Daily News Digest July 25, 2016

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Daily News Digest July 25, 2016

‘Arise Yea Prisoners of Starvation Arise Yea Wretched of the Earth’ — Humanity’s Choice Socilalism or Barbarism!: The world economic order is collapsing and this time there seems no way out: The refugee crisis is paralleled by the savage fallout from a global financial system running out of control By Will HuttonPicture1Images of the Day:

While the 1% are the Evil Spreading Austerity (Famine, Pestilence, Famine, and Death) Like the Mythical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Throughout the World — Occupy Wall Street has been the Only Organization that recognized this fact. It identified the enemy of humanity as the 1% that own and control the wealth! (Unlike the trade union misleaders and the other misleaders of the oppressed who strive to be in ‘Partnership’ with the 1% and Urge Us to Support One of  Their ‘Evil or Lessor Evil Choices’ for More of the Same!)ImageoftheDayThe ‘Lessor Evil’ ‘Choice’ for PalestiniansImageoftheDay2Quotes of the Day:

What is abundantly clear is that Corbyn and his political allies represent an entirely different form of politics than that represented by the Blairites and the other willing servants of the 1% who currently domain the Parliamentary Labour Party. Despite the colossal scale of the media offensive that has been waged against Corbyn in the media, public support for this principled socialist continues to grow by the day, with increasing layers of formally disenfranchised people into the labour movement once again. What is clear, is that corporate lobbyists like Owen Smith and his ilk must be democratically removed from the positions of influence with the Labour Party as a matter of urgency. This is because the undemocratic, zombiesque-Blairite threat to Corbyn’s leadership is still very real.As an immediate step forward, trade unions should call a conference of the workers’ movement and left to come together. The future of socialism is not the preserve of Labour members alone, and we must urgently discuss how the Labour movement can best support the anti-austerity struggle that has been initiated by Corbyn’s revitalising leadership. —UK Labour’s Rightwing Select Corporate Lobbyist to Oppose Jeremy Corbyn

The Labour plotters will not like this one bit, as Skinner has suggested the coup has only increased Jeremy Corbyn’s support. Accordingly, party membership is set to hit 600,000 after a huge boost following the coup’s inception. Momentum, the grassroots campaign group for Corbyn, has reported its membership has doubled to over 12,000 since the coup began, coupled with record-breaking daily donations of £11,000. — Labour legend Dennis Skinner has a message for anti-Corbyn MPs, and they won’t like it one bit

I found nothing on Sustainable America’s web site that incorporated any of the basic principles of the environmental justice movement as stated by Sandra Steingraber her book, Living Downstream (pages 270-271) . . . . At the present time, most advocates of environmental justice are ambivalent toward capitalism. But sooner or later, as the principles of environmental justice come in conflict with the right of “economic feasibility,” they will have to determine which principles are more important. If they continue to struggle for human rights and the survival of the species to cure the environmental illness that is damaging our biosphere, they will have to develop anti-capitalist conclusions. Most of the factual articles written by environmentalists demonstrate that environmental illness is globally intertwined within our society. They do not yet acknowledge that it will take a combined political, social, and economic struggle to reverse the current course and to begin to implement the principles outlined by Sandra Steingraber. Socialist Action advocates that all decisions affecting the world and the survival of humanity be under the democratic social, economic, and political control of the world’s working people. On this “high road,” the production of goods will be done for the needs and survival of humanity instead of for profit. This is what we advocate for a sustainable (socialist) world. — Roland Sheppard 1999, Visions of Sustainable America

Video of the Day:

 Dennis Skinner MP and Richard Burgon MP Discuss Labour Leadership Election

 U.S.

Is There a ‘Lessor Austerity Evil Choice’ or a ‘Choice of Austerity Evils’?:

Austerity —American styleAusterity Exacerbate the Split in the Ruling Class : In short, we are witnessing a serious split in the US ruling class. Both elements recognize capitalism is in crisis and has been for decades. The two main solutions to this crisis as represented by the campaigns will not solve this crisis, because it is essentially unsolvable. Trump’s approach hopes to move the capitalist economy back to a time before World War One, when production of goods was almost as important as the financial manipulation of monies for profit and national economies were the primary and dominant macro economy. Clinton’s approach would continue the trend of the last few decades that has seen capital move beyond national boundaries to create what Lenin called “the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves.” by Ron Jacobs

‘Lessor Evil’ Obama Signs Another Iron Heel Amendment to the Constitutional Right to Assembly:  Obama signs anti-protest Trespass Bill: Only days after clearing Congress, US President Barack Obama signed his name to H.R. 347 on Thursday, officially making it a federal offense to cause a disturbance at certain political events — essentially criminalizing protest in the States. 'LessorEvil'ObamaGood as Goldman: Hillary and Wall Street: Nothing seems to rattle Hillary Clinton quite so much as pointed questions about her personal finances. How much she’s made. How she made it. Where it all came from. From her miraculous adventures in the cattle futures market to the Whitewater real estate scam, many of the most venal Clinton scandals down the decades have involved Hillary’s financial entanglements and the serpentine measures she has taken to conceal them from public scrutiny.  by Jeffrey St. ClairHillaryEvilFrom Silent Majority to White-Hot Rage: Observations from Cleveland: The 2016 Republican National Convention began in the immediate shadow of a highly publicized death spiral involving police and black civilians in Dallas, Falcon Heights, and Baton Rouge. Against this backdrop, the Trump campaign seemed to choose the legacy of Richard Nixon rather than Ronald Reagan as the party’s patron saint. Indeed, 1968 has functioned as myth and symbol throughout the Trump campaign, as they have leaned on racially-charged Nixonian phrases like ‘law and order’, ‘Silent Majority’ and ‘forgotten Americans.’ It might be more accurate to say that Trump has bundled Nixon together with George Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor whose independent campaign for president that year was more openly racist and confrontational, but who with Nixon defined the Republican Party’s white populist turn.  by Joseph E. Lowndes TrumpEvilUS Failing Dismally on Sustainable Development, Despite Vast Wealth: First-of-its-kind report rated 83 countries on UN’s sustainable development goals and found US “seriously far from achievement” by Nika KnightSustaiableDevelopment Environment:

First Half of 2016 Blows Away Temperature Records: 2016 is on track to be the hottest year on record. By Andrea Thompson HottestYearThe Costs and Dangers of Climate Change Are Escalating: The massive economic and health losses that climate change is already causing across the world are detailed in six scientific papers published this week. Perhaps most striking is the warning about large productivity losses already being experienced due to heat stress, which can already be calculated for 43 countries. The paper estimates that in South-East Asia alone “as much as 15% to 20% of annual work hours may already be lost in heat-exposed jobs”. And that figure may double by 2030 as the planet continues warming—with poor manual labourers who work outdoors being the worst affected. By Paul Brown CostsandDangers

Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters:

TEPCO ‘told’ to solve problem of harmful water at Fukushima plant: The nation’s nuclear watchdog exhorted Tokyo Electric Power Co. to do something about the accumulation of tens of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, calling the situation intolerable. “We cannot allow the danger of highly polluted water at the plant to continue any longer,” Toyoshi Fuketa, a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, said at a July 19 meeting to discuss work on the plant’s decommissioning.TEPCO Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Young Black Protesters Blockade Police Facilities Across the Country: During a week when political coverage has been dominated by the absurd spectacles of the Republican National Convention (RNC), the movement for Black lives raged on in the streets, with young Black people shutting down and disrupting police facilities in multiple cities on Wednesday. Individual cases of police violence and abuse were highlighted in some cities, while other protests zeroed in on the role of police unions in preventing accountability for police violence. By Kelly HayesBlackProtestors Labor:

 Economy: WallStreetOnParadeDid Jamie Dimon’s Secret Meetings With Competitors Violate Antitrust Laws? : A mere three months after JPMorgan Chase and three of its competitors (Citicorp, Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland) pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to rig foreign currency trading and paid criminal fines totaling over $2.5 billion, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, began meeting in secret with his competitors in the asset management field. By Pam Martens and Russ MartensMartensWorld:

Labor Party Membership On the Rise Under Corbyn Labor'sGrowthJeremy Corbyn smashes a record set by Tony Blair, and Labour plotters are furious: Jeremy Corbyn has smashed a record set by former Labour leader Tony Blair, leaving the Labour coup in tatters. Under Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour party now has around 500,000 members – easily surpassing Tony Blair’s peak of 405,000. A jaw dropping 100,000 members have joined since Brexit and the subsequent coordinated Labour coup against Corbyn. After already being elected on a bigger democratic mandate than Blair or any British political leader, Corbyn has now skyrocketed membership of the party above all previous records. This is important, because it’s the members who get people out to vote come election day. After Blair’s peak in 1997, Labour membership plummeted during the Iraq war, which Corbyn vehemently opposed. CorbynBlair

NATO and the contradictions within western Imperialism: The recent NATO summit in Warsaw was full of contradiction and tensions between members of the alliance. The fragility of NATO’s power and the instability of world relations were on display for all to see. By Ben Gliniecki and Hamid AlizadehNATO Health, Education, and Welfare:

‘Lessor Evilism’ and Hitler:

. . . In 1932 in Germany there were four national elections including two for the powerful position of president. The two leading candidates for president of Germany were Adolf Hitler and Paul von Hindenburg. Today when we hear the word Hindenburg we think of the zeppelin with that name that burned in New Jersey in 1937, but Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg was a very famous man for decades in Germany.  During “the Great War”, which we now call World War I, he was Chief of the General Staff of the German army. In the last years of the war he was in effect military dictator of Germany.  The German revolution ousted the Kaiser from power, but the leaders of the SPD (the very big German socialist party which supported the war) allied with counterrevolutionary forces and after massacres of the revolutionary Left made Germany into a capitalist republic.  Hindenburg, who should have been in disgrace for his failed war leadership, came through the period with his reputation unscathed. Longstory short.  The SPD steadily weakens. Hindenburg is elected President of Germany in 1925. The Great Depression hits Germany like a hammer and the Nazis go from getting 3% of the vote in 1928 to 18% in 1930.  Their goons are running the streets. The German communists (KPD) follow the orders of Soviet ruler Joe Stalin to totally go it alone.  They claim that the SPD were just another kind of fascist, “social fascists”  For its part the SPD refuses to work with the communists.  In 1932 Hindenberg runs for reelection, the KPD runs its own candidate and the SPD supports Hindenburg as the “lesser of two evils”. Most people will agree that Hitler was the ultimate evil, so Hindenburg was certainly “lesser”, but the SPD strategy did not work as planned. Hindenburg won the April 1932 run-off presidential with a solid 53% of the vote. “Mission accomplished” or so the SPD thought. Hindenburg stayed in office and he continued to choose the Chancellors and cabinet. However, the string of men he picked totally failed to rescue the German economy. Then Hindenburg made a fateful decision.  In January 1933 he appointed Adolph Hitler as chancellor in a deal that gave the Nazis only 3 of the 11 cabinet positions.  This was thought all that would be needed to keep Hitler under control.  Brilliant plan. Hindenburg was putty in Hitler’s hands.  Within two months Hitler had bullied Hindenburg to sign an “Enabling” Act” which gave the Nazi leader dictatorial powers. . . . — To defeat Hitler Vote for Hindenburg! —  “Lesser Evil” Voting Then and Now