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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Carey Bell

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues harmonica player Carey Bell. Enjoy!

^{Carey Bell - Last Night}

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

-- Edward Bernays

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News and Opinion

Capitalism Is A Giant Scam

One of the most formative moments of my life was when I was running a small eco blog called Earth Mums in the mid-00s which focused on consumer solutions to the problem of environmental destruction. Back then I still believed that while capitalism was driving the destruction of our biosphere, it could still be hacked into being part of the solution in some ways.

I got a call from a biofuels startup who saw my work with Earth Mums and wanted to hire me to write search engine-friendly articles to draw traffic to their website. I went to their office for a meeting, and while I was waiting I listened to the three partners — real high-octane entrepreneur types — laughing and talking about the various business plates they were spinning.

One of them had apparently just come back from a consulting job for a product called Lectric Soda, which Earth Mums had a lot of affection for because it was an environmentally friendly household cleaning compound that you could buy for less than a dollar a bag.

“Don’t tell me, lemme guess: you told ’em to double the price?” asked one of the partners.

“I told ’em to quadruple it!” said the consultant guy.

I found it incredibly sleazy how they were making a product that could actually help make households a kinder to the environment less accessible while presenting themselves as eco warriors who want to save the planet. I told them I charge way more than I knew they’d ever pay me for the job and got the hell out of there, but lo and behold I did see Lectric Soda shoot up in price fourfold shortly thereafter.

It left me so deflated and disheartened I wound up shutting down Earth Mums. I could see that these guys and people like them were going to turn consumer ecological responsibility into this trendy elite thing priced way out of range for normal people, and that’s exactly what ended up happening. It wasn’t long before I saw the arrival of eco chic and Whole Foods and Tesla and the rest of this whole new luxury market designed to let rich people feel good about themselves while the world burns and create the illusion that we can profiteer our way out of our problems.

It was just such an in-your-face illustration of the problem. Lectric Soda wasn’t improved in quality, didn’t become harder to make or more difficult to obtain, the supply and demand remained the same; the price was changed because the market would bear it. The hidden hand of the market was not going to magically restore the product to its “correct” value; the value of such products was going to be determined by the narrative manipulations of entrepreneurs, consultants, con-artists, marketeers and ad-men.

“Let the market decide” really means let the manipulators decide, because the markets are dominated by those who excel at manipulating. We’re taught that letting the market decide means letting supply and demand take its natural course, as though we’re talking about ocean tides or seasons or something, but in reality both supply and demand are manipulated constantly with extreme aggression. Manipulating the supply of diamonds. Manipulating the supply of housing. Manipulating the supply of oil. Manipulating people into wanting things they’d never thought to want before through advertising. Manipulating women into feeling bad about their bodies so they’ll buy your beauty products. Manipulating people into paying $2000 for a $20 bag using branding. Manipulating people into buying Listerine by inventing the word “halitosis” and convincing them to be worried about it. Manipulating people into believing Beanie Babies were prized collectors items when they were just standard stuffed toys.

Capitalism gives us a civilization that is dominated by trickery. Those who get to the top are those who succeed in tricking as many people as possible. Tricking them into paying more. Tricking them into buying your product and not someone else’s. Tricking people who actually produce something of value into making you their middle man who gets paid despite producing nothing. Tricking competitors into making the wrong move. Tricking people into asking their doctor about your extremely lucrative pharmaceutical product. Tricking people into buying or selling certain stocks or cryptocurrencies or NFTs. Tricking people by using the legal system and your team of lawyers who understand it better than normal people do. Tricking people into letting you privatize their own drinking water and then selling it back to them in bottles.

It’s a scam competition. Whoever scams the best wins. How can you save the planet from destruction by human behavior when all of human behavior is driven by a bizarre scam competition? And the biggest scam of all is the narrative that this system is totally working and is entirely sustainable. That’s the overarching scam holding all the other scams together.

Proponents of capitalism often decry socialism as a coercive system that people are forced to participate in, but what the hell do you call this? Did any of us sign up to be thrown into the middle of a giant unending scam competition? What if I don’t want to spend my whole life being subjected to people’s attempts to trick me? What if I don’t want to live in a society where everyone’s trying to trick and scam each other instead of collaborating toward the greater good of our world? Guess what? I don’t consent to any of that. I am being coerced into this.

