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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.
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Quotes of the Day:
The United States Corporate Media Slogans: War is Peace, Freedom is lavery, and Ignorance is Strength! 1984 is alive and well in 2019!:
George Orwell’s “1984,” published seventy years ago today, has had an amazing run as a work of political prophecy. It has outlasted in public awareness other contenders from its era, such as Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (1932), Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” (1953), and Anthony Burgess’s “A Clockwork Orange” (1962), not to mention two once well-known books to which it is indebted, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We” (1921) and Arthur Koestler’s “Darkness at Noon” (1940). “1984” is obviously a Cold War book, but the Cold War ended thirty years ago. What accounts for its staying power? Partly it’s owing to the fact that, unlike “Darkness at Noon,” Orwell’s book was not intended as a book about life under Communism. It was intended as a warning about tendencies within liberal democracies, and that is how it has been read. The postwar Sovietization of Eastern Europe produced societies right out of Orwell’s pages, but American readers responded to “1984” as a book about loyalty oaths and McCarthyism. In the nineteen-seventies, it was used to comment on Nixon and Watergate. There was a bounce in readership in 1983-84—four million copies were sold that year—because, well, it was 1984. And in 2016 it got a bump from Trump. — “1984” at Seventy: Why We Still Read Orwell’s Book of Prophecy
This has two consequences. First: If the ashy pits are leaky—as they frequently are—the toxins in the ash seep into the neighboring waterbody or into ground water, then into the waterbody and into wells drilled for domestic uses. Second: If an ash pond breaches, its noxious contents are going into the bordering waterbody and then wherever the abiding currents care to take it. These ash dumps generally began decades ago at a handy nearby swamp or slough that received the gunk without complaint and without much regulatory concern. As the ash accumulated and threatened to overflow, the power plant operators erected retaining walls or dams to contain the slurry. They were often not rigorously engineered structures and were sometimes built of coal ash itself. As they rose higher and higher the ashy concoction contained by the dubious dams expanded to apocalyptic volumes. — Coal Ash Tsunamis! — Alabama’s Ashes Enlarge On Flint’s Lead
Videos of the Day:
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!
In An American Computerized Election: A 11 Year Old Can Do the ‘Counting’!: An 11-year-old changed election results on a replica Florida state website in under 10 minutes An 11-year-old boy on Friday was able to hack into a replica of the Florida state election website and change voting results found there in under 10 minutes during the world’s largest yearly hacking convention, DEFCON 26, organizers of the event said. Thousands of adult hackers attend the convention annually, while this year a group of children attempted to hack 13 imitation websites linked to voting in presidential battleground states.
Microsoft and the Pentagon Are Quietly Hijacking U.S. ElectionsGood news, folks! We have found the answer to the American election system! Why do we need an answer? Well, our election system is … how do you say … a festering rancid corrupt needlessly complex rigged rotten infected putrid pus-covered diseased dog pile of stinking, dying cockroach-filled rat shit smelling like Mitch McConnell under a vat of pig farts. And that’s a quote from The Lancet medical journal (I think). By Lee Camp
Say Goodbye to the First Amendment“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,” reads the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Yet, for the first time ever, a publisher is being prosecuted under the World War I-era Espionage Act. Julian Assange, co-founder of the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, is facing 170 years in prison if he is extradited to the U.S. from the United Kingdom. The case could deal a monumental blow to the free press in the United States. By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
The Thought Police Are Coming Chris Hedges gave this talk Tuesday, June 11, at an event held in London in support of Julian Assange.Ask the Iraqi parents of Sabiha Hamed Salih, aged 15, and Ashwaq Hamed Salih, aged 16, who were killed by shrapnel in Baghdad on July 31, 2004, what they think of Julian Assange. Ask the man and his two young daughters who saw their wife and mother shot to death and were themselves wounded in a car fired upon by U.S. Marines in Fallujah on July 22, 2005, what they think of Julian Assange. By Chris Hedges
A Soldier’s Defense of Chelsea Manning and Julian AssangeThis piece originally appeared on antiwar.com. It’s a matter of principles over personalities. Whether one loves or hates Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange is beside the point. The First Amendment freedom of the press is at stake now. In this case, the government’s tool for oppression is the Espionage Act, an archaic relic from America’s repressive World War I-era legislation. Chelsea Manning already served seven years of a 35-year sentence, one of the longest ever meted out to a whistleblower, and was recently jailed again after she refused to testify about WikiLeaks. By Maj. Danny Sjursen
Trump asserts executive privilege over subpoenaed census documentsDemocrats look to hold senior Trump officials in contempt of Congress Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege over subpoenaed census documents, as Democrats prepare to vote on whether to hold his attorney general in contempt. As the House oversight committee voted on whether to hold attorney general William Barr and commerce secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of congress over their alleged effort to politicise the 2020 census, the department of justice said the president had sought to assert executive privilege over the material being sought by Democrats. By Andrew Buncombe
US Senators meet with Jewish leaders in semi-secret annual event An article in the Times of Israel reports that “Jewish leaders are meeting with Senate Democrats today.” According to the report, this is an annual event. A quarter of the Senate was in attendance (see list below). All except one of the organizations represented by the Jewish leaders at the meeting advocate for Israel. Several of the organizations participating are focused on preventing the erosion of support for Israel among Democratic voters. Recent polls show that the large majority of progressive Americans now support Palestinian human rights. Many of the meeting participants, both Senators and Jewish leaders, are particularly known for their pro-Israel work. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calls himself a “guardian of Israel.” By Alison Weir
