There are critics of capitalism who argue that the way out is for workers to form co-operatives. For many,  the cooperative movement as it exists today is associated with socialism and the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system of society. Co-operatives have in fact a long association with attempts by workers to improve their lot under capitalism.  The Socialist Party has no problem with workers forming cooperatives if that’s the best way they can survive under capitalism. However, we disagree with the sometimes-made claim that they can be a route to socialism because, aside from any political consideration, unless they are in a small market niche with no competition, they tend to be out–competed by the brutal cost and wage-cutting tactics of conventional businesses.

While we can sympathise albeit with a critical mind those cooperatives aimed at abolishing the wages systems, private ownership and profit-making we acknowledge the vast majority of the others merely wishes to redirect the flow of profits from the private owner or investor to the cooperative members. It has not and cannot solve the poverty problem either of its members or of its employees. The basic fallacy in the co-operative idea is a wrong explanation of rent, interest and profit. Because the means of production—land, factories, steamships, etc.—are privately owned, the workers who wish to operate these instruments must first enter into a one-sided bargain; one-sided because the goad of semi-starvation forces their hand. They bargain to produce wealth for the owners of capital and receive as the price of the energies they sell wages or salaries which, over the whole field of Capitalism, are only a small proportion of the values they produce. What the capitalists get is a property-income, something which arises from their monopoly and not from their services, and which varies according to the size of their capital. Rent, interest and profit, if the terms are cleared of some looseness which surrounds their common use, are merely names for this income that goes to the owners of property because they are owners.

Proponents of co-operatives want to eliminate the middleman and redirect the flow of profit—but what is profit? Profit is the child of private ownership and is obtained by the exploitation of the workers. Co-operative “divi” is derived from the exploitation of cooperative employees. The relation between the latter and the societies is precisely the same as that between other workers and their employers. The co-operative movement has all the trappings but none of the substance of success. Its members are still wage-earners, still exploited by the capitalist class and still, therefore, poor; its employees are in the same condition. If the societies as at present constituted extend until they cover the whole working-class that will still be true. It has made no inroads into the capitalist system.

Co-operatives have not and cannot emancipate the working class. Only socialism will do that. The workers cannot escape from the effects of capitalism by joining cooperative societies. They must obtain for society as a whole the ownership of the means of production and distribution which are now the property of the capitalist class. For this, they must organise in the Socialist Party for the purpose of controlling the machinery of government. Once possessed of power they can then reorganise society on a socialist basis of common ownership. The cooperative commonwealth can only be achieved by socialist methods.

Evicting the bosses from their directors’ board rooms and organising production from the shop-floor without them is one thing; escaping from the economic laws of the market is another – as, within capitalism, it is not just a question of organising production, but also of selling what is produced. The cooperative model tends to operate within the capitalist logic of productivity and profitability … the pressure on them to adopt a capitalist business logic is immense. Cooperatives are embedded in the framework of the capitalist economy and compete on the capitalist market following the logic of profit-making.

Cooperatives do not provide a real solution to the workers’ situation. It is incapable of providing an answer in the interests of all workers. At no time does it question the capitalist production relationships – it questions only superficial features (management structures, for instance). Even less can a network of cooperatives create a parallel system to capitalism? The more coop members  have to discipline and pressurise themselves in the way the old bosses did – what we call “self-managed exploitation.” Workers in cooperatives have in effect to organise their own exploitation for profit to be accumulated as more capital. They are not the way out. As Marx pointed out, co-operatives ‘must reproduce everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system.’ And they do. Although Marx mentioned workers’ cooperatives as possible harbingers of the new society, he cautioned that, as long as they exist within capitalism, the cooperatives ‘naturally reproduce in all cases…all the defects of the existing system, and must reproduce them…the opposition between capital and labour is abolished here…only in the form that the workers in association become their own capitalist.’ On their own, there is nothing intrinsically socialist about cooperatives.

