Daily News Digest January 31, 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!

Image & Quote of the Day:

The Forgotten Socialist History of Martin Luther King Jr.

Videos of the Day:

Lula’s Foreign Minister on Iran Diplomacy and Brazil’s Sharp Turn to the Right

Torture Is the Central Issue in the Guantanamo Trials

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.

John Bolton And The “National Security” Impeachment The emergence of John Bolton, a leading architect of the Iraq war, as the central figure in the Democrats’ impeachment drive has made clear, once again, that the conflict within the state centers on divisions over foreign policy between two right-wing factions of the US ruling class.

Capitalism in America: the Coming Crisis“Alphabet joins the $1trn club” the headline read. It is a very exclusive club—in fact, only three other companies in the world belong to it. The Saudi oil monopoly, Aramco, is the only one that is not American. Microsoft and Apple are the other two. They both have a market value well in excess of one trillion dollars. A fourth monster U.S. corporation, Amazon, will probably join this elite group sometime in 2020. By Thomas M. MagstadtThe Fence the Trump Built Blew Off Like his Hair: !: Wind Blows the Border Fence in Mexicali! This afternoon the Santa Ana winds blew down part of the border wall being built between Mexicali and Calexico. The sections of the new border fence (also known as the “Trump Wall”) are being placed there.There were 15 of these sections that were knocked down by the wind and fell on Cristobal Colon Street on the Mexican side.No injuries were reported.The journalists who reported live from the site, mention that there was also no illegal entry into the United States taking advantage of the spaces that were opened. By Larry Thompson Environment:

Trump’s War on the Environment Imperils Us All Trump’s War on the Environment Imperils Us All While the eyes of the nation are on the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump, the industry lobbyists he put in charge of federal environmental regulatory agencies have been busily carrying out an underhanded war on the environment. Attacking long-standing regulations on pollution of air, land, water, and endangered species that have, in large part, served the nation well has been their mission from day one of the Trump administration. Now, adding to the rogue’s list of rollbacks, the EPA has decided to gut the Clean Water Act, imperiling us, our children, grandchildren, and generations yet to come. By George OchenskiCapitalism Kills: New Revelations Highlight Boeing’s Criminal Negligence “If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going”. Up until recently, this was the slogan many pilots and passengers had adopted when flying or boarding an aircraft. It was a nod of respect for the Seattle aircraft manufacturer that brought America into the jet age with airliners like the 707, the three-engine 727 that followed, and the “Queen of the Skies” – the 747. How times have changed! In less than a year, Boeing – one of America’s largest single exporters – destroyed a reputation that took more than 100 years to build. The Boeing 737 MAX is still grounded and may never fly again; as a result, the company is bleeding money, made its first annual loss in 20 years and has now asked to borrow $12 billion. To top it off, last week’s damning revelations implicate the company in burying and ignoring vital information about the Turkish Airlines 737 crash in Amsterdam back in 2009. By Martin SwayneLivestock Ranchers, Miners, Loggers and Oilmen–Welfare Queens All–Have Been Raping and Plundering the American West Empire of public land Christopher Ketcham, a daring young journalist from New York, spent ten years observing and studying the public lands of the intercontinental American West. This is an empire of about 450 million acres of grassland, desert, steppe, and forest in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming. Ketcham travelled to the American West to learn. His interests overshadowed those of a tourist. He drove a car from New York in the East to the West where an immense amount of land belongs to the people of the United States. He walked extensively in the public lands, getting lost in the mountain forests, sleeping in the wild, and falling in love with the American commons and the beauty of the natural world. By Evaggelos VallianatosBlack Liberation/ Civil Rights:

