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Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines are Free For the Whole World!
Attack of the Seminoles on the blockhouse. Image: Wiki Commons.:
On Christmas day in 1837, the Africans and Native Americans who formed Florida’s Seminole Nation defeated a vastly superior U.S. invading army bent on cracking this early rainbow coalition and returning the Africans to slavery. The Seminole victory stands as a milestone in the march of American liberty. Though it reads like a Hollywood thriller, this amazing story has yet to capture public attention. It is absent from most school textbooks, social studies courses, Hollywood movies, and TV. This daring Seminole story begins around the time of the American Revolution when 55 “Founding Fathers” broke free of British colonialism and wrote the immortal Declaration of Independence. About the same time, Seminoles —suffering ethnic persecution under Creek rule in Alabama and Georgia —fled south to seek independence. Africans who had earlier escaped bondage and became among its first explorers welcomed them to Florida. Read More
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(Joel Schlosberg lives in New York. He is a contributing author at the Center for a Stateless Society (c4ss.org). A new finding of bloodshed in WWI’s “Christmas truce” on the cusp of its hundredth anniversary strengthens, rather than undermines, its examplefor peace.)
Christmas Truce
The UK’s Telegraph reports (“Christmas truce of 1914 was broken when German snipers killed two British soldiers,” December 22) the incident, pieced together from historical records. On the front lines in France, British sentry Percy Huggins was felled by a German sniper; his platoon leader Tom Gregory retaliated against that sniper, only to be outgunned by another. This may not fit the sentimentalized image of the truce, but taking it off such a pedestal makes it relevant to our messy world. Bertrand Russell noted that to “admit in theory that there are occasions when it is proper to fight, and in practice that these occasions are rare” yields far less war in practice than to “hold in theory that there are no occasions when it is proper to fight and in practice that such occasions are very frequent.” The truce’s breakdown in this case remained an isolated flashpoint; it held on both sides, as close as under a mile away. The influence of an “incredibly professional” duty-bound Guards Brigade kept local tensions high from the beginning, with immediate rejection of Germans’ bid for a cease-fire.Also instructive is the clear tit-for-tat aspect, driven by retaliation for specific aggressions rather than by general warlikeness. (One sniper indicating more made a third death inevitable.) Something needs to tip the balance to make hostility spread faster than toleration. That something, in one word: Politics. Emma Goldman contended that without the socialist movement’s turn away from direct action and toward a reliance on political means, “the great catastrophe would have been impossible. In Germany the party counted twelve million adherents. What a power to prevent the declaration of hostilities! But for a quarter of a century the Marxists had trained the workers in obedience and patriotism, trained them to rely on parliamentary activity and, particularly, to trust their socialist leaders blindly. And now most of those leaders had joined hands with the Kaiser … Instead of declaring the general strike and thus paralysing war preparations, they had voted the Government money for slaughter.” And only the tripwire pitting of national leaders against each other could turn the assassination of an archduke into a feud that would multiply the tripling of Huggins’s death five-million-fold.In his final letter, Huggins told his family: “I long for the day when this terrible conflict will be ended. You consider war a terrible thing but imagination cannot reach far enough for the horrors of warfare that can be seen on the battlefield are indescribable and I pray this may be the last war that will ever be.” A century of advance in global communications and commerce gives today’s Hugginses ample basis to coexist without politicians and the means to verify trust. It should not take another century to reach “the last war that will ever be.”
Hanukkah, Syria and the Perils of Empire While the story of Hanukkah is often portrayed as solely a struggle against religious persecution, it was just as much a civil war between fundamentalist and assimilated Jews. This history holds lessons for us, as we work to comprehend the contemporary tragic situation in Syria. By Brant Rosen, Truthout | Op-Ed
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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
‘Biden Did Not See Omicron comimg!’ — If That’s True, he is Unfit for Office! Who Saw Omicron Coming? Many, in Fact! Global health experts and activists have been warning for more than a year that aggressive variants of the virus are essentially guaranteed as long as much of the world’s population remains unvaccinated. “Nobody saw it coming. Nobody in the whole world. Who saw it coming?” That was President Joe Biden speaking on ABC Wednesday about the COVID-19 Omicron variant. In fact, many people saw it coming. Global health experts and activists have been warning for more than a year that aggressive variants of the virus are essentially guaranteed as long as much of the world’s population remains unvaccinated.
