Daily News Digest April 1, 2021

Daily News Digest Archives

Origin and History of April Fools’ Day in Netherlands:

During the Great War between Dutch and Spanish in the year 1572, the Dutch conquered the town of Den Briel from Spain which was led by the commander Lord Alva. This happened on the first of April. This led to the independence of the Netherlands from the hands of the Spanish. Hence there is an old saying connected to this incidence. Op 1 april Verloor Alva zijn Bril which means On April 1st Lord Alva lost his glasses. Bril means glasses in Dutch. This leads to the origin of the Netherlands celebrating this day for humiliation of Lord Alva for his loss and playing pranks all over on this day to celebrate the independence and also to celebrate Fools’ Day.

Image Of the Day:

George CarlinAnother Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 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!

Quotes 0f the Day:

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. — Carl Sagan

Videos of the Day:

On Contact: Deep American Roots of the Atlanta Shootings

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

The Pandemic Revealed That if We Have the Will, the Money Is There The only debt problem our government has in this time of immense national need (and extremely low borrowing cost) is that we’re not incurring enough of it—for the right purposes. Usually, the Powers That Be swat away the kind of big-ticket reforms our country needs by haughtily asserting a few hoary economic fables they dress up as immutable “truths.” By  Jim HightowerThe Truth be Damned! The Shaping of Things to Come  “There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.” I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false? – Harold Pinter, from Nobel Speech, December 7, 2005.    About a week ago, Glenn Greenwald published a piece on his new Substack platform, “Journalists Start Demanding Substack Censor its Writers: to Bar Critiques of Journalists.”  He’s upset that privileged, corporate-protected MSM journalists are calling for moderators to be installed on Substack to censor freelance journalists who criticize the work of MSM shills. Greenwald has been the leading critic of MSM news reporting for years, often noting their prostitution and stenography in support of the ever-tightening noose around our democracy — seemingly needing just a horse-haunch slap to end it all. By John Kendall Hawkins

Environment:

ToxicTuesdays — Methylene Mhloride: Methylene chloride (also known as dichloromethane) is a manmade chemical that is a clear liquid with a faintly sweet smell.      It is used as an industrial solvent and an ingredient in paint strippers, so it is often used in commercial and do-it-yourself home improvement projects. Methylene chloride dissolves into the air, so the primary way people can be exposed to it is by breathing contaminated air. Because methylene chloride-containing products, like paint strippers, are often used in indoor spaces with little ventilation, people can easily be exposed to high levels of it. Inhaling methylene chloride causes brain dysfunction – confusion, inattentiveness, dizziness, numbness in the extremities, and even death.     The World Health Organization, US Department of Health and Human Services, and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) all consider methylene chloride to likely cause cancer.     The EPA estimates that 32,000 workers and 1.3 million consumers are exposed to methylene chloride every year.     Because of the dangers of methylene chloride, consumer advocacy groups like Mind the Store spent years fighting against its use.      They called on national hardware store chains to stop selling these products and for the EPA to ban use of methylene chloride.      In 2019 the EPA finally banned consumer use and sales of methylene chloride-containing products, but continued to allow them to be sold in commercial sales to professionals.  While this will surely protect some people from methylene chloride exposure, advocates point out that thousands of construction and home improvement workers remain unprotected by this regulation – they are unlikely to have any input into whether or not their employers buy methylene chloride-containing products, so they are unable to keep themselves safe if they want to keep their jobs.     Furthermore, many of these workers are Latinx or Asian Americans who may not be given training or warnings when using methylene chloride in languages they understand.      In fact, one of the workers who died from methylene chloride in 2017 and whose death galvanized the EPA to propose regulation was from El Salvador and spoke limited English.      When it comes to a chemical as dangerous and deadly as methylene chloride, much more must be done to ban its use and protect the health of workers who don’t have the power to protect themselves.

Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future We report three major and confronting environmental issues that have received little attention and require urgent action. First, we review the evidence that future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than currently believed. The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts. Second, we ask what political or economic system, or leadership, is prepared to handle the predicted disasters, or even capable of such action. Third, this dire situation places an extraordinary responsibility on scientists to speak out candidly and accurately when engaging with government, business, and the public. We especially draw attention to the lack of appreciation of the enormous challenges to creating a sustainable future. The added stresses to human health, wealth, and well-being will perversely diminish our political capacity to mitigate the erosion of ecosystem services on which society depends. The science underlying these issues is strong, but awareness is weak. Without fully appreciating and broadcasting the scale of the problems and the enormity of the solutions required, society will fail to achieve even modest sustainability goals.

