Daily News Digest January 16, 2020

Daily News Digest Archives

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 banner headline: “There Is No Peace” Could Still Be Published Today!

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

Always Remember: That Obama 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 , thet the 99% Will Rule, Not the Few! 

Images of the Day:

End Austerity, Homelessness And Privatisation NOW!

The Lying KingQuotes of the Day:

As for the Constitution, was it lost in Iraq? I can imagine how one might honestly believe that American troops are not an explicitly mercenary force, but the idea that the U.S. fights wars to protect its founding document or its national security is utterly and tragically belied by every American military action since World War II—not to mention most of those preceding it. If we are unable to wean ourselves from these noble delusions, in which we are always the tragic heroes defeated by the same curiously repetitive mistakes, then Donald Trump, and the inevitable future Donald Trumps, will never stop having an advantage. You can’t defeat dishonesty with better versions of untruth. “We have always tried,” Krugman complained, “to behave as no more than first among equals.” It is not exactly a lie, but it’s bullshit. . . . — Paul Krugman in Imperial Fantasy Land

In a few months it will be six years since that broadcast (see video clip below) and yet neither the Obama administration nor the Trump administration has done anything to materially level the playing field on Wall Street. The corrupt structure is just as present today as it was in 2014. Both Obama and Trump appointed well-connected Wall Street lawyers to run the Securities and Exchange Commission. And both Obama and Trump have allowed the wild derivative gambles that deepened the financial crisis in 2008 to continue to expand. If Americans want a different outcome in November, they need to really do their homework on the presidential candidates this time around. —Has President Trump Become the Pied Piper of Wall Street Along with the New York Fed?

Videos Of the Day:

People Want a Wealth Tax, but Many Politicians Oppose It

Journalists Take Germany’s Foreign Intelligence Service to Court

Economic Update: Answering Our Critics

Poverty Is the New Draft The draft might be gone, but not everyone volunteers for the same reasons. Inconsistent access to education, healthcare, or housing means marginalized communities are systemically pushed into military service to gain those benefits–especially poor students.U.S.:

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.

Paul Krugman in Imperial Fantasy Land Every time the United States does something vicious, stupid or both, a great chorus erupts from the American choir: “This is not who we are.” The sound is defiant, heroic and ridiculous, like hearing “Ode to Joy” sung by a thousand synthetic, smart-speaker voices and backed by an orchestra of slide whistles. Marx famously wrote that Hegel, in observing that “all great historic facts and personages recur twice,” nevertheless “forgot to add: ‘Once as tragedy, and again as farce.’” Neither man, it turns out, anticipated our capacity for making the same simultaneously panicked and lazy turn around the goldfish bowl over and over again, forgetting each time more of the brief journey we’ve just made. One such vicious stupidity was the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, on the orders of Donald Trump. Soleimani had long been a thorn in the side of the U.S., imperiling its ambitions for its conquered Iraqi client state and the ungovernable semi-protectorate in Afghanistan—this despite the fact that Iran and the U.S. should have been, and sometimes were, allies of convenience in what pundits like to call “the region.” Like the U.S., Iran wants quiescent, stable and relatively demilitarized neighbors on its borders. But America’s psychotic foreign policy establishment has never forgiven Tehran for the 1979 revolution, which removed the Western-friendly shah from power, and for failing to bow to American hegemony in the decades since. . . . In the aftermath of the assassination, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman rushed to assure his readers and likely himself that Trump’s bullying violence represented a fundamental break with American history. While America once had “a special leadership position, one that sometimes involved playing a role in reshaping other countries’ political systems,” he argued, Trump “has never shown any sign of understanding why America used to be special.” By Jacob Bacharach

The Liar-In-Chief: After Days of Claiming Soleimani Posed “Imminent” Threat to US, Trump Finally Declares “It Doesn’t Really Matter”  (“If this is the case, then nothing matters.”)After NBC News reported that President Donald Trump approved the assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani last June—undercutting administration claims that Soleimani was targeted for a drone strike because of an immediate threat—the president claimed his rationale for unilaterally killing a foreign leader was irrelevant if he deemed the assassination necessary. Trump concluded several tweets about his impeachment, the 2020 presidential campaign, and other topics by reiterating his administration’s claim that Soleimani posed an “imminent” threat to the U.S., but added that “it doesn’t really matter because of his horrible past.” If this is the case, then nothing matters.” By Julia Conley

Awesome, Brilliant, Necessary’: Seattle Bans Foreign-Influenced Corporations From Spending in Local Elections “This landmark campaign finance legislation bans corporations like Amazon and Bank of America from infiltrating the city’s electoral process.”The Seattle City Council on Monday drew a line in the sand against multinational corporate giants like Amazon by voting to become the largest U.S. city to ban “foreign-influenced” companies from political spending in local elections. The law was approved unanimously by the council just months after Amazon poured an unprecedented $1.5 million into the Seattle Chamber of Commerce’s super PAC ahead of the November election.  By Julia Conley

Environment:

 Like Adding ‘Five to Six Hiroshima Bombs of Heat Each Second,’ Study Shows Oceans Warming at Record Rate “If you want to understand global warming, you have to measure ocean warming.” A new study published Monday shows that the Earth’s oceans reached the highest temperatures and warmed the fastest since records began, highlighting the urgent need for global action to address the climate crisis before it’s too late. The study (pdf), “Record-Setting Ocean Warmth Continued in 2019,” which was published in Advances in Atmospheric Studies, found the oceans have warmed by around 0.075 degrees C above the average of 1981-2010.That level of warming, the paper found, is equal to 228,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (228 Sextillion) Joules of heat. Study lead author Lijing Cheng, associate professor with the International Center for Climate and Environmental Sciences at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences analogized the level of heating to something more manageable for the human mind. By Eoin HigginsBlack Liberation/ Civil Rights:

Freedom Rider: Solidarity with Moms 4 Housing Black women in Oakland confronted the austerity regime head-on, by seizing the housing their families need. “Hopefully this tactic will spread and others will take the same action.” The four women in Oakland, California known as Moms 4 Housing  have been evicted from the home they seized from unscrupulous speculators. Despite being removed by police and arrested, they are still a model for action in this latest attack on the rights of black people. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnistMy Trip to China Exposed the Shameful Lies Peddled by the American Empire China is a land of bullet trains and rising standards of living, in contrast to the decay of the imperial center, the United States. “Pollution and income and wealth inequality remains problems for ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics.’” There is a broad consensus between the American ruling class and the so-called American Left about China. The consensus position is that China is a tyrannical, oppressive, and politically backward dictatorship. Fear of a globalized Yellow Peril often emerges whenever China becomes a topic of political conversation in America. My two weeks spent in the People’s Republic of China with the China-U.S. Solidarity Network ’s Silk Road delegation, led by Lee Siu Hin and former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, did not merely seek to challenge the many lies that the American Empire tells about the rising power in the East. The trip exposed the lies of the American Empire with a heavy dose of truth about actual conditions that exist for the people of China. By Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing EditorTrump Prosecutors Make Move to Ensure that Embassy Protectors are Convicted  Trump’s prosecutors are trying to suppress the facts of the US attempted coup in Venezuela, and railroad the Embassy Protectors to prison. “The prosecutors would leave the jury wearing a blindfold, unaware of the facts, context or why the Embassy Protectors were in the embassy.”As the trial approaches, the lawyers for the Trump Administration’s  prosecution of the four Venezuelan Embassy Protectors who were arrested last May are asking the court to make sure the jury is kept ignorant about the facts and circumstances surrounding the actions of the protectors.By Ajamu Baraka, BAR editorBaltimore’s Black Alliance for Peace Demands End to Policing SurgeBaltimore is among the seven cities targeted by the Trump administration for a high-tech “surge” in police penetration of Black communities. “Increased militarization of police departments leads to increased numbers of civilians murdered by police.” At the end of October, during the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Chicago, President Trump announced , “In coming weeks, Attorney General Barr will announce a new crackdown on violent crime—which I think is so important—targeting gangs and drug traffickers in high crime cities and dangerous rural areas.”  By BAP-BaltimoreAhmed Sékou Touré’s Unique and Dynamic Contribution to the Philosophy of Class Struggle  The ideology of Touréism combines aspects of Marxist – Leninist methodology with traditional African values. “There is no part of the peoples’ socio-cultural life that capitalism/ imperialism does not attempt to dominate, commodify and corrupt.” Ahmed Sékou Touré (referred to in this paper as AST or Touré) was a prolific Pan African, nationalist union leader in Guinea, Conakry when Guinea was still under French Colonialism. His disciplined organizing and activism was a decisive factor in the fusion of the trade union movement with the political party, the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG). This activism also facilitated his successful campaign to become Guinea’s first president from 1958 to 1984. It was Sékou Touré who defiantly told the French President Charles de Gaulle who proposed that Guinea join the Franco-African community, that Guinea preferred to keep their dignity in freedom rather than join the neo-colonial Franco-African community. In his words “We for our part, have a first and indispensable need, that of our dignity” …” Now there is no dignity without freedom… We prefer freedom in poverty to riches in slavery.”[i] By Djibo SobukweThe World Must End Washington’s Illegal Economic War The US is currently attacking one-third of the planet’s population with 8,000 economic sanctions, ongoing acts of war against 39 nations. “Their intent is to shrink the economy and cause chronic shortages and hyperinflation while ensuring a lack of access to finance to pay for essentials.”The United States is relying more heavily on illegal unilateral coercive measures (also known as economic sanctions) in place of war or as part of its build-up to war. In fact, economic sanctions are an act of war that kills tens of thousands of people each year through financial strangulation. An economic blockade places a country under siege.  By Kevin Zeese and Margaret FlowersDu Bois and the Jefferson School of Social Science W.E.B. Du Bois’ classes at the radical school fixed Black Americans firmly within diasporic history and his vision for a socialist future. “Students were expected to take their education into the street in mass actions including protests, and political organizing.” n May, 1954, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote a memo in support of his employer, the Jefferson School of Social Science. The Jefferson School was devoted to Marxist education and was affiliated with the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), and thus became a target of American intelligence agencies during the Cold War. By Denise LynnThe Coup in Bolivia: Lessons for our Movement The ruling class has the capacity to manufacture and implement a coup or a domestic wave of political repression almost off-the-shelf. “The corporate media can be a more sophisticated tool for regime change than the military.” The US ngineered another coup, this time Bolivia, and again our movement could not he US engineered another coup, this time Bolivia, and again our movement could not effectively counter pro-coup propaganda the US was selling to the public, let alone taking any action to stop it.  There is an imperative need for much greater long-term cooperative work to combat US interventions. Needed is a qualitatively higher level of unity of action among our networks to combat imperialism. Lenin, one of the most effective leaders of the struggles against the ruling classes, emphasized that “The proletariat has no other weapon in the fight for power except organization. ”  By Stansfield Smith

