Daily News Digest May 10, 2023
Capitalism is Now a Worldwide Threat to Humanity! It is on the Fast Track to Global Warming and/or Nuclear War Catastrophes!
Images of the Day:
Reparations and Capitalism Reminder
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”, is Still True for Today’s World!
Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capitalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming Over 5 Decades 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 very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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 of the Day:
In the end, the Nye Committee demonstrated that “these businesses were at the heart and center of a system that made going to war inevitable. They paved and greased the road to war.” With World War II, the Military Industrial Complex would explode and come to dominate American economic and political life. Today, the Merchants of Death thrive behind a veil of duplicity and slick media campaigns. They have assimilated mainstream media and academia into their conglomerate. But their crimes are clear, and the evidence is overwhelming. Wherever they go, suffering and death, war crimes and atrocities, profits, and stock buybacks follow. Ninety years after the original Merchants of Death hearings, the 2023 Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal will hold United States weapons manufacturers accountable for aiding and abetting the United States government in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This Tribunal will shine a light on those who profit from war and will seek to end their bloody franchise. Let this time be the last time. We may not have another chance. — War for Profit: A Very Short History As they did over a century ago ahead of World War I, the Merchants of Death thrive behind a veil of duplicity and slick media campaigns.
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
US is Making Child Labour Legal. Here’s Why
Black Agenda Radio May 5, 2023 With Margaret Kimberley
The Struggle Against the Proposed Arena in Philadelphia’s Chinatown
School Safety for Black Students
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 Republicrats 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. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay! Both Parties Support U.S. Capitalism’s Wars! (The Only War the Democrats Opposed was the Civil War!)
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both. — Louis D. Brandeis Quotes
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. MLK, Beyond Vietnam
The Exploitation od Chrildren!: Child Labor Laws are Under Attack in States Across The Country Amid increasing child labor violations, lawmakers must act to strengthen standards What this report finds: States across the country are attempting to weaken child labor protections, just as violations of these standards are rising. This report identifies bills weakening child labor standards in 10 states that have been introduced or passed in the past two years alone. It provides background on child labor standards and the coordinated push to weaken them, discusses the context in which these laws are being changed, and explains the connection between child labor and the United States’ broken immigration system. It also provides data showing that declines in labor force participation among young adults reflect decisions to obtain more education in order to increase their long-term employability and earnings, and that nearly all youth currently seeking work report being able to find it. Why it matters: Federal laws providing minimum protections for child labor were enacted nearly a century ago, leading many to assume that children working in grueling and/or dangerous jobs was a thing of the past. In fact, violations of child labor laws are on the rise, as are attempts by state lawmakers to weaken the standards that protect children in the workplace.
Today, in the USA, The 1906 Jungle Returns! The Jungle: The 1906 Uncensored Version
The Jungle The Jungle is a 1906 work of narrative fiction by American muckraker novelist Upton Sinclair.[1] Sinclair’s primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States.[2] However, most readers were more concerned with several passages exposing health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meat-packing industry during the early 20th century, which greatly contributed to a public outcry that led to reforms including the Meat Inspection Act. The book depicts working-class poverty, lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it “the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of wage slavery.”[3] Sinclair was considered a muckraker, a journalist who exposed corruption in government and business.[4] In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason. He first published the novel in serial form in 1905 in the newspaper, and it was published as a book by Doubleday in 1906.
Summary Of Child Labor In The Jungle By Upton Sinclair “Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time” (Grace Abbott). The issue of child labor has been around for centuries. Its standing in our world has been irrevocably stained in our history and unfortunately, our present. Many great minds have assessed this horrific issue and its effect on our homes, societies, and ultimately, our world. The Jungle, a novel written in 1906, by Upton Sinclair is a harsh and very real account of what child labor looked like during the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Scott Pelley: From Stakeouts to Warrants: How Federal Investigators Found More Than 100 Children Cleaning Slaughterhouses Eighty five years ago, the United States outlawed child abuse in sweatshop labor–a scourge that Franklin Roosevelt called “this ancient atrocity.” So, it was a shock in 2022 to learn that an American company, owned by a Wall Street firm, sent children as young as 13 to work in slaughterhouses. The disgrace was more disturbing because the company, PSSI, is vital to national food safety and its owner, Blackstone, claims to be a model of management. Both companies say they had no idea they employed children in eight states. But it was obvious to teachers in Grand Island, Nebraska who noticed acid burns on a child. In our story, you will see only two photos of children working in a slaughterhouse. Because of privacy, two, with obscured faces, are all the U.S. Department of Labor would give us. But two may be enough. Their hard hats read “PSSI” for Packers Sanitation Services Incorporated– the nation’s leading slaughterhouse cleaning service with 15,000 workers, in 432 plants, taking in more than a billion dollars a year. Not, it seemed, a likely abuser of children.
