Daily News Digest July 6, 2021
Images Of the Day:
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!
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!
Quotes of the Day:
The bipartisan infrastructure framework announced last week by President Joe Biden and centrist lawmakers, Gupta explained, “promotes privatization schemes dressed up as ‘public-private partnerships’ and ‘asset recycling,’ which create dangerous, avoidable problems and ignore people’s needs.” “Water privatization has failed communities across the country and must be rejected in all its forms,” Gupta continued. “We need an infrastructure plan that directly invests federal dollars in communities, keeps water systems in public hands, and equitably addresses our nation’s infrastructure crisis for the long haul—not more corporate handouts.” As Food & Water Watch Public Water for All director Mary Grant put it: “This White House-approved infrastructure deal would lead to communities handing over public infrastructure to Wall Street profiteers.” — 200+ Groups to Congress: ‘No Water Privatization’ in Any Infrastructure Deal
If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti-Mask. Vax vs. Anti-vax. Rich vs. poor. Man vs. woman. Cop vs. citizen. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar… and why? — Shera Starrn
Videos of the Day:
Greta Thunberg Condemns Climate Hypocrisy of World ‘Leaders’ At Austrian World Summit, student activist condemns “pretending to wage war against fossil fuels” “You can and will continue to pretend. But nature and physics will not fall for it. Nature and physics are not entertained nor distracted by your theatre. The audience has grown weary. The show is over.”
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 ownershipof the Reublicrats, who profit from war and the war budget, voted 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. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!
The Wealth Inequality Virus Persists In recent decades, during both normal and abnormal times, economic inequality in the United States has been increasing. The Federal Reserve Board recently released its figures on wealth distribution in the United States as of the end of March.[1] The wealthiest 1% are presumably quite happy. Their wealth increased $2.01 trillion to $41.52 trillion in the first three months of 2021, an increase of more than 5%. By Rick Baum
Most Student Debtors Can’t Make Their Payments. It’s Time for Debt Cancelation. new study shows that contrary to myth, the greatest benefit of debt cancelation goes to those with the least wealth. In recent years, many centrist economists have claimed that canceling student debt is economically regressive in that it would disproportionately favor higher-income households. Yet, study after study has revealed that this is not the case. In particular, a new study by the Roosevelt Institute explains that the “regressive myth rests on a series of misleading methodological foundations,” demonstrating that, contrary to these regressive claims, student debt cancelation at each proposed level of cancelation — Biden’s $10,000 proposal, Warren and Schumer’s $50,000 proposal, or the Institute’s own proposal of $75,000 — would see those most economically marginalized benefiting the most. By Rajko Kolundzic
Industry Takes the Money and Runs!: This Company Got a $10 Million PPP Loan, Then Closed Its Plant and Moved Manufacturing Jobs to Mexico Many American businesses received millions in federal pandemic aid intended to protect workers, but exploited loopholes and rule changes to lay off those employees anyway. by Lydia DePillis
Whistleblowers Expose Corruption in EPA Chemical Safety Office PA managers removed information about the risks posed by dozens of chemicals, according to whistleblowers. Managers and career staff in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention tampered with the assessments of dozens of chemicals to make them appear safer, according to four scientists who work at the agency. The whistleblowers, whose jobs involve identifying the potential harms posed by new chemicals, provided The Intercept with detailed evidence of pressure within the agency to minimize or remove evidence of potential adverse effects of the chemicals, including neurological effects, birth defects, and cancer. On several occasions, information about hazards was deleted from agency assessments without informing or seeking the consent of the scientists who authored them. Some of these cases led the EPA to withhold critical information from the public about potentially dangerous chemical exposures. In other cases, the removal of the hazard information or the altering of the scientists’ conclusions in reports paved the way for the use of chemicals, which otherwise would not have been allowed on the market. By Sharon Lerner
Oil and Gas Companies Depend on Tax Subsidies and Job Creation Myths to Survive Janine Jackson: The U.S. socioeconomic status quo that enriches so few and neglects so many can only be sustained by — not to put too fine a point on it — myth: You have to tell the same story so repeatedly and forcefully that people will question what’s before their eyes. There are many myths, of course, but an important one is that if we give corporations tax breaks, they’ll just turn that gift right around and support the community with, first and foremost, jobs. And if you don’t give them that break, well, they’ll just take all those benefits to someplace that will.That narrative is unraveling right now in Texas, where a massive and particularly perverse subsidy program known as Chapter 313 is set to expire, thanks to the work of a range of groups and reporters, particularly at the Houston Chronicle. Here to explain what’s happening and what’s at stake is Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First. He joins us by phone from Maryland. Welcome back to “CounterSpin,” Greg LeRoy. By Janine Jackson
Orkney’s Renewable Energy To Fuel Foreign Needs The tough climate of the North Atlantic is an ideal proving ground for Orkney’s renewable energy boom. A surplus of electricity from renewable sources is a luxury that many communities in a world threatened by climate change might wish for. This is the happy situation of Orkney, a wind-swept archipelago 10 miles (16 kms) north of the Scottish mainland on the edge of the Atlantic. Orkney’s renewable energy, a success at home, may soon be supplying consumers further afield. Using a combination of wind, sun, tides and waves, the islands have been producing more than 100% of the electricity the residents need since 2013, and have now reached 130%. The islanders are exploiting their renewable riches by developing a variety of pioneering schemes. Many are being installed by Scottish engineering companies that hope they will be scaled up and will benefit the rest of Europe, and of the entire world. By Paul Brown
