Daily News Digest August 12, 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:

Republicrat Voting GuideThe Endless American Horror: Lynching and Police Quotes of the Day:

 The last few months have allowed us all to bear witness to a disturbing and unavoidable reality: Lynching is not a relic of a Jim Crow past; it is in fact a modern form of racial terror. The spectacular brutality once preserved and disseminated through photography and corporeal souvenirs is now captured by cell phones and body cameras, allowing society to witness racial terror in all of its modern forms. The recent asphyxiating tide of murders — the aural and visual replaying of death — has left us all gasping for breath. Still writhing from the suffocating reality of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder in Georgia, we were forced to confront the indescribable pain of witnessing George Floyd’s murder in Minnesota. And yet the term “murder” somehow fails to convey the extraordinary cruelty of their killings. Elijah McClain, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd were all lynched.     Each case presents a set of facts comparable to the history of lynching in the U.S. as defined by the Tuskegee Institute: a killing that occurs without due process, committed by “three or more persons, done under the pretext of service to justice, race, or tradition.” Lynching victims in the first decades following the Civil War were often white. Their alleged crimes typically involved horse theft, cattle theft or murder. Furthermore, their bodies were frequently found hanging from trees in the hours or days following their deaths, and the parties that lynched them, if seen, were often masked. By stark contrast, after Reconstruction, the lynching of Black bodies was done with a visibility, impunity and fanfare that would come to define a new lynching narrative.     Once a strictly punitive and largely clandestine form of extra-legal punishment, lynching evolved into a wholly racialized, publicly viewed, well-attended, frequently commercialized exhibition of mob violence. The lynching victim was now typically Black, and a mob’s fear of judicial retribution for its murderous efforts nearly disappeared. In the process, the concept of crime shifted. This new lynching narrative punished the crime of Black existence rather than a specific criminal act. Black lives, it said, did not matter. — Lynching Is Not a Relic of a Jim Crow Past. It’s a Modern Form of Racial Terror.

 Videos of the Day:

AOC Says Democratic Party Is ‘Center-Conservative Party,’ Adds ‘We Don’t Have a Left Party’ in The U.S.

Lebanese Gov’t Faces Collapse Amid Rage-Filled Protests over Blast, Economic Crisis & Corruption

Millions Facing Eviction and Joblessness Get No Immediate Help from Trump’s New Executive Orders

Lebanon’s Gov’t Resigns Amid Public Rage over Beirut Blast, But Protesters Demand Structural Change

How the Pandemic Defeated America: Ed Yong on How COVID-19 Humiliated Planet’s Most Powerful Nation

Incarceration is Now a Death Sentence: “Prisons Are Not Fit for Human Occupation”: San Quentin Prisoners Speak Out as Virus Deaths Reach 25

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. Rax the Rich!  — They Can Afford To Pay!

Why Would Anyone Argue Against Billionaires Paying More Tax? Just See Useful Idiot Theory There is a school in my Manhattan neighbourhood that has been giving out free meals during the pandemic – and every time I walk past it the line seems longer. A community fridge recently popped up a couple of blocks away; it’s one of many that activists have installed across the city to combat growing food insecurity. Just around the corner there’s a young woman who has become a new fixture among the beggars I usually see in the area. She lost her job because of Covid, her cardboard sign says; she can’t pay her rent. It’s not all doom and gloom. While the poor are getting poorer, the 1% are making out like bandits. America’s 600-plus billionaires saw their wealth grow by more than $700bn (£525bn) in the first few months of the pandemic, according to an analysis by the progressive non-profit Americans for Tax Fairness. During the same period, more than 50 million American workers lost their jobs. The US government has printed trillions in economic relief, but many of the forgivable emergency loans earmarked for small businesses seem to have been nabbed by the super-rich. My local independent coffee shop has closed down, but Kanye West received a partially forgivable loan worth at least $2m. It is becoming increasingly clear that the US is experiencing one of the biggest wealth transfers in history. By Arwa MahdawiChris Hedges: America’s Death March Regardless of the outcome, the election will not stop the rise of hypernationalism, crisis cults and other signs of an empire’s The terminal decline of the United States will not be solved by elections. The political rot and depravity will continue to eat away at the soul of the nation, spawning what anthropologists call crisis cults — movements led by demagogues that prey on an unbearable psychological and financial distress. These crisis cults, already well established among followers of the Christian Right and Donald Trump, peddle magical thinking and an infantilism that promises — in exchange for all autonomy — prosperity, a return to a mythical past, order and security. The dark yearnings among the white working class for vengeance and moral renewal through violence, the unchecked greed and corruption of the corporate oligarchs and billionaires who manage our failed democracy, which has already instituted wholesale government surveillance and revoked most civil liberties, are part of the twisted pathologies that infect all civilizations sputtering towards oblivion.Death by a Thousand Cuts for One of America’s Last Great Institutions Mail carriers tell the story of how the destruction of the U.S. Postal Service would mean the end of a connected country. Casey Taylor

USA: the Portland protests and Trump’s “gestapo” For weeks on end, the George Floyd protests against racism and police violence shook America. Support for the movement overflowed all demographic boundaries as an estimated 10% of all American adults—some 25 million people—participated in at least one protest. However, although mass gatherings have continued unabated in some cities, in most of the country the torrential river has inevitably receded into its banks as it was deprived of a revolutionary outlet—for now. By Ari Saffran and John PetersonTrump Attacks Protesting Athletes, Pushes For Football Despite Coronavirus Concerns The NFL and college leagues are working to figure out if a football season can take place this fall. By Hayley Miller

#SaveThe600 Coalition Slams Trump Executive Action as ‘False Promise’ to Laid-Off Workers and Desperate Families “It is likely illegal, unworkable, won’t get money to anyone quickly or for long, and is deeply inequitable.” By Jake Johnson

Environment:

‘As The Tundra Burns, We Cannot Afford Climate Silence’: A Letter From The Arctic ‘As the tundra burns, we cannot afford climate silence’: a letter from the Arctic . . . The northern hemisphere is covered by 9m sq miles of permafrost. This solid ground, and all the organic material it contains, is one of the largest greenhouse gas stores on the planet. Frozen, it poses little threat to the 4 million people that call the Arctic home, or to the 7.8 billion of us that call Earth home. But defrosted by rising temperatures, thawing permafrost poses a planetary risk. When the organic material begins to decompose, permafrost thaw can destabilize major infrastructuredischarge mercury levels dangerous to human health and release billions of metric tons of carbon. We witnessed small-scale damage in Russia that summer through slumped landscapes and uneven roads. At the time, the larger, more dramatic changes were predicted to unfold over the course of this century. Four years later, those changes are happening much sooner than scientists predicted. The carbon-laden cold of the Arctic’s permafrost is leaking into Earth’s atmosphere, and we are not ready for the consequences. By Victoria Herrmann Book Review:  People’s Power: Reclaiming the Energy Commons In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution Lenin said that Communism would be “Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.” Lenin outlined how industrial development wasn’t possible without electrification, but the primary emphasis on Soviet power arose from his view of Communism as being a society were Soviets, workers’ councils based on mass participatory democracy, would control and run the means of production. I was reminded of Lenin’s quote on several occasions while reading Ashley Dawson’s latest book People’s Power. Dawson argues that, given the great environmental crises we face, in particular climate change, the “great task” of our time is to end the fossil fuel infrastructure at the heart of capitalist society. But, he shows, it is not enough to do this simply through a transition to renewable energy. This will be insufficient “to avert climate chaos.” “Unless we dismantle and replace a capitalist system based on extreme extraction, inexorable growth, mounting inequalities, militarism and colonialism, our headlong rush toward extinction will continue. We need not just decarbonization, but global system change.” A little later he continues: “The struggle for energy transition is thus a fight for public and collective control of energy resources, and for democratic control of the state power that shapes the development of such resources. It is, in sum, a struggle for energy democracy.” No wonder I found myself reaching for that Lenin quote. Reviewed by Martin EmpsonCivil Rights/Black Liberation:

Bendib: Reparations

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 SheppardBlack Agenda Radio for Week of August 10, 2020 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford

  • Insurance Industry Vital to US Slavery  Insuring one’s slave “is actually a better financial decision than insuring other kinds of property,” said Dr Michael Ralph, director of Africana Studies at New York University, Human beings “are the only kind of property that accrues value over time based on skills learned in life,” said Ralph, who wrote an article on the insurance industry’s role in US slavery.

  • Black Brazilians Hit Hard by Covid-19 Brazil and the US lead the world in coronavirus fatalities, with Blacks in both countries dying disproportionately, said Jaime Amparo Alves

  • “Black August” Honors Captives of Armed Struggle “Black August started in San Quentin to highlight the armed struggle,” said Jihad Abdulmumit,chairperson of the Jericho Movement, which advocates for political prisoners. “These struggle in the past are reflective of the conditions that protesters in the streets are still fighting,” said Abdulmumit, a former Black Panther who spent 23 years as a political prisoner.

Labor:

Economy:

The $10 Trillion Robber Barons of High Finance:

Bombshell Report: Fed Is Aware that Big Banks Are Rigging their Stress Tests and Letting Them Get Away with It On January 31 of this year, researchers for the Federal Reserve released a study that showed that the largest banks operating in the U.S. have been gaming their stress test results by intentionally dropping their exposure to over-the-counter derivatives in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter data is the information used by the Federal Reserve to determine surcharges on capital for Global Systemically Important Banks, or G-SIBs. The report, “How Do U.S. Global Systemically Important Banks Lower Their Capital Surcharges?,” was written by Jared Berry, Akber Khan, and Marcelo Rezende. We decided to evaluate this claim for ourselves, using the quarterly derivative reports provided by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the regulator of national banks. The data was appalling. The largest Wall Street banks not only dropped their level of derivatives by trillions of dollars in the fourth quarter, but they restored those derivatives by the end of the following first quarter. (See first OCC chart below which shows the largest of the top 25 banks by derivative exposure.) By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

World:

How Indigenous Peoples are Using Ancestral Organizing Practices to Fight Mining Corporations and Covid-19 As the effects of Covid-19 continue to be felt unequally around the globe, Indigenous peoples, such as the Xinka in Guatemala, are finding ways to organize and care for each other, while firmly rooting their response in ancestral practices that have sustained them throughout time. The Xinka people mostly live in southeastern Guatemala, in the municipalities of Santa Rosa, Jalapa, Jutiapa, and Escuintla. Since the time of Spanish colonization, the Xinka have fought to protect their land and culture. Today, they continue asserting their rights to self-determination, to fight for recognition from the Guatemalan government, and to resist transnational mining companies set on extracting large amounts of silver from their territory, which hosts one of the largest-known deposits in the world. By Valerie CroftThe Lebanese revolution topples another government The Lebanese government has resigned under pressure from the masses. This is an inspiring achievement, but the revolution must not stop here. Instead, it should take power into its own hands. By Adam Zeineddine

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 ‘:’, 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

Under Capitalism the 1% Rule! : Why Capitalism is in Constant Conflict With Democracy The capitalist economic system has always had a big problem with politics in societies with universal suffrage. Anticipating that, most capitalists opposed and long resisted extending suffrage beyond the rich who possessed capital. Only mass pressures from below forced repeated extensions of voting rights until universal suffrage was achieved—at least legally. To this day, capitalists develop and apply all sorts of legal and illegal mechanisms to limit and constrain suffrage. Among those committed to conserving capitalism, fear of universal suffrage runs deep. Trump and his Republicans exemplify and act on that fear as the 2020 election looms. By Richard D. Wolff