Whenever you talk about the destructiveness and depravity of capitalism online you’ll get people saying “Hurr hurr, and yet here you are participating in capitalism” like that’s an own instead of the exact problem that’s being discussed. Yes! Yes I am coerced into participating in a capitalist society in order to pay the bills and stay alive. That’s the problem I’m trying to address here. It’s like prisoners complaining about the prison system and being called hypocrites because they are in prison.

I’m convinced that this is a huge factor in the mental health crises our society is experiencing today. We’re trapped in this system where we’re constantly being psychologically pummelled with an endless barrage of messaging trying to make us think and feel and desire and loathe specific things for no other reason than because it will make someone money. How can mental health prevail in a civilization where everyone’s mind is continuously being yanked this way and that by mass-scale psychological manipulation? Capitalism poisons our minds as much as it poisons our air and our water.

It’s already so, so bad and it’s set to get so, so much worse, and we’re so, so far from any real changes in our political status quo looking anywhere remotely achievable. All we can do is keep drawing attention to this in as many ways as we can, and hoping enough people open their eyes and start to see what’s needed.

Russia says decision not to extend Black Sea grain deal is final

The UN secretary general, António Guterres has said he deeply regrets Russia’s decision to terminate the Black Sea grain deal, saying hundreds of millions of people facing hunger as well as hard-pressed consumers will pay the price for the Kremlin’s move. The deal was designed to alleviate a food crisis sparked by a Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports that had frozen millions of tonnes of grain exports around the world, much of it to developing countries.

Guterres said grain prices were already rising on the markets – having fallen 35% under the deal – after the news on Monday that Russia had terminated the agreement.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had earlier said he hoped for progress in talks at the UN on keeping the deal alive, but Guterres’s statement seemed an acceptance that the voluntary deal, brokered by the UN and Turkey last year and subject to renewal every three months, was over.

The Russian state news agency Tass quoted a senior Russian official at the UN as saying on Monday that the decision was final. ...

Russia and the west will now accuse each other of scuppering the deal as they battle to persuade the global south that the inevitable rise in food prices is not their responsibility.

With Exports Blocked, Russia Drops Ukraine Grain Deal

On Monday, Russia announced its termination of the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain deal with Ukraine, first signed in July last year, citing unfulfilled parts of the agreement. “The Black Sea agreements are no longer in effect,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said during a press conference in Moscow. “The deadline, as the Russian president said earlier, is July 17. Unfortunately, the part of the Black Sea agreement that concerns Russia has not yet been fulfilled. As a result, it has been terminated.”

Peskov added that “as soon as the Russian part [of the deal] is fulfilled, the Russian side will immediately return to the implementation of this deal,” TASS reported. [Russia’s position was announced before the most recent attack on the Crimean Bridge.]

Last Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia will suspend participation in the deal unless exports of its own products are unblocked. He claimed that none of the goals linked to the interests of the Russian Federation had been met. [In April Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters at the U.N. that dozens of Russian cargo vessels with tons of Russian fertilizer were stuck at European ports.] ...

Since the agreement, Ukraine was able to export 33 million metric tons of grains from its Black Sea ports via Turkey — where the ships carrying the grain were monitored. ... According to U.N. data, grain from Ukraine has been supplied to 45 countries in three continents under the deal, with Africa getting just 12 percent, Asia 46 percent and 40 percent going to rich countries in Western Europe.

Senior Politician Says Russia Should Not Renew Grain Deal After Crimea Bridge Incident

A senior Russian politician said on Monday that Russia should not renew the Black Sea grain deal in light of an attack on the bridge linking Russia to Crimea. ...

Sergei Mironov, leader of the A Just Russia party in Russia's parliament, said Moscow should respond by destroying Ukrainian infrastructure.

"That is what we need to do, and not discuss a grain deal that helps Kyiv's rulers and their Western masters line their pockets. There can be no grain deal after another terrorist attack," he said on Telegram.

US, NATO weapons stockpile ‘dangerously low’: USAF General

Amid a high tempo of arms transfers to Ukraine, the stockpile of US weapons and those of allies are getting “dangerously low,” the commander of US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) said today. And worse, he warned, no “short term” fixes are on the horizon.