Black Agenda Radio for Week of January 13, 2020  With Nellie Bailey And Glen Ford

  • Dems Won’t Impeach Trump for Crimes They Favor Donald Trump is guilty of many impeachable acts, but the Ukraine scandal “pales into insignificance compared to everything else Trump has done,” said University of Illinois professor of international law Dr Francis Boyle. The US assassination of Iranian general Suleimani violated US and international law and is an impeachable offense, for example, but “most of the mainstream Democrats have supported” the killing of Suleimani.
  • British Colonial Racism Comes to Roost Although Britain never experienced a civil rights movement on its own soil, such movements did take place “in its colonies…in anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggles,” said Adam Elliott-Cooper, a Black activist and doctoral student at Oxford University. Black protest in Britain is informed by that colonial history.
  • Uncle Sam the Hit Man Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, says the US is living up to its reputation as an international assassin with its hit on an Iranian general on Iraqi soil. “America is more hated today than ever,” said Abu Jamal, co-author of the multi-volume book, “Murder, Incorporated.”
  • Dems Won’t Impeach Trump for Crimes They Favor Donald Trump is guilty of many impeachable acts, but the Ukraine scandal “pales into insignificance compared to everything else Trump has done,” said University of Illinois professor of internation
  • Black Women and Babies Endangered by Untreated Depression Journalist and activist Aneri Pattani, in an article for Truthout, said a number of factors contribute to high rates of post-birth depression among Black mothers in the US, including “toxic stress from enduring racism,” poverty and “abusive relationships,” mothers’ fears of being labeled mentally ill, and unresponsive health care institutions.
  • Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:am ET on PRN. Length: one hour.
  • 5 Times the US Intervened in Iran Before the recent airstrike attack on Iran, the United States had extended its imperialist arm in Iran during several key moments in history. Here is a brief review of US involvement in Iran. Friday’s airstrike attack near Baghdad International Airport — authorized by President Donald Trump and resulting in the death of Iran’s top military commander, Qasem Soleimani — has escalated what were already high tensions between Iran and the United States. The relationship between the US and Iran has long been one of contention and violence. To understand this history, we must begin with the 1953 coup organized by the CIA, which ousted democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and instated the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a pro-US dictator, as leader of Iran.

Labor:

Economy:

Shadow Government Satistics Alternate Gross Domestic Product Chart The SGS-Alternate GDP reflects the inflation-adjusted, or real, year-to-year GDP change, adjusted for distortions in government inflation usage and methodological changes that have resulted in a built-in upside bias to official reporting.Shadow Government Statistis Alternate Inflation Charts The CPI chart on the home page reflects our estimate of inflation for today as if it were calculated the same way it was in 1990. The CPI on the Alternate Data Series tab here reflects the CPI as if it were calculated using the methodologies in place in 1980. In general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living.

Has President Trump Become the Pied Piper of Wall Street Along with the New York Fed? Donald Trump continues to go out of his way to tie his reelection chances to the stock market setting new highs by perpetually taking credit for its gains on his Twitter page. No other sitting U.S. president in history has done that because they have all been aware of how fast trends can change in the stock market. In fact, we recall a previous Republican President, George W. Bush, being dismissive of the stock market, saying “they run it up and they run it down,” or words to that effect. (On Wall Street that’s known as a bull raid and a bear raid.) On January 9 President Trump delivered the message below on his Twitter page, mistakenly referring to a 401(K) as a 409K. The implication is that Trump has rallied the stock market by 70 to 90 percent and it’s your own dumb fault if your retirement portfolio is only up by 50 percent. Retirees could take this to mean that the sitting President of the United States is encouraging them to allocate more of their retirement assets to stocks and less to conservative bonds. By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:

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 ‘governn’, 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 the to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare!