Daily News Digest October 26, 2020

Daily News Digest Archives

Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 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 future of Humanity Is Now At stake!Laura 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!    For Decades, Blacks Have Been Subjected to The Iron Heel!   Currently, the US Capitalist Class is Divided Over When — Not If, to Apply It to Everyone!

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!

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:

“130,000 – 210,000 Avoidable Covid-19 Deaths – And Counting – In The U.S.”Quotes 0f the Day:

Democratic and Republican Governors are also to blame for in-fighting and vacillating over lockdowns. But, as President, Trump takes the ultimate responsibility for not only refusing to act, but lying and giving the impression that all was well. The early inactions, lies, dithering, and denial set the U.S. on a path to where the nation has 4.2 percent of the world’s population and, by mid-2020, had nearly a quarter of its COVID-related deaths.

In countries and states with far fewer financial resources but community-level thinking, like Kerala in India and Vietnam, which borders China, COVID-related deaths are small by comparison. — How Trump Killed 220,000 Americans: the First Three Months of Covid

Videos of the Day:

Agent Provocateur – Infiltrating Protests and Instigating Riots Throughout HistoryEven though the U.S. Intelligence Reports From January and February Warned About a Likely Pandemic, the Response of Our Anti-Science Government to the Coronavirus Pandemic Has Been a Fiasco!!!! 3/12/30

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!

Trotsky on Fascism In the many articles, essays, and pamphlets Trotsky wrote about Germany in the early ‘30s while exiled on the Turkish island of Prinkipo (gathered together in a 600-page volume, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany, Pathfinder Press), he developed what many consider to be the most comprehensive theory of fascism to date. While the term is used loosely to describe right-wing authoritarianism in general, for Trotsky it denoted an entirely distinct phenomenon arising during the interwar period embodied by Mussolini and Hitler. He felt the German left failed to grasp fascism’s unique character—and were ignoring the need for immediate action. In light of questions surrounding the whole nature of the Trump phenomenon—Trotsky’s writing on the subject may take on a contemporary relevance. Underlying his theory of fascism is the notion that capitalism is in a very advanced stage of decay—has long outlived its revolutionary role–and is incapable of further democratic development, only retrenchment: By Kathy DeaconWe Can Do Better Than Capitalist Formal “Democracy” An article I read shortly after Jacinda Ardern’s re-election in New Zealand noted, with a touch of weariness, that Labour’s victory came after a campaign measured in “weeks.” Folks there ought to count themselves lucky — the United States has endured years of campaigning in what has proved, to the surprise of no one, its nastiest presidential contest in memory. Not to mention that the sclerotic U.S. political system has yet again thrown up two dismal choices, sadly reiterating that the two major parties offer a choice of extreme right (Republican) and center-right (Democrats). And although a common lament is that a third party is needed, one that might actually represent the interests of the majority of United Statesians, very few seriously considering pulling the lever for an alternative party, and the number of those who actually do are likely to be less than usual, given the understandably fervent desire to push Donald Trump out of the White House. By Pete Dolack Another Trump Robber Baron — Postmaster General DeJoy: ‘Epic Level of Corruption’: Postal Service Quietly Awards $5 Million Contract to DeJoy’s Former Company “Reminder that Louis DeJoy still needs to be fired.” The U.S. Postal Service last month quietly awarded a $5 million contract to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s former company XPO Logistics, raising fresh allegations of unethical activity by the Trump megadonor as he continues to come under fire for causing nationwide mail delays that could impact next month’s election. CBS News reported Friday that the Postal Service “will pay XPO $3.3 million annually to manage its route between the two cities, which are roughly 700 miles apart.” By Jake Johnson

Robber Baron Piggies at The Public Trough

10 Years After Iraq War Logs, It’s Impunity for War Criminals, War on Whistleblowers WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning have both paid a tremendous price for revealing U.S. and allied war crimes while the planners and perpetrators face no consequences. On October 22, 2010, WikiLeaks published the Iraq War Logs, a colossal compendium of nearly 400,000 classified U.S. Army field reports revealing what founder Julian Assange called “intimate details” of the war—including war crimes and other serious human rights abuses perpetrated by American and coalition troops, private contractors, and Iraqi government and paramilitary forces. By Brett WilkinsRefuges From US Imposed Wars and Dictators: ‘Cruelty Was Always the Plan’: Pressed on Mass Family Separations in Final Debate, Trump Smears Victims as ‘Bad People’ “The Trump immigration agenda is defined by cruelty: it’s responsible for six children dying in cages, forced women into unnecessary surgeries including sterilizations, continued deportation flights in the middle of a pandemic.” By Jake Johnson

Ronald Goldfarb: America’s Prized Legal System Only Works for the Rich On this week’s “Scheer Intelligence,” the attorney offers a scathing indictment of American law and lawyers in his new book, “The Price of Justice.” The United States legal system, it turns out, is nothing more than an enabler of greed that has turned American society into a depraved playground for the decrepit rich. That’s the devastating lesson found in the pages of attorney and literary agent Ronald Goldfarb’s latest book, The Price of Justice: Money, Morals and Ethical Reform in the Law. In the latest installment of Scheer Intelligence, Goldfarb joins host Robert Scheer to discuss his book, which Scheer describes as “scathing in its indictment of the corrupt legal profession where too often profit smothers commitment to justice in criminal or civil jurisprudence.”  The highly successful, Yale University-educated attorney condemns the many lawyers who earn hefty paychecks from defending pharmaceutical giants or oil companies and hide behind ethical rules that Goldfarb dismisses as myths. To the lifelong attorney, in a judicial system that is at every stage rigged in favor of the 1 percent and that makes a mockery of the right to a fair trial, there is no moral justification for helping companies like Chevron and Purdue Pharma to continue profiteering with impunity.

Nearly 1,000 Homeless People Died in LA in 2020 as 93,000 Homes Sit Vacant In many major metropolitan areas across the United States, there are far more vacant homes than people experiencing homelessness. This is true in New York City, it’s true in the Bay Area, and as our new report shows, it’s true in Los Angeles. Here, there are 93,000 vacant homes compared to just over 41,000 unhoused people By Alex FerrerTerra Graziani & Jacob Woocher

Environment:

Humanity Has Eight Years to Get Climate Crisis Under Control – And Trump’s Plan Won’t Fix It Donald Trump Presented a Fantasy World in Which Fossil Fuels are ‘Very Clean’ But Realpolitik Tempers Biden’s Climate Crisis Stance In Donald Trump’s world – laid bare during Thursday night’s final presidential debate with his Democratic rival Joe Biden in Nashville – fossil fuels are “very clean”, the US has the best air and water despite his administration’s extensive regulatory rollbacks, and the country can fix climate change by planting trees. But according to the harsh realities being laid out by climate scientists, Trump’s world does not exist. Humanity has just eight years to figure out how to get climate change under control before the future starts to look drastically worse – multiple-degree temperature increases, global sea-level rise, and increasingly disastrous wildfires, hurricanes, floods and droughts. Doing so will mean that unless there is a technological miracle, humans will at some point have to stop burning oil, gas and coal. By Emily Holden

A Plastic-Coated World Years ago, I had an opportunity to watch the dissection of a seabird. It was not an academic venture, but one of bearing witness to the devastation that industrial society has brought to countless species on our planet. The bird’s stomach contents revealed human detritus of all manner, plastic lighters, bottle caps, pens, even a spoon. This one creature represented hundreds of millions or more, and species of all kinds. All impacted by the byproducts of our modern consumer capitalist world. It was a surreal sight only later matched in intensity and horror when watching a video of the dissection of a deceased whale whose belly was bursting with tons of plastic bags and other hard synthetic polymers, or the sight of a deformed tortoise whose shell was strangulated throughout its life by a plastic beverage holder. This month another set of photographs highlighted the global crime and catastophe of ecocide. It was by Sri Lankan photographer Tilaxan Tharmapalan, and it won the UK’s Royal Society of Biology photography competition. Tharmapalan captured images of a wild herd of elephants scavenging for food in a rancid landfill near a wildlife sanctuary. Many of the elephants have become ill or died as a result of feeding on plastic and other toxic waste. But it is the ubiquitous nature of plastic, the myth of recycling, and the normalization of its presence in our lives that I wanted to discuss in this essay. By Kenn OrphanCivil Rights/Black Liberation:

50 Cent Says Trump Offered Him $500,000 to Help Win Over Black Voters Rapper 50 Cent claims Donald Trump offered him $500,000 to help win over black voters during the 2016 presidential election. He then recounted his interaction with Trump’s campaign last year. Despite being in serious financial trouble, and declaring bankruptcy in 2015, Jackson said Trump’s offer was “not worth it.” “Before he got elected, they were having issues with the African-American vote. They wanted to pay me $500,000 as part of the campaign just to make an appearance,” Jackson said. “And I was like, ‘Nah, that’s not good money.'””I’m not gonna do that,” he continued. “That’s not worth it.”  By John Lynch

The FBI Has a Long History of Treating Political Dissent as Terrorism Sting operations and the use of informants and agents provocateurs have become a staple of FBI operations. “The bureau’s propensity for the policing of political dissent has remained largely unchallenged.” While terrorism in the U.S. is relatively rare, over the last decade most politically motivated violence has come at the hands of far-right extremists. Despite that reality, the FBI has devoted disproportionate resources to the surveillance of nonviolent civil society groups and protest movements, particularly on the left, using its mandate to protect national security to target scores of individuals posing no threat but opposing government policies and practices. By Alice Speri

Unredacted Fbi Document Sheds New Light on White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement A 2006 Intelligence Assessment Reveals That Officials Had Concerns About the Infiltration of police departments for years but failed to Warn the Public. The fbi has long been concerned about the infiltration of law enforcement by white supremacist groups and its impact on police abuse and tolerance of racism, the unredacted version of a previously circulated document reveals. By Alice SperiLabor:

Labor Prepares for Last-Minute General Strike If Trump Tries to Steal Election The 100,000-member MLK Labor Council, an AFL-CIO regional body of labor groups representing more than 150 unions in the Seattle, Washington, area, passed a resolution Wednesday that calls for a general strike if President Donald Trump does not respect the outcome of the November 3 election. “MLK Labor will call on to City and County governments to pledge to protect the protesters defending democracy and commit to not using police action or curfews to curtail these activities and to use all available resources to stand up against any effort by the Trump administration to steal the election,” the resolution states. “MLK Labor, in collaboration with other labor and progressive forces, will take whatever nonviolent actions are necessary up to and including a general strike to protect our democracy, the Constitution, the law and our nation’s democratic traditions.” By Candice Bernd

Economy:

Goldman Sachs Criminally Charged by Justice Department – and Its Stock Closes Up $2.49 If you needed further proof that crime pays on Wall Street, look at the chart above. Goldman Sachs and its Malaysian subsidiary were criminally charged yesterday by the Justice Department, they admit to the charges, and its stock closed up on the day by $2.49. The U.S. Department of Justice is being played like a fiddle at a tractor meet. Those big white shoe law firms that handle increasingly dirty cases against the mega banks on Wall Street have twice, in a period of just three weeks, managed to get the Justice Department to announce settlements of landmark criminal cases against two of the largest banks on Wall Street on the day of presidential debates when the public and the media are not paying attention to Wall Street. By Pam Martens and Russ Marten

World:

Freezing Cold War: Militaries Move in As Arctic Ice Retreats – Photo Essay US, Russian, Canadian and Chinese Forces are Taking An Active Role in the Polar Region But the Real Threat is the Rapidly Changing Climate The UK, the United States and Canada have been among the countries ramping up their Arctic military exercises, and for the past five years, photographer and film-maker Louie Palu has been taking pictures of soldiers confronting an environment as hostile and deadly as any enemy force. He has photographed a parachute drop into mountainous terrain in Alaska, “through-the-ice” training in a lake in the Northwest Territories, a submarine coming up from under the ice in the Beaufort Sea and igloo-building and radar operations in Nunavut. He saw soldiers suffer frostbite and, during exercises in Finland, even be killed in a vehicle accident, he said. By Alec Luhn School Students in Greece Mobilise Against Right-Wing Government Not long after the beginning of the school year, a movement of school occupations was started by students in Greece. The immediate cause was the fact that the government, despite having six months to prepare for the school year, did not take any serious measure to protect students and teachers from the pandemic. Instead of hiring more teachers, in order to have smaller classrooms, and bringing on additional workers for cleaning and sanitation, the government simply forced the students into classrooms of more than 25-30. Instead of spending money on protecting the health of students, teachers and the public in general, the government is spending billions on expensive weapons, and on subsidies and tax cuts for big businesses and the banks.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

How Trump Killed 220,000 Americans: the First Three Months of Covid In my new book, Capitalism and Coronavirus: How Institutionalized Greed Turned a Crisis into a Catastrophe, I argue that neoliberalism exacerbated COVID-related deaths in six steps, one of which was infecting political thinking and government structures with a for-profit, cost-cutting ideology. By T.J. ColesThe Scourge of Herd Immunity Covid-19 kills, and its kill rate is significantly higher than the flu. Some who recover develop insufficient immunity to prevent getting infected again. Some don’t appear to recover. They are stuck with debilities that last months, maybe longer. And it’s possible that this disease is chronic and lingers in some people, like herpes, a virus that can reactivate – that possibility is unknown. All of these aspects of covid bode poorly for a vaccine. But they are utterly fatal to the notion of herd immunity achieved not through vaccination, as responsible doctors would do, but through letting a population contract the disease. By Eve Ottenberg

Conclusion: “130,000 – 210,000 Avoidable Covid-19 Deaths – And Counting – In The U.S.”  By contrasting the U.S. proportional mortality rate with that of six other high-income countries, this report highlights the stark reality that is the United States’ continued mismanagement of the pandemic response. Particularly, it is the inability or unwillingness of U.S. officials to adapt or improve the federal response over the course of the pandemic that has strongly contributed to the nation’s uniquely high Covid-19 fatality rate.23 The U.S. should have – and could have – done better to protect the nation, and particularly its most vulnerable populations, from a threat that was identified and recognized early in 2020.    The failure of the federal government to (a) create a rigorous national strategy for testing and contact tracing, (b) coordinate data collection and coordination among U.S. states, or (c) recognize the scientific validity of non-pharmaceutical interventions like face coverings and social distancing reflect a deeply inadequate national response when contrasted to other high-income countries. Our comparative analysis estimates that somewhere between 130,000 and 210,000 American deaths to date could have been avoided.The weight of this enormous failure ultimately falls to the leadership at the White House – and among a number of state governments – which consistently undercut the efforts of top officials at the CDC and HHS. Further, there is little evidence to suggest that science-based policies will prevail going forward with Donald Trump as President given his continued attacks on science and government scientists. A pandemic is not a time for a decentralized and combative national response. It requires strong leadership and coordination across states towards a common purpose of defeating the threat with the might of the whole nation. The cases of South Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada, Germany, and France demonstrate that the scope of the crisis and suffering did not need to reach the levels seen in the U.S. By Irwin Redlener, MD; Jeffrey D. Sachs, PhD; Sean Hansen, MPA; Nathaniel Hupert, MD, MPH