“Progressive” Dems Ought to Divorce the Duopoly, Not Badger Greens The signers reveal themselves to be as fearful for the fate of the duopoly as the corporate shills they claim to oppose. “The Lords of Capital maintain their monopoly over electoral politics in the United States — except for the Greens.” The recent open letter  urging the Green Party to bow out of the 2020 race in every state that matters in deference to whoever the corporate Democrats nominate, shows that the “progressive” signers value the Party over the human species and the planet. It is essentially an “anybody blue will do” appeal – an arrogant and insulting demand that all politics be limited to that which is harmless to the two-corporate-party rich man’s arrangement. By Glen Ford , BAR executive editorFreedom Rider: Negroes for Bloomberg Chicago’s Bobby Rush and San Francisco’s London Breed have sold themselves to super-plutocrat Michael Bloomberg, the worst stop-and-frisker in history. “Bloomberg is motivated, not by a desire to be president himself, but by the need to stop Bernie Sanders.” Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign should be a political deal breaker for black people in this country. The man who terrorized 700,000 mostly black New Yorkers with the NYPD stop and frisk policy should not be under serious consideration.  Lest we forget, as mayor of New York City he also refused to pay the men known as the Central Park Five any compensation for their wrongful convictions. By Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnistRemember the Influence of Socialism on Martin Luther King Jr’s Legacy. King believed humanity could achieve a “higher synthesis” that rose above the social relations of capitalism and communism. “Black self-determination was seen by the ruling class as a great communist conspiracy.”The annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is politically meaningless because it is defined by the very power structure that assassinated both his physical life and his radical legacy. To this day, King is remembered by most Americans as the “I Have a Dream” figure who sought peaceful coexistence with a racist power structure also known as the United States government. This narrative has not only benefitted the ruling class and the privileges of white Americans but also the Black misleadership class which utilizes King’s sanitized legacy as a cover of legitimacy for their political service to the bourgeoisie. It should come as no surprise, then, that the historical moment from which King’s work arose has also been distorted by the U.S. ruling class. While publications such as Teen Vogue  and public intellectuals like Cornel West  have brought attention to King’s anti-war and anti-capitalist history, fewer have analyzed the importance of socialism in shaping the trajectory of King’s politics. By Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor

Safe-States Strategy from Hell: Greens Respond to Progressive Left Dems Some Greens may fall for the “anybody blue will do” appeal, but most will not. “Some of us are re-registering just long enough to vote for Sanders in our state Democratic primaries.”Last week a list of left luminaries—Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters and Michael Albert—published an “Open Letter to the Green Party  for 2020” in Truthdig and other outlets. They urged Greens to adopt a “safe-states” campaign strategy this year, meaning they asked us not to run a presidential candidate that might cost the Democratic nominee votes in the swing states and thereby help reelect Trump. As usual, they blame Greens for the election of George Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016. Their condescending and recriminatory tone was guaranteed to infuriate, as evidenced by most of the 1000 or so comments on TruthDig and the Green Party’s first published response .By Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor They came 4 Moms 4 Housing By Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residenceEmbassy Protectors: An Epic Act of Resistance & Trial of Our Times Some Greens may fall for the “anybody blue will do” appeal, but most will not. “Some of us are re-registering just long enough to vote for Sanders in our state Democratic primaries.” Last week a list of left luminaries—Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters and Michael Albert—published an “Open Letter to the Green Party  for 2020” in Truthdig and other outlets. They urged Greens to adopt a “safe-states” campaign strategy this year, meaning they asked us not to run a presidential candidate that might cost the Democratic nominee votes in the swing states and thereby help reelect Trump. As usual, they blame Greens for the election of George Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016. Their condescending and recriminatory tone was guaranteed to infuriate, as evidenced by most of the 1000 or so comments on TruthDig and the Green Party’s first published response . By Lauren SmithBlack Abolitionists Believed in Taking Up Arms Their true crime is their brilliant defense of international law, and Venezuela’s sovereign right to self-determination against Yankee imperialism. “People of conscience must ensure all charges are dropped.” On February 11th, four American peace activists, known as the Embassy Protectors Collective , will be tried before the U.S. empire for “interfering with certain protective functions” of its Federal government for their occupation of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C. to prevent it from being handed over to coup leaders sponsored by the Trump administration. Their occupation ended on May 16, 2019, when federal agents broke into the sealed embassy, against international law, and arrested them in a swat style raid . The government’s accusation against them is merely a pretext used for their arrest and prosecution, since they haven’t broken any laws. Matter of fact, their true crime in the minds of the Trump administration is just the opposite – it’s their brilliant defense of international law, and Venezuela’s sovereign right to self-determination against Yankee imperialism.  By Randal Maurice Jelks