Media Monopolies and Prosecution of Assange Drive Drop in US Press Freedom Rank “Major structural barriers to press freedom persist in this country,” according to Reporters Without Border. CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin interrupted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a Washington Post-sponsored World Press Freedom Day event on May 3, taking the stage where a Post journalist was interviewing Blinken. Benjamin demanded that the U.S. and United Kingdom free imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. A group of men in suits, presumably Secret Service agents, immediately charged onto the stage and forcibly removed Benjamin and another activist who joined her. Blinken, however, failed to address either Assange’s persecution or the U.S.’s continued decline in press freedom after the disruption. Assange faces extradition to the U.S. on Espionage Act charges for his role in publishing secret U.S. military documents, even though he collaborated with several major newspapers, including The New Year Times, in exposing corruption and deception by U.S. government officials.
Life Is Cheap in America. That’s What Makes Us Exceptional. We accept the unacceptable when it comes to deaths from guns, overdoses, and COVID The American homeland has never been a modern wartime battlefield. That distinguishes us from all other major participants in two world wars. And yet the homeland is now the scene of far greater human carnage on a daily basis than any other rich nation would find tolerable—not just slaughter by guns, but by the misuse of drugs and the mismanagement of a virus. If you are looking for a real definition of American exceptionalism, this is it. Somehow we have become accustomed to living with a deadly trifecta. Just look at the numbers.
If Better Years Are to Come, We Are Going to Have to Fight Like Hell for Them We face endless preparations for a planetary holocaust that would make even the Holocaust of World War II a footnote to a history that would cease to exist. The question is: What can we do to stop it? I turn 60 this year. My health is generally good, though I have aches and pains from a form of arthritis. I’m not optimistic enough to believe that the best years of my life are ahead of me, nor so pessimistic as to assume that the best years are behind me. But I do know this, however sad it may be to say: the best years of my country are behind me. Indeed, there are all too many signs of America’s decline, ranging from mass shootings to mass incarceration to mass hysteria about voter fraud and “stolen” elections to massive Pentagon and police budgets. But let me focus on just one sign of all-American madness that speaks to me in a particularly explosive fashion: this country’s embrace of the “modernization” of its nuclear arsenal at a price tag of at least $2 trillion over the next 30 years or so — and that staggering sum pales in comparison to the price the world would pay if those “modernized” weapons were ever used.
If Better Years Are to Come, We Are Going to Have to Fight Like Hell for Them We face endless preparations for a planetary holocaust that would make even the Holocaust of World War II a footnote to a history that would cease to exist. The question is: What can we do to stop it? I turn 60 this year. My health is generally good, though I have aches and pains from a form of arthritis. I’m not optimistic enough to believe that the best years of my life are ahead of me, nor so pessimistic as to assume that the best years are behind me. But I do know this, however sad it may be to say: the best years of my country are behind me. Indeed, there are all too many signs of America’s decline, ranging from mass shootings to mass incarceration to mass hysteria about voter fraud and “stolen” elections to massive Pentagon and police budgets. But let me focus on just one sign of all-American madness that speaks to me in a particularly explosive fashion: this country’s embrace of the “modernization” of its nuclear arsenal at a price tag of at least $2 trillion over the next 30 years or so — and that staggering sum pales in comparison to the price the world would pay if those “modernized” weapons were ever used.