A co-op does not cease being a capitalist enterprise simply because votes are taken on how its assets are used within a society of generalised commodity production and wage labour. The imperative to accumulate with all the drive to minimise the labour time taken to do a task this requires remains even in a co-op. Thus cooperatives are under the same pressure to seek to maximise profit as a condition for surviving as an economic institution embodying capital. It is just that in their case the trustees – the functionaries of capital – are different: worker-elected boards.

Socialism takes over the means of production, by abolishing all sectional property rights over them and that includes members of worker-owned businesses and uses them to directly produce, without the intervention of buying and selling, what people need, both as individuals and as communities. 

There are critics of capitalism who argue that the way out is for workers to form co-operatives. For many,  the cooperative movement as it exists today is associated with socialism and the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system of society. Co-operatives have in fact a long association with attempts by workers to improve their lot under capitalism.  The Socialist Party has no problem with workers forming cooperatives if that’s the best way they can survive under capitalism. However, we disagree with the sometimes-made claim that they can be a route to socialism because, aside from any political consideration, unless they are in a small market niche with no competition, they tend to be out–competed by the brutal cost and wage-cutting tactics of conventional businesses.

While we can sympathise albeit with a critical mind those cooperatives aimed at abolishing the wages systems, private ownership and profit-making we acknowledge the vast majority of the others merely wishes to redirect the flow of profits from the private owner or investor to the cooperative members. It has not and cannot solve the poverty problem either of its members or of its employees. The basic fallacy in the co-operative idea is a wrong explanation of rent, interest and profit. Because the means of production—land, factories, steamships, etc.—are privately owned, the workers who wish to operate these instruments must first enter into a one-sided bargain; one-sided because the goad of semi-starvation forces their hand. They bargain to produce wealth for the owners of capital and receive as the price of the energies they sell wages or salaries which, over the whole field of Capitalism, are only a small proportion of the values they produce. What the capitalists get is a property-income, something which arises from their monopoly and not from their services, and which varies according to the size of their capital. Rent, interest and profit, if the terms are cleared of some looseness which surrounds their common use, are merely names for this income that goes to the owners of property because they are owners.

Proponents of co-operatives want to eliminate the middleman and redirect the flow of profit—but what is profit? Profit is the child of private ownership and is obtained by the exploitation of the workers. Co-operative “divi” is derived from the exploitation of cooperative employees. The relation between the latter and the societies is precisely the same as that between other workers and their employers. The co-operative movement has all the trappings but none of the substance of success. Its members are still wage-earners, still exploited by the capitalist class and still, therefore, poor; its employees are in the same condition. If the societies as at present constituted extend until they cover the whole working-class that will still be true. It has made no inroads into the capitalist system.

Co-operatives have not and cannot emancipate the working class. Only socialism will do that. The workers cannot escape from the effects of capitalism by joining cooperative societies. They must obtain for society as a whole the ownership of the means of production and distribution which are now the property of the capitalist class. For this, they must organise in the Socialist Party for the purpose of controlling the machinery of government. Once possessed of power they can then reorganise society on a socialist basis of common ownership. The cooperative commonwealth can only be achieved by socialist methods.

Evicting the bosses from their directors’ board rooms and organising production from the shop-floor without them is one thing; escaping from the economic laws of the market is another – as, within capitalism, it is not just a question of organising production, but also of selling what is produced. The cooperative model tends to operate within the capitalist logic of productivity and profitability … the pressure on them to adopt a capitalist business logic is immense. Cooperatives are embedded in the framework of the capitalist economy and compete on the capitalist market following the logic of profit-making.

Cooperatives do not provide a real solution to the workers’ situation. It is incapable of providing an answer in the interests of all workers. At no time does it question the capitalist production relationships – it questions only superficial features (management structures, for instance). Even less can a network of cooperatives create a parallel system to capitalism? The more coop members  have to discipline and pressurise themselves in the way the old bosses did – what we call “self-managed exploitation.” Workers in cooperatives have in effect to organise their own exploitation for profit to be accumulated as more capital. They are not the way out. As Marx pointed out, co-operatives ‘must reproduce everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system.’ And they do. Although Marx mentioned workers’ cooperatives as possible harbingers of the new society, he cautioned that, as long as they exist within capitalism, the cooperatives ‘naturally reproduce in all cases…all the defects of the existing system, and must reproduce them…the opposition between capital and labour is abolished here…only in the form that the workers in association become their own capitalist.’ On their own, there is nothing intrinsically socialist about cooperatives.

