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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:
Today, we can see the emergence of climate solidarity all around us. We can see the emergence of new solidarities—self-preservation transformed to common preservation. But our solidarity is still blocked by a world order based on the war of all against all. One way to overcome our thrust to mutual destruction could be to transform the global climate movement into a global climate insurgency. — Time for a Climate Insurgency?
Videos of the Day:
On Contact: The Persecution of Julian Assange On the show, Chris Hedges discusses ‘The Trial of Julian Assange,’ a new book by Nils Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture.In July 2010, WikiLeaks published ‘Cablegate,’ one of the biggest leaks in the history of the US military, including evidence of war crimes and torture. Julian Assange, the founder and spokesman of WikiLeaks, immediately found himself a target, accused of hacking, and later sexual assault. He spent the next seven years in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fearful that he would be extradited to Sweden to face accusations of assault and then sent to the US. In 2019, Assange was handed over to the British police. On the same day, the US demanded his extradition. He faces up to 175 years in prison for alleged espionage and computer fraud.
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!
States Are Letting Utility Companies Cut Off Power Just as Winter Arrives Millions of U.S. residents behind on bills are at risk of having their electricity, heat and ability to stir up a hot meal cut off on December 22 by private utility companies, just a day after the solstice heralds the colder states’ descent into true winter’s chill. During the early months of the pandemic, 34 states issued power shutoff moratoria, protecting residents facing economic hardship from having their lights and water shut off due to a late utility payment. As of December 2021, 32 of those states have let those protections expire. New York and New Jersey, where elected officials have extended deadlines numerous times, are the holdouts. But each state’s moratorium is set to lapse before the end of the year, just when ratepayers are more behind in payments than ever before: As of November 2021, ratepayers in the Empire State alone owed a whopping $2 billion to energy giants such as National Grid and Con Edison.
U.S. Military Hid Fuel Pipeline Flaws From Public In Okinawa A leaked report that shows the military knew for years about dangers to civilian areas follows disclosures of toxic PFAS contamination hidden from the Senate. A leaked report describes significant deficiencies in the safety and integrity of the pipelines used by the U.S. military to shuttle fuel to U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force warplanes in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. As early as 2014, the military discovered monitoring system flaws and dangerous leakages in the pipelines, some of which run beneath civilian communities, but it waited four years before initiating repairs and has never alerted Japanese authorities. The dangers have only come to light thanks to a whistleblower who made public a report produced under contract for the Defense Logistics Agency Energy, or DLA-E, the Department of Defense agency that supplies fuel to military facilities.
Right-Wing Groups Opposed to Government Aid Cashed In While Collecting Ppp Loans Prager University Foundation, the Ayn Rand Institute, and Americans for Tax Reform saw gains while on government aid in 2020, according to new research. “GOVERNMENT SPENDING IS a HUGE problem,” the conservative video site PragerU tweeted in September 2019. “We must reinvest in Americans by giving them a hand up, not handouts,” the group wrote in another tweet that November with a video of then-Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson discussing rehabilitation for incarcerated people titled, “Americans Need A Hand Up, Not Handouts.” But last year, right-wing groups that have long opposed the concept of increased government spending on “handouts” were the recipients of more than $1.7 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans while seeing significant increases in contributions or net assets, according to new research from the government watchdog group Accountable.US. Last April, the Small Business Administration launched the $349 billion emergency loan program to help small businesses struggling
Build Back Better Now DOA: Next Phase in US Economic and Political Crisis Begins Months ago this writer predicted that Senator Manchin would never support Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ Bill and was simply engaging in ‘bad faith bargaining’ to string the Democrats along. Manchin’s goal was to get the Democrat leadership–Biden, Pelosi, Durbin, Shumer et. al.–to reduce their proposals, wh ch they conveniently did, on repeated occasions. But Manchin’s real objective has always been to shit can the bill, in order to prevent the necessity of raising taxes on corporations and investors in order to pay for it. To borrow a phrase: “It’s the Tax Cuts, Stupid!”.
‘At the Pentagon, meanwhile, the bloody-thirty feast of the war profiteers continues unabated.’: The Pentagon’s 20-Year Killing Spree Has Always Treated Civilians as Expendable At the Pentagon, meanwhile, the bloody-thirty feast of the war profiteers continues unabated. Top U.S. officials want us to believe that the Pentagon carefully spares civilian lives while making war overseas. The notion is pleasant. And with high-tech killing far from home, the physical and psychological distances have made it even easier to believe recent claims that American warfare has become “humane.”
