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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 of the Day:
In May 1865, a week before President Abraham Lincoln declared the end of the Civil War, freed Blacks in Charleston, SC were already celebrating the defeat of the Confederacy. On May 1, the first “Memorial Day” (originally “Decoration Day”) occurred when ten thousand African Americans in Charleston held a parade to decorate the graves of 257 Black Union soldiers who’d been held prisoner, starved, and interred in a mass grave on a former plantation-turned-racetrack. . . . Following a solemn dedication, the crowd held picnics, listened to speeches, and watched the victorious Black troops march in formation. “What they basically were creating was the Independence Day of a Second American Revolution,” writes historian David Blight, who dug up the original documents and published his account in a book in 2001. We had a chance right then—especially White Americans had a chance—to celebrate that Second Independence Day of a Second Revolution every year. Every year, come Memorial Day, we could have been celebrating the defeat of the Confederacy and its superior race idea. We could have been celebrating our liberation from the deadly practice and theory of white supremacy, and by now, after 156 years, it might have sunk in. — Remembering the Black Roots of Memorial Day and the Revolutionary Holiday That Might Have Been
Millions of Americans Experience The Dire Consequences of Toxic Drinking Water, Which Negatively Affects Quality of Life, and Can Lead to a Lifetime Of Debilitating Health Effects. Black and Brown communities feel the brunt of this burden. Research shows that drinking water systems in communities of color are 40 percent more likely to violate clean water standards than in non-Black and non-Brown communities. This is environmental racism. And it’s destroying countless lives. Like most forms of racism, high-profile tragedies like Flint, Michigan, grab headlines. But often, it’s a slow, quiet and deadly progression that devastates communities of color. A recent study (In 1997 found Black children of families living below the poverty line are more than twice as likely to have elevated levels of lead in their blood than white or Hispanic children living under the poverty line. —Biden Must Take Executive Action to Affirm That Clean Water Is a Human Right
Videos 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 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!
DC March for Palestine Demands Biden and Congress ‘Hold Israel Accountable for Its War Crimes in Gaza’ “We just want the world to recognize that we are human beings,” said a participant of Palestinian origin who now lives in Virginia. Members of more than 100 Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim groups joined other critics of Israel’s recent bombardment of Gaza in Washington, D.C. on Saturday to hold a March for Palestine urging U.S. President Joe Biden and Congress to hold the Israeli government “accountable for its war crimes.” By Jessica Corbett
Why We Need to Democratize Wealth: the U.S. Capitalist Model Breeds Selfishness and Resentment Throughout its history—wherever it arrived and settled in as the dominant economic system—capitalism provoked struggles over the redistribution of wealth. In other words, this system always distributes wealth in a particular way and likewise produces dissatisfaction with that particular distribution. Those dissatisfied then struggle, more or less, consciously or not, peacefully or violently to redistribute wealth. The struggles are socially divisive and sometimes rise to civil war levels. By Richard D. Wolff
Environment:
Air quality Linked to Increased Risk of Alzheimer’s Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found a link between traffic-related air pollution and an increased risk for age-related dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Their study, based on rodent models, corroborates previous epidemiological evidence showing this association. zheimer’s disease is the most common cause of age-related dementia and the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. More than 5 million Americans currently live with Alzheimer’s disease—a number that is expected to triple by 2050 as the population ages. Health care costs for those patients are predicted to grow from $305 billion in 2020 to $1.1 trillion by 2050. zheimer’s disease is the most common cause of age-related dementia and the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. More than 5 million Americans currently live with Alzheimer’s disease—a number that is expected to triple by 2050 as the population ages. Health care costs for those patients are predicted to grow from $305 billion in 2020 to $1.1 trillion by 2050. By Tina Wood
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
