alanjjohnstone
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57813704
The media are making a big meal out of those protests which appear to be identical to many of the anti-lockdown demonstrations we have seen everywhere because of the enforced economic hardships of the pandemic.
And the anti-government slogans ..freedom down with dictatorship are also the same as heard in the anti- covid restrictions in the streets of London and elsewhere.
Are they the signs of something more serious?
Perhaps they might be the start of something.
But we cannot rely on the media to tell us for real.
Certainly, we cannot trust Biden’s vocal support for them as genuine concern.
The problem of race (and immigration) within the American working class is a deep one that affected the IWW and the SPA and the racism within the working class cannot be wished away.
Frederick Douglass, an ex-slave, was closer than many to understanding the connection with wage-labour and slavery.
It can only be addressed when it is tackled direct on.
Even the SLP was in many ways patriotic to the US Constitution myth of the Founding Fathers
A fairly balanced article questioning whether it is useful to use the term fascist regards Trumpists
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/07/10/differences-between-fascism-and-trumpism
“It’s not true that we don’t know where it came from – we just don’t know how it got into humans,” says Glasgow University virologist Prof David Robertson.
There is no definitive piece of evidence – no Covid-positive bat or a confirmed first human case – to show conclusively how it started. That may never be known.
21 researchers “set the record straight” by publishing their summary of the scientific evidence about the pandemic’s beginning.
https://zenodo.org/record/5075888#.YOoBzj3it7a
Its key conclusion, says Prof Robertson, is that this virus’s biological properties closely match viruses that have been found in nature – in bats.
This outbreak, he adds, looks very much like the emergence of the first Sars back in 2003. In that case, the virus was isolated in a widely-traded animal called a palm civet. Over the next few years, researchers discovered very closely related viruses in bats, and in 2017, the ancestor of the Sars virus was found in a population of horseshoe bats in southern China.
The outbreak was essentially tracked and traced back to the wild animal it came from – deadly mystery solved.
“The only difference with Covid is that we’ve not found the intermediate species this time,” Prof Robertson says.”But the bat virus link and the strong association to markets selling live animals are both there.”
Prof David Relman, of the US’s Stanford University takes a contrary opinion.
“I see this new report as a deliberate effort to marshal all the possible information in support of what is a perfectly good hypothesis – natural spillover – but it’s not balanced and objective,” he told BBC News. “What we don’t need right now is for scientists to insist on their favourite explanation in the absence of new, solid data,” says Prof Relman.”Sars-Cov-2 has not been found in any natural animal host. Let’s just cool it and demand a proper investigation.”
Prof Relman was one of the authors of a letter to the high-profile scientific journal, Science, in which senior scientists questioned the WHO report’s conclusions and asked for a more thorough investigation into the so-called lab leak hypothesis.Is it a democracy?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/09/texas-voter-arrested-hervis-rogers-ken-paxton
An Afro-American in Texas who waited seven hours in line to vote in last year’s presidential primary has been arrested and charged with voting illegally.
Texas attorney general bringing charges that allege Rogers voted while on parole for a 1995 conviction for burglary and intent to commit theft.
In Texas, it is illegal for anyone convicted of a felony to vote until they complete their sentence, including probation and parole. Rogers’ parole began in 2004 and was set to expire in June 2020. The Texas primaries were held in March.
Rogers cannot afford $100,000 bail and is being held in jail. Rogers’ two felony convictions meant he could face a more severe prison sentence on the illegal voting charges – potentially 25 years to life on each count.
Andre Segura, the legal director of the Texas ACLU, in a statement. “He faces potentially decades in jail. Our laws should not intimidate people from voting by increasing the risk of prosecution for, at worst, innocent mistakes.”
5.2 million people cannot vote in the US because of felony convictions,
Haiti’s government has requested that the United States send troops protect port, airport and gasoline facilities and other key infrastructure.
