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:
Washington Fat Cats and Republicrats!
The Pentagon Fails its Fifth Audit in a Row!, If the Defense Department can’t get its books straight, how can it be trusted with a budget of more than $800 billion per year?
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 recent study by the E.P.A., the first of its kind by the agency, concluded that about 100,000 people who live within six miles of chemical plants it is cracking down on — mostly in Texas and Louisiana — have an elevated risk of cancer. In Houston, a separate study found elevated levels of formaldehyde, which is formed as different toxic chemicals from many sources mix in the air. The highest concentrations were picked up at an air monitor north of where the López family lives. People living nearby face an increased risk of developing cancer if the levels persist, according to the Houston Health Department. — Living and Breathing on the Front Line of a Toxic Chemical Zone
Journalism should be more like science. As far as possible, facts should be verifiable. If journalists want long-term credibility for their profession, they have to go in that direction. Have more respect for readers.” — Julian Assange
Wen the rich rob the poor, it’s called business. When the poor fight back, it’s called violence. — Alfred Remulla
A hereditary monarch is as absurd a position as a hereditary doctor or mathematician. ― Thomas Paine
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
4 US Banks Crash in 2 Months: Banking Crisis Explained by Economist Michael Hudson
Amid Growing Anti-Immigrant Hate, 8 Killed as Driver Plows Into Group Near Migrant Shelter in Texas
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
‘Memorial to All Who Suffered’: Survivors Protest Wind Farm Near Japanese American Incarceration Site About 13,000 people were held at the Minidoka camp during the second world war. Now, a green energy project threatens the ‘sacred’ place Paul Tomita was just four when his family was interned. He was too young to remember Franklin D Roosevelt, then president, issuing the executive order that saw him and at least 125,000 others of Asian descent packed onto blacked-out trains and sent to prison camps during the second world war.
Patrick Lawrence: Journalists-on-Journalists Crime I’ve read a lot of smear since Fox News dismissed Tucker Carlson as its premier evening news presenter late last month. How could I not? It was everywhere, and more fecal matter is being flung Carlson’s way as we speak. My favorite in this line so far comes from The American Prospect. “Farewell to a Neo–Nazi Blowhard” was the head on its piece last week. Carlson, you see, is a “neofascist,” TAP wants us to know. What hollow hyperbole. How few are the level heads in mainstream media these days. How cavalierly do our liberal media debase the English language. How difficult it is to take journalists seriously as they attack another journalist because his views do not match theirs.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva Calls For Freedom For Julian Assange ‘The press, which defends freedom of the press, does nothing to free this citizen.’ Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva has called for freedom for Julian Assange and denounced the lack of concerted efforts to free the journalist.
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
Denial Doesn’t Change Our Climate Reality: Earth Is Becoming a Sacrifice Zone Communities that have contributed little to the climate crisis are bearing its brunt — but nowhere on Earth is safe. The people of Madagascar are suffering. Battered by two cyclones last year, they’ve been fighting through a perfect storm of pandemic-related food supply disruptions and climate-stoked damage to local agriculture. That confluence was made worse by a two-year-long drought in the south, which laid the groundwork for a terrible famine. And that was all before Cyclone Freddy came calling this year… twice. Although Freddy barely broke through the U.S. mainstream media’s navel-gazing news bubble, the cyclone grew to become the most “energetic” storm in recorded history. So energetic, in fact, that it pummeled Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique two separate times over the course of 37 excruciating days, topping out at a Category 5 storm on February 21, 2023. Then it literally grew “off the chart” the following day. And that wasn’t even Freddy’s halfway point. Ultimately, the swirling vortex incubated and recharged in an increasingly warmer Indian Ocean, pouring its rain and destruction down on three nations that have done almost nothing to earn the wrath of our carbon-polluted planet.
EPA Report Shows Common Family of Pesticides Poses Threat to Over 200 Species Despite the massive threat to ecosystems, the Biden administration is dragging its feet on regulating the chemicals. Anewly published assessment from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns that three of the most commonly used neonicotinoid insecticides threaten the continued existence of more than 200 endangered plant and animal species. “The EPA’s analysis shows we’ve got a five-alarm fire on our hands, and there’s now no question that neonicotinoids play an outsized role in our heartbreaking extinction crisis,” Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), said Friday in a statement.
