Daily News Digest January 3, 2022
Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines are Free For the Whole World!
Images of the Day:
Mike Luckovich: Not As Sick 
Mike Lukovich: The Real Reason=
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!
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:
A whopping 80% of voters agree that “wealthy people and corporations are regularly not punished for breaking the law,” including 84% of Democrats, 79% of Independents, and 77% of Republicans. In addition, 87% of voters agree that “when wealthy people and corporations are not punished for breaking laws, people lose trust in the government and the rule of law.” — Voters From Both Parties Overwhelmingly Want Biden to Crack Down on Corporate Crime
When the mainstream media no longer performs the function of the watchdog, no longer alerts us to endemic — and punctual — governmental abuses but act more like echo-chambers of the interests of certain “elites” and transnational corporations… who will blow the whistle on governmental and private-sector scams? How can we defend our rights when our elected officials, those who have the obligation to uphold the law, are actually in the service of other, more powerful and lucrative interests? What can we do when the executive, legislative and judiciary are progressively corrupted, when institutions like the ICC discontinue investigations into gross criminality by powerful states while prosecuting the little fish, when the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons tampers with the evidence of inspectors and suppresses crucial facts (Douma “report” on Syria), when the OAS is complicit in a coup d’état against an OAS member state (Bolivia), when other supposedly objective organizations systematically dis-inform the public, disseminate evidence-free news, suppress dissent? — Who Will Guard the Guardians?
Videos of the Day:
Chris Hedges: The End of Uncle Sam
Noam Chomsky: Corporate Patents & Rising Anti-Science Rhetoric Will Prolong Pandemic
The Landless Workers Movement’s Fight for Popular Agrarian Reform Through Land Occupation In Brazil An interview with Alexandre Conceiçao from the Landless Workers Movement–an organization that has been active in Brazil since 1984 and is one of the largest social movements in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million members.
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
Texas Team Applauded for Giving What Big Pharma Refuses: A Patent-Free Vaccine to the World “ If we had even a fraction of the support that Moderna had, who knows, maybe the world would be vaccinated bynow!” Dubbed “the World’s Covid vaccine,” the inoculation—formally called Cobervax—is an open-source alternative to Big Pharma’s patent-protected vaccines. Instead of being produced for profit, this shot could ultimately be manufactured around the world and made cheaply available to all without governmental or private legal retribution.
The United States Media Monopoly Proves the Truth 0f ‘Do’t Look Up!’:Don’t Look Up (at the Film Critics) For at least the third time in the last year, a Netflix film has exposed a stark divide between critics and audiences. In the case of Don’t Look Up, critics have largely trashed the film, calling it heavy-handed, angry, and – employing an uninspired pun – catastrophic. By contrast, audiences, at least as evidenced by Rotten Tomatoes and social media, have praised it. One doesn’t have to be a pandering populist to note some of the ways in which the critics, as is often the case, are wrong. First is the criticism that the film is heavy-handed and angry, which is strange considering that this is a film about a meteor destroying the planet and all of its inhabitants. Vehemently objecting to the prospect of the impending destruction of the species marks one, at least in the eyes of some film critics, as an obnoxious dogmatist. Such criticism additionally forecloses alternative interpretations of the film, which not only functions as a critique of climate change but also of social media and the degradation of human experience in general. Does it really matter if any of the film’s characters continue living in a world where people are structurally incentivized to be treacherous and vacuous and where economic survival requires unending spiritual humiliation? Imminent collective death here, as suggested by Leonardo DiCaprio’s character’s final words, elicits regret not simply because we didn’t do anything to stop the catastrophe but because of how we lived before it.
Military Industrial Comples Robber Barons: Pentagon Fails Audit (Again!) That’s what should have been the biggest news of 2021. Instead, the story, which broke on November 17, was largely ignored or buried. The nation’s two main newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York Times, have simply ignored it. Other news organizations stenographically quoted Pentagon officials as admitting that they “failed again” but saw “progress,” and as promising that they would achieve a “clean” audit by… get this … 2027. The Pentagon, with some $3 trillion (give or take a trillion but who’s counting?) in assets and a record current 2021 budget of $738 billion, has for the third year in a row failed its audit. An army of 1400 auditors hired by us taxpayers for $230 million and borrowed from some of the biggest auditing firms in the country, spent the past year poring through the books and visiting hundreds of operations of the government’s largest and geographically vastest single agency, and came back with word that they couldn’t give it a pass.
O Lenderking, the Lies You Bring: a Look at Biden’s Special Envoy for Yemen On February 4, in his first major foreign policy address since taking office, President Joe Biden announced that he was “ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.” In the same speech, Biden announced, not without fanfare, the appointment of “career foreign policy officer” Tim Lenderking as special envoy toYemen. Lenderking is attempting to forge peace between Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition which is at war with the Houthis.On December 16, Lenderking appeared on public radio’s The World. Lenderking told World host Carol Hills, presumably with a straight face, that one of the Biden Administration’s “first principles” for ending the war “is to get outside actors out of the conflict.” Good idea. Let’s start with the US. Since 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states intervened in Yemen to restore President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi who the Houthis had overthrown the year before, the US has provided the Saudi coalition with intelligence, targeting assistance, arms sales, and (until November 2018) in-flight refueling of coalition warplanes.
Edgar Hoover’s Legacy: Spying On Democracy The surveillance activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Portland and other American cities earlier this year is reminiscent of FBI-CIA-NSA efforts to disrupt anti-Vietnam protest groups in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2021, FBI agents, dressed in plainclothes, were embedded in Portland’s racial justice protests. Agents alerted local police to potential arrests. The Department of Justice and its Office of the Inspector General must investigate these activities closely because they replicate the illegal activities of the FBI’s counterintelligence program (COINtEL) during the Cold War.