Wall Street is Coming For Your Local Power Utility, And That’s Bad For the Fight Against Climate Change With a heatwave blanketing the American West—including record temperatures as far north as Washington State—climate change is dominating headlines again. Unfortunately, there’s a worrying trend in power utilities that could make it more difficult to do something about our warming climate. A few weeks back, we wrote about how a private equity firm is trying to take over a public water treatment system in New Jersey. (By the way, the Cumberland County Utilities Authority’s executive director just quit, citing “outside forces” meddling in the system’s finances.). Well, that same private equity firm—the Louisiana-based Bernhard Capital Partners—has also been trying to gobble up power utilities. According to an April post on a North Carolina business blog, “Bernhard Capital Partners has been talking with mayors and other city officials in dozens of North Carolina cities over the last year … [about managing] electric, water, and wastewater systems in return for sizable upfront payments.” Such privatization deals (known as “public-private partnerships”) are worrisome for a number of reasons. There is potential for a loss of local control over policy decisions, higher rates for ratepayers (because the investors must make their profit), lower labor standards, and more. By Jeremy Mohler
Humanity Needs to Declare Independence From Fossil Fuels We have the technical know-how as well as the available economic resources to make the transition to a clean energy future. Now it must be done. By C.J. Polychroniou
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
The Heat Wave Shows Climate Change Is a Workers’ Rights Issue The workers laboring outside in this extraordinary heat are on the front lines of the climate crisis. While the 100 million computer workers in this country are more likely to be able to work safely indoors, other urgent and necessary work must continue outdoors, no matter the severity of the weather. The entirety of the working class is (or will be) affected by climate change, but it’s farm workers, letter carriers, construction workers, sanitation workers and other outdoor workers who are unable to escape to air conditioning, and are on the front lines of the environmental crisis. This clarifies the fight against climate change as one not just for environmentalists: Rising temperatures are a workplace safety issue. By Mindy Isser
Economy:
Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present Those who control the world’s commanding economic heights, buttressed by the theories of mainstream economists, presume that capitalism is a self-contained and self-generating system. Nothing could be further from the truth. In this pathbreaking book—winner of the Paul A. Baran-Paul M. Sweezy Memorial Award—radical political economists Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik argue that the accumulation of capital has always required the taking of land, raw materials, and bodies from noncapitalist modes of production. They begin with a thorough debunking of mainstream economics. Then, looking at the history of capitalism, from the beginnings of colonialism half a millennium ago to today’s neoliberal regimes, they discover that, over the long haul, capitalism, in order to exist, must metastasize itself in the practice of imperialism and the immiseration of countless people. By Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik
Michael Roberts Blog: The long depression in the US since the 2008 global financial crisis.
The Long Depression Marxism and the Global Crisis of Capitalism A significant new analysis of the current economic crisis by leading Marxist economist, etting out from an unapologetic Marxist perspective, The Long Depression argues that the global economy remains in the throes of a depression. Making the case that the profitability of capital is too low, and the debt built up before the Great Recession too high, leading radical economist Michael Roberts persuasively presents his case that this depression will persist until the profitability of capital is restored through yet another slump.
The Twilight of Zionism The price was high but the Palestinians had the attention of the world press again in May. It took an eleven-day bombardment of Gaza and assaults of various forms on Palestinians in the West Bank and even within Israel itself. The daily violence visited on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is not news. Otherwise, Israel’s historical mission to be “a light unto the nations”—that is to say, its theft of Palestinian land and its violation of Palestinian rights—proceeds mostly unremarked. Most of the time the only thing that varies with that process is the pace of the thefts and violations. The pace quickens when Israel, like a thief, thinks no one is watching. But now another factor seems to be accelerating these events. Israeli anxiety is growing because anger and disgust around the world with its behavior is growing. At the same time both the power and influence of its only real friend, the US, are waning, and Israel finds itself more isolated. Its new friendship with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco hardly lessens its isolation and in any case is only for show. Israelis are now welcome to vacation in Dubai. Israel remains a Zionist island in a sea of 360 million Arabs who despise it. All of these things suggest that the time is coming when the rest of the world may finally say to Israel enough. By Daniel Beaumont
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 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!
Another Example of Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Was Aware of the Danger of Cornovavirus Threat Over 5 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!
Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, there have been perpetual wars for perpetual peace, this 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!
‘Disgusting’: Pipeline Company Files $15 Billion Claim Against US for Canceled Keystone XL TC Energy Corporation filed for compensation under a free trade provision that allows investors to sue governments if they impede profits. By Kenny Stancil