Environment:
100 years ago, Rosa Luxemburg Raised the Slogan: Socialism or Barbarism! Today’s Slogan is Ecosocialism or Ecocide!
Time for a Climate Insurgency? Insurgencies are social movements, but movements of a special type: they reject current rulers’ claims to legitimate authority The leaders of the world’s countries gathered in Glasgow signed a death warrant for the world’s people. Is there anything the world’s people can do about it? To answer effectively, human solidarity may have to challenge the very legitimacy of the nation-state system.
As World Burns, Climate Campaigners Denounce Manchin as ‘Fossil-Fueled Sociopath’ “While disappointing, Manchin laying his cards on the table is also a liberating force. Biden must go all-in with executive authority to address the climate emergency and do what he promised.”
Another Yellowstone Bison Slaughter Nearly all bison herds, including those on tribal lands and other national park and wildlife refuges, have been domesticated and are treated more like cattle than wild animals. The annual massacre of Yellowstone bison is biologically degrading the herd. Yellowstone’s bison went through a genetic bottleneck in the last 1800s when approximately 50 animals were left in the park. The annual killing of up to 20% of the herd to satisfy the overstated concerns of the livestock industry continues to erode this globally significant wild biological heritage. There are 100 million cattle in the US and only 5000 Yellowstone wild bison—which has greater importance to the world?
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Inmate Sues California Prison System Following Targeted Raid Against Black People Talib Williams, an incarcerated person at Correctional Training Facility in California, is filing a lawsuit against the state prison system for a raid that targeted Black people last summer. California prisoner, Talib Williams, is bringing a class action lawsuit on his behalf as well as other Black incarcerated people who were targeted by a July 20, 2020 raid at Soledad, California’s Correctional Training Facility (CTF). The suit seeks a reprieve from the state-sponsored terror that is their norm. Injunctive and declaratory relief, among other remedies, are necessary to stop the violence, change CDCR policy, and compensate the prisoners for the degradation they have suffered.
Medical Racism Is Fueling the Black Overdose Crisis, Advocates Say Meanwhile, many Black patients are being denied pain medication even when they are in agony. uána Madison is diagnosed with multiple conditions that send pain coursing through her entire body on a daily basis. Madison is also a Black woman, and medical professionals don’t always believe her.The pain became too much to bear on a summer day in 2017. Madison felt new pain and was unable to walk, so she checked into an emergency room near her home in Denver, Colorado. Before the visit was over, Madison says, she was assaulted, accused of “drug-seeking” and made to fear being arrested. Madison has lived with chronic pain for years, but her pain worsened after she suffered a life-threatening complication from a preventive hysterectomy and oophorectomy performed after she was found to be at risk for cancer. By 2017, Madison was diagnosed with several chronic pain syndromes, including fibromyalgia and peripheral neuropathy, along with autoimmune diseases, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Madison says she left a doctoral program after the school failed to provide accommodations. She often woke up screaming from pain in the middle of the night.
Labor:
Grape Pickers Crash Lavish Sonoma Winery Banquet Demanding Better Wildfire Protections “The grapes are insured, so the employer’s covered when it comes to the actual crop. But workers have no pay if they don’t work.” Today, with its fame as one of the world’s most important wine-producing regions, Sonoma County supports a tourism industry centered on grape growers’ connections to the rolling land — a landscape that, over the last few years, has been increasingly consumed by wildfires. After a particularly brutal fire season last year, lifestyle magazines and national newspapers alike expressed concerns about the local industry and the impact of wildfire smoke on the wine. Once again, Indigenous workers were often left out of the story. Largely from regions of Mexico, the workers toiled in smoky evacuation zones, struggled to access health care, and went without government support when the fires made work impossible.
OSHA’s Employee Vaccine-Or-Test Mandate Is Smart Public Policy Maximizing vaccination rates both domestically and globally hence will pay huge economic returns. Domestically, an employer mandate is an invaluable tool for maximizing vaccination rates. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has proposed an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for employers to cope with the health dangers posed by COVID-19. The centerpiece of the ETS is a vaccine-or-test mandate for employees working at firms with over 100 employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The mandate is good public policy: it will reduce deaths and hospitalizations, and it will also increase economic growth and reduce the main inflationary pressures facing the U.S. economy.