Looking For Leadership That Stands Up to the Lesser Evil Change is inevitable, not only is it inevitable but it is natural and because it is natural it is what we want in life. We are this way of course because no one wants to never grow, always staying the same year after year or to watch the same movie play out day after day, stuck in an endless loop of continuously recurring events. Yet some would resist the natural evolution of life in time and go against the tide of change. They might deny even the swirling of the planets if they could.
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
44 Lawmakers ‘Sound the Alarm’ on Threat of LNG Expansion “Even without including upstream leaks, the continued buildout of LNG infrastructure is at odds with the Paris climate goals and U.S. climate commitments.” The senators and representatives signed a letter calling on the Biden administration’s Council on Environmental Quality to give “greater scrutiny” to the LNG supply chain from wellhead to shipping overseas.
Recent Toxic Rail Derailments Should Also be Labeled as Superfund Sites!: EPA Weighs Superfund Status for Ohio Facility Handling Radioactive Oilfield Waste The move could pave the way for otherwise missing federal oversight for these facilities.. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has flagged an Ohio oilfield waste processing facility with a history of radioactive contamination for possible inclusion under the agency’s Superfund program, reserved for the nation’s most contaminated hazardous waste sites. Last year, EPA toured the Martins Ferry facility, operated by Pennsylvania-based Austin Master Services, at the request of Concerned Ohio River Residents (CORR). This local advocacy group has documented a lengthy list of concerns. In a March 31, 2023 letter to CORR, EPA said the agency “primarily evaluated potential chemical and radionucleotides releases from [Austin Master Services] based
This Little-Known Company Is Making Millions Off the Western Water Shortage Vidler finds untapped water in rural communities and markets it to developers and corporations in fast-growing cities.
‘Bad News’: Unexpected Melting of Greenland Glacier Could The way that the Petermann Glacier in Northwest Greenland is melting t? north of Greenland is melting faster and in a different way than scientists previously thought, and this has troubling implications for the future speed of global sea-level rise. The new discovery was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday. The scientists found that warming ocean water had melted a cavity in the bottom of Petermann Glacier taller than the Washington Monument, as The Associated Press reported. If other glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica behave the same way, it could double predictions for how quickly the burning of fossil fuels will melt ice and raise sea levels.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Economy:
Fred Interest Rate on Reserve Balances is 5.15% 
Greedflation’: As Prices Rise, Bosses Make a Killing As the rate of inflation continues to cut into the living standards of workers, some businesses are posting record profits. Some have pointed the finger at price gouging and the excess profits of big business as the cause. This phenomenon has been dubbed by trade unions and commentators as ‘greedflation’. Profits have indeed soared in many sectors while the cost of living crisis is continuing to bite. The multinational oil and gas giant ExxonMobil posted record profits in the first quarter this year of over $11 billion, while millions faced the choice of heating or eating. In 2022, big oil doubled its profits to $219 billion. In the same period, domestic gas prices in the UK increased by 129 percent and electricity prices rose by 67 percent. This plunged 6.7 million homes into fuel poverty – an increase of 4 million since 2020.
Academic Study Finds that One of the Four Largest U.S. Banks Could Be at Risk of a Bank Run The systemic threats to the U.S. financial system were not remedied when Congress passed the watered-down Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation in 2010. While that has been evident with each Federal Reserve bailout of the mega banks and their derivative counterparties, the threat has now gained increased urgency for Congress to confront as a result of a new academic study. A team of four highly-credentialed academics at four separate universities present compelling evidence that one of the four largest U.S. banks, with “assets above $1 trillion,” could be at risk of a bank run. The study is titled: “Monetary Tightening and U.S. Bank Fragility in 2023: Mark-to-Market Losses and Uninsured Depositor Runs?” Its authors are Erica Jiang, Assistant Professor of Finance and Business Economics at USC Marshall School of Business; Gregor Matvos, Chair in Finance at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and Research Associate in the Corporate Finance group at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Tomasz Piskorski, Professor of Real Estate in the Finance Division at Columbia Business School and Research Associate at NBER; and Amit Seru, Professor of Finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Research Associate at NBER.
World:
Education. Health, 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