A co-op does not cease being a capitalist enterprise simply because votes are taken on how its assets are used within a society of generalised commodity production and wage labour. The imperative to accumulate with all the drive to minimise the labour time taken to do a task this requires remains even in a co-op. Thus cooperatives are under the same pressure to seek to maximise profit as a condition for surviving as an economic institution embodying capital. It is just that in their case the trustees – the functionaries of capital – are different: worker-elected boards.

Socialism takes over the means of production, by abolishing all sectional property rights over them and that includes members of worker-owned businesses and uses them to directly produce, without the intervention of buying and selling, what people need, both as individuals and as communities. 

There are critics of capitalism who argue that the way out is for workers to form co-operatives. For many,  the cooperative movement as it exists today is associated with socialism and the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system of society. Co-operatives have in fact a long association with attempts by workers to improve their lot under capitalism.  The Socialist Party has no problem with workers forming cooperatives if that’s the best way they can survive under capitalism. However, we disagree with the sometimes-made claim that they can be a route to socialism because, aside from any political consideration, unless they are in a small market niche with no competition, they tend to be out–competed by the brutal cost and wage-cutting tactics of conventional businesses.

While we can sympathise albeit with a critical mind those cooperatives aimed at abolishing the wages systems, private ownership and profit-making we acknowledge the vast majority of the others merely wishes to redirect the flow of profits from the private owner or investor to the cooperative members. It has not and cannot solve the poverty problem either of its members or of its employees. The basic fallacy in the co-operative idea is a wrong explanation of rent, interest and profit. Because the means of production—land, factories, steamships, etc.—are privately owned, the workers who wish to operate these instruments must first enter into a one-sided bargain; one-sided because the goad of semi-starvation forces their hand. They bargain to produce wealth for the owners of capital and receive as the price of the energies they sell wages or salaries which, over the whole field of Capitalism, are only a small proportion of the values they produce. What the capitalists get is a property-income, something which arises from their monopoly and not from their services, and which varies according to the size of their capital. Rent, interest and profit, if the terms are cleared of some looseness which surrounds their common use, are merely names for this income that goes to the owners of property because they are owners.

Proponents of co-operatives want to eliminate the middleman and redirect the flow of profit—but what is profit? Profit is the child of private ownership and is obtained by the exploitation of the workers. Co-operative “divi” is derived from the exploitation of cooperative employees. The relation between the latter and the societies is precisely the same as that between other workers and their employers. The co-operative movement has all the trappings but none of the substance of success. Its members are still wage-earners, still exploited by the capitalist class and still, therefore, poor; its employees are in the same condition. If the societies as at present constituted extend until they cover the whole working-class that will still be true. It has made no inroads into the capitalist system.

Co-operatives have not and cannot emancipate the working class. Only socialism will do that. The workers cannot escape from the effects of capitalism by joining cooperative societies. They must obtain for society as a whole the ownership of the means of production and distribution which are now the property of the capitalist class. For this, they must organise in the Socialist Party for the purpose of controlling the machinery of government. Once possessed of power they can then reorganise society on a socialist basis of common ownership. The cooperative commonwealth can only be achieved by socialist methods.

Evicting the bosses from their directors’ board rooms and organising production from the shop-floor without them is one thing; escaping from the economic laws of the market is another – as, within capitalism, it is not just a question of organising production, but also of selling what is produced. The cooperative model tends to operate within the capitalist logic of productivity and profitability … the pressure on them to adopt a capitalist business logic is immense. Cooperatives are embedded in the framework of the capitalist economy and compete on the capitalist market following the logic of profit-making.