The Twin Dangers of Exceptionalism and Mindless Bi-Partisanship The United States is the most powerful nation on earth. There is no nation nor even a group of nations that can match the combined political, economic, and military power of the United States. Nevertheless, the United States faces an international arena that has become increasingly resistant and opposed to U.S. initiatives. The blundering of Donald Trump and his mediocre national security team is largely responsible for the setbacks over the past two years. But U.S. exceptionalism and even political bipartisanship carry a heavy responsibility as well. By Melvin Goodman
Environment:
Allergy Season Is Bad This Year. Thank Climate Disruption. If you think allergy season this year is especially severe, you are not wrong. Even people who do not normally deal with pollen allergies are suffering, and those with serious allergies or other respiratory issues are under siege by a marauding army of windblown dots of pollen. This is on top of the smoke pouring into the U.S. from Canadian wildfires. As with so much else today, the stark reality of climate disruption is playing a part in our misery. By William Rivers Pitt 
Adding to Planetary Alarm Bells, Top US Finance Official Warns Climate Crisis a Recipe for Global Economic Collapse“It’s abundantly clear that climate change poses financial risk to the stability of the financial system.” Demanding action from industries and government, a top federal regulator warned this week that the human-caused climate emergency poses a threat to the economy which rivals the subprime mortgage meltdown that led to the 2008 financial crisis. By Jessica Corbett, staff writer
From Dollar Hegemony to Global Warming: Globalization, Glyphosate and Doctrines of Consent There has been an on-going tectonic shift in the West since the abandonment of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971. This accelerated when the USSR ended and has resulted in the ‘neoliberal globalization’ we see today. At the same time, there has been an unprecedented campaign to re-engineer social consensus in the West. Part of this strategy, involves getting populations in Western countries to fixate on ‘global warming’, ‘gender equity’ and ‘anti-racism’: by focusing on identity politics and climate change, the devastating effects and injustices brought about by globalized capitalism and associated militarism largely remain unchallenged by the masses and stay firmly in the background. By Colin Todhunter
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
How the Democratic Party Strangled Black PoliticsNothing changes on the electoral scene, and little at the grassroots level, unless the structure of capitalist hegemony over political discourse in the U.S. — the corporate duopoly — is broken. “Today’s Black Caucus sleeps, eats and votes with the enemy.” Long, long ago — in the late 1970s, to be more precise – I spent a Washington-to-New York AMTRAK ride talking politics with Black Detroit Congressman John Conyers, whom I considered a friend. The Congressional Black Caucus numbered only sixteen members at that time, less than a third its current size, and Conyers was among its most left-leaning members, along with the Bay Area’s Ron Dellums and Gus Savage, the former labor activist from Chicago. There were no right wing members of the Black Caucus. Since Conyers had no problem describing himself as a “socialist,” and routinely won re-election with more than 80 percent of the vote in his overwhelmingly Black district, I asked him why he remained in the Democratic Party, which was – then, as now – dominated by warmongering servants of capital. Conyers seemed shocked at the question. “The party would destroy me if I ran outside of it,” the Congressman replied, a look of horror on his still-youthful face, as if I had proposed that he go swimming in a shark tank. By Glen Ford, BAR executive editor
Labor:
Economy:
Exclusive: There’s a Shake-Up Happening in Wall Street’s Dark Pools Dark Pools are opaque stock trading platforms operated by the largest Wall Street banks and other firms. They are, effectively, stock exchanges but have been given exemptions by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from having to register as a stock exchange or to submit to more rigorous oversight by the SEC. The rationale for the existence of Dark Pools owned by the mega banks has escaped the public since these are the same banks that are serially fined for abusing the public’s trust and rigging other markets like foreign exchange, Libor, and the Nasdaq stock market in the 1990s. Their conduct was so bad in the Nasdaq matter that they were forced to submit to having their trading phone calls taped and reviewed by regulators. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
After 7 June, revolutionary events being prepared in Liberia The spark of 7 June has ignited the contradictions in Liberian society. The massive mobilisation of the masses last Friday was a slap in the face for the cynics who argued that the Liberian people would continue to blithely accept the rotten status quo without acting to change the course of history. But nothing is stagnant: everything is in constant flux and subject to change. So too is the consciousness of the Liberian masses.
How And Why The Intercept Is Reporting On A Vast Trove Of Materials About Brazil’s Operation Car Wash And Justice Minister Sergio MoroBy The Intercept Brasil today published three explosive exposés showing highly controversial, politicized, and legally dubious internal discussions and secret actions by the Operation Car Wash anti-corruption task force of prosecutors, led by the chief prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, along with then-Judge Sergio Moro, now the powerful and internationally celebrated justice minister for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. These stories are based on a massive archive of previously undisclosed materials — including private chats, audio recordings, videos, photos, court proceedings, and other documentation — provided to us by an anonymous source. They reveal serious wrongdoing, unethical behavior, and systematic deceit about which the public, both in Brazil and internationally, has the right to know. By Glenn Greenwald, Leandro Demori, and Betsy Reed
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!
3m Knew About PFAS Food Contamination In 2001 Last Week, we learned that the Food and Drug Administration had detected PFAS compounds in pineapple, sweet potato, meat, and chocolate cake. The presence of the industrial compounds in our food was made public by the Environmental Working Group after a staff member of the Environmental Defense Fund took photos of the research at a scientific conference in Europe. By Sharon Lerner
Corporate Media Enable Industry War Against Medicare for AllOpponents of Medicare for All have a difficult task ahead of it heading into the 2020 election: They must convince Americans that they don’t want a Medicare for All health care system that would guarantee them and their family health care security regardless of circumstances. The for-profit health industry must achieve this in spite of the cruelty and inefficiency of the current multipayer system and morethan a decade of polling showing popular support for Medicare for All. By Michael Corcoran 
War is Peace
