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During This Economic Crisis, Capitalism’s Three Point Political Program: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and The Iron Heel.
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.
Images of the Day:
For Profit Detention Centers: The Con to Criminalize Immigrants In addition to directing funding towards enforcement-only policies that criminalize immigrants, CCA lobbies for immigration policies that get more undocumented residents locked up
Quotes of the Day:
Re: The Drive for Charter Schools: It’s about privatizing not improving education! — Backpack Full of Cash
Top-quality public education, universal health care, and free child care are among the many benefits provided by the state in Norway, reflecting its long-standing egalitarian culture and spirit of communitarianism – a spirit that extends to its prisons. Michelle Alexander
“Nothing is more tragic than failure to discover one’s true business in life, or to find that one has drifted or been forced by circumstance into an uncongenial calling.” — John Dewey, Democracy and Education
“Knowledge is humanistic in quality not because it is about human products in the past, but because of what it does in liberating human intelligence and human sympathy. Any subject matter which accomplishes this result is humane, and any subject matter which does not accomplish it is not even educational.” —John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
Videos of the Day:
A Dead Republican Strategist’s Work Could Destroy Voting Rights in AmericaA Common Cause court case opposing Republican gerrymandering in North Carolina revealed that Trump officials lied about the 2020 census citizenship question in order to maintain “White” and “Republican Power”
U.S.:
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!
Immigrant Detention, Private Prisons and Minimum Occupancy QuotasCurrent border policies and legislation are fixed to a framework of criminalization and punishment. Through “prevention through deterrence” strategies employed by the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, such as the Consequence Delivery System and Operation Streamline, immigration policy is approached from a criminal justice standpoint. Under “zero-tolerance” guidelines unauthorized entry is treated as a federal misdemeanor, unauthorized re-entry, a felony. Detention and deportation are used as punishments in order to dissuade potential attempts to re-enter the U.S. 
Russiagate Trumps Environmental Catastrophe for the Dismal DemocratsIf historians still exist years from now, some of them will be struck by how Donald Trump’s Democratic Party critics and their media allies obsessed over the 45th United States President’s real and alleged connections to Russia while saying comparatively little about his enactment of a soulless anti-environmental agenda that accelerated humanity’s march towards extinction in service to the United States’ own homegrown corporate polluters. By Paul Street 
Swedish Sex Pistol Aimed at AssangeIf historians still exist years from now, some of them will be struck by how Donald Trump’s Democratic Party critics and their media allies obsessed over the 45th United States President’s real and alleged connections to Russia while saying comparatively little about his enactment of a soulless anti-environmental agenda that accelerated humanity’s march towards extinction in service to the United States’ own homegrown corporate polluters. By Jim Kavanaugh
Endless Procedural Abuses Show Julian Assange Case Was Never About LawIt is astonishing how often one still hears well-informed, otherwise reasonable people say about Julian Assange: “But he ran away from Swedish rape charges by hiding in Ecuador’s embassy in London.” That short sentence includes at least three factual errors. In fact, to repeat it, as so many people do, you would need to have been hiding under a rock for the past decade – or, amounting to much the same thing, been relying on the corporate media for your information about Assange, including from supposedly liberal outlets such as the Guardian and the BB. By Johnathan Cook
Environment:
Breaking: Environmental Justice March Hits Road Block in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley On May 30, around 100 people took part on the first day of a planned five-day march for environmental justice in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. Amid sweltering heat, the march kicked off in St. John the Baptist Parish, but extreme obstacles have developed on their route to Baton Rouge, about 50 miles away. Today a judge ruled that the organizers did not have permission to cross two bridges along the route. Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, an 80-mile stretch along the Mississippi River, is also known as the “Petrochemical Corridor,” where there are over 100 petrochemical plants and refineries. An increasing number of facilities are slated to be built in primarily African-American communities concentrated in St. James Parish, midway along this corridor. Some of the plants still in the permitting process include the Chinese-owned Wanhua chemical plant, the Taiwanese-owned Formosa plastic manufacturing plant, and Texas-based Syngas methanol facility. All have received a green light on the local level, but the plants still need permits from Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). By Julie Dermansky
Youth Activists Holding Coordinated Press Conferences to Raise Awareness on Landmark Court Case “Climate change is the most pressing issue for our generation.”Youth activists in the U.S. and around the world are using June 1 as a day of action to support a landmark court case that could affect the climate crisis, holding coordinated press conferences to draw attention to the litigation. The case, Juliana v. United States, was first filed in 2015 by now-college student Kelsey Juliana and 20 other youth plaintiffs. The lawsuit demands the government act to protect the climate and environment for the future by making the right to a stable climate constitutionally protected.By Epoin Higgins
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
We Can’t Have A Party of Our Own Because Poor People Can’t Be Trusted? It’s hard to miss the reeking racism and classism of this nonsensical proposition. Aren’t poor people smart enough to make their own choices, not just for this year, but for years ahead, if that’s what it takes? The old heads like Charles Hamilton Houston were not afraid to map out a strategy for tackling Jim Crow that took decades. Why was this wise for these law school grads but unwise for poor people today? The left will never become a mass phenomenon in this country until it finds raises up its own voices, and funds its own independent political party. Despite what our friends at DSA tell us, and tell each other, that will not happen inside either one of the billionaires parties, and it won’t be funded by the people who fund those parties. By Bruce A. Dixon, Bar Managing Editor
Black Agenda Report is a Proud Recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in JournalismJournalism is a dangerous business. Whether in Colombia or Brazil, Myanmar or Thailand or Lithuania, or as Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange are proving, even the US and the UK, journalists who report inconvenient truths have a way of disappearing, and being disappeared. Serena Shim was born in Detroit. She attended high school in nearby Livonia MI, and graduated from the American University of Science and Technology in Beirut. She was married with two children, and at the time of her death worked for the Iranian news outlet Press TV. By the Editors
Labor:
A quote often attributed to the 19th-century French economist, Frédéric Bastiat, goes: “When goods do not cross frontiers, armies will.” . . . History often repeats itself if we do not learn from it. The two full-blown trade wars some 80 and 100 years ago helped to ignite the two world wars. Could such a catastrophe happen again? —Trade wars cause world wars, history shows. Will this time be different? — Trade wars cause world wars, history shows. Will this time be different?
