Just as we are slowly stepping away from the Pandemic (with the exceptions of the Southern good ole boy network led by weird Republicans who still refuse to be immunized), another disaster; the collapse of the Surfside Florida Condo building. Everyone wants the occupants to be located and survive, in this case, it will take a miracle. But, how did this happen ? What was the cause or causes ?
~ From NBC:
“It’s a tough conversation to have, but the building shouldn’t have been there,” Pilkey said, “along with a lot of other buildings. We’re due for a real awakening.”
Cause Of Miami Condo Collapse Unclear, But Experts Say Barrier Islands Present Risks
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You have most likely read, seen or heard of the harrowing jungle crossings the migrantes make in search of the Promised Land. Here is the latest report from the Rio Grande Valley which basically validates the Harris point that it is simply too dangerous a journey to undertake, don't do it.
~ From: The Rolling Stone
"In the Rio Grande Valley, human smuggling is overseen by a powerful crime syndicate, forcing the migrants arriving in record numbers to put their lives in violent hands "
By,
Central American Migrants: They’re Here Because We Were There
"Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Democrats claim to defend an honest rendition of US history, one that will be attentive to the injustices inflicted by slavery and racism. Unfortunately, however, that honesty stops at the water’s edge. While the president prepared for and conducted a widely- covered summit that among other things warned Russians not to interfere once again in US elections, Vice President Harris was sternly admonishing Central American to stay put.
One strand that unites Biden’s chastisement of Putin and Harris’s blunt command is their historical amnesia. They chastise Russia and Central America from an assumed stance of moral purity. Nonetheless, their version of American exceptionalism won’t survive even a casual examination of recent US dealings with Russia or the triangle states of Central America.
Vice President Harris has received some praise for acknowledging that surges in migration are a reflection of underlying causes. Poverty, violence, and corruption are most often cited. Correct as this observation is it fails to acknowledge US responsibility for those causes. Violence poverty, and corruption are treated as free- floating maladies that just happened and around which US policy must navigate. If things go badly that is because violence and corruption were too great.
Dana Frank, emerita professor University of California/Santa Cruz points out: “people are very much fleeing poverty. But that poverty, again, is not a natural disaster. It’s the direct result of the post-{US-backed ]coup policies.” Neoliberal faith in markets destroyed the state, which is the only barrier to the excesses of the market.. In addition “ state services have been destroyed because the elites that run the government are just robbing it blind. For example, the president and his party stole as many as $90 million from the national health service in 2013 to pay for their campaigns, and so then there’s no national health service that functions.
Frank observed that while then Vice President, Joe Biden wanted to give a billion dollars to the governments of the so-called northern Triangle of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in order to stop migration and address root causes, “If you look at that, it’s pouring precisely into the same security forces and sectors of the economy that are causing the very repression, the very destruction of the economy that people are fleeing.”
That sort of amnesia seems well distributed in DC., as was demonstrated in the press conference following the summit. Here is President Biden’s remarkable revisionist history:: “get this straight: How would it be if the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering with the elections directly of other countries, and everybody knew it? What would it be like if we engaged in activities that he is engaged in? It diminishes the standing of a country that is desperately trying to make sure it maintains its standing as a world power.” In response to this absurdity the DC press corps lent its tacit ascent by remaining silent.
What is involved here is more than an academic controversy over recent Central American history. As the editors of NACLA point out: “memory can be leveraged as a tool of education, political action, and alternative building, while its antithesis, forgetting, can serve as a weapon to impose silence and erasure.
Joe Biden is notoriously muddleheaded. Perhaps the most charitable way to regard these words is as another incoherent rant. If policy choices are guided by a conviction of US innocence and even international faith in that innocence, more self-defeating atrocities marked all over with the USA brand will likely emerge."
John Buell has a PhD in political science, taught for 10 years at College of the Atlantic, and was an Associate Editor of The Progressive for ten years. He lives in Southwest Harbor, Maine and writes on labor and environmental issues. His most recent book, published by Palgrave in August 2011, is "Politics, Religion, and Culture in an Anxious Age." He may be reached at jbuell@acadia.net
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Meanwhile back in the USA, everyone is talking about the gun violence...and yet everyone knows not mucho will ever be done to curtail guns in our society due to the powerful gun lobbies. The best news is that.....
~ From CNN:
9th Circuit Appeals Court blocks the overturn of California's assault weapons ban
Updated 12:53 AM ET, Tue June 22, 2021
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Speaking of gun violence, here is this evenings Brooks and Capeheart, where Capeheart makes a remarkable comparison to the actual decrease in gun violence since the 1990's...although not until almost the end of the show.
"New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week in politics, including the potential breakthrough on the road to an infrastructure deal, the justice department's lawsuit against Georgia's voting restrictions, and the president's plan to curb surging violent crime across the country. "
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And locally at the moment, we are at 163 executions this month of June. Don't miss all the reports:
~ From Zeta:
Matan a cuatro en Tijuana; a dos les dejan narcomensaje
"Three men and a woman were murdered in the last hours in Tijuana. Two of the victims were left threatening messages by their killers.
According to police reports, it was around 06:00 hours on Thursday, June 24, when it was reported to the emergency center that on Héctor Luteroth and Julián Navarrete streets in the San Luis neighborhood, gunshot detonations were heard, for the municipal police they went to the place.
After a tour of the area, at a riding school, they observed that there was a male person with a gunshot wound to the head and a legend written on a white blanket with the legend that to the letter read: “ ESTO LE BA PASS ALL THE KAPOSYEN SUPPORT THE SINALOA YAP 8081 ″.
The unidentified victim wore blue jeans, a black jacket and was covered with a blanket.
In the afternoon, it was reported that the lifeless body of a woman was found on a stretch of dirt on Mar de Buena Vista street on the corner of Isla Coronado in the Buena Vista neighborhood. The unidentified victim, aged between 20 and 26, who wore denim shorts, a white hoodie, white tennis shoes and a tattoo on his arm, had blood spots on his head. Ballistic evidence was recorded at the crime scene.
Later, in the trunk of a green Honda Accord, model 95, without license plates, the bound body of a man was found, which was semi covered with a blanket. The unit was located on Miguel Lira and Gómez Farías streets in the Morelos neighborhood, a few meters from the military barracks.
Information obtained by ZETA indicates that a wooden board was left on the passenger seat with a message that read: " AKI ALREADY HAS AN OWNER, FOLLOW YOUR CUATE C ALINIATE ATTN THE 4 LETTERS".
It should be noted that the unit where the body was found had a robbery report dated June 17.
Finally, a man who was walking along Río Amacuzac street in the Mariano Matamoros neighborhood was executed by unknown individuals who shot him repeatedly from a moving car. The victim had several gunshot wounds. Witnesses report that the hit men were aboard a red sedan vehicle, which fled towards Hermenegildo Galeana street, without having been located to date. Seven ballistic evidence was found in the crime area.
So far, none of the cases are reported detainees.
Tijuana adds 163 intentional homicides so far in June."
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The weather has been cool here, no heat wave so far. Paris had her cytopoint shot today, I'm still limping around and the feral cats knocked over two of my pots (masetas) on the wall. Going to make a big greek salad for over the weekend with some homemade bread since it's not hot.
Take care everyone.... light candles for the folks in Surfside.
Wow, not bad for a white boy...oh jeez it's you-know-who:
