Daily News Digest August 14, 2023

 Daily News Digest Archives

Images of the Day:

Welcome to the End Of the World! — Apocalypse now! 

Global Warming is Now!:  Maui Surveys the Burned Wreckage Caused by the Deadliest US Wildfire in Years

Capitalism is Now a Worldwide Threat to Humanity! It is on the Fast Track to Global Warming and/or Nuclear War Catastrophes!

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: 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore,     There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:    I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.” ― Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage 

Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is one of the recognized causes of our changing climate and it is also problematic for coral reefs. The ocean absorbs approximately one-third of the atmosphere’s excess carbon dioxide, resulting in a more acidic ocean. In order for a coral reef to grow, it must produce limestone (or calcium carbonate) at a rate that is faster than the reef is being eroded. Ocean acidification slows the rate at which coral reefs generate calcium carbonate, thus slowing the growth of coral skeletons.     Climate change can cause sea level rise; changes in the frequency, intensity, and distribution of tropical storms; and altered ocean circulation. All of these impacts can have negative consequences for the health and diversity of reefs around the world, including in the Florida Keys. — Coral Bleaching and Ocean Acidification are Two Climate-Related Impacts to Coral Reefs

Podcasts/Vidoes of the Day:

“Unprecedented”: Fire Expert Says Climate & Native Vegetation Changes Fueled Explosive Maui Wildfires Global Heating Likely to Hit World Food Supply Before 1.5C, Says UN Expert Water scarcity threatening agriculture faster than expected, warns Cop15 desertification president The world is likely to face major disruption to food supplies well before temperatures rise by the 1.5C target, the president of the UN’s desertification conference has warned, as the impacts of the climate crisis combine with water scarcity and poor farming practices to threaten global agriculture.     Alain-Richard Donwahi, a former Ivory Coast defence minister who led last year’s UN Cop15 summit on desertification, said the effects of drought were taking hold more rapidly than expected.     “Climate change is a pandemic that we need to fight quickly. See how fast the degradation of the climate is going – I think it’s going even faster than we predicted,” he said. “Everyone is fixated on 1.5C [above pre-industrial levels], and it’s a very important target. But actually, some very bad things could happen, in terms of soil degradation, water scarcity and desertification, way before 1.5C.”

Environment:

One of Many Ways to Begin to End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%!

After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecocide’!

After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecocide’!

One of Many Ways to Begin to End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%!

“We’re Living the Climate Emergency,” Says Native Hawaiian Kaniela Ing Anyone in power who denies climate change is an arsonist, says Ing, national director of the Green New Deal Network. We speak with Kaniela Ing, national director of the Green New Deal Network and seventh-generation Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiian, about the impact of this week’s devastating wildfires and their relationship to climate change. The catastrophic fires have destroyed nearly all buildings in the historic section of Lahaina, which once served as the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom. What is now being described as the worst natural disaster in Hawaii’s history was created by conditions such as dry vegetation, hurricane-level winds and developers redirecting water and building over wetlands, which are directly related to the climate crisis. “Anyone in power who denies climate change, to me, are the arsonists here,” says Ing. “We’re living the climate emergency.”

Pioneering Study Links Testicular Cancer Among Military Personnel ro ‘Forever Chemicals “To my knowledge this is the first study to measure PFAS levels in the U.S. military population and to investigate associations with a cancer endpoint in this population. Gary Flook served in the Air Force for 37 years, as a firefighter at the now-closed Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois and the former Grissom Air Force Base in Indiana, where he regularly trained with aqueous film forming foam, or AFFF — a frothy white fire retardant that is highly effective but now known to be toxic.     Flook volunteered at his local fire department, where he also used the foam, unaware of the health risks it posed. In 2000, at age 45, he received devastating news: He had testicular cancer, which would require an orchiectomy followed by chemotherapy.     Hundreds of lawsuits, including one by Flook, have been filed against companies that make firefighting products and the chemicals used in them.     And multiple studies show that firefighters, both military and civilian, have been diagnosed with testicular cancer at higher rates than people in most other occupations, often pointing to the presence of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in the foam.  But the link between PFAS and testicular cancer among service members was never directly proven — until now.