Cooperatives do not provide a real solution to the workers’ situation. It is incapable of providing an answer in the interests of all workers. At no time does it question the capitalist production relationships – it questions only superficial features (management structures, for instance). Even less can a network of cooperatives create a parallel system to capitalism? The more coop members  have to discipline and pressurise themselves in the way the old bosses did – what we call “self-managed exploitation.” Workers in cooperatives have in effect to organise their own exploitation for profit to be accumulated as more capital. They are not the way out. As Marx pointed out, co-operatives ‘must reproduce everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system.’ And they do. Although Marx mentioned workers’ cooperatives as possible harbingers of the new society, he cautioned that, as long as they exist within capitalism, the cooperatives ‘naturally reproduce in all cases…all the defects of the existing system, and must reproduce them…the opposition between capital and labour is abolished here…only in the form that the workers in association become their own capitalist.’ On their own, there is nothing intrinsically socialist about cooperatives.

A co-op does not cease being a capitalist enterprise simply because votes are taken on how its assets are used within a society of generalised commodity production and wage labour. The imperative to accumulate with all the drive to minimise the labour time taken to do a task this requires remains even in a co-op. Thus cooperatives are under the same pressure to seek to maximise profit as a condition for surviving as an economic institution embodying capital. It is just that in their case the trustees – the functionaries of capital – are different: worker-elected boards.

Socialism takes over the means of production, by abolishing all sectional property rights over them and that includes members of worker-owned businesses and uses them to directly produce, without the intervention of buying and selling, what people need, both as individuals and as communities. 

There are critics of capitalism who argue that the way out is for workers to form co-operatives. For many,  the cooperative movement as it exists today is associated with socialism and the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system of society. Co-operatives have in fact a long association with attempts by workers to improve their lot under capitalism.  The Socialist Party has no problem with workers forming cooperatives if that’s the best way they can survive under capitalism. However, we disagree with the sometimes-made claim that they can be a route to socialism because, aside from any political consideration, unless they are in a small market niche with no competition, they tend to be out–competed by the brutal cost and wage-cutting tactics of conventional businesses.

While we can sympathise albeit with a critical mind those cooperatives aimed at abolishing the wages systems, private ownership and profit-making we acknowledge the vast majority of the others merely wishes to redirect the flow of profits from the private owner or investor to the cooperative members. It has not and cannot solve the poverty problem either of its members or of its employees. The basic fallacy in the co-operative idea is a wrong explanation of rent, interest and profit. Because the means of production—land, factories, steamships, etc.—are privately owned, the workers who wish to operate these instruments must first enter into a one-sided bargain; one-sided because the goad of semi-starvation forces their hand. They bargain to produce wealth for the owners of capital and receive as the price of the energies they sell wages or salaries which, over the whole field of Capitalism, are only a small proportion of the values they produce. What the capitalists get is a property-income, something which arises from their monopoly and not from their services, and which varies according to the size of their capital. Rent, interest and profit, if the terms are cleared of some looseness which surrounds their common use, are merely names for this income that goes to the owners of property because they are owners.

Proponents of co-operatives want to eliminate the middleman and redirect the flow of profit—but what is profit? Profit is the child of private ownership and is obtained by the exploitation of the workers. Co-operative “divi” is derived from the exploitation of cooperative employees. The relation between the latter and the societies is precisely the same as that between other workers and their employers. The co-operative movement has all the trappings but none of the substance of success. Its members are still wage-earners, still exploited by the capitalist class and still, therefore, poor; its employees are in the same condition. If the societies as at present constituted extend until they cover the whole working-class that will still be true. It has made no inroads into the capitalist system.

Co-operatives have not and cannot emancipate the working class. Only socialism will do that. The workers cannot escape from the effects of capitalism by joining cooperative societies. They must obtain for society as a whole the ownership of the means of production and distribution which are now the property of the capitalist class. For this, they must organise in the Socialist Party for the purpose of controlling the machinery of government. Once possessed of power they can then reorganise society on a socialist basis of common ownership. The cooperative commonwealth can only be achieved by socialist methods.