A Black Death Row Inmate Claims Police Framed Him in Quadruple Murder. A Probe Will Now Reexamine His Case. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed an executive order Friday calling for an independent investigation into the case of Kevin Cooper, a Black death row inmate who has proclaimed his innocence for decades in a high-profile quadruple-murder conviction that’s been met with scrutiny and questions, even allegations that it was three White men who did it. Newsom, who had previously ordered new DNA testing for evidence in the case, said the international law firm of Morrison and Foerster will examine Cooper’s “claims of innocence” and application for clemency by reviewing his trial, his appeals and “the facts underlying the conviction.” Cooper, 63, was sentenced to death for the brutal 1983 slayings of a married couple, their 10-year-old daughter and an unrelated 11-year-old boy in a home in Chino Hills, Calif. By California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed an executive order Friday calling for an independent investigation into the case of Kevin Cooper, a Black death row inmate who has proclaimed his innocence for decades in a high-profile quadruple-murder conviction that’s been met with scrutiny and questions, even allegations that it was three White men who did it. Newsom, who had previously ordered new DNA testing for evidence in the case, said the international law firm of Morrison and Foerster will examine Cooper’s “claims of innocence” and application for clemency by reviewing his trial, his appeals and “the facts underlying the conviction.” Cooper, 63, was sentenced to death for the brutal 1983 slayings of a married couple, their 10-year-old Timothy Bella
Labor:
According to Lisa Cullen, the author of A Job To Die For, “Every day, 165 Americans die from occupational diseases and 18 more die from a work related injury. On the same day, more than 36,400 non-fatal injuries and 3,200 illnesses will occur in America’s workplaces.” Every year 60,225 Americans die from occupational diseases while 6,570 more die from work-related injuries. In that same year, more than 13,286,000 non-fatal injuries and 1,168,000 illnesses occur in America’s workplaces. Again: “Each year, this unknown workplace epidemic extends into nearby communities to claim the lives of 218 innocent bystanders and injure another 68,000.”(1) (2002) — The War at the Point of Production: The ‘Killing Fields’ of the United States
One of the best descriptions of the government’s attitude to workers’ health and safety can be found in a paper by Peter F. Infante, former director of standards for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). It was presented before the President’s Cancer Panel meeting on Lung Cancer: Societal and Clinical Implications, October 5, 1995, at Tysons Corner, Virginia. And was also published in the Winter 1995 issue of New Solutions with the title: Cancer and Blue-Collar Workers: Who Cares? In this article Infante writes: Given the obvious benefits to an intensified cancer research effort directed toward the study of workers, I ask myself why it has been given so little attention. In my opinion, this inattention is reflected in the way data on health are gathered in general in the U.S. Health data are published by sex and race, but not by social class. This is no accident. It reflects a social class bias by those gathering the data. I suggest disproportionate death from cancer among blue-collar workers is a social class issue and that the problem is neglected because it is a potentially explosive issue. It raises questions about the control of production and cost of production.In 1992, the Congress of the United States passed legislation entitled the ‘Cancer Registries Amendment Act.’ This Act authorizes $30 million per year through 1997 to fund statewide cancer registries. Yet, not a single cancer registry in the United States requires that a detailed occupational and job history be taken as part of its activity. It is reported that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) allocates $20 million per year (1 percent of its budget) for occupational cancer studies. Why is the amount of funding to investigate cancer in the workplace so disproportionately low in relation to the “success” of confirming human causes of cancer by studying blue-collar workers? — The War at the Point of Production: The ‘Killing Fields’ of the United States
Chris Hedges: “Dying for an iPhone” The suffering of the working class, within and outside the United States, is ignored by our corporatized media, and yet, it is one of the most important human rights issues of our era. Global capitalists have turned back the clock to the early days of the Industrial Revolution. The working class is increasingly bereft of rights, blocked from forming unions, paid starvation wages, subject to wage theft, under constant surveillance, fired for minor infractions, exposed to dangerous carcinogens, forced to work overtime, given punishing quotas and abandoned when they are sick and old. Workers have become, here and abroad, disposable cogs to corporate oligarchs, who wallow in obscene personal wealth that dwarfs the worst excesses of the Robber Barons.
Economy:
The World Trade Organization Is Threatening Vaccine Equity and Climate Goals The huge COVID-19 vaccine supply gap between rich and poor countries exposes the deadly problem of intellectual property (IP) rights and the dangerous monopoly power of Big Pharma. It also exposes in glaring terms the failures of the entire system of global trading rules regulated by the World Trade Organization (WTO). In this exclusive interview for Truthout, Jayati Ghosh, one of the world’s leading development economists, dissects the question of intellectual property rights relating to vaccines and argues that the WTO is a vehicle for international imperialism. Ghosh taught economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, for nearly 35 years, and has been professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst since 2021. This year, the United Nations named her to be on the High-Level Advisory Board on Economics and Social Affairs. C.J. Polychroniou
The Productivity Crisis It has been the historic mission of the capitalist mode of production to develop the “productive forces” (namely the technology and labour necessary to increase the output of things and services that human society needs or wants). Indeed, it is the main claim of supporters of capitalism that it is the best (even only) system of social organisation able to develop scientific knowledge, technology and human ‘capital’, all through ‘the market’. The development of the productive forces in human history is best measured by the level and pace of change in the productivity of labour. And there is no doubt, as Marx and Engels first argued in the Communist Manifesto, that capitalism has been the most successful system so far in raising the productivity of labour to produce more goods and services for humanity (indeed, see my recent post). In the graph below, we can see the accelerated rise in the productivity of labour from the 1800s onwards. But Marx also argued that the underlying contradiction of the capitalist mode of production is between profit and productivity. Rising productivity of labour should lead to improved living standards for humanity including reducing the hours, weeks and years of toil in producing goods and services for all. But under capitalism, even with rising labour productivity, global poverty remains, inequalities of income and wealth are rising and the bulk of humanity has not been freed from daily toil. By Michael Roberts 
The most important conclusion of Marx’s theory of capitalism is that the rate of profit would tend to decline over time as a result of technological change. Marx called his law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall “in every respect the most important law of modern political economy” (G. 748). In a letter to Engels, Marx claimed that this law was one of his most important achievements over classical economics (SC. 194).1 — Marx’s Theory of the Falling Rate of Profit
Shadow Government Statistics Money Supply Charts: The Fed ceased publishing M-3, its broadest money supply measure, in March 2006. The SGS M-3 Continuation estimates current M-3 based on ongoing Fed reporting of M-3’s largest components (M-2, institutional money funds and partial large time deposits) and proprietary modeling of the balance. See the Money Supply Special Report for full definitions. In February 2021, the Fed redefined its narrowest M-1 Money Supply measure back to May 2020, to incorporate the bulk of Non M-1 M-2, with headline M-1 now covering 93% of total M-2, instead of the prior 28%. In order to preserve the information reflected in the most liquid measures of M-1, ShadowStats uses the Basic M-1 Money Supply in its charts and Table here. The original Money Supply measure, Basic M-1 is defined as Currency plus Demand Deposits (checking accounts). That circumstance is reviewed in pending ShadowStats Benchmark Commentary No. 1459. A fully updated Money Supply Special Report will follow. Please contact johnwilliams@shadowstats.com for further details or any question. The Fed ceased publishing M-3, its broadest money supply measure, in March 2006. The SGS M-3 Continuation estimates current M-3 based on ongoing Fed reporting of M-3’s largest components (M-2, institutional money funds and partial large time deposits) and proprietary modeling of the balance. See the Money Supply Special Report for full definitions. In February 2021, the Fed redefined its narrowest M-1 Money Supply measure back to May 2020, to incorporate the bulk of Non M-1 M-2, with headline M-1 now covering 93% of total M-2, instead of the prior 28%. In order to preserve the information reflected in the most liquid measures of M-1, ShadowStats uses the Basic M-1 Money Supply in its charts and Table here. The original Money Supply measure, Basic M-1 is defined as Currency plus Demand Deposits (checking accounts). That circumstance is reviewed in pending ShadowStats Benchmark Commentarhttp://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/money-supply-chartsy No. 1459. Click here to view more charts
World:
A Worldwide Epoch of Revolution is Being Prepared World capitalism is lurching from one crisis to another, making life unbearable for billions of people. Growing numbers of workers and youth are desperately seeking a way out. As consciousness is transformed, an era of revolutionary eruptions on a world scale is in preparation. We publish here a slightly edited version of the draft World Perspectives document that will be discussed at the 2021 World Congress of the International Marxist Tendency this summer. “Taken all in all, the crisis has been burrowing away like the good old mole it is.” (Marx to Engels, 22 February 1858) In previous periods, when events were moving at a more leisurely pace, it was possible to deal, at least in outline, with many different countries. Now, however, the pace of events has accelerated to the point where in order to deal with everything, one would need a whole book. The purpose of perspectives is not to produce a catalogue of revolutionary events, but to uncover the fundamental underlying processes.
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
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!