Speaking on a panel with the air chiefs of the United Kingdom and Sweden during the Chief of the Air Staff’s Global Air & Space Chiefs’ Conference in London, USAFE Commander Gen. James Hecker, who also leads US air forces in Africa, urged fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization members to take a hard look at the status of their weapon stockpiles.

“I think it’s very important that we kind of take stock of where we are in our weapons state across the 32 nations of NATO, and we’re getting way down compared to where we were,” said Hecker, who counted Sweden’s expected accession to NATO among the collection of allied nations — a topic of heated discussion at the NATO summit in Lithuania this week.

“If you look at the US itself — and let’s not just talk about the munitions we recently have given away to Ukraine — but we’re [at] roughly half the number of fighter squadrons that we were when we did Desert Storm,” Hecker said, pointing to a similar decline in fighter strength for the UK. “So we don’t have nearly what we had at the heart of the Cold War.

Top Ukraine Commander Says SCREW YOU To US Warnings Of Escalation

Democrat, Republican Senators Agree NATO Expansion Into Asia Is ‘Inevitable’

Senators Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) agreed on Sunday that NATO expansion into Asia was “inevitable” as the Western military alliance increasingly has its eyes on China.

Both senators made the comments on NBC’s Meet the Press. When asked by host Chuck Todd if NATO expanding into Asia was inevitable, Sullivan replied, “I think it is, and I think it was a positive summit.”

Sullivan was part of the Senate delegation that attended the NATO summit in Vilnius last week. The communiqué that was issued by the alliance mentioned China more than a dozen times, compared with just one mention in the previous year’s NATO summit communiqué.

Recork the Champagne: Sweden’s NATO Accession Deal With Turkiye Still Faces Hurdles

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave NATO the public relations boost it so desperately wanted during the Vilnius summit. First, he released the neo-Nazi Azov commanders back to Ukraine in violation of the agreement with Russia. Then, he agreed to some sort of deal for Sweden’s entry into NATO.

The contents of that deal still aren’t entirely clear, but now that the PR euphoria has subsided and the summit has ended, it looks like the details still need to be ironed out as the same old stumbling blocks remain for Sweden’s accession.

Stockholm says it will meet Turkiye’s demands after Ankara gives the final go-ahead to NATO accession while Erdogan wants that order reversed and has now pushed off a vote in Turkiye’s parliament until October. ...

Erdogan said “a bilateral security mechanism will be established at the ministerial level and we will increase our cooperation and collaboration in our fight against the terrorist organizations.” That could already be running into trouble. From Turkish Minute:

Sweden’s top court has blocked the extradition of two people wanted by Turkiye for involvement in the faith-based Gülen movement, saying their actions are not considered a crime in the Scandinavian country, Agence France-Presse reported. The ruling comes just days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he was ready to allow Sweden to join the military alliance.

There are also questions about the US holding up its end of the bargain. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez said he is in talks with the Biden administration about the hold he has on future U.S. sales of F-16 fighter jets to Ankara.

Palestinian Attorney Noura Erakat: The U.S. Is Normalizing Apartheid by Hosting Israel's President

Gaza: Israeli targeted killing operations prompt petition for inquiry

The Adas family were not the targets of the airstrike that hit their neighbour’s house at about 2am on 9 May, in the opening salvo of Israel’s Shield and Arrow operation, but the buildings were less than a metre apart. The GBU-39 bomb that crashed through three floors of the Bahtini home, down into the basement, also blew apart one side of the Adas’s house, killing the family’s two teenage daughters. Dania, 19, died immediately, while her sister, Imam, 17, clung to life for two hours before succumbing to her injuries in hospital.

“The explosion blew the bedroom door off on to me and my wife as we were sleeping, and then I ran into the living room to find the children,” said Alaa Adas, 55, a civil servant. “My son was there, but my daughters did not respond. When I saw their hair under the rubble my heart stopped.”

Shield and Arrow, a surprise Israeli airstrike campaign targeting Islamic Jihad, the second largest militant organisation in the blockaded Gaza Strip after Hamas, began with the targeted assassination of Bahtini and the near-instantaneous killings of two other commanders elsewhere in the strip.

Israel claims that it takes pains to avoid civilian deaths in “precision strikes” targeting high-ranking members of Gaza’s factions. But the timing and ferocity of Shield and Arrow’s opening salvo has led to new action from Israeli rights groups, challenging Israel’s supreme court to launch independent investigations into civilian casualties as per an existing – but not enforced – ruling on the use of targeted killings.

