Daily News Digest August 23, 2021

Over a Hundred Years Ago. Rosa Luxemburg Raised the Slogan: Socialism or Barbarism! The Slogan for 2021 is Ecosocialism or Ecocide!!!!

Daily New s Digest Archives

Images of the Day:

The Cost and Profits of War

Another Example of 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!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”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 of the Day:

One day after that document — which implored policymakers to slash methane emissions — received a significant but short-lived amount of coverage by the corporate media, US senators, including seven Democrats, signaled their support for preemptively outlawing a ban on hydraulic fracturing, even though fracked gas is a major source of methane pollution. The next day, President Joe Biden’s administration — which has approved more than 2,000 new permits for drilling and fracking on federal land — used its considerable geopolitical clout not to push for swifter decarbonization, but to encourage OPEC to boost oil production. — Fearing Govt Whitewash, Scientists Leak Draft Part Three of IPCC Report

Videos of the Day:

S pencer Ackerman: Today’s Crisis in Kabul Is Direct Result of Decades of U.S. War & Destabilization

Spencer Ackerman on How the U.S. War on Terror Fueled and Excused Right-Wing Extremism at Home

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, who profit from war and the war budget, voted 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. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!

Afghanistan: The End of the Occupation A lot of nonsense about Afghanistan is being written in Britain and the United States. Most of this nonsense hides a number of important truths.

First, the Taliban have defeated the United States.
Second, the Taliban have won because they have more popular support.
Third, this is not because most Afghans love the Taliban. It is because the American occupation has been unbearably cruel and corrupt.
Fourth, the War on Terror has also been politically defeated in the United States. The majority of Americans are now in favor of withdrawal from Afghanistan and against any more foreign wars.
Fifth, this is a turning point in world history. The greatest military power in the world has been defeated by the people of a small, desperately poor country. This will weaken the power of the American empire all over the world.
Sixth, the rhetoric of saving Afghan women has been widely used to justify the occupation, and many feminists in Afghanistan have chosen the side of the occupation. The result is a tragedy for feminism.

Malik Miah: Afghanistan: Taliban Afghanistan: Taliban Victory the Product of US-NATO Intervention In less than a week after United States-NATO forces left the country, the puppet regime in Afghanistan collapsed, as the militant Taliban march into city after city without resistance. The capital Kabul is now in Taliban hands. President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has fled the country. Symbolically, the former Bagram US military base near Kabul was captured by the Taliban. The 350,000-strong Afghani army collapsed. Weapons were turned over to the Taliban. Soldiers and police put on civilian clothes. It is a total victory for the Taliban. The US defeat today is the culmination of an unfolding defeat for imperialism that occurred years ago. The US and NATO forces had more than 130,000 troops in the country, after its 2001 invasion. It could not defeat the Taliban.

Before 2001 Invasion, Bush Admin Declared Taliban an Ally in the War on Drugs Just months before the Taliban became an enemy in the war on terror, President George W. Bush’s administration declared the fundamentalist rulers of Afghanistan an ally in the global “war on drugs.” In early 2001, narcotics officials in the United States praised a ban on poppy cultivation instituted by the Taliban that appeared to wipe out the world’s largest crop of opium poppies in a year’s time, even as aerial images raised suspicions about large stockpiles of heroin and opium on Afghanistan’s northern border. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a $43 million gift to the Taliban that was broadly seen as a reward for banning opium cultivation even as farmers were hammered by a drought. Poppies, which produce a sap used to make opium, heroin, and other painkillers, are one of the only Afghan crops that grow well during drought. Observers feared famine would grip the countryside. Meanwhile, critics of the Taliban’s harsh laws and brutal oppression of women and girls were furious at the Bush administration for supporting the regime.

Environment:

A Group of Young Scientists Have Recently Formed Scientist Rebellion. They state that “We are scientists, calling for a climate revolution”! Scientist Rebellion was the group that released 2 Drafts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) report. Knowing that the final report would need the approval of world governments, they rightly feared the science of the drafts would then be compromised or greenwashed by the governments for the final IPPC reports.

