Daily News Digest November 4, 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:

Thomas  Nast: Boss Tweed. “In Counting There Is StrengthQuotes 0f the Day:

Engels argued that capitalism was “squandering” the world’s natural resources, including fossil fuels.63 He indicated that urban pollution, desertification, deforestation, exhaustion of the soil, and (regional) climate change were all the result of unplanned, uncontrolled, destructive forms of production, most evident in the capitalist commodity economy. In line with Marx, and Liebig, he pointed to London’s enormous sewage problem as a manifestation of the metabolic rift, which removed the nutrients from the soil and shipped them one-way to the overcrowded cities where they became a source of pollution.64 He underscored the class basis of the spread of the periodic epidemics of smallpox, cholera, typhus, typhoid, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, whooping cough, and other contagious diseases that were affecting the environmental conditions of the working class, along with poor nutrition, overwork, exposure to toxics at work, and workplace injuries of all kinds. He highlighted, based on the new science of thermodynamics, that historical ecological change was irreversible and that humanity’s own survival was ultimately in question.65 In terms of the current relations of production and the environment, he wrote of a society faced with ruin or revolution. The social murder of workers in urban environments and the famines in colonial Ireland and India were seen as indications of the extreme exploitation, ecological degradation, and even wholesale extermination of populations just below the surface of capitalist society. — Engels’s Dialectics of Nature in the Anthropocene

Videos of the Day:

Financialization and Deindustrialization – Michael Hudson Trump’s policies have not reversed the fundamental forces that gutted industrial jobs under both parties, says Michael Hudson on theAnalysis.news podcast with Paul Jay.

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!

Assange and the Empire There is no need to inform the conscious world that the United States is applying all its power and influence to extradite Julian Assange from England in order to put him on trial in America.  The case against him is based on his having committed journalism in publishing leaked secret government information on Wikileaks.  While it is comprised of multiple charges, crafted with cynicism and malice in order to convict and imprison him for life, not one of them has any legal merit. By Paul Edwards

Environment:

Dumping Fukushima’s Water into the Ocean. . . Seriously? Dumping Fukushima’s Water into the Ocean. . .Seriously? For nearly a decade the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been streaming radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. As it happens, TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) struggles to control it. Yet, the bulk of the radioactive water is stored in more than 1,000 water tanks. Assuredly, Japan’s government has made an informal decision to dump Fukushima Daiichi’s radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. A formal announcement could come as early as this year. Currently, 1.2 million tonnes of radioactive water is stored.  The problem: TEPCO is running out of storage space. Government of Japan’s solution: Dump it into the Pacific Ocean. Third-party expert solutions: Build more storage tanks. Environmental groups insist there is no reason why additional storage tanks cannot be constructed outside the perimeter of the plant. They accuse the government of seeking the cheapest and quickest solution to the problem. All along, authorities have promised the site will be safe in 40 years. Really, only 40 years! According to IAEA’s Director General Grossi, who visited Fukushima in February 2020, dumping radioactive water that is mainly contaminated with tritium meets global standards of practice. (Source: Michael Jacob in Tokyo, What! Is Japan Really Planning to Dump Radioactive Water From Fukushima Into the Ocean? Sweden-Science-Innovation, June 10, 2020)  By Robert HunzikerFukushima: Detecting Radiation at Japan’s 2021 Olympic Venues Fairewinds ongoing scientific research with Dr. Marco Kaltofen of WPI has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in the Journal of Environmental Engineering Science. As soon as the Journal of Environmental Engineering Science has an online preprint link available, Fairewinds will release details and a link to the publication. By Maggie GundersenPhil Knight: Yellowstone: Paradise Lost? , , ,The real Yellowstone region has its own border conflicts and troubles. Here in the real world, we are dealing with: An onslaught of development coupled with a massive real estate boom in nearly every city and town in the region

  • An increasing divide between haves and have nots

  • Wrangling over preservation vs. development of public lands

  • Chronic Wasting Disease in elk and deer and moose

  • Conflicts between expanding populations of grizzly bears and people, especially now, during hunting season

  • Ever-increasing pressure on fragile national forest lands from recreationists with lots of large toys – mountain bikes, side by sides, motorcycles, snowmobiles, four wheelers, big trucks and campers

  • Right-wing militias strutting around with guns and flying Trump flags from their huge noisy trucks, turning western towns into cesspools of hatred and conflict

  • Agencies like the US Forest Service and National Park Service underfunded and pressured to perform

  • Climate change and megafires breathing down our necks

  • Mandates from the federal government to log and drill and mine our last unprotected wildlands

  • New 20 year national forest plans across the Northern Rockies rolling out a business as usual, get the cut out management strategy.

