Daily News Digest November 19, 2020

Daily News Digest Archives

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 4 Years 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 future of Humanity Is Now At stake!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”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!

Images  of the Day:

Signe Wikinson: Giving Thanks at Our COVID-19 ThanksgivingQuotes 0f the Day:

The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox. One is a wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.— Malcolm X, On Foxes, Wolves, and the Chickens caught in the Middle

Videos of the Day:

Florida ‘Rights of Nature’ Amendment Protects Ecosystems and the Right to Clean Water

As COVID Deaths Soar, El Paso at Breaking Point with Hospitals & Mobile Morgues Filling Up

As North Dakota Faces World’s Deadliest Outbreak, Native Communities Condemn States’ COVID Response

United States:

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 Reublicrats 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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay!

After Trump, the Fight for Immigrant Rights Will Continue Under Biden The fight for immigrant rights must acknowledge the racist bipartisan roots of our current status quo. I have spent most of recent weeks bleary-eyed and exhausted, and now momentarily relieved for a Democratic win. But for many advocating for and with the immi-grants in our families and communities, our tired rage is thoroughly bipartisan. The terror I have felt is not simply what another four years of the Trump administration would bring to the immigrants in my life once the counting and litigating dust settled. Rather, it is now the fear of continued Democratic destruction and com-placency. It is a compelling argument that a Joe Biden victory is a pragmatic form of harm reduction. But it is also essential to understand the real harm that we have had to — and will need to — continually fight against. By Shannon GleesonBiden’s Agriculture Secretary: Heitkamp Is the Wrong Choice We cannot afford an old-school agriculture secretary who maintains today’s disastrous status quo when the job calls for a bold change agent. As president-elect Joe Biden weighs agriculture secretary candidates to steer America’s food and farming policies, an important question looms: will his pick reflect his ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make agriculture more sustainable and socially just? Or, will he bow to pressure from agribusiness and corporate interests, and choose a conservative throwback like former North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp, who voted with Trump nearly 70 percent of the time, and who Trump nearly picked for the job in 2017? By Christopher D. Cook

Biden Appoints Cancer Alley’s Democrat: Joe Biden Just Appointed His Climate Movement Liaison. It’s a Fossil-Fuel Industry Ally Joe Biden says confronting climate change is one of his top priorities. But today, he appointed as his liaison to the climate movement a congressman who has raked in big money from the fossil fuel industry while voting to help oil and gas companies. By David Sirota, Julia Rock, and Andrew Perez

More Humane Cages? Prospects for Immigration Justice Under Biden Appear Dim In stacking not just his DHS team but all of his transition teams with neoliberals and hawks, Biden has sent the world a clear signal that despite the cage-free fantasies of liberal Democrats, his immigration policy will be more of the same. By Adrienne Pine  

Fact Check: Joe Biden Has Advocated Cutting Social Security for 40 Years “I tried with Senator Grassley back in the 1980s to freeze all government spending, including Social Security, including everything,” Biden said in 1995. As early as 1984 and as recently as 2018, former Vice President Joe Biden called for cuts to Social Security in the name of saving the program and balancing the federal budget. Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders highlighted Biden’s record on Social Security in prosecuting the case that Biden isn’t the most electable candidate. The issue could be raised again in Tuesday night’s debate. By Ryan Grim

Biden and the CIA The CIA has floundered at key moments because of the lack of a stable and senior leader at the top, and a “culture of secrecy” that has blurred the judgment of many CIA leaders who have allowed the tailoring of intelligence at key junctures.  There probably is no perfect resume to suggest suitability for the role of CIA director, but the professional military, Capitol Hill, and perhaps the Agency itself may not be the best place to train a tough-minded leader who recognizes the central role of intelligence analysis and is suited to “tell truth to power.” By Melvin Goodman

The United States Is Not a Democracy. Stop Telling Students That It Is. When our students only learn about this exceptionally strange system from their corporate-produced history and government textbooks, they have no clue why this is how we choose our president.  By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

Environment:

NOAA Research Shows Climate Crisis Primary Cause of 98% of Dead Florida Coral Reef “Our work in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans shows a dire outlook for coral reef ecosystem health, from warming ocean waters, fishing, disease, and pollution from the land.” By Julia ConleyCivil Rights/Black Liberation:Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist : Freedom Rider: The Real Trump Coup Trump puts whiteness first and that means he will always have support and Republican leaders know it.

Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor: How the Black Movement Teaches Us to Fight Cold Wars Both Old and New  China is rising not merely out of colonial underdevelopment but into a position of global leadership.

Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence: Donkey Dung 2/4 Dance Militarist Macarena all pomp and circumstance— they’re baaaack with Donkey Dung 2/4 Dance… First you cry, “Wolf!” in tune with corporate law

Anthony Monteiro, BAR editor and columnist: V.I. Lenin and W.E.B. Du Bois: Class Struggle and Civilization While the ruling elite is calling for a capitalist reset which could leave half the working class without jobs or adequate income, many leftists are proclaiming working class backwardness.

Robin D.G. Kelley: Births of a Nation, Redux: Surveying Trumpland with Cedric Robinson What Robinson identified as “the rewhitening of America” a century ago is what we’re seeing play out today.

Mark P. Fancher: Global Africa’s Mission: Out-Think and Out-Maneuver Stupid, Violent Imperialists AFRICOM is designed to do only one thing well, and that is to kill Africans.  “Global Africa must find a way to eliminate the AFRICOM threat.”

Vijay Prashad: Sanctions Against Venezuela Will Continue Under Biden There is every indication that a Biden administration will maintain the punitive sanctions against Venezuela, suffocating the country during the pandemic.

Tye Salandy: Biden-Harris and the Diverse Faces of U.S. Imperialism From Obama v McCain to Biden v Trump, the good cop/bad cop drama of US imperial politics, continues.

Riva Enteen: Don’t [Mourn] Celebrate, Organize! The same “injustice” system that unlawfully locked up the Central Park will continue unabated with Biden and his “top cop” sidekick.

Margaret Flowers:​​​​​​​We’ll Have to Fight Corporate Democrats for Medicare for All We must not allow the Democrats to weaken our demand that every person in the United States have access to the care they need.

Flint Taylor: Torture Survivor Jackie Wilson Exonerated in Pandemic Murder Trial Wilson’s 40-year ordeal has ended, but his attorneys hope to make Chicago prosecutors pay for their crimes.

David Gilbert: Letters of Life from Slow Death Row Tiyo Attallah Salah-El’s exemplary life (without parole) is testament to the human spirit and the cause of abolition.

Labor:

Economy:

From Soros to Warren Buffett, the Smart Money Is Dumping Shares of JPMorgan Chase According to the 13F filing that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway made with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the quarter ending December 31, 2019, it held 59.5 million shares of JPMorgan Chase with a total value at that time of $8.29 billion. By June 30 of this year, that position had been trimmed by more than half, to 22.2 million shares. By September 30, one day after JPMorgan Chase had just admitted to its fourth and fifth felony count in the past six years, brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, Berkshire Hathaway’s position in JPMorgan Chase tallied up to just under 1 million shares, a 98 percent reduction from the beginning of the year, according to the SEC filing Berkshire Hathaway made on Monday. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Britain: Corbyn Readmitted But Denied The Whip – What Next? Jeremy Corbyn is back in the Labour Party, after apologising for earlier remarks. But no amount of appeasement will satisfy the right wing. Starmer’s spiteful decision not to restore the whip showsThe Korean War’s Forgotten Lessons on the Evil of Intervention This year is the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, a conflict from which Washington policymakers learned nothing. Almost 40,000 American soldiers died in that conflict that should have permanently vaccinated the nation against the folly and evil of foreign intervention. Instead, the war was retroactively redefined. As Barack Obama declared in 2013, “That war was no tie. Korea was a victory.” By James Bovard

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 they 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 

Poorer Countries May Have to Wait Years for a COVID VaccineACOVID-19 vaccine appears to be on the way, raising plenty of questions about how much vaccines will cost and who get will get them first. On Monday, Moderna announced initial results from a clinical trial showing that its COVID-19 vaccine is 94.5 percent effective. That’s promising news for people in the United States, where COVID-19 is surging and the government invested heavily in developing the vaccine. However, consumer advocates warn U.S. taxpayers will ultimately pay twice for Moderna’s vaccine if it’s approved by regulators. A $2.5 billion public investment by the Trump administration covers the cost of bringing the vaccine to market — and pays for the vaccine itself. This gives Americans quick access to the vaccine once it is approved in the U.S., but much of the world could be left behind during a pandemic that knows no borders. By Mike Ludwig