Evicting the bosses from their directors’ board rooms and organising production from the shop-floor without them is one thing; escaping from the economic laws of the market is another – as, within capitalism, it is not just a question of organising production, but also of selling what is produced. The cooperative model tends to operate within the capitalist logic of productivity and profitability … the pressure on them to adopt a capitalist business logic is immense. Cooperatives are embedded in the framework of the capitalist economy and compete on the capitalist market following the logic of profit-making.

Cooperatives do not provide a real solution to the workers’ situation. It is incapable of providing an answer in the interests of all workers. At no time does it question the capitalist production relationships – it questions only superficial features (management structures, for instance). Even less can a network of cooperatives create a parallel system to capitalism? The more coop members  have to discipline and pressurise themselves in the way the old bosses did – what we call “self-managed exploitation.” Workers in cooperatives have in effect to organise their own exploitation for profit to be accumulated as more capital. They are not the way out. As Marx pointed out, co-operatives ‘must reproduce everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system.’ And they do. Although Marx mentioned workers’ cooperatives as possible harbingers of the new society, he cautioned that, as long as they exist within capitalism, the cooperatives ‘naturally reproduce in all cases…all the defects of the existing system, and must reproduce them…the opposition between capital and labour is abolished here…only in the form that the workers in association become their own capitalist.’ On their own, there is nothing intrinsically socialist about cooperatives.

A co-op does not cease being a capitalist enterprise simply because votes are taken on how its assets are used within a society of generalised commodity production and wage labour. The imperative to accumulate with all the drive to minimise the labour time taken to do a task this requires remains even in a co-op. Thus cooperatives are under the same pressure to seek to maximise profit as a condition for surviving as an economic institution embodying capital. It is just that in their case the trustees – the functionaries of capital – are different: worker-elected boards.

Socialism takes over the means of production, by abolishing all sectional property rights over them and that includes members of worker-owned businesses and uses them to directly produce, without the intervention of buying and selling, what people need, both as individuals and as communities. 

There are critics of capitalism who argue that the way out is for workers to form co-operatives. For many,  the cooperative movement as it exists today is associated with socialism and the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system of society. Co-operatives have in fact a long association with attempts by workers to improve their lot under capitalism.  The Socialist Party has no problem with workers forming cooperatives if that’s the best way they can survive under capitalism. However, we disagree with the sometimes-made claim that they can be a route to socialism because, aside from any political consideration, unless they are in a small market niche with no competition, they tend to be out–competed by the brutal cost and wage-cutting tactics of conventional businesses.

While we can sympathise albeit with a critical mind those cooperatives aimed at abolishing the wages systems, private ownership and profit-making we acknowledge the vast majority of the others merely wishes to redirect the flow of profits from the private owner or investor to the cooperative members. It has not and cannot solve the poverty problem either of its members or of its employees. The basic fallacy in the co-operative idea is a wrong explanation of rent, interest and profit. Because the means of production—land, factories, steamships, etc.—are privately owned, the workers who wish to operate these instruments must first enter into a one-sided bargain; one-sided because the goad of semi-starvation forces their hand. They bargain to produce wealth for the owners of capital and receive as the price of the energies they sell wages or salaries which, over the whole field of Capitalism, are only a small proportion of the values they produce. What the capitalists get is a property-income, something which arises from their monopoly and not from their services, and which varies according to the size of their capital. Rent, interest and profit, if the terms are cleared of some looseness which surrounds their common use, are merely names for this income that goes to the owners of property because they are owners.

Proponents of co-operatives want to eliminate the middleman and redirect the flow of profit—but what is profit? Profit is the child of private ownership and is obtained by the exploitation of the workers. Co-operative “divi” is derived from the exploitation of cooperative employees. The relation between the latter and the societies is precisely the same as that between other workers and their employers. The co-operative movement has all the trappings but none of the substance of success. Its members are still wage-earners, still exploited by the capitalist class and still, therefore, poor; its employees are in the same condition. If the societies as at present constituted extend until they cover the whole working-class that will still be true. It has made no inroads into the capitalist system.