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

People of Color More Likely to Live Without Piped water in Richest US Cities Study finds more than 1.1m people live in homes without indoor plumbing, with largest number of homes in New York and Los Angeles People of color in some of America’s wealthiest cities are significantly more likely to live in houses without indoor plumbing essential for running water, new research reveals. Clean, safe, affordable water is essential for human health and economic survival. Yet access to running water is not universal in the United States, ostensibly the richest country in the world. By Nina LakhaniBlack Agenda Radio for Week of November 2, 2020 With Margaret Kimberley and Glen FordAnti-Queerness in Africa is Complicated Thirty African countries have laws against homosexuality, but debate still rages over whether homophobia is endemic to Africa or a European import. “Leftover colonial laws” against queerness are only partially responsible, said Wumpini Fatimata Mohammed, a professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of Georgia and author of the article, “Deconstructing homosexuality in Ghana.” In societies that were already homophobic before colonization, said Ms Mohammed, “these colonial laws worked in tandem with homophobic societal norms.” American evangelicals also contribute to anti-queerness in Africa.

Anti-Black Racism is Everywhere in the Americas Anti-Black racism is not limited to the US, said Jomaira Salas, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Rutgers University and author of an article on Black Latina girls. “There’s anti-Black racism in the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Colombia, said Salas. Young Black Latinex people “experience it before they get to the United States, and also after. But they may not have the language that exists here to describe” it.

Police “Reform” = Counterinsurgency Attempts to “reform” the police through body cameras, so-called “community” policing and other such measures “all presume the continued presence of police” in oppressed communities, said Dylan Rodriguez, a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of California at Riverside. Reformists “want to trap and contain the political and social imagination of the people who are actually and politically engaged in uprising,” said Rodriguez, author of “White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logics of Genocide.”

Mumia on 2020 Elections The polls were wrong in 2016, and they may be wrong this year, too, said Mumia Abu Jamal, the nation’s best known political prisoner, in an essay for Prison Radio.  “Given the speed and power of social media, anything can happen in the blink of an eye,” said Abu Jamal. Plus, “It ain’t the voting that matters; it’s the counting.”

Labor:

Economy:

Michael Roberts: The Us Economy – Some Facts As we await the result of the US presidential election, here are some facts about the US economy within a world context.

  • Share of world GDP The US still has the largest in constant dollar terms.  Although the share has declined, the US share is larger than the rest of the G7 combined.  But China has rocketed up to over 16%, leaving India in its tracks.

  • GDP per capita growth rate 1980-2020 The US real GDP per person growth rate has averaged less than 3% a year and has been slowing consistently, while China’s has averaged around three times as much.

  • Share of world manufacturing output At the start of the 1980s, US manufacturing had more than 25% of world output, with Japan at 11% and Germany 7%.  China was nowhere. By 2017, the US share had slipped to about 18%, with both Japan and Germany below 10%.  China had rocketed to over 25%.

  • Share of world exports Life expectancyIn 2019, China overtook the US with nearly an 11% share while the US share slipped to 10%

  • Life expectancy By 2019, the US had dropped to 43 in the rankings with 78.5 years and China was catching up at 76.7 years.

  • Inequality of income and wealt Of the G7 economies, the US has the most unequal distribution of both personal wealth and incomes.

  • Military expenditure The US spends three times as much on military expenditure than China and more than the rest of the world put together!

  • Carbon emissions per head The US is the world leader in carbon emissions per person, followed by the energy and minerals exporters, Australia and Canada.  China’s emissions per head are less than half that of the US.

  • Robots per capita Korea leads the world in robot density with more than three times the number per 10,000 employees than the US.  The US lags behind Germany, Japan and Sweden.  China is catching up fast and will surpass the US next year.

  • Homicide rate The US has the highest homicide rate among the G7 economies, with nearly five times the average G7 rate and nine times the rate in China.

World:

Brazilian Armed Forces Conduct Unprecedented Military Exercises Amid US Threats to Venezuela In recent months, Brazil has staged two unprecedented joint military exercises of its Armed Forces amid escalating US threats against the Maduro government in Venezuela. Since coming to power at the beginning of last year, the Brazilian government of fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro has aligned itself with the US regime-change operation in Venezuela, turning Brazil into one of the first countries to recognize the US puppet Juan Guaidó as “interim president.” By Gabriel LemosVienna: Terror Amidst a Rising Humanitarian Crisis  At 8pm on Monday, gunmen armed with assault rifles opened fire on the streets of Vienna. So far there are reports of four deaths and 15 wounded, of which seven are in a critical condition. Starting in Seitenstettengasse, the attackers carried out shootings at six different places in the inner district of the city. In addition to the civilian casualties, one of the attackers has been shot by police forces. An unknown number of other terrorists have, for now, managed to escape into the city. This is the first major terrorist attack in Austria in 45 years By Emmanuel Tomaselli

Britain: Free School Meals and the Tories – The Nasty Party Strikes Again In voting against free school meals, the Tories have once again shown that they are the ‘Nasty Party’ – callously putting profits before people. To end child poverty, Labour must fight for socialist policies: for the many, not… Last week, on 21 October, in a stunning display of cruelty, the Conservative majority united to oppose a motion put forward by Labour, calling for the provision of free school meals to disadvantaged pupils over the Christmas holidays. The impact of this act of callousness on the behalf of the Tories (who exclusively opposed the bill) has been huge. Boris Johnson’s approval ratings, already low before this scandal, now sit at a shocking minus 19 across the UK. Even in England, Nicola Sturgeon is now more popular than Johnson, even though her party, the SNP, don’t even run for English seats!  By Chris Hesketh-Baxter and Lars Ohrvik-StottEducation, 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