Daily News Digest April 8, 2020

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years Ago and Did Nothing!

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 War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!occupy1

Daily News Digest Archives

Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, under banner headline: “There Is No Peace”

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 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!

Images of the Day:

U.S. Government Priorities:

Healthcare Not Warfare! The US Has a Surplus Supply of Weapons of War, But a Shortage of Health Supplies for the Coronavirus Pandemic!

Water Scarcity

Quote of the Day:

The United States already Has Three Times the Coronavirus Deaths! What if we had the Coronavirs kits and tested like China Did?!:

Effective quarantine is essential for tackling the coronavirus and this cannot happen without extensive testing for covid-19, says World Health Organization assistant director general Bruce Aylward. “To actually stop the virus,  China] had to do rapid testing of any suspect case, immediate isolation of anyone who was a confirmed or suspected case, and then quarantine the close contacts for 14 days so that they could figure out if any of them were infected,” Aylward told New Scientistin an exclusive interview. “Those were the measures that stopped transmission in China, not the big travel restrictions and lockdowns.” — WHO Expert: We Need More Testing to Beat Coronavirus

The Supreme Court Continues to Remove the ‘Fig Leaves of Democracy’ and For Stark Naked 1% Rule!:

“Because voters are rightfully afraid of COVID-19, Wisconsin has been caught off guard by a surge in requests for absentee ballots,” Stern wrote. “Election officials simply do not have time, resources, or staff to process all those requests. As a result, a large number of voters—at least tens of thousands—won’t get their ballot until after Election Day.” Shauntay Nelson, Wisconsin state director of advocacy group All Voting Is Local, said the Supreme Court’s decision “defies common sense and threatens to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters.” “Voters deserve free and fair elections where every voice is heard and the assurance that their health and safety will be protected while our democracy remains intact,” said Nelson. “It’s shameful that Republicans have used this crisis to their political benefit, silencing voters so they can remain in power. The result has been confusion, chaos and uncertainty for voters, all amid a global health emergency. This is no way to run a democracy.” The Supreme Court’s ruling came just after the Wisconsin state Supreme Court overturned an executive order by Gov. Tony Evers and decided that Tuesday’s elections—which include the Democratic presidential primary and nearly 4,000 down-ballot contests—must proceed as scheduled despite the dire public health threat posed by COVID-19. Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision “raises grave concerns” that the right-wing body is “poised to unnecessarily interject itself in voting rights battles this presidential election season.” “Contrary to the majority opinion’s claims,” said Clarke, “this case involved more than a ‘minor, technical’ question and will likely result in the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of voters as 500,000 absentee ballots have not been returned as of Monday night.” — ‘One of the Most Brazen Acts of Voter Suppression in Modern Times’ as US Supreme Court Blocks Absentee Ballot Extension in Wisconsin

Videos of the Day:

Harlem Hospital Nurses Demand Better Protection Amid Pandemic

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.

Coronavirus Updates

Our Robber Baron  Government Profiteers and the Trump Clan (Who have learned to work the system.) went into motion.:  Trump’s Former Lawyer Had Million-Dollar Contract With Hydroxychloroquine Maker President Donald Trump, for a number of weeks, has persistently pushed an antimalarial drug he claims could help patients suffering from the ill effects of coronavirus, even though there’s no scientific evidence backing its use for that purpose. The drug in question, hydroxychloroquine, has been touted by some doctors overseas as being successful in treating symptoms and COVID-19 itself, but other studies have shown minimal evidence of its effectiveness. Trump’s own expert immunologist on his coronavirus task force has noted, those anecdotal findings lack scientific backing, and more research is needed. Chris Walker

 Chief Profiteer 

Bendib: Social Distancing in the SwampUS ‘Wasted’ Months Before Preparing For Coronavirus Pandemic After the first alarms sounded in early January that an outbreak of a novel coronavirus in China might ignite a global pandemic, the Trump administration squandered nearly two months that could have been used to bolster the federal stockpile of critically needed medical supplies and equipment. A review of federal purchasing contracts by The Associated Press shows federal agencies largely waited until mid-March to begin placing bulk orders of N95 respirator masks, mechanical ventilators and other equipment needed by front-line health care workers. By Michael BieseckerEnvironment:

Great Barrier Reef Suffers Its Most Widespread Mass Bleaching Event On Record Earlier this year, scientists warned that the Great Barrier Reef could be on the brink of its most widespread bleaching event ever recorded. That fear has been realized. Surveys conducted by scientists at Australia’s James Cook University and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority show that a summer of extreme heat has caused the reef, which is a World Heritage Site, to suffer a mass bleaching of unprecedented scale. Corals from the far north to the southern tip of the 1,400 mile-long ecosystem are experiencing severe impacts. By By Maddie Stone 

Agribusiness, the Breeder of Pabdemics, Kills!: Food Safety Groups Warn of Looming Zoonotic Pandemic, Blast USDA’s New Slaughter Plant Regulation “Self-regulation when it comes to animal movement, slaughter, and meat inspection is bad news.”by Andrea Germanos

Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:

Black Agenda Radio for Week of April 6, 2020 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford

  •  Students May Strike for “Social Welfare” During Crisis Call for a General Strike Beginning May 1st Semassa Boko, a student activist and PhD candidate at the University of California at Irvine, wrote an article on the concept of a social welfare strike “under conditions where the United States is plunging into a Great Depression.” Boko envisions “the redirection of students’ withheld labor towards the social welfare” of those who have been abandoned by the system.