What’s wrong with the IHRA “working definition” of Anti-Semitism? The idea that Israel cannot be targeted or criticized as a “racist endeavor” is an absurd suggestion. “Any state that practices ethnic cleansing and civilian massacres, based on racial ideology, can and should be criticized for such serious crimes.”On 26 May, 2016 the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA),  a group which has a focus on opposing “holocaust denial,” adopted a  “working definition” of anti-Semitism. The document is said to have gained the endorsement of a number of European governments, as well as support from Israel and the USA. However it is a misguided document which links a decent  “definition” with erroneous “illustrations” mostly focused on Israel.By Tim AndersonThe World Demands U.S. Out of the Middle East – Will the U.S. Listen? American troops in Iraq are at increasing risk every day the US stays in that sovereign nation. “The US will be faced with strong and legitimate popular armed resistance.” The world is saying no to war with Iran and US out of the Middle East. Hundreds of protests were held in the United States and around the world on Saturday with a unified voice of “No War.” These protests are in solidarity with massive protests in Iraq calling for the US to get out, where it is now an occupying force as the government has asked it to leave. By Kevin Zeese and Margaret FlowersJuan Guaidó: One Year of Promises and Submission to Donald Trump American troops in Iraq are at increasing risk every day the US stays in that sovereign nation. “The US will be faced with strong and legitimate popular armed resistance.” The world is saying no to war with Iran and US out of the Middle East. Hundreds of protests were held in the United States and around the world on Saturday with a unified voice of “No War.” These protests are in solidarity with massive protests in Iraq calling for the US to get out, where it is now an occupying force as the government has asked it to leave. By Peoples Dispatch StaffLabor:

Economy:

There is no recovery!  It The Was a reovery the civilian labor force participation rate would be going up. The current civilian labor force participation rate through Secember 2019 is 63.2%:  Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate, Seasonally Adjusted Through December 2019

As Fed’s Powell Spoke at His Press Conference, the Market Gave Him a Taste of a Taper Tantrum The typically calm and unruffled Fed Chairman Jerome (Jay) Powell had a furrowed brow yesterday as he walked to the podium at his press conference at 2:30 p.m. It was clear from the outset that Powell had been put on a short leash as to what he could and could not say about the underpriced repo loans that the Fed has authorized the New York Fed to shower on the trading houses of Wall Street to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars per week since last September 17. This is an unprecedented action by the Fed when there is no known financial crisis occurring. As we reported on Monday, the New York Fed has pumped a cumulative $6.6 trillion into those Wall Street trading houses in just the past four months – a third of the amount of its support during the 2007 to 2010 financial crisis.By Pam Martens and Russ MartensWorld:

Brazil Petrobras Workers Call Indefinite Strike From SaturdayThe federation and its 13 unions said the decision to layoff workers violates the collective labor agreement signed between union representatives and the firm. Workers at the Brazilian oil company Petrobras approved Wednesday a plan to go on an indefinite strike from Saturday, protesting a plan by the state-controlled company to close the Parana Nitrogen Fertilizer plant and fire its 396 workers. The federation and its 13 unions said the decision to layoff workers violates the collective labor agreement signed between union representatives and the firm. Workers at the Brazilian oil company Petrobras approved Wednesday a plan to go on an indefinite strike from Saturday, protesting a plan by the state-controlled company to close the Parana Nitrogen Fertilizer plant and fire its 396 workers.

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!