of these women worked in gijichon, or ‘camp towns’ built around American military bases.
Education. Health, 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