Daily News Digest January 7, 2022
Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines are Free For the Whole World!
Images of the Day:
Bendib: Failed Coup?
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:
Windfall Profits Tax United States: In 1980, the United States enacted the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act (P.L. 96-223) as part of a compromise between the Carter Administration and the Congress over the decontrol of crude oil prices.[1] The Act was intended to recoup the revenue earned by oil producers as a result of the sharp increase in oil prices brought about by the OPEC oil embargo. According to the Congressional Research Service, the Act’s title was a misnomer. “Despite its name, the crude oil windfall profit tax… was not a tax on profits. It was an excise tax… imposed on the difference between the market price of oil, which was technically referred to as the removal price, and a statutory 1979 base price that was adjusted quarterly for inflation and state severance taxes.
What Is a Windfall Tax? A windfall tax is a tax levied by governments against certain industries when economic conditions allow those industries to experience above-average profits. Windfall taxes are primarily levied on companies in the targeted industry that have benefited the most from the economic windfall, most often commodity-based businesses.
- A windfall tax is a surtax imposed by governments on businesses or economic sectors that have benefited from economic expansion.
- The purpose is to redistribute excess profits in one area for the greater social good; however, this can be a contentious ideal.
- Some individual taxes, such as inheritance tax or taxes on lottery or game show winnings, can also be construed as a windfall tax.
Videos of the Day:
Columnist Will Bunch: Trump Came Much Closer to Pulling Off a January 6 Coup Than People Realize
“Essential But Excluded”: Pandemic Aid Left Out Undocumented Immigrants & Their U.S. Citizen Kids
“There’s No Social Distancing”: Immigrants Held in ICE Jails at Risk Amid New Omicron Surge
The Long Depression” by Michael Roberts
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 PayOver 853, 293 People Have Now Died From the Covid Pandemic in the United States: Biden Maintains World Trump’s World Leadership!Laura Gray Cartoon From November 16, 1946, Depicting the Interchangeability of tthe Two Capitalist Parties. Things Have Not Changed!
AFL-CIO, Nurses Unions Demand Permanent OSHA Covid-19 Safety Standard “Going to work should not mean putting your life and the lives of your loved ones in danger,” says the head of National Nurses United. We must treat the surge in new cases as the crisis that it is. AFL-CIO, Nurses Unions Demand Permanent OSHA Covid-19 Safety Standard With rising coronavirus infections and hospitalizations, the AFL-CIO and major nurses unions on Wednesday petitioned a federal court to order the Biden administration to issue an official and permanent OSHA standard requiring employers to protect healthcare workers from Covid-19.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
Severe Climate Risk Threatens 40% of World Fossil Reserves Nearly half of the world’s fossil fuel reserves are vulnerable to extreme weather brought on by climate change, according to an assessment published last month by risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. The threat to 40% of global oil and gas supply makes the cost of climate inaction “genuinely existential”, the report stated. The analysis “says flooding, high temperatures, and rising sea levels are putting more than 600 billion barrels equivalent of recoverable oil and gas at risk, with reserves from the Middle East and North Africa—in particular Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq—at the greatest risk,” Offshore Technology reports. “The reliance of these nations on oil for economic development coupled with their exposure to heat stress and water shortages puts them in a precarious position, with Maplecroft labelling the vulnerability to extreme weather as the ‘Achilles’ heel’ in their energy strategies.”Ccorporations and individuals who intentionally lied to us for half a century about the impact of their fossil fuels on global warming just to enrich themselves. Most recently, 100 mph winds swept grass-fires through Colorado, leaving thousands homeless. It was 116 degrees here in Portland last summer, as wildfires and drought ravage the West. The Gulf Coast, South and Eastern Seaboard are now annually torn apart by superstorms, while the Midwest faces mile-wide tornadoes never before seen with this ferocity and frequency.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Abortion Rights Activists Fight Back With Mutual Aid and Direct Action in 2022 Many people who can become pregnant are already living in a post-“Roe” world. It is difficult not to feel an overwhelming sense of defeat and fear for the year ahead in reproductive health and abortion rights as the Supreme Court deliberates on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case. Brought against Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which runs the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, this case could reshape abortion law countrywide. Among the many restrictions being challenged, the one abortion advocates are watching the closest is a 15-week ban. If upheld, this 15-week restriction would represent the first pre-viability abortion ban upheld by the Supreme Court. The landmark Roe v. Wade case set the precedent that states could not outlaw abortion prior to the viability line, which currently sits around 23 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Should the court uphold this ban, dozens of states would be in position to unleash similar, or possibly even more restrictive laws.