How Trump’s Trade War Is Being Fought Around the World Mexico, China, Japan, Europe, Canada: The White House’s various conflicts add up to a broad assault on a postwar effort to build economic ties around the world. President Trump on Thursday threatened to hit Mexico with new tariffs, escalating his immigration fight with America’s largest trading partner. And with that, he showed, once again, that he’s ready to employ trade as an all-purpose tool for his policy goals. Mr. Trump is juggling multiple trade conflicts today, with allies and rivals alike. His demands, often first disclosed through Twitter, have caught trading partners off guard. By Carlos Tejada and Amie Tsang
China Creates Own Blacklist to Fight Trump’s Trade War The Chinese government will sanction foreign companies that block its international trade through discriminatory measures for political reasons. China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson Gao Feng said Friday that the Xi Jinping administration is preparing a “unreliable entities list” that will include foreign persons, institutions and companies that block or affect Chinese commercial relations through discriminatory measures motivated by non-commercial reasons.
US-China Trade War Could Spread to Other Sectors: Economists“The trade war will last from 30 to 50 years, Even if they do make an agreement now, in the future, the United States will find a reason for another one,” Chinese economists believe the trade war between the United States and China risks spreading into other areas including global finance, scientific research, and territorial disputes. This comes as China’s foreign minister announces the development of a blacklist of “unreliable” foreign companies, individuals, and organizations hostile to Chinese interests.
Will Today’s Global Trade Wars Lead to World War III? The splintering of international economic interdependence is a worrying sign for peace through trade. You might not know about a minor trade skirmish in the Balkans that started late last year. But you should, because it signals a worrying shift in how national security considerations are altering the fabric of globalization in ways eerily similar to how they did at the dawn of the 20th century. That first shift helped start World War I, so in case you’re wondering, yes, I’m going there: The current rise in protectionism could be the precursor to World War III. By Daniel W. Drezner
Americans Should Be Gravely Concerned with this Wall Street Court CaseFinancial media is buzzing this week that a Federal District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York, Jesse Furman, has ruled that the City of Providence, Rhode Island, the Plumbers and Pipefitters National Pension Fund, along with other plaintiffs, can move forward with their class action lawsuit against seven stock exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, for allegations that they effectively rigged the market against the small investor. By Pam Martens ans Russ Martens
Lordy, Deutsche Bank Is Having a Helluva BadMonthThanks to former FBI Director James Comey, there are now acceptable times when the 19th century word “Lordy” can be demonstrably exclaimed in public settings. For example, it can be used with pretty much anything to do with the President of the United States or, as we are now suggesting, when referring to the management of Trump’s serially-charged banking establishment, Deutsche Bank.After setting an historic intraday low of $6.82 yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Deutsche Bank mustered a tiny rally in the last half hour of trading today to eke out a close of $6.91. Just 12 years ago, this was a $120 stock. The bank now has a market capitalization of $14.18 billion supporting assets of $1.6 trillion. (Perhaps “supporting” is not the right word. Lordy. By Pam Martens ans Russ Martens
World:
Cuba Exports Doctors and Humanitarian Aid — Not War!: Values Are Weapons as Cuba Defends Doctors against US intervention The George W. Bush administration initiated the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program (CMPP) in 2006. The idea was to persuade overseas Cuban doctors to abandon their posts and relocate to the United States. Cuba’s medical solidarity programs, in place for half a century, would suffer. President Obama ended the CMPP in January, 2017. Now the U.S. government wants to reinstate it. By W.T. Whitney
Health, Education, 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 ‘govern’, pass universal healthcare for themselves, but they cannot spend even one trillion dollars for universal health for those who are ‘governed’! This is what is considered, by the powers the to be, a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let The People Vote on Healthcare!
The Bronx, New York: You Are Invited to a Free Screening of “Backpack Full of Cash,” June 11The United Federation Of Teachers Hosts Special Screening Of The Acclaimed Documentary “Backpack Full Of Cash” Exploring The Real Cost Of Privatizing America’s Public Schools This is a terrific documentary, created by professional filmmakers at Stone Lantern Films. It will be shown in Spanish and in English. If you want to show the documentary in your community, contact the filmmakers by email, listed below.By Diane Ravich
Economy:
