Daily News Digest August 5, 2020

Daily News Digest Archives

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! And Now the Total Caronavirs Deaths in the United  States are Over 20%  of the Total Death in the Entire World!

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat 4 Years 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! By Roland SheppardLaura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the 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:

Signe Wilkinson: Running Away With The Election

 Quotes of the Day:

We may see a power grab creating something much like feudalism. In the United States it’s suggested that for student loans, or for loans to wage-earners collateralized by the debtor promising to pay 10%, 20%, 25% of everything they earn for the rest of their life. This is like a tax, but it’s really a form of debt peonage. It’s a payment much like medieval serfs had to turn over their economic surplus to their landlords. Well, now the wage-earners, small business and even big business in America and in Europe are going to have to turn over even more of their earnings to the financial sector in order to survive.  This may seem a crazy way to organize society, but it is how Western civilization has been structured on the basis of protecting creditor rights, not debtor solvency and overall social balance and continuity. Unlike non-Western societies, unlike even China today, credit in Europe and America is privatized. The supply of credit, like money, should be a public utility. Just like public health should be a public utility. Just like roads and communication should be a public utility. Europe has let it be privatized in an aggressive, predatory way.  As long as governments subordinate the will of democratic voters to whatever the central banks tell you, you are not a democracy. — Michael Hudson, Remarks from the Systematic Crises Triggered the Current Pandemic Teleconference

 Videos of the Day:

Public Health vs. Politics: White House Scrapped Nationwide COVID-19 Testing Plan to Hurt Blue States

“It’s Basically a Death Sentence”: Hunger Strikers Demand Release as Virus Surges in ICE Jails

Militarized BORTAC Border Patrol Raids & Ransacks Medical Camp on U.S. Border, Arrests 30 Migrants

“Release Them All”: Calls Grow to Stop Jailing Immigrants as Transfers & Deportations Spread COVID

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 Reublicrats 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.

Another Hiroshima is Coming…Unless We Stop It Now When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. By John PilgerUnsung Heroes of Los Alamos: Rethinking Manhattan Project Spies and the Cold War Instead of sharing the bomb with the USSR, which, remember, was America’s ally in World War II, and then working for its being banned, the US began producing dozens and eventually hundreds of Nagasaki-sized atom bombs, moving quickly from hand-made devices to mass produced ones. The US also quickly started pursuing the development of a vastly more powerful bomb — the thermonuclear Hydrogen bomb — a weapon that theoretically has no limits to how great its destructive power could be. By Dave Lindorff

Congressional Republicans Use COVID Relief as a Pawn in Fight for Power “April is the cruelest month,” T.S. Eliot wrote. He was right about last April, but if the numbers hold — and alas, there is no reason to think they won’t — the August before us promises to leave the cruelty of springtime in deep, dark shade. At the close of July, worldwide COVID-19 infections surpassed 18 million cases. The World Health Organization reports the number of new infections is doubling every six weeks. Here in the U.S., where our government’s main line of defense against the pandemic has been to wish it would go away, the number of total cases approaches 5 million people, far and away the most in the world. Nearly 2 million new cases were recorded here last month alone, and the number of dead has surpassed 154,000 souls. By William Rivers PittArthur Camins: Beware the “Me-First” Pandemic Arthur Camins, retired science educator, warns that the coronavirus pandemic is rivaled by an equally harmful pandemic of selfishness.He begins: Deadly as it is, the uncontrolled spread of Covid-19 in the United States is but a part of a broader, more devastating phenomenon: the be-out-for-yourself-pandemic. The readily available antidote is organizing for mutual benefit, but that medicine has been intentionally kept off the public market. Now, people are marching for it in the streets. The virus lurked in our culture in partial dormancy at least since defeat of resistance to New Deal legislation. It reemerged in plain sight with the election of Ronald Reagan, the rise of ultra-conservative think tanks and foundations, and Republican dominance in local and state government. Be-out-for-yourselfism reached pandemic proportions with Trump’s victory. It has perniciously infected much of our daily lives, reeking death and destruction in its path. We are suffering from rampant selfishness sepsis. The pathogen spreads by promulgation of a three-pronged anti-government, anti-tax, anti-regulation ideology. Racism is its nourishment. He goes on to explain why this ideology undermines our ability to react wisely to the coronavirus, which requires cooperation and common purpose. By Diane Ravitch

Environment:

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

Black Agenda Radio for Week of August 3, 2020 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford

Environment:

Rising Temperatures Will Cause More Deaths Than All Infectious Diseases – Study Poorer, hotter parts of the world will struggle to adapt to unbearable conditions, research finds The growing but largely unrecognized death toll from rising global temperatures will come close to eclipsing the current number of deaths from all the infectious diseases combined if planet-heating emissions are not constrained, a major new study has found. By Oliver Milman Developers v Durrell: the Battle Over Corfu’s ‘Jewel Of Nature’ Super-rich join naturalists in fight to halt building of luxury resort on biodiverse headland sually, at this time of year, Corfu would have submitted to the soporific rhythms of the relentless summer heat. Instead, anger is in the air and battle lines have been drawn, none more so than in the minds of those determined to protect the island’s last piece of virgin territory – a place of unique biodiversity – from being developed into an “ultra luxury” resort. The stakes couldn’t be higher. On the one side are campaigners, most visibly Lee Durrell, widow of the British naturalist Gerald, whose portrayal of Corfu in My Family and Other Animals played no small part in evoking the Ionian isle’s charms and beauty – and ultimately bringing tourism to its shores. By Helena Smith Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

There is no democracy in the United States! — Just democracy for the 1%!  When the order in the United States is economic and social inequality. The slogan ‘Law and Order’ means the maintenance of that order— Rich 1% First and the poorest of the 99% last!. Real democracy means that we all share the wealth equally! —Roland Sheppard

Labor:

Why the Idea of Jobless Benefits Scares the Conservative Mind When Congress passed the CARES Act earlier this year, lawmakers gave some low-wage Americans who lost their jobs an income they’ve been demanding for years: $600 a week, which works out to $15 an hour for a 40-hour workweek. Because the federal minimum wage is less than half that rate—stuck there due to the intransigence of conservatives waging a class war against the poor—the coronavirus pandemic ironically gave the bottom rung of the American workforce a taste of what they could have had all along. So popular was this $600 in jobless benefits that even some Republicans who had voted against that provision in the CARES Act boasted about it to their constituents and failed to mention that like most of their GOP colleagues, they had initially opposed the provision. By Sonali Kolhatkar

The 1 Percent’s Attack on Unemployment Benefits is a Sign of Our Broken Democracy Members of the One Percent, such as former restaurateur Andrew Puzder, have urged Congress to not renew the $600 a week unemployment supplement Congress enacted as part of the CARES Act. They argue, in Puzder’s words, that “this $600 per week bonus is discouraging work” for low-wage earners. No one receiving unemployment benefits will make themselves rich on unemployment. The $600 is not a huge incentive to stay home.  Even in the states with higher base benefits, the minimum unemployment benefits plus the supplement, leave unemployed people earning less than a living wage far below the U.S. median income. By Adam Shah

Economy:

Memo to Biden: Cut Your Ties to Larry SummersDavid Sirota has read the collective mind of progressives when it comes to Presidential candidate Joe Biden. On August 1 Sirota Tweeted: “Give us an anti-Wall Street Treasury Secretary and AG [Attorney General], and you can have your sh*tty VP…On the other hand, give us a sh*tty Treasury Secretary and AG and try to paper it over with a good VP, and you’ve basically given everyone the big middle finger.” There is growing concern about Biden among progressives because he has made the decidedly ill-advised move of using the infamous Larry Summers as an advisor. Summers is the man who played an outsized role in the creation of Frankenbanks on Wall Street in 1999 with his push to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act and the deregulation of derivatives in 2000 as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

Escalating State Repression and Covid-19: Their Impact on the Poor in Kenya Soon after Kenya experienced its first Covid-19 case on 13 March 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta invoked the Public Order Act to activate a series of tough measures, including wearing face masks at all times, the closure of schools and all ‘non-essential’ businesses, and a dusk till dawn curfew. Reports of police brutalities quickly followed. Even before the start of the curfew on 27 March, police in downtown Nairobi reportedly whipped and kicked people on the street, and in Embakasi, forced people walking home from work to kneel before them. By Kenneth Good

Flight of former King Juan Carlos: the Spanish monarchy hangs by a thread On Sunday 2 August, former King Juan Carlos I left Spain for a sumptuous retirement in the Dominican Republic. This drastic move was avowedly motivated by an avalanche of revelations about the outrageous corruption and criminality in which he had been involved for decades. Juan Carlos’ flight was concocted with the current King Felipe VI and the government, led by the PSOE Social Democrats. By Arturo RodríguezNew Zealand: 2020 budget, COVID-19 elimination and the new normal New Zealand has apparently beaten the COVID-19 pandemic and the Labour-led government is the most popular in history. However, the reformists in charge still think they can manage capitalism indefinitely. Instead, they should be laying the ground for socialist policies. Sione Ma’u

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 to be,  a democracy and part of the democratic way. — Roland Sheppard, Let the People  Vote on HealthcareDaily News Digest July 31, 2020

Schools and the Decade-Long Fed Wall Street Loan Pandemic!