100% of Breast Milk Samples Tested Positive For Toxic “Forever Chemicals Today a new study finding toxic chemicals in 100% of breast milk samples tested was published in Environmental Science & Technology. Scientists from Toxic-Free Future, Indiana University, the University of Washington, and Seattle Children’s Research Institute led the research, which shows that toxic PFAS (per- and polyfluorinated substances)—including new generation compounds currently in use—build up in people. Despite chemical industry assurances that current-use PFAS do not build up in people, the study finds detections of these chemicals in breast milk to be on the rise globally and doubling every four years.     Previous reports have confirmed that companies put PFAS chemicals in a wide range of everyday products, from food packaging and clothing to carpet and upholstery. States and retailers are starting to take action to restrict these chemicals in products, but federal regulations are needed to prevent the use of PFAS or other chemicals that can build up in breast milk in consumer products. 

 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 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 

A Vote for Trump or Biden is a Vote for Ecocide!

Civil Rights/Blackliberation:

On August 8, Ohio voters rejected Issue 1, a measure which would have immensely raised the signature and approval thresholds for citizen initiatives to amend the state constitution. Supporters of abortion rights have reason to celebrate the result, since Issue 1 was intended to derail the passage of an abortion rights measure on the November ballot, which will likely pass under majority rule. . . . What is more, the specific reforms proposed in Issue 1 draw on some of the worst traditions of anti-democratic governance in America. Requiring a supermajority of voters to agree to a policy is an approach straight from the “Jim Crow” playbook. Issue 1’s voter approval requirement was unusually high and the proposed signature requirement was also singularly onerous. No other state requires an initiative campaign to collect signatures from every county, a procedure that would give disproportionate weight to small, rural counties. . . .From the standpoint of democracy, the results last night were reassuring. But in the long term, what really matters is that major political actors in Ohio and elsewhere have shown themselves willing to change the rules rather than lose an election. Particularly given the broader trend of voter suppression and democratic erosion in many states, this trend bodes very poorly for the functioning of our democratic system. Voters should remain vigilant. — Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 — Here’s What That Means For Democracy

Labor:

The Deadly Intersection of Labor Exploitation and Climate Change   . . . What we are witnessing with such increasingly common instances is capitalism-induced climate change intersecting with capitalism-induced labor exploitation. It’s a deadly combination and one that is being discussed in ways that obscure its causes and solutions.      Take the corporate media, whose coverage has focused on the pro-business buzzword of “productivity.” CBS worried in an August 1, 2023 story, “How Hot Weather Affects Worker Productivity—and What That Means for the Economy.” The New York Times similarly lamented in a July 31, 2023 headline, that “Heat Is Costing the U.S. Economy Billions in Lost Productivity.” The cost to the economy (a euphemism for stock values and profit margins) is the bottom line—not the safety and health of human beings. Therefore, it matters a great deal that, as per the Times, “more than 2.5 billion hours of labor in the U.S. agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and service sectors were lost to heat exposure.”

Economy: 

FRED: Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City AverageFRED: Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar in U.S. City AverageCapitalism in Terminal Decline: The Compelling Empirical Data Trends Headline points:

• The aggregate ‘world’ rate of profit has trended towards zero, from an estimated average of 43% in the 1870s to 11% in the 2010s.
• Interest rates (a form of profit) over (at least) the past seven centuries have also trended towards zero, where short-term baseline rates have been stuck for most of the period since 2010 — record lows in both the US and UK, the traditional capitalist superpowers — but ending recessions requires an average 6% cut in the baseline rate (to cheapen capital; incentivising new borrowing and investment).
• Prices have also closed in on zero — at exponential pace as, amid accelerating innovation, productive output tends to double absolutely every 25 years. X number of commodities that are made in 5 hours instead of 10 will, all else being equal, cost half as much.
• The average lifespan of the richest private corporations is continually contracting, falling to below 20 years in the 2010s.
• Whereas the capitalist class is a relatively dwindling minority, the global working class since the 1950s has been growing exponentially.
• Fossil fuels are becoming too expensive to produce profitably.
• To economise production and offset falling profitability, capital accumulation is increasingly dependent on central planning within private enterprise and mergers between private enterprise. A ‘final merger’, a thereby public monopoly, enabling central planning of the economy as a whole — and social accumulation — is consequently becoming an economic necessity for the first time.

World:

Health. Welfare, and Education:

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