  • Working People Must Build Solidarity in Resistance The general strike is “extremely promising” because “it is the surest way that workers have to protect their own health, since obviously the state and their employers are not interested in doing that,” said Peter Gelderloos, an anarchist activist now living in Spain who wrote an article on the global history of rent strikes.

  • Call for a General Strike Beginning May 1st Cooperation Jackson, based in Jackson, Mississippi, issued the call and list of demands to protect the people from both the virus and disaster capitalism. “The society that emerges from this crisis is going to be different,” said Cooperation Jackson spokesman Kalu Akuno. “This could be good or bad. We’re not going back to what was.”

Labor:

Economy:

The Mood of Traders Darkens on Wall Street It’s become your life or your trading bonus at some Wall Street firms. On November 10 of last year, Lesley Stahl of the CBS investigative news program, 60 Minutes, interviewed Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. As part of the interview, Dimon strolled Stahl around one of his trading floors in New York where traders appeared tightly packed in close quarters. Dimon said this: “This is one of six trading floors in the building. There’s like 450 people in this trading floor. An equivalent to this in London, half of this in Hong Kong, and in 23 other countries around the world.” When we went back to re-watch the program to more carefully consider the dystopian work environment of human beings in the 21stcentury, we took a screen shot of a female trader at JPMorgan Chase. In November 2019, before there was one press report of coronavirus COVID-19 anywhere in the world, this woman already had a serious concern about bacteria and/or viruses. Her workstation included a large bottle of Purell hand sanitizer as well as a large container of Lysol wipes. S he was perhaps prescient about what was coming.By Pam Martens and Russ MartenJanet Yellen Decided to Share Her Worst Nightmares on CNBC Today Bulls on Wall Street were likely nonplussed at former Fed Chair Janet Yellen as her interview progressed on CNBC today. It was like she woke up from a terrible nightmare, threw on a little lipstick and dialed into CNBC to share her horrifying vision with an already shell-shocked public. The fact that Yellen chose to do this at a time when the Dow was up over 1,000 points and providing a few rays of sunshine made it all the more remarkable. Bulls on Wall Street were likely nonplussed at former Fed Chair Janet Yellen as her interview progressed on CNBC today.  By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

COVID-19 Will Kill More People Worldwide Due to Water Shortages  You can’t wash the virus off your hands if you don’t have water. Experts have been consistent in telling the public that one of the best means to stop the spread of the coronavirus is the practice of good hygiene. But how can you abide by these instructions when you do not have access to clean water? This is the challenge facing millions of low-income people throughout the world. As COVID-19 continues to spread — overwhelming even advanced capitalist countries with robust health care systems — governments, social movements and citizens in Latin America are being forced to confront the global pandemic in societies that are still largely defined by extreme inequality, one that makes typical expert recommendations nearly impossible to follow. By José Luis Granados Ceja

Trump Sends Gun Boats to Venezuela While the World Partners to Fight a Deadly Pandemic On April’s Fools Day, U.S. President Donald Trump gave a press conference where he announced a new “counter-narcotics effort” by U.S. Southern Command. “We’re deploying additional Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircrafts and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters…doubling our capabilities in the region,” he said. The point of this mission—which will be joined by other countries—is to “increase surveillance, disruption, and seizures of drug shipments.” “We must not let narco-terrorists exploit the pandemic to threaten American lives.” By Vijay Prashad, Paola Estrada, Ana Maldonado, and Zoe Pc

Health, Science, Education, 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 to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on Healthcare! 

Top Sanders Aide David Sirota Explains Why Billionaire Class Will Support “Coronavirus Care for All” But Never “Medicare for All” “The affluent political class supports Coronavirus Care For All because they fear getting COVID from poor people, but that same affluent political class opposes Medicare for All because they can’t get cancer from poor people.” By Andrea Germanos

The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Opened the Curtains on the World’s Next Economic Model When the wealthiest country in the world is unable to produce basic medical gear to cope with a rampaging pandemic, it is dealing with a strategic vulnerability by depending on multinational supply chains to produce manufactured goods. Absent sufficient redundancies and physical reserves of resources, “just-in-time” lean supply systems can’t cope with sudden disruptions. The global pandemic of 2020 is a case in point. This pandemic continues to unfold, but it will serve as the D-Day equivalent of a new predominating economic model for the world, and which in many ways was beginning to take shape before COVID-19. At its core, developed and mixed market economies will factor in the health risk and growing military cost of sustaining international supply chains against investing in high-tech production closer to their markets, and increasingly export their goods to the rest of the world. By Marshall Auerback