Daily News Digest July 20, 2021
We Need a Green Ecosocialist Industrial Revolution! “There is no easy solution to such a tangle of problems, said Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank and author of the landmark Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. “‘The world is confronting a complex set of interwoven challenges,’” said Stern, who did not contribute to the IPCC report. “Unless you tackle them together, you are not going to do very well on any of them.” — Crushing Climate Impacts to Hit Sooner Than Feared: Draft UN Report “Unless you tackle them together, you are not going to do very well on any of them.”
The problem, with that quote, is that it is in the nature of capitalism to compete for profits — not cooperate! Cooperation requires a world that can cooperate! That act for the social good and, in this case, the survival of a habitat for humanity! — an Ecosocialist ociety ‘We are in the midst of a climate emergency and there is no way out without radically changing the way society is organized. If humanity does not free itself from the capitalist drive for ever greater profits and ever-expanding economic growth, rising global temperatures alone will make the planet uninhabitable for humans and millions of other living species. We urgently need to find a collective road to a new way of living that is based on human solidarity and ecological sustainability!’ (See An Ecosocialist Manifesto: For an Egalitarian, Cooperative Road to Ecosocialism!)
Images of the Day:
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!
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:
“These revelations must act as a catalyst for change,” said Csurveillance industry must no longer be afforded a laissez-faire approach from governments with a vested interest in using this technology to commit human rights violations. — Data Leak Exposes Global Surveillance Plot Targeting Journalists and Dissidentsae
Videos of the Day:
“Crime of the Century”: How Big Pharma Fueled the Opioid Crisis That Killed 500,000 and Counting
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!
Billions in Trust Meant for Wildfire Survivors Went to Lawyers and Consultants We look at the corporate profiteering off people who lost their homes and loved ones to recent fires in California, where wildfires continue to rage amid record temperatures. A major investigation by KQED and NPR’s California Newsroom found a special trust set up to distribute $13.5 billion to survivors of wildfires caused by PG&E — the state’s largest utility company — instead spent lavishly on its own administration while distributing almost nothing to the 70,000 fire victims, many of whom still live in trailers. Those who profited while the fire victims waited for help included Wall Street bankers and prestigious law firms. The investigation has prompted a bipartisan call from state lawmakers for the state attorney general to investigate. “A lot of fire survivors are looking at this situation and wondering: Why is this taking so long?” says Lily Jamali, a co-host for KQED’s The California Report and the reporter behind the exposé. “They’re getting really impatient, and they’re very unhappy with the way this process has been run so far.”
The Jeffrey Epstein Cover Up: Pedophilia, Lies, and Videotape Numerous procurers and perpetrators integral to Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell’s crimes against children have not been indicted, and current officials are finding new ways to obfuscate the sordid truth.
Data Leak Exposes Global Surveillance Plot Targeting Journalists and Dissidents Pegasus spyware, sold by private Israeli company NSO Group, “is a weapon of choice for repressive governments seeking to silence journalists, attack activists, and crush dissent,” said Amnesty International’s Agnès Callamard. NSO Group, a private Israeli firm that sells surveillance technology to governments worldwide, insists that its Pegasus spyware is used only to “investigate terrorism and crime.” Leaked data, however, reveals that the company’s hacking tool “has been used to facilitate human rights violations around the world on a massive scale.”
Environment:
Even Noah Would Be Amazed The devastation caused by the rapid massive flooding in the region of Western Europe at the confluence of the borders of Germany, Belgium, France and Luxembourg during the third week of July 2021, when three times the monthly average of rainfall was dumped in only a day or two.
The Future Dystopic Hellscape Is Upon Us The Rise and Fall of the Ultimate Doomsday Prepper Barrett Moor, had ordered 2 million N95 masks, held enough freeze-dried food to feed families hiding from global Armageddon for decades, owned a small arsenal of guns, and fortified a pole barn in which to wait out the collapse of civilization. But he had something no one else could buy: knowledge that the end was coming and that the supply chains would snap; the best hope your family had was holing up in his northern Michigan compound while things fell apart. The price for this service would run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to be paid in installments. Starting in 2007, the former private military executive (who boasts of his special forces connections and a past life as a spy deployed to Australia) offered to friends and associates with enough money a chance at private salvation, claiming that he and his team could whisk them away from jihadis, electromagnetic pulses, pandemics, or any other existential threat when the great, imminent collapse of the United States came to pass. He called this service “Life Continuity.”
Scorched, Parched and Uninsurable: Climate Change Hits Wine Country If any nook of American agriculture has the means to outwit the climate crisis, it is Napa Valley. But so far, vineyards here show the limits of adapting.
Wildfires Are Intensifying. Here’s Why, and What Can Be Done. The danger from flames and smoke is growing as blazes spread more swiftly and unpredictably as a consequence of climate change. Here are answers to five important questions. By nearly every metric, the wildfires in the Western United States are worsening. They are growing larger, spreading faster and reaching higher, scaling mountain elevations that previously were too wet and cool to have supported fires this fierce.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Economy:
China Set To Surpass U.S. As World’s Biggest Economy by 2028, Says Report Key Points:
- “The COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding economic fallout have certainly tipped this rivalry in China’s favour,” the Centre for Economics and Business Research said in an annual report published on Saturday.
- The CEBR said China’s “skilful management of the pandemic”, with its strict early lockdown, and hits to long-term growth in the West meant China’s relative economic performance had improved.
- While the United States was likely to have a strong post-pandemic rebound in 2021, its growth would slow to 1.9% a year between 2022 and 2024, and then to 1.6% after that.
China will overtake the United States to become the world’s biggest economy in 2028, five years earlier than previously estimated due to the contrasting recoveries of the two countries from the Covid-19 pandemic, a think tank said.y.
World:
Nothing is Happening in South Africa (Just Devastation) Huge swathes of South Africa are smouldering from days of rioting and looting. Some 27 million people have been going through the equivalent of a force 10 hurricane, yet judging by the limited news coverage internationally, you wouldn’t think so. It’s not too much of a stretch to say there’s been a near
Riots in South Africa: the poor lash out Over the last few days two of South Africa’s most economically important provinces have been rocked by widespread rioting. Riots in Kwazulu-Natal and Gauteng have been fuelled by anger, desperation and frustration over deepening poverty and the economic impact of COVID-19 restrictions.
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!
Child Care Should Be Universal and Well-Paid — Not Just Affordable Queen Freelove of New Haven, Connecticut, remembers when the pandemic transformed the daycare she ran out of her home, abruptly turning the atmosphere from cozy to clinical: “Things got extremely traumatic for us,” she recalled. She was constantly trying to keep the environment sanitized, keeping a stockpile of masks, wipes, and other equipment, stopping parents in the hallway when they arrived to pick up their kids to take their temperature and give them a squirt of sanitizer — the protocol for “contactless” drop-offs and pick-ups. Keeping parents outside to minimize direct interaction, she said, was “hard, because we look forward to having that great relationship with the parents, and that really helps. But we could no longer have that relationship that we once had, because of the pandemic.”