If the Federal Reserve Had Pumped More than $6 Trillion For Health, Education, And Welfare, Instead of to Wall Street in the Recent Six Week Period, The Schools Would Have Been Able to Open and We Could Have Begun to Control The Coronavirus Pandemic! — Another Demonstration, Of The Fact, That Capitalitalism Is  Has Outlived Its’ Time — That Preserving Profits Come Before Preserving Humanity!”

Recently, I  read a milk toast article at Truthout: If the Fed Can Bail Out Wall Street, It Can Rescue Public Education. It ignored that the Wall Street Bank Loans are Cut Rate ‘Loans’.  Since the 20092010  Collapse, They are now of the Bargain Basement Varity — 0.09% interest! See Fred  Effective Federal Funds Rate (FF) Chart

In fact, The Fed has been funding the 1% Wall Street Banks these ‘loans’ have to the tune of 10s of $trillions beginning with the 2008-2009 collapse. If capitalism was really democratic,  the 99% would and could have been bailedout!

The following excerpts also prove my assertion That Capitalitalism  Has Outlived Its’ Time — That Preserving Profits Come Before Preserving Humanity!”.

“As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world…No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president.” (See chart below.)But the GAO audit did not include all of the Fed’s emergency programs. When the Levy Economics Institute did its own tally, using the Fed’s own transaction data, the total assistance came to $29 trillion. But the GAO audit did not include all of the Fed’s emergency programs. When the Levy Economics Institute did its own tally, using the Fed’s own transaction data, the total assistance came to $29 trillion. We learned from the GAO audit that the Primary Dealer Credit Facility was the largest Wall Street bailout program during the financial crisis. It issued 1,376 loans that cumulatively totaled $8.95 trillion. Then, as now, the Fed attempted to sell the program as helping American workers and businesses. It did no such thing. It went to bail out the bad bets made by the trading and derivative desks at the mega Wall Street banks. Of the $8.95 trillion in loans issued by the PDCF, $5.7 trillion, or 64 percent, went to Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch according to the GAO audit. It’s time for Congress to step up to the plate and demand a full accounting from the Fed on behalf of the American people. —  The Fed Has Secreted Away the Transactions of Three of Its Emergency Lending Programs 08/03/20The Federal Reserve is desperately hoping that the pandemic, the coast-to-coast protests and the military generals’ scathing rebuke of the President’s plan to “dominate” grannies and college kids with bayonets and Black Hawk helicopters in the streets would distract the public from its money-feeding tube to Wall Street. — Fed’s Repo Loans to Wall Street Skyrocket by 230 Percent Week Over Week 06/09/20The Fed’s minutes also acknowledge that its most recent actions have tallied up to “roughly $215 billion per day” flowing to trading houses on Wall Street. There were 29 business days between the last Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting and the latest Fed minutes, meaning that approximately $6.23 trillion in cumulative loans to Wall Street’s trading houses had been made in that short span of time.  If the Federal Reserve was looking for a media lockdown on news about the trillions of dollars in cumulative repo loans it has funneled quietly to Wall Street’s trading houses since September 17 of last year, it could not have found a better cloud cover than Donald Trump. First the impeachment proceedings bumped the Fed’s money spigot from newspaper headlines. Then, this past Friday, as the Fed released its December meeting minutes at 2:00 p.m., with its highly anticipated plans to be announced for the future of this vast money giveaway to Wall Street, that news was ignored as the media. If the Federal Reserve was looking for a media lockdown on news about the trillions of dollars in cumulative repo loans it has funneled quietly to Wall Street’s trading houses since September 17 of last year, it could not have found a better cloud cover than Donald Trump. First the impeachment proceedings bumped the Fed’s money spigot from newspaper headlines. Then, this past Friday, as the Fed released its December meeting minutes at 2:00 p.m., with its highly anticipated plans to be announced for the future of this vast money giveaway to Wall Street, that news was ignored as the media. — Federal Reserve Admits It Pumped More than $6 Trillion to Wall Street in Recent Six Week Period 01/06/20