Environment:
Ecosocialism or Ecocide!
‘We are of the Eve of Destruction!’: Within Decade, Planet’s Natural World Facing Largest Mass Extinction Event Since Dinosaurs Latest analysis by World Wildlife Fund warns humanity—possible “victim of it own lifestyle”—might ultimately be added to list of threatened species. Increasingly dire ecological damage and severe impacts of the climate crisis are pushing the natural world towards a mass extinction event unparalleled since the age of the dinosaurs, conservationists in Germany warned this week, with humanity possibly facing self-annihilation if behaviors do not change.
We Are in a Climate Emergency’: Late-December Wildfires Ravage Colorado “None of this is normal,” said Colorado state Rep. Leslie Herod. “We are not OK.” Tens of thousands of Coloradans were forced to flee their homes Thursday as two fast-moving wildfires—whipped up by wind gusts reaching 110 mph—tore through communities just outside of Denver, engulfing entire neighborhoods in flames and destroying hundreds of buildings.”We’re not trying to make money. We just want to see people get vaccinated.”: Texas Team Applauded for Giving What Big Pharma Refuses: A Patent-Free Vaccine to the World “If we had even a fraction of the support that Moderna had, who knows, maybe the world would be vaccinated by now”
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
All Safety Laws are a Compromise Between Science and Business!: From these facts about two known carcinogens and one probable carcinogen, common in paints, one can tell that OSHA can not prevent occupational cancer. Especially in painters who are exposed to over 150 known and suspected carcinogens and over 3000 hazardous substances daily. As you can see people getting cancer is part of the equation; OSHA pel’s are at least ten times higher than NIOSH; therefore, the OSHA “feasible” (In the video Before Their Time (about workers dying of cancer) produced by the Workers Health and Sfaety Centre, Ontario Canada, Peter Infante, Director of Standards for OSHA, stated that NIOSH includes one more cancer per 1000 workers exposed as feasible.) risk for cancer is at least ten times higher. — This is the usual difference between NIOSH and OSHA.) — The War at the Point of Production: The ‘Killing Fields’ of the United States
OSHA Pulls Protections As Healthcare Worker Deaths Rise The Wrong Decision at the Wrong Time The Biden administration has just thrown the most its most important assets in the fight against COVID-19 under the bus. Monday evening, OSHA announced “that it is withdrawing the non-recordkeeping portions of the healthcare ETS.” That ETS, or Emergency Temporary Standard, was issued by OSHA last June to protect healthcare workers from contracting COVID-19. The healthcare ETS was a comprehensive standard requiring covered healthcare employers to conduct a hazard assessment, and develop and implement a written COVID-19 plan to mitigate virus spread. It also required healthcare employers to provide employees with N95 respirators or other personal protective equipment. It contained physical distancing and barrier requirements, as well as requirements for enhanced ventilation and employee training. It also had requirements covering health screening and medical management in addition to paid leave for vaccination.
Profits First — Health and Welfare Last!: After CDC Change It Lobbied For, Delta Slashes Paid Sick Leave for Workers With Covid “You almost can’t make up a more heinous story than this,” said one epidemiologist. Just a day after the CDC delivered updated Covid-19 isolation guidelines that the company’s CEO lobbied for, Delta Air Lines moved to take advantage of the new recommendations by slashing paid sick leave for infected workers, prompting immediate backlash from union leaders and public health experts who warned of such an outcome.
Economy:
By Pancaking Term Loans, JPMorgan Had $30 Billion Outstanding from the Fed’s Emergency Repo Loans in the Last Quarter of 2019 Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, likes to perpetually brag about his bank’s “fortress balance sheet.” But in the fall of 2019, that fortress needed to borrow huge sums of money from the Federal Reserve – for still unexplained reasons. The trading units of other Wall Street banks also borrowed large sums from the Fed but they haven’t branded themselves as the “fortress balance sheet.” Yesterday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released the names of the banks and the dollar amounts that were borrowed under its emergency repo loan operations for the last quarter of 2019. It had previously released the data for the period of September 17, 2019 through September 30, 2019. The Fed has yet to release the data for the emergency repo loan operations in 2020.
World:
Vaccine Apartheid Shows Global Injustice Is Very Bad for Public Health While people in many parts of the world have begun receiving booster shots against COVID-19, millions of residents in low-income countries are still waiting for their first dose. Unless the protectionist policies that promote this vaccine inequity change, the virus will continue to mutate and spread, prolonging the pandemic.
Brazil, Amazon, World: Sociopathy vs Democracy Sometimes the micro can shed highly revealing light on the macro. The person of Jair Messias Bolsonaro, who neatly fits the definition of a sociopath, tells us a lot about the sociopathic political system that has thrown him up, and which he embodies. The latest manifestation of capitalism, neoliberalism, has led the whole planet to the brink of extinction with the extermination of species, peoples, languages, ecosystems, and cultures. It has managed to do so mainly because it is so ubiquitous as to be almost anonymous. Its symptoms are clear enough—corrupt political systems, financial meltdowns, offshoring of wealth, collapsed public health and education systems, children with guns killing their classmates, global warming with catastrophes everywhere, pandemics, and many more—but they are usually dealt with in isolation as if they weren’t part of a system.
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 they 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
As Covid Deaths Hit 800K, Sanders Says Medicare for All Needed to End ‘Vulgarity’ of US Health System “The pandemic has demonstrated that a privatized healthcare system cannot ensure the health of the population.” Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday said that nearly two years after the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the public health crisis that shows no sign of coming to a swift end has brought into stark relief “the vulgarity” of the U.S. healthcare system, suggesting the political establishment must end its defense of the for-profit healthcare industry as he re-upped his call for Medicare for All.
289,701,498 Daily New New Covid Cases January 1, 2029