“Another deployment of foreign troops to Haiti would be a disaster,” said Jake Johnston, a Haiti specialist from the Center for Economic and Policy Research thinktank. “To think that foreign intervention is a solution to this is mind-boggling.
“Just look at the 2004 deployment of UN forces,” Johnson added, noting how that almost 15-year mission had failed to achieve its key objectives of creating a stable democracy with a functioning and effective police force.
Johnston said he thought the US was unlikely to agree to send troops. “But when you look at the history, that is often the solution provided by the international community. So it is certainly a possibility.”
“Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation,” Biden said.
Biden has signed an executive order aimed at cracking down on big tech firms and promoting competition.
“For decades, corporate consolidation has been accelerating,” the fact sheet released by the White House says, describing the order as “a whole-of-government effort to promote competition in the American economy”.
Picking up the pieces and dividing the spoils
Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, met Taliban negotiators to discuss their intentions towards the country, and secured a joint statement saying the Taliban do not support attacks on civilians, schools, mosques and hospitals and want a negotiated settlement on Afghanistan’s future. Iran already hosts 780,000 registered Afghan refugees and that between 2.1 and 2.5 million undocumented Afghans live in Iran.
Turkey has conditionally offered Turkish troops for a Nato-overseen project to protect Kabul international airport. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has offered to provide Turkish troops in a possible unlikely alliance with Hungary.
Some analysts argue mass migration from Afghanistan caused by a Taliban insurgency might help the Iranian economy, and that Iran should not oppose a Taliban takeover.
Saeed Laylaz, a prominent reformist-minded economist and adviser to previous governments, said: “Iran is facing a demographic crisis and I believe that the best, closest and least costly way to overcome this demographic crisis is to accept emigration from Afghanistan. Stability in Afghanistan is important for national security, contributing to the ageing crisis and Iran’s economy.
“The Taliban could not have survived so long without genuine political support and they might now serve Iran’s regional diplomatic interests. The Taliban are no longer the Taliban of the past, they have also realised that we must interact with the world, we must cooperate with the countries of the region.”
Another suggested read that has come our way
https://contrahistorical.medium.com/how-clothes-made-capitalism-6201b0b2d7a2
Doubts about the 8% rise due to pensioners.
But longer life expectancy, and particularly healthy life expectancy, have increased dramatically over the last half-century, and the societal definition of “old” has not kept up, In the 19th century, a country needed youth to operate its factories, consume what they churned out and constitute a fighting force in times of war. That became less true over the 20th century, and in the 21st it bears very little relation to reality. More and more of the jobs that require stamina and strength are done by machines, while a nation’s products are consumed globally and there’s no evidence that young workers are any more productive than older ones today we can expect to be working longer into our senior years.
Owen Jones defends the old
The UK’s Brexit “divorce bill” covers the UK’s share of EU debts and liabilities during 47 years of membership, such as paying for infrastructure projects, pensions and sickness benefits for EU officials.
It is €47.5bn (£40.8bn) according to estimates from Brussels that are higher than the government’s forecasts. €6.8bn, is due for payment by the end of the year.
In 2018 the Office for Budget Responsibility put the Brexit bill at €41.4bn (£37.1bn). During the Brexit negotiations, British government officials said the final bill would be around £35-39bn.
Q A follow on that thought on Afghanistan —
Biden: I want to talk about happy things, man.
Q Sir, on Afghanistan —
Biden: I’m not going to answer any more quick question on Afghanistan.
Q Are you concerned —
Biden: Look, it’s Fourth of July.
Trials of a four-day week in Iceland were an “overwhelming success” and led to many workers moving to shorter hours, researchers have said. The trials, in which workers were paid the same amount for shorter hours, took place between 2015 and 2019.
Productivity remained the same or improved in the majority of workplaces, researchers said.
86% of Iceland’s workforce have either moved to shorter hours for the same pay, or will gain the right to, the researchers said.