Black Agenda Report
Covid Fueled by Neoliberal Austerity
The neo-liberal austerity model of governance ensures that Covid-19 will continue spreading and producing new variants. Only people focused public health remedies will end the pandemic.
Ukraine: What Does It Have to Do with Black Folks?
“…it is imperative that everyone, in particular Black and working-class people, understand that not having an awareness of the interconnections of the “grind” (the struggle to survive in the U.S.) and U.S. white supremacist, imperialist policies, and not being prepared to commit to altering those power relations, ensures that the conditions will persist that translates into suffering and even death for the colonized, the working classes, the oppressed, and all of global humanity”
The Black Agenda Review of Books
An overview of recent Black books that can help us get through the year ahead.
Don’t Look Up Reflects the Cynicism of Capitalist Decay, for Better and for Worsen The controversial film offers insight into the crisis of the system but misses the mark in key areas.
Copaganda You can call it Reverse Miranda— Or—you can call it Copaganda: highly effective $campaign, permanent budget drain Preying on poor Peoples’ pain—Protecting 1% reign… We are the world’s finest fiction writers Supremely skilled with Dr. Goebbels gift for gas- lighting—for disseminating disinformation, mis-information, 1/2 truths—for fashioning big lies…
BAR Book Forum: Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s “The Poetics of Difference”
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Mecca Jamilah Sullivan . Sullivan is Associate Professor of English at Georgetown University. Her book is The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora.
The Deadly, Destructive Costs of Ethiopia’s Illusory Independence
The mythology of Ethiopian independence is an impediment to understanding the current situation. Ethiopia did not escape European intervention, and that history impacts the present day.
Cuba Defeats Covid-19 with Learning, Science, and Unity
Despite U.S. sanctions, Cuba has succeeded in treating covid and has developed five different vaccines that are widely accepted by its population.
2021 Latin America and the Caribbean in Review: The Pink Tide Rises Again In 2021 the peoples of Latin American nations defied Washington by choosing the governments of their choice. Those countries still targeted for destabilization have not succumbed to Washington’s pressures.
Attack Against Haiti’s De Facto Prime Minister on Independence Day (+Core Group) The Core Group chose Ariel Henry as the de-factor president of Haiti, in defiance of the people’s wishes. But a conflict among factions makes his position insecure and resulted in a recent assassination attempt.
Using and Abusing Djibouti: How the US Transformed a Tiny African state Into a Hub of Imperial Aggression From Djibouti, the US trains proxies and bombs strategically-important countries in the name of democracy and counterterrorism. To justify the country’s militarization, Washington hypes fears over China’s regional ambitions.
Marxism and Black Liberation with Frank Chapman Author and organizer Frank Chapman joins Margaret Kimberley and Danny Haiphong to discuss his new book Marxist-Leninist Perspectives on Black Liberation and Socialism.
Labor:
There has been no recovery for the working class since the 2008 crash! From Paul Craig Roberts’ The Diminishing American Economy (Updated): The Diminishing American Economy (Updated),} Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through May 2019, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to December is 2021 61.8 percent.
FRED Labor Force Participation Rate Is 61.8%
Shadow Government Alternate Unemployment Charts November 2021 ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment is 24.8% The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time. 
Chicago Teachers Rebuke ‘Incompetent’ Mayor Lightfoot as Lockout Continues for Second Day “We are between a rock and a hard place—the rock being the pandemic, the hard place being an intractable, incompetent mayor,” said one Chicago Teachers Union officer. Classes across Chicago Public Schools were canceled for the second consecutive day Thursday as city officials refused to allow teachers to work remotely despite rising coronavirus cases and what the Chicago Teachers Union says are inadequate safety precautions in school facilities. The union filed an unfair labor practices charge with the state labor relations board late Wednesday, saying Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot and school officials failed to put proper public health measures in place before students and staff returned to school on Monday following the holiday break.
Chricago Teachers Union: Don’t Lock Educators Out For Demanding Safe In-