Daily News Digest October 6, 2020

Daily News Digest Archives

The US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply:  The Iron Heel!

The Trump Administration is Going to Be Pushing/Proiteering Remdesivir When He Gets Out of the Hospital and On the Campaign Trail.:   Trump Has Been Treated With Gilead Sciences Remdesivir In Addition yo Regeneron’s Neutralizing Antibody Cocktail President Donald Trump, who recently tested positive for the coronavirus, has been treated with Gilead Sciences Inc.’s remdesivir in addition to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s experimental neutralizing antibody cocktail. Gilead’s GILD, -1.81%  remdesivir received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in May. It is an antiviral therapy that so far has been proven to reduce recovery times in COVID-19 patients who have been hospitalized with severe cases of the disease. It helps stop the spread of the virus in the body. By Jaimy Lee

Extreme Fires and Floods — We Are at the Global Waming ‘Tipping Point’ If It’s Not Here, Its Near!

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 Deaths 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: Proudly Poll WatchingQuotes 0f the Day:

Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, admitted Wednesday that a vaccine for a new coronavirus might not be affordable for all Americans. “We can’t control that price,” Azar told Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., during a congressional hearing about the novel strain, which has been spreading throughout the world and is widely expected to become a serious public health issue in the United States.  After a wave of criticism from Democrats, Azar walked the comment back the next day, saying that he would ensure public access to a vaccine for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, if one should be developed. But Azar, who served as the top lobbyist for Eli Lilly before becoming president of the drug company’s U.S. operations in 2012 and the secretary of health and human Services in 2018, knows of what he unthinkingly speaks. Exorbitant drug pricing often leaves life-saving treatment out of reach for the poorest Americans. And to the extent that Azar and the other businessmen who make up the majority of the president’s coronavirus task force have any experience with pharmaceuticals, one of the most profitable sectors of the economy, it’s been making money off the system that keeps them out of reach. In the case of Azar, who earned nearly $2 million during his last year at Lilly, that profit came at the expense of the people who needed the drugs, according to a lawsuit filed in 2017. While Azar was leading the pharmaceutical giant, the cost of its drugs went up significantly. In particular, insulin sold by the company more than doubled in price. According to the suit, which also names Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, Eli Lilly engaged in a scheme to artificially inflate the price of its drug, leaving some diabetic people unable to pay the cost and forced to use expired insulin or none at all. Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company has told other publications that the suit has no merit and that it follows the “highest ethical standards.”  For another task force member, the profits could come from the coronavirus itself. Joseph Grogan was a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences before he joined the Trump administration as director of the Domestic Policy Council and led the Drug Pricing and Innovation Work Group. On Wednesday, after Gilead announced that it would be starting two clinical trials of an antiviral drug that could be used to treat Covid-19, the company’s stock price surged. — Cronyism and Conflicts of Interest in Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force

Videos Of the Day:

Continued Covid Disparities In Native Country

Baltimore Teachers: No One Should Die to Reopen Schools

The War On Pot Isn’t Over, Just Ask This Doctor Arrested For His Research

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!

The The Media Monopoly is Opposed to a Free Press!: In 2004, Bagdikian’s revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations — Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) — now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric’s NBC is a close sixthThe Assange Extradition Case is an Unprecedented Attack on Press Freedom – So Why’s he Media Largely Ignoring It? Assange and WikiLeaks did everything journalists should do by finding out important information about US government misdeeds and handing it over to the public The silence of journalists in Britain and the US over the extradition proceedings against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is making them complicit in the criminalisation of newsgathering by the American government.  By Patrick Cockburn With Focus on Assange, Belmarsh Tribunal Puts ‘US War Crimes on Trial’ “It is time to take action,” Progressive International activists say, “and it is time to demand justice” A prominent group of international left-wing activists on Friday put the United States “on trial for its war crimes in the 21st century.” The Belmarsh Tribunal—named after the notorious British prison where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is imprisoned as he faces possible extradition to the U.S.—was convened remotely Friday morning by Progressive International (PI). The activists “put the United States government on trial” for crimes ranging “from atrocities in Iraq to torture at Guantánamo Bay to the CIA’s illegal surveillance program—and draw attention to the extradition case of Julian Assange for revealing them.”  By Brett WilkinsSpace Wars?!:  Military Bases on the Moon: U.S. Plans to Weaponize the Earth’s Satellite In July, Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, cited the U.S. “retreat from principles of cooperation and mutual support” to justify Russia’s refusal to join the latest U.S. space initiative: to build lunar bases. Rogozin was likely referring to the U.S. refusal to renew the Intermediate-range Forces Treaty and its intention to back out of the Open Skies Treaty.  Russia responded by declaring that Venus is a “Russian planet.” The U.S. continues to reject Sino-Russian efforts to strengthen the Outer Space Treaty 1967, to prohibit the weaponization of space. Doing so would interfere with U.S. plans for “full spectrum dominance.” By T.J. Coles

Environment:

If We Don’t Act Now, the Entire US Could Become a “Cancer Alley” People across the country are waking up to structural racism and coping with police brutality and civil unrest while also living through the nightmare of the COVID-19 pandemic. They’re mourning losses and longing for life to get back to normal. But in St. James Parish, Louisiana, where I’m from — a predominantly Black and low-income community nicknamed “Cancer Alley” — racism, brutality, loss and unrest are normal. In fact, a new plastics complex and President Trump’s decision to gut the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) stand to make things even worse. By Sharon Lavigne New ‘Forever Chemicals’ Contaminating the Environment, Regulators Say Efforts in the US to oversee one PFAS compound from chemical company Solvay illustrate challenges officials face Earlier this year, federal and state researchers reported finding a new, potentially dangerous chemical in soil samples from multiple locations in New Jersey. The compound was a form of PFAS, a group of more than 5,000 chemicals that have raised concerns in recent years because of their potential link to learning delays in children and cancer, as well as their tendency to last in the environment for a long time. But the new revelations, reported in the June issue of Science magazine, stoked concerns among water-quality researchers and advocacy groups for other reasons, too. It underscored how easy it is for manufacturers to phase out their use of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) once the substances have been regulated, and replace them with newer, related compounds that researchers know even less about. And it showed how difficult it is for regulators to track and oversee these new compounds. By Ryan FeltonCivil Rights/Black Liberation!

History is Repeating Itself: During The Last Gilded Age The Used Terrorism to Overthrow the Gains of Black Reconstruction. The 1% are Doing the  Same Thing Now to Overthrow the Gains of the Civil Right Movement in Their Drive in Institutionalize the New Jim Crow! :   Police Violence: Institutionalized Terrorism The list of Americans killed by the police this year continues to increase with no end in sight. Many are familiar with the sad stories involving Breonna Taylor, Tyree Davis, Daniel Prude, Rayshard Brooks, Sean Monterrosa and Michael Forest Reinoehl. As of Sept 6, 2020, the police had killed 781 people; Wikipedia offers detailed profiles of many of these killings. By David RosenHarper’s Weekly Cartoons by Thomas Nast Depicting the Plight of African-Americans  During Reconstruction and His View of the “Compromise” of 1877:  Compromise—Indeed!

How did they accomplish this betrayal? The answer is simple —By the Use of Terrorism! — They used police and terroristic Ku Klux Klan violence. These extra-legal activities laid the basis for the overthrow of Black Reconstruction and the institutionalization of legal segregation (Jim Crow) in the former slave states. To enforce Jim Crow, Black people were, for decades, indiscriminately lynched and framed. — The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights Movement

Labor:

Economy:

Work Or Toil In The Pandemic The pandemic has opened up a Pandora’s box about the future of work.  The slump has caused a huge loss of jobs, hours and earnings, particularly for those who are in all sorts of service sectors, like retail, entertainment, leisure, events, food preparation etc and it is driving thousands of small businesses surviving on small margins and with large debt burdens to the wall. But it is more than that.  The slump will and is providing an opportunity for companies, particularly large ones, to do away with substantial parts of their labour force and replace them with machines, robots, home working connectivity and algorithms.  The result is that there will be further concentration of companies in sectors, as larger companies devour the markets of the smaller.  Of course, this is no new phenomenon but is part and parcel of slumps under capitalism. Friedrich Engels detected this process as long ago as in the 1840s in industrial England: “The former lower strata of the middleclass – the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, the retired, the handicraftsmen and peasants – all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which modern industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production”. By Michael Roberts The Rise of The Robots: Robots Million UnitsWorld:

To End Women’s Oppression in India We Must Fight For Socialism! A woman belonging to the lower-caste Dalits died in a Delhi hospital on Tuesday 29 September after being raped and tortured by four men in the Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Public outrage is sweeping the nation. This gruesome and inhuman attack has once again highlighted the barbarity poor and lower-caste women face on a daily basis in India, which is rooted in the rotten capitalist system. By S. Kumarasamy

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

As Covid-19 Infections Increase on Capitol Hill, HHS Secretary Azar Says Public Health Protocols Don’t Apply to President’s Inner Circle  “Someone explain to me how the Trump family’s refusal to wear a mask can be justified by Azar on the grounds that the family is in a ‘protective bubble’ when both Trump and Melania are infected?” Democratic lawmakers were incredulous after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Friday testified following President Donald Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis that the Trump family can’t be expected to take the precautions that public health experts recommend, while also claiming the spread of the coronavirus to more than 7.3 million Americans is a matter of “individual responsibility.”  By Julia Conley