Co-operatives have not and cannot emancipate the working class. Only socialism will do that. The workers cannot escape from the effects of capitalism by joining cooperative societies. They must obtain for society as a whole the ownership of the means of production and distribution which are now the property of the capitalist class. For this, they must organise in the Socialist Party for the purpose of controlling the machinery of government. Once possessed of power they can then reorganise society on a socialist basis of common ownership. The cooperative commonwealth can only be achieved by socialist methods.

Evicting the bosses from their directors’ board rooms and organising production from the shop-floor without them is one thing; escaping from the economic laws of the market is another – as, within capitalism, it is not just a question of organising production, but also of selling what is produced. The cooperative model tends to operate within the capitalist logic of productivity and profitability … the pressure on them to adopt a capitalist business logic is immense. Cooperatives are embedded in the framework of the capitalist economy and compete on the capitalist market following the logic of profit-making.

Cooperatives do not provide a real solution to the workers’ situation. It is incapable of providing an answer in the interests of all workers. At no time does it question the capitalist production relationships – it questions only superficial features (management structures, for instance). Even less can a network of cooperatives create a parallel system to capitalism? The more coop members  have to discipline and pressurise themselves in the way the old bosses did – what we call “self-managed exploitation.” Workers in cooperatives have in effect to organise their own exploitation for profit to be accumulated as more capital. They are not the way out. As Marx pointed out, co-operatives ‘must reproduce everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system.’ And they do. Although Marx mentioned workers’ cooperatives as possible harbingers of the new society, he cautioned that, as long as they exist within capitalism, the cooperatives ‘naturally reproduce in all cases…all the defects of the existing system, and must reproduce them…the opposition between capital and labour is abolished here…only in the form that the workers in association become their own capitalist.’ On their own, there is nothing intrinsically socialist about cooperatives.

A co-op does not cease being a capitalist enterprise simply because votes are taken on how its assets are used within a society of generalised commodity production and wage labour. The imperative to accumulate with all the drive to minimise the labour time taken to do a task this requires remains even in a co-op. Thus cooperatives are under the same pressure to seek to maximise profit as a condition for surviving as an economic institution embodying capital. It is just that in their case the trustees – the functionaries of capital – are different: worker-elected boards.

Socialism takes over the means of production, by abolishing all sectional property rights over them and that includes members of worker-owned businesses and uses them to directly produce, without the intervention of buying and selling, what people need, both as individuals and as communities. 

San Francisco Bay Area human rights protesters on Friday prevented an Israeli-owned cargo ship from unloading at the Port of Oakland as part of a weeklong international #BlockTheBoat campaign.

The Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC) is part of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights and backed by union workers. The Block the Boat campaign—in which activists are mobilizing to prevent Israeli ships from docking at ports in Los Angeles, Houston, Vancouver, Seattle/Tacoma, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, Italy, and South Africa—comes in response to Israel’s recent assault on Gaza, as well as ongoing Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and illegal occupation and settler colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in Palestine. 

The activists targeted the Volans, a container ship owned by Haifa-based ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. that has been circling outside the port for nearly two weeks. While the ship was able to dock Friday morning, as of 8:00 am local time it remained fully loaded, with cranes idle, as longshore workers refused to cross the protesters’ picket lines. 

“Once again, we have demonstrated that the Bay Area, workers, and all social justice movements support the Palestinian struggle for freedom, and that there will be a high price for all companies who do business that profits the apartheid state of Israel,” AROC executive director Lara Kiswani said. “We honor the workers here in Oakland and Palestine, and are sending a clear message that profiteering from Israel’s apartheid and ongoing violence against the Palestinian people will not be welcome in the Bay Area,” she added. 