The assassinations, which came during a ceasefire, led Islamic Jihad to respond with almost 1,500 rockets fired towards Israel over the course of five days before a truce was brokered by Egyptian mediators. The violence left 33 people in Gaza dead, including at least 10 women and children, and, according to Palestinian officials, 103 homes were destroyed and a further 2,800 damaged. Three people were reportedly killed by misfired Islamic Jihad projectiles inside the strip, and in Israel, an 80-year-old woman and a Palestinian worker died. After the ceasefire, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described Shield and Arrow as “perfect” due to the low Israeli death toll. He did not mention civilian deaths in Gaza.

Jayapal WALKS BACK 'Racist State' Israel Criticism, Joins AOC, Omar, Tlaib BOYCOTT Of Herzog

Progressive US congresswoman apologises for calling Israel ‘racist state’

The chair of the US Congressional Progressive Caucus apologised for calling Israel a “racist state”. “I offer my apologies to those who I have hurt with my words,” Pramila Jayapal of Washington state said in a statement on Sunday.

The day before, at Netroots Nation, a progressive event in Chicago, Jayapal addressed a group of pro-Palestinian protesters. She said: “As somebody that’s been in the streets and has participated in a lot of demonstrations, I think I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state.” ...

Republican and pro-Israel groups seized on the comments. Ahead of a week in which the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, will address Congress, Democratic House leaders also rebuked Jayapal. “Israel is not a racist state,” a statement from the leaders said, noting the “uniquely special relationship” between the US and Israel.

Democratic leaders also said they “strongly support[ed] Israel’s right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people” while remaining “firmly committed to a robust two-state solution where Israel and the Palestinian people can live side-by-side in peace and prosperity”.

Israeli Forces Blindfold & Handcuff Palestinian Reporter Who Filmed Settler Attack in Masafer Yatta

West Bank ‘not occupied’ territory, says Ron DeSantis

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, has reiterated claims that the West Bank is not occupied, suggesting that Israel should be able to continue to build settlements on the Palestinian territory without interference from the United States.

Speaking to Christians United for Israel (CUFI) on Monday, DeSantis underscored his pro-Israel bona fides, including his efforts to crack down on companies that boycott the US ally.

“Judea and Samaria are not occupied territory,” DeSantis said, referring to the West Bank by a Biblical name.

He added that, while the land is disputed, Israelis have “the strongest claim of right” to the West Bank. “They have every right to have very strong communities in those areas,” DeSantis said.

‘Where is the money?’ US workers left unpaid after federal contractor wage theft

Augusta Wood worked in IT support under a federal contractor for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Florida for about four years. It seemed like a safe job. Instead, Wood experienced thousands of dollars in wage theft and is one of more than 40 workers for a federal contractor who have been trying since 2015 to recoup their pay. They have yet to receive any of it.

Workers say the contractor – Consultis – and government agencies have deflected responsibility to one another for over $500,000 in back pay owed to workers for this contract alone. “I ended up with over $42,000 in wage loss,” said Wood. “Despite the Department of Labor ruling in our favor, we didn’t get the money.” ...

Wage theft of workers employed by federal contractors under the Service Contract Act is not uncommon. In 2021, the US Department of Labor’s wage and hour division recovered more than $48m in back wages owed to more than 21,000 workers on federal contracts. Federal contractors found to have conducted wage theft are supposed to be excluded from receiving new contracts for three years but enforcement is lax, according to a government survey.

An October 2020 report by the Government Accountability Office noted that in the previous five years, the Department of Labor conducted more than 5,000 compliance investigations resulting in over $220m in back wages for workers, but only 60 contractors were excluded from receiving federal contracts for three years. A 2017 report by the Center for Public Integrity found many federal contractors who commit wage theft continue receiving lucrative federal contracts.

Judge temporarily blocks Iowa’s new six-week abortion ban

An Iowa judge on Monday temporarily blocked the state’s new ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, just days after Governor Kim Reynolds signed the measure into law.

That means abortion is once again legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy while the courts assess the new law’s constitutionality.

The new law prohibited almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many even know they are pregnant.

The Republican-controlled state legislature approved the measure in a rare, all-day special session last week, prompting a legal challenge by the ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic. Judge Joseph Seidlin held a hearing on the matter on Friday, but said he would take the issue under advisement – just as Reynolds signed the bill into law about a mile away. ...

Reynolds swiftly put out a statement underscoring her intention to fight the issue all the way to the state supreme court. “The abortion industry’s attempt to thwart the will of Iowans and the voices of their elected representatives continues today,” she said.

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January 6 investigation: Trump says he is target in 2020 election probe

Georgia Supreme Court Rejects 'Desperate and Frivolous' Attempt by Trump to Kill 2020 Probe

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday unanimously rejected a bid by former President Donald Trump—who is seeking the GOP's 2024 presidential nomination—to effectively end Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' probe into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

The former president's legal team last week filed petitions with the Georgia Supreme Court and the Fulton County Superior Court—after Willis signaled that charges in the investigation could come in early August. Trump aimed to disqualify Willis and to quash a related special purpose grand jury report.

However, Monday's five-page order states that Trump has neither "presented in his original petition either the facts or the law necessary to mandate Willis' disqualification by this court," nor "shown that this case presents one of those extremely rare circumstances in which this court's original jurisdiction should be invoked."

The political action committee MeidasTouch on Monday called Trump's filing in the state's highest court "desperate and frivolous," and highlighted that all but one of the nine justices were appointed by Republican governors.

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Biden’s Climate Czar Caught Owning Private Jet!

The tarsandians are at it again:

Millions on alert as wildfire smoke from Canada to spread to US

As they did last month, wildfires in Canada are again expected to spread increased air pollution to the US this week, as millions in the country are under air quality advisories. About 70 million people could be under air quality alerts as wildfire smoke from western Canada spreads to parts of the northern US and as far south as Alabama, CNN reported.

Nearly 900 forest fires are burning in Canada this week, the New York Times reported. The majority of fires have been categorized as “out of control” by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

On Monday, several cities reported elevated levels on the Air Quality Index (AQI), which provides daily air quality readings: 159 AQI in Cleveland; 166 AQI in Louisville; and 151 AQI in Pittsburgh. Any air quality reading above 150 AQI is considered unhealthy and could have negative consequences for people’s health.

Local governments have issued air quality warnings given the smoke. The Illinois environmental protection agency (EPA) extended an air quality alert for much of the state through Monday, ABC 7 Chicago reported. New York state is under an air quality warning through Monday.

Farms in US 'Peach State' of Georgia grapple with climate change

Death Valley approaches global heat record as US reels from extreme weather

Long the hottest place on Earth, Death Valley put a sizzling exclamation point on Sunday on a record warm summer that is baking nearly the entire globe by flirting with some of the hottest temperatures ever recorded, meteorologists said.

Temperatures in Death Valley, which runs along part of central California’s border with Nevada, reached 128F (53.3C) on Sunday at the aptly named Furnace Creek, the National Weather Service said.

The hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 134F (56.7C) in July 1913 at Furnace Creek, said Randy Ceverny of the World Meteorological Organization, the body recognized as keeper of world records. Temperatures at or above 130F (54.4C) have only been recorded on Earth a handful of times, mostly in Death Valley.

“With global warming, such temperatures are becoming more and more likely to occur,” Ceverny, the World Meteorological Organization’s records coordinator, said in an email. “Long-term: global warming is causing higher and more frequent temperature extremes. Short-term: this particular weekend is being driven by a very, very strong upper-level ridge of high pressure over the western US.”

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

In Heat & Smoke, US Workers Fight Negligent Bosses

Cop City Crackdown Reflects Broader Criminalization of Environmental Protest

Energy industry uses whale activists to aid anti-wind farm strategy, experts say

Ted Cruz HYPOCRISY In Corporate Push To Block Rail Safety

Florida ABANDONED By Insurance Companies

Tucker Exposes Nikki Haley Over Nord Stream Pipeline

Dems DEMAND RFK Jr Be Disinvited From Capitol Hill Hearing, Compare Him To HITLER

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A Little Night Music

Carey Bell Blues Band ~ When I Get Drunk

Buster Benton & Carey Bell - Born With the Blues

Carey Bell - Short Dress Woman

Carey Bell - Blues with a Feeling

Carey Bell - So Hard To Leave You Alone

Carey Bell – Everything's Uptight

Carey Bell - That Spot Right There

Carey Bell – I'm Ready

Carey Bell – Bell Hop

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