Journalists Juan Bordera and Fernando Prieto, who first reported on the leaked draft in CTXT, a Spanish news outlet, argued that while the authors don’t specifically mention capitalism, the report shows that the pursuit of capital accumulation for accumulation’s sake “has brought us to the current critical point.” Avoiding the most catastrophic consequences of the climate emergency, Bordera and Prieto wrote, requires fundamentally transforming the global economy, including a rapid shift away from the carbon-intensive goal of endless GDP growth. Economic inequality and carbon inequality go hand-in-hand, with rich people in every country bearing greater responsibility for planet-heating emissions than the poor. Oxfam has found that the world’s wealthiest 1% emit more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorest 50% of humanity, and the leaked IPCC draft also highlights how affluent households are generating an outsized share of greenhouse gas pollution through disproportionate levels of SUV use, meat eating, and air travel. “The consumption patterns of higher income consumers are associated with large carbon footprints,” a summary of the leaked report states, according to The Guardian. “Top emitters dominate emissions in key sectors, for example the top 1% account for 50% of emissions from aviation.” — Fearing Govt Whitewash, Scientists Leak Draft Part Three of IPCC Report

Nearly Half the World’s Children at ‘Extremely High Risk’ for Facing Effects of Climate Crisis, Report Finds “Virtually no child’s life will be unaffected” by the climate emergency, said the director of UNICEF. On Friday, the third anniversary of climate campaigner Greta Thunberg’s lone protest outside the Swedish Parliament, a global report revealed the scale of risks posed by the climate emergency for the world’s children. The United Nations’ agency for children’s rights, UNICEF, introduced the first-ever Children’s Climate Risk Index, which shows that nearly half of the world’s children are at “extremely high risk” for being faced with dangerous effects of the planetary crisis.

Rainfall Observed at Peak of Greenland Ice Sheet for First Time on Record “What is going on is not simply a warm decade or two in a wandering climate pattern. This is nprecedented,” said one climate scientist This past weekend, researchers at the National Science Foundation’s Summit Station observed rainfall at the peak of Greenland’s rapidly melting ice sheet for the first time on record—an event driven by warming temperatures.

Formaldehyde Causes Leukemia, According To Epa Assessment Suppressed by Trump Officials Although the formaldehyde assessment has grave implications for public health, Trump administration officials refused to allow the EPA to release it. A 2017 Draft assessment of formaldehyde that was suppressed by the Trump administration found that the chemical causes myeloid leukemia, according to several sources familiar with the document. The draft assessment concludes that 1 microgram of formaldehyde in a cubic meter of air increases the number of myeloid leukemia cases by roughly 3.5 in 100,000 people, more than three times the cancer risk in the assessment now in use. The EPA currently regulates formaldehyde using an outdated set of calculations, finalized in 1991, based on the risk of nasopharyngeal cancer. If the nasopharyngeal cancer and myeloid leukemia risks are combined, the cancer risk could be 4.5 times higher than the current value.

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Biden IS Expanding Trump’s War on “Domestic Violent Extremism” — And It’s Sweeping Up Black People Far from breaking with Trump’s civil disorder prosecutions, Biden has doubled down with an expansive view of extremism. With gas masks covering their faces, police officers in Mobile, Alabama, stood guard at the entrance of a highway on-ramp as tear gas wafted in the air. Then, video shows, a woman wearing a red handkerchief around her neck ran up to a police SUV. She shouted something back to the crowd before swinging a red bat into the car’s passenger seat window, shattering it.

Labor:

Economy:

Shadow Government Statistitics Daily Update (8/20/8/230)