Last month, members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union in Durban answered a call from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions by refusing to unload cargo from a ZIM ship. Dockworkers of the top 3 confederate trade unions in Ravenna, Italy declare refusal to load container marked arms and explosives on ship destined for Israel.

“An injury to one is an injury to all. Just as ILWU Local 10 workers refused to unload cargo from apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, we honored community pickets asking us not to unload cargo from Israeli ZIM vessels in 2014,” said Jimmy Salameh, a Palestinian rank-and-file worker with the ILWU Local 10, referring to a similar action at Oakland’s port nearly seven years ago.

Oakland BDS Activists Stymie Israeli Cargo Ship During Global #BlockTheBoat Protests for Palestine | Common Dreams News

 The number of newborn babies in Japan fell to a record low last year. The records  suggest the birth rate could decline even further.

The number of babies born in 2020 fell to 840,832, down 2.8 per cent or 24,407 compared to 2019. It is the first time the country has recorded fewer than 900,000 births since records began. The number of newborns falling 9.2 per cent in the January to March period.

The number of registered marriages in Japan has also fallen by 12.3 per cent, to 525,490, a post-war record.

The country’s fertility rate, which is the expected number of births per woman, fell to 1.34. In its capital Tokyo, the birth rate is at 1.13 – the lowest in the country.

The number of births has consistently fallen since 1973. Japan’s shrinking population can be attributed to young people focusing on their careers and abstaining from sex and marriage, while senior citizens are living longer than ever. The age of people giving birth to a child is also increasing, with the average age at the time of a first child being 30.7 years.

Japan birth rate hits record low | The Independent

 The world community’s attention may be upon the Gaza ceasefire but  Israel’s police have not relented in its repression of Palestinians making their peaceful protests presence known. 

Hundreds of runners took part in an event in solidarity with Palestinian families facing forced expulsion in occupied East Jerusalem on Friday which began in Sheikh Jarrah and ended 3.5km (2 miles) away in Silwan. Dozens of Palestinians living in the two neighbourhoods face the threat of losing their homes to Israeli settlers. The runners were wearing white T-shirts with “7,850” printed on them, representing the number of people facing forced expulsion in the city.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 23 runners were injured when Israeli police fired tear gas and stun grenades and used batons at the run.

Elsewhere, 20 people were injured in separate demonstrations that took place on Friday against Israeli military outposts and illegal settlements near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.

Israeli police attack Palestinians running to protest expulsions | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

 California banned the sale of assault weapons in 1989.

San Diego Federal District Judge Roger Benitez overturned the ban on assault weapons on Friday, ruling that it violates the constitutional right to possess arms. Benitez said Americans have the right to own semi-automatic rifles.

“Like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle,” the judge said in his ruling’s introduction. “Guns and ammunition in the hands of criminals, tyrants and terrorists are dangerous; guns in the hands of law-abiding responsible citizens are better.”

Many gun-rights activists are part of the MAGA movement that claim Biden is not the legitimate president and that Trump lost the election due to election fraud. America’s lauded 4th Amendment had precious little effect in upholding liberty if that was indeed the case (which, of course, it was not.)

  Spencer Cox, The Republican governor of Utah,  has invited residents of his state to join him in a “weekend of prayer” for rain, to combat a drought emergency.

“I’ve already asked all Utahns to conserve water by avoiding long showers, fixing leaky faucets and planting water-wise landscapes,” Cox said, “But I fear those efforts alone won’t be enough to protect us. We need more rain and we need it now. We need some divine intervention. That’s why I’m asking Utahns of all faiths to join me in a weekend of prayer from 4 June through the sixth.”

He added: “By praying collaboratively and collectively, asking God or whatever higher power you believe in for more rain, we may be able to escape the deadliest aspects of the continuing drought.”

Other governors have prayed to end droughts. In 2007, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, a Republican, held a prayer service for rain in Atlanta. Four years later in Texas, Rick Perry, also a Republican called for prayer during extreme dry conditions.

God ignored both as he will Cox.

Utah governor urges residents to pray for rain as drought bites | Utah | The Guardian