Apple Employee Blows Whistle on Illegal Spying and Toxic Working Conditions Silicon Valley has become infamous for its role in the surveillance ecosystem, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bosses are increasingly using an array of tech industry tools to keep constant tabs on their employees working from home, despite statistics showing that those who work remotely are more productive than their counterparts toiling away in office buildings.But one woman who worked for the tech industry’s biggest company is fighting back. Ashley Gjovik, a former Apple project manager who was fired in September after speaking out about workplace safety concerns, has asked labor regulators to rule that the company employs illegal surveillance tactics. In October, Gjovik filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) accusing Apple of a number of unfair labor practices, including keeping tabs on employees in a manner that prevents them from exercising their right to discuss working conditions.
Economy:
The Fed Gets Its Ducks in a Row for the Next Wall Street Bailout; Quietly Adds Goldman Sachs Bank, Citibank to Its New $500 Billion Standing Repo Facility Last Friday, with the public’s attention diverted to the surge in Omicron variant cases of COVID in the U.S. and holiday travelers’ attention focused on the safety of air travel and family gatherings, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York quietly announced, in a one sentence statement, that it was adding the following three federally-insured banks to its list of counterparties for its newly-minted $500 billion Standing Repo Facility: Citibank, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, and the New York Branch of Mizuho Bank.Last Friday, with the public’s attention diverted to the surge in Omicron variant cases of COVID in the U.S. and holiday travelers’ attention focused on the safety of air travel and family gatherings, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York quietly announced, in a one sentence statement, that it was adding the following three federally-insured banks to its list of counterparties for its newly-minted $500 billion Standing Repo Facility: Citibank, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, and the New York Branch of Mizuho Bank. If you’re stunned that Goldman Sachs is allowed to own a federally-insured bank under existing U.S. law, see our previous report: Goldman Sachs’ Rich Man’s Bank Backstopped by You and Me. If you’re stunned that a New York branch of Mizuho Bank, part of the Japanese conglomerate Mizuho Financial Group, is able to have federal deposit insurance backstopped by the U.S. taxpayer, welcome to the world of borderless global banking for the one percent.If you’re stunned that Goldman Sachs is allowed to own a federally-insured bank under existing U.S. law, see our previous report: Goldman Sachs’ Rich Man’s Bank Backstopped by You and Me. If you’re stunned that a New York branch of Mizuho Bank, part of the Japanese conglomerate Mizuho Financial Group, is able to have federal deposit insurance backstopped by the U.S. taxpayer, welcome to the world of borderless global banking for the one percent.
World:
‘We ought to esteem and encourage all those young people who work for a more just world.” To End ‘Deafening Noise of War,’ Pope Says Nations Must Fund Education Over Weapons “The pursuit of a genuine process of international disarmament can only prove beneficial for the development of peoples and nations,” the pope said in his World Peace Day message. Pope Francis as released a new peace message in which he rebukes soaring military spending and praises work and activism that uplift the common good.
Britain: An Election Disaster And the Death Agony of Boris Johnson Last week, the Tories suffered a humiliating electoral defeat in their formerly safe seat of North Shropshire, a rural constituency dominated by the Conservative Party for nearly 200 years. Boris Johnson is running out of road as he lurches from one scandal to another. This opens up further instability and crisis for British capitalism. Boris Johnson’s Tory Party has suffered a calamitous electoral defeat in the rural seat of North Shropshire, where the party’s 23,000 majority was completely overturned. It is a massive blow to the authority of Britain’s beleaguered prime minister, Boris Johnson. This electoral disaster is a further indication of the extreme volatility of British politics.
Education, Health, 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
WHO Chief: Holiday Omicron Wave Could Mean ‘Overwhelmed Health Systems’ and ‘More Deaths’ “All of us want to get back to normal. The fastest way to do that is for all of us—leaders and individuals—to make the difficult decisions that must be made to protect ourselves and others.” The head of the World Health Organization delivered a stark warning Monday about the state of the coronavirus pandemic as the highly transmissible Omicron strain continued to rip through large swaths of the global population, posing the greatest threat to poor countries that have been denied access to vaccines.
Another Example Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Ws 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”, is Still True for Today’s World!
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!