Against Its Pre-Recession Peak, the July 2021 Percent Contraction in Payrolls Remained Deeper than Anything Seen in the Last Seven Recessions, Outside of the Great Recession (see Business Cycle)
Third-Quarter 2021 Housing Starts and Building Permits on Early Track for Consecutive Quarterly Contractions
Spiked by Auto Manufacturers Canceling Regular Seasonal Shutdowns, July 2021 Industrial Production Gained 0.9%, Still Holding Shy of Recovering Its February 2020 Pre-Pandemic Peak by 0.2% (-0.2%) and Its August 2018 Economic Peak by 2.9% (-2.9%)
Real Retail Sales Fell for the Third Straight Month in July 2021, to Its Lowest Level Since February
Inflation Continues to Explode: July 2021 PPI Surged to New, Historic Extremes, with the July CPI-U Holding at a 13-Year High 5.4%, Just Shy of a 41-Year High, with the ShadowStats Alternate CPI at Its 41-Year Peak and with Second-Quarter GDP Inflation Hitting a 40-Year High [see Latest Numbers]
Preliminary July 2021 Monetary Base Numbers All Hit New Historic or Cycle-High Growth, with Money Supply Levels and Growth at Record Peaks
July FOMC Policies Were Unchanged [See the Systemic Risk Section for FOMC and Money Supply Details]
The Still-Unfolding “Recession-Depression” Recovery Remains Well Shy of Its Pre-Recession Peak, as Reflected in Payroll Employment, for Example [See coverage in the LATEST NUMBERS Section]

Combined Impact: Reflecting the Surge in Money, Inflation Has Exploded, While Business Activity Has Begun to Pull Back Anew, at an Intensifying Pace

World:

England:

The Labor Party Bureaucrats (Fifth Column), In the Service of the 1%, Are Expelling Anyone Not Loyal to the 1%!:Ken Loach expulsion – Labour Members Say: Enough Is Enough! Last Saturday, 14 August, Ken Loach announced via Twitter that he had been expelled from the Labour Party.Last Saturday, 14 August, Ken Loach announced via Twitter that he had been expelled from the Labour Party. This shameful move by the Labour right wing follows the recent NEC decision to proscribe Socialist Appeal and other left-wing groups; and the expulsion of leading left activists, such as Ben Gliniecki of the Socialist Appeal editorial board. In a series of tweets, the esteemed film director stated that: “Labour HQ finally decided I’m not fit to be a member of their party, as I will not disown those already expelled. Well…I am proud to stand with the good friends and comrades victimised by the purge. There is indeed a witch-hunt…Starmer and his clique will never lead a party of the people. We are many, they are few. Solidarity.”

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!

Fearing Govt Whitewash, Scientists Leak Draft Part Three of IPCC Report

IPCC published its latest climate assessment report on August 6 – the first of three parts. A group of IPCC scientists have leaked a draft of the third report.
The report finds that “the top 10% of emitters globally, who are the wealthiest 10%, contribute between 36% and 45% of emissions, which is 10-times as much as the poorest 10%, who are responsible for only about 3% to 5%.”
Climate scientists have expressed alarm as their warnings about the need for far-reaching political-economic reforms to stave off civilisational collapse go unheeded.

Concerned that aspects of its conclusions will be diluted by government policymakers, a group of scientists has leaked a draft of a forthcoming IPCC report, which argues that to avert further climate chaos, global carbon emissions must peak by 2025 and all fossil fuel plants worldwide must be shuttered by the end of the decade.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change officially released the first part of its tripartite ‘Sixth Assessment Report’ on August 6. That document, the only section of the comprehensive review to be published ahead of the United Nations’ upcoming COP 26 meeting in Glasgow, focuses on the physical science of the climate crisis and warns that unabated emissions will result in more frequent and intense extreme weather disasters.

The second and third parts of the landmark report, covering impacts and mitigation, are slated for publication in February and March of next year, respectively. However, The Guardian reported Friday that a group of IPCC scientists, who wanted to share their unadulterated findings as quickly as possible, recently leaked a draft of part three via the Spanish branch of Scientist Rebellion, an outgrowth of the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion.

Avoiding the most catastrophic consequences of the climate emergency, Bordera and Prieto wrote, requires fundamentally transforming the global economy, including a rapid shift away from the carbon-intensive goal of endless GDP growth.

Economic inequality and carbon inequality go hand-in-hand, with rich people in every country bearing greater responsibility for planet-heating emissions than the poor. Oxfam has found that the world’s wealthiest 1% emit more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorest 50% of humanity, and the leaked IPCC draft also highlights how affluent households are generating an outsized share of greenhouse gas pollution through disproportionate levels of SUV use, meat eating, and air travel.

“The consumption patterns of higher income consumers are associated with large carbon footprints,” a summary of the leaked report states, according to The Guardian. “Top emitters dominate emissions in key sectors, for example the top 1% account for 50% of emissions from aviation.”