“If Pfizer is really interested in ensuring global access to this treatment, it should make clear that it will not stand in the way of generic production and competition anywhere.”: FDA Authorization of Pfizer’s Covid Pill Leads to Fears of ‘Global Medical Apartheid Part Two’ “Have we learned anything?” asked one advocate for public health equity, following the development of new variants amid vaccine apartheid.
If Big Pharma and Biden Free the Vaccine, or Lift the Blackcade of Cuba so that Vaccines or the Cuban Vaccines Can Be Free to the World!
A pause means is not a canceliation, the Usury of College Students Continues! Facing Scrutiny, Biden Administration Extends Student Loan Pause Until May On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced that it is extending the pause on student loan payments through May 1 – a sharp reversal of its previous stance, likely due to increased pressure from debt cancellation advocates as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 sweeps the U.S. “We know that millions of student loan borrowers are still coping with the impacts of the pandemic and need some more time before resuming payments,” President Joe Biden said in a statement announcing the 90-day extension.
Environment:
100 Years Ago Rosa Luxemburg Raised the Slogan: ‘Socialism of Barbarism!’ — Today the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialisn or Ecocide!’
The Fed Must Act on the Climate Crisis to Protect Our Planet and Economy It’s time for the Federal Reserve and all financial regulators to step up and treat the climate crisis with the urgency it demands—before it’s too late. In 2007, our global financial system was pushed to the brink of collapse after financial regulators ignored reckless lending. In the aftermath of that financial crisis, regulators vowed to prevent a similar crisis in the future.But now, those same regulators are once again ignoring a devastating risk to our economy, our health, and our safety: the climate crisis.
Green Group Launches Suit Over Biden Administration’s Failure to Protect Polar Bears From Arctic Drilling “Polar bears shouldn’t have to suffer from yet more noisy, harmful oil drilling. Letting the oil industry ramp up drilling is also fundamentally inconsistent with addressing the climate crisis. Asserting that “continued oil and gas exploration and development is fundamentally incompatible with polar bear survival and recovery,” the Center for Biological Diversity on Wednesday launched a lawsuit against the Biden administration for failing to protect the imperiled animals from an oil exploration project in the Western Arctic.
Experts Say Toxic Chemicals May Be Linked to Childhood Cancer Links Between Environment and Cancer: In April 2010, the President’s Cancer Panel, an advisory group created by Richard Nixon in 1971, issued a groundbreaking report highlighting what it called the “growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer.” The panel concluded that “the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated. With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United States, many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are un- or understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread …. The American people — even before they are born — are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures.”
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Editors Note: This paper was presented before the President’s Cancer Panel meeting on “Lung Cancer: Societal and It is reported that the National Cancer Institute (NCD Clinical Implications” last October 5 at Tysons Corner, Virginia. This article by Peter Infante is a cogent summary of recent information on the number of workers ex- posed to carcinogens in the U.S. and the inadequacy or incompleteness of current regulations. Dr. Infante has been a leader for many years in pointing out the risks of cancer and other serious diseases borne by workers, and he made this recent eloquent presentation to the President’s Cancer Panel last October. It is noteworthy that he estimated a considerable ongoing excess risk of death from lung cancer associated with a new Permissible Exposure Limit for cadmium; this is because of the “technological/economic feasibility” constraint on setting OSHA standards. This is one type of constraint that worker health and safety advocates will have to continue to battle in the coming years. . . Another recommendation Infante made to the President’s Cancer Panel was to fund cancer registries to “collect detailed occupational histories in order to make data bases available to facilitate the identification of unrecognized causes of cancer related to occupational exposures.” This is clearly needed in the U.S., because most cancer registries don’t routinely collect this type of information. Montreal already has a model for this type of system (1) which can be supported by worker health and safety advocates in the U.S. —Richard Clapp, Scientific Solutions Editor
Economy:
I do not agree with the conclusions but the facts are interesting!:
Ellen Brown: The Real Antidote to Inflation The Fed has Options For Countering rhe Record Inflation the U.S. Is Facing that Are Far More Productive and Less Risky Than Raising Interest Rates. The Federal Reserve is caught between a rock and a hard place. Inflation grew by 6.8% in November, the fastest in 40 years, a trend the Fed has now acknowledged is not “transitory.” The conventional theory is that inflation is due to too much money chasing too few goods, so the Fed is under heavy pressure to “tighten” or shrink the money supply. Its conventional tools for this purpose are to reduce asset purchases and raise interest rates. But corporate debt has risen by $1.3 trillion just since early 2020; so if the Fed raises rates, a massive wave of defaults is likely to result. According to financial advisor Graham Summers in an article titled “The Fed Is About to Start Playing with Matches Next to a $30 Trillion Debt Bomb,” the stock market could collapse by as much as 50%. The Federal Reserve is caught between a rock and a hard place. Inflation grew by 6.8% in November, the fastest in 40 years, a trend the Fed has now acknowledged is not “transitory.” The conventional theory is that inflation is due to too much money chasing too few goods, so the Fed is under heavy pressure to “tighten” or shrink the money supply. Its conventional tools for this purpose are to reduce asset purchases and raise interest rates.
But corporate debt has risen by $1.3 trillion just since early 2020; so if the Fed raises rates, a massive wave of defaults is likely to result. According to financial advisor Graham Summers in an article titled “The Fed Is About to Start Playing with Matches Next to a $30 Trillion Debt Bomb,” the stock market could collapse by as much as 50%.
Even more at risk are the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are the backbone of the productive economy, companies that need bank credit to survive. In 2020, 200,000 more U.S. businesses closed than in normal pre-pandemic years. SMEs targeted as “nonessential” were restricted in their ability to conduct business, while the large international corporations remained open. Raising interest rates on the surviving SMEs could be the final blow.
OCC Report Shows JPMorgan Chase Owns 62 Percent of all Stock Derivatives Held at 4,914 Banks in the U.S. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the regulator of national banks that operate across state lines, released a report on Monday that details the quantity and variety of derivatives held by commercial banks, savings associations and trust companies as of September 30. (According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, there were 4,914 commercial banks, savings associations and trust companies operating in the U.S. with FDIC insurance as of September 30.) The striking detail in the OCC report is that one taxpayer-backstopped, federally-insured bank, JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., is for some unfathomable reason sitting on 62 percent of all stock (equity) derivatives held at all 4,914 federally-insured banks in the United States. The second striking detail is that this federally-insured bank’s holdings of stock derivatives come to a notional amount (face amount) of $3.3 trillion. (Yes, trillion with a “t.” See above chart.) And the third striking detail is that 74 percent of JPMorgan Chase’s stock derivatives are not centrally-cleared but instead are opaque, over-the-counter (OTC) contracts – highly likely beyond the scrutiny of bank regulators.
World:
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
2022 Must Be the Year the Left Proactively Shapes the COVID Agenda As we head into the winter holidays nervously checking news about the Omicron variant and rising COVID-19 case numbers, let’s take a moment to think of how a more just society might handle the coming weeks. Schools and many workplaces would offer remote options for the final week before Christmas to slow the spread just before people gather with older relatives and immunocompromised loved ones. Airports and bus stations would have free rapid tests for all passengers traveling for the holidays. Finally, of course, pharmaceutical companies and wealthy nations would have been forced to share vaccine supplies and formulas with the rest of the world, which probably would have prevented Omicron in the first place. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that society, but rather in one that hoards vaccine supplies, and in which leaders like New York Gov. Kathy Hochul urge workers to be forced back into offices even as they anticipate that hospitals will be pushed to the breaking point by the coming COVID spike. It is because of this greed and short-term thinking that the U.S. is now entering a fifth wave, and the dream of eradicating COVID is dead — despite the astonishing success of scientists in quickly developing effective vaccines.
WHO Chief Says Vaccine Inequity Is ‘Giving the Virus More Opportunity to Spread and Mutate’ “It’s frankly difficult to understand how a year since the first vaccines were administered, three in four health workers in Africa remain unvaccinated.” With Omicron now officially the dominant coronavirus variant in several countries, the head of the World Health Organization warned Wednesday that new—and potentially more dangerous—mutations will continue to emerge and spread widely as long as much of the global population is denied access to vaccines.
Joel Schlosberg: The Huggins Incident — A Christmas Truce Story