Most Economists Agree: Benefits of ‘Drastic’ Climate Action Outweigh Costs of Status Quo  “People who spend their careers studying our economy are in widespread agreement that climate change will be expensive, potentially devastatingly so.” The Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law invited 2,169 Ph.D. economists to take a 15-question online survey “focused on climate change risks, economic damage estimates, and emissions abatement,” according to a report (pdf) on the results. Nearly three-quarters of the 738 economists who participated in the survey say they agree that “immediate and drastic action is necessary.”     “In sharp contrast, less than 1% believe that climate change is ‘not a serious problem,'” the report says, noting a jump in support for bold climate action now compared with a 2015 survey.  By Jessica Corbett

Labor:

If the Minimum Wage Had Increased as Much as Wall Street Bonuses Since 1985, It Would Be Worth $44 Today The 2020 bonus pool for 182,100 securities industry employees could pay for more than 1 million jobs paying $15 per hour for a year. By Sarah Anderson

Economy:

Morgan Stanley Has Been Strangely Quiet on Its Exposure to Archegos Capital, the Hedge Fund that Blew Up Last Week. Here’s Why. On March 9 Morgan Stanley announced that it had been “recognized for industry-leading risk management technology.”  Three weeks later it has landed in the middle of one of the biggest hedge fund blowups since the financial crisis of 2008, raising serious questions about how it manages risk. Adding to the embarrassment for both Morgan Stanley and its bank holding company supervisor, the Federal Reserve, the Chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, James Gorman, sits on the Board of Directors of the New York Fed, to whom the Fed has outsourced much of its oversight of the Wall Street banks. By Pam Martens

World:

Blockage in the Suez Canal: the week world trade stopped  At the time of writing this article, the Ever Given container ship, owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha and operated by Evergreen Marine, has finally been freed after running aground on the banks of the Suez Canal. The blockage had a major impact on the international economy: the price of crude oil rose, and there was a significant impact on the cost of transporting goods and their final prices. This event could have longer-term consequences, with a chain of effect that is difficult to calculate. , , ,  According to data from Bloomberg data, 12 percent of international trade and 30 percent of sea trade passes through the Suez Canal. All of this was brought to a halt by a single vessel! Until yesterday, more than 300 ships were blocked at both ends of the canal. They carry LPG, oil, cement, foodstuffs, live animals, various components, cars and other finished products.  By Emanuele Miraglia and  Roberto Sarti Education, Health, Science, and Welfare:

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 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 

Big Parma No Risk Covid Vaccine Profiteering: The US government has poured an additional $10.5 billion into various vaccine companies since the pandemic began to accelerate the delivery of their products. The Moderna vaccine emerged directly out of a partnership between Moderna and the NIH laboratory.      The US government—and two agencies in particular, the NIH and Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)—has invested, heavily, in the vaccine’s development. BARDA is an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services formed in 2006 in response to—wait for it—SARS-CoV-1 (and other health threats). It provides direct investment in technologies to firms, but also engages in public-private partnerships (PPPs) and coordinates between agencies. A specific part of BARDA’s mission is taking technologies through the “valley of death” between creation and commercialization.        The German government ploughed funds into BioNTech to the tune of €375 million, with another €252 million has been made to support development by CureVac.  Germany also raised its contribution to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) by €140 million and plans to provide an additional €90 million next year.  CEPI was launched in Davos, Switzerland, in 2017 as an innovative global partnership between public, private, philanthropic and civil society organisations to develop vaccines to counter epidemics, and Germany pledged an annual €10 million over a four-year period to support the initiative. CureVac is one of nine institutes and companies commissioned by CEPI to conduct research into a COVID-19 vaccine. One of its shareholders is the government-owned Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) bank.    But it is big pharma that develops the vaccine from the scientific work of public institutes.  They call the shots. The drugs companies do the global clinical trials, then produce and market the result.  Then they sell the vaccines to governments at huge profits.  This is the way things were done before the pandemic – and now. In the US, in the 10-year period between 1988 and 1997, public-sector expenditures for vaccine purchases doubled from $100 to $200 per child through age 6. The cumulative public-sector cost doubled again in less than 5 years between 1997 and 2001, from $200 to almost $400 per child. — COVID Vaccines: Calling The Shot