Indigenous Fighters Resist Forest Destruction in Peru Amazon communities organize to stop illegal fishing, logging, and coca growing The Shipibo-Konibo-Xetebo people of the Peruvian Amazon are organizing themselves to protect their ancestral forests and waters from illegal fishing, logging, and coca growing amidst conservation and development efforts from both the government and international nonprofits that they say are ineffective at best and actively harmful to Indigenous ways of life at worst
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Psychiatric Incarceration Isn’t Treatment — It’s Violence, Survivors Say After the murder of Jordan Neely, NYC’s mayor doubled down on his plan to disappear those who “appear mentally ill.” The horrific choking murder of 30-year-old Jordan Neely by a white MTA rider on May 1, 2023, in the New York City subway sparked mass outrage, with demonstrators converging on subway stations while cops brought “force and chaos” to a vigil in his memory. The murder has put a renewed spotlight on carceral logics of the state that assume the disposability of Black, poor and unhoused people — in particular those said to be in “mental health crisis.”
Labor:
‘Dirty Dozen’ Dangerous Employers Named for Workers Memorial Day April 28 is Workers Memorial Day, commemorating those killed, sickened, or injured on the job. As part of a week of events, today the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health is releasing its “Dirty Dozen” report. Here are four of the employers COSH has picked out for the “Dirty Dozen” distinction in 2023 because they run unsafe workplaces, endangering workers and the public: Swissport, Packers Sanitation, the Class I railroads, and FedEx. Some also have attempted to silence workers who speak up about hazards or are trying to organize a union to make the workplace safer …Billionaire Bill Ackman, Norfolk Southern and Class One Freight Railroads. When railroad workers threatened to strike for the right take emergency time off for an illness in fall of 2022, they exposed the dangerous business plan of the Class One freight railroads they work for. The federal government blocked the strike. In a compromise brokered by Congress, the railroads were apparently willing to increase pay—but they were not willing to let workers take unplanned time off the job, because they are running the system so lean that it is on the verge of collapse.
Economy:
German Recession Fears Resurface as Factory Output Falls German industrial production fell 3.4% in March, the biggest drop in a year Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here. A sharper than expected fall in German industrial production has prompted economists to warn that Europe’s largest economy is likely to slide into a recession after factory orders, retail sales and exports also suffered significant declines. The German economy withstood the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine without the steep downturn feared by many analysts. But recent data suggests business and consumer activity is being hit by high inflation, rising borrowing costs and slowing trade. German industrial production fell 3.4 per cent in March compared with the previous month, the biggest drop for 12 months, according to the federal statistical office.
Deposits at JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo Shrank by $465 Billion Y-O-Y; More than Twice the Total of 4,000 Small Banks Since the banking crisis began making headlines at expensive media real estate, the narrative has been that deposits are fleeing the small commercial banks and flooding into the biggest banks that are perceived as too-big-to-fail and thus offer a safer venue for deposits. Because these mega banks are the same ones that the Fed has been bailing out since the financial crisis of 2008, that narrative requires believing that our fellow Americans are dumber than a stump.
World:
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
Schools Are Pouring Millions Into AI-Powered Weapons Detection Systems. Do They Work? The Utica City School District had installed the $4 million weapons detection system across 13 of its schools earlier that summer, mostly with public funds. The scanners, from Massachusetts-based Evolv Technology, look like metal detectors but scan for “signatures” for “all the guns, all the bombs, and all the large tactical knives” in the world, Evolv’s CEO Peter George has repeatedly claimed. In Utica, the 17-year-old’s weapon wasn’t the first knife, or gun, to bypass the system. Earlier that month, at a parents’ night, a law enforcement officer had walked through the system twice with his service revolver and was puzzled to find it was never detected. School authorities reached out to Evolv and were subsequently told to increase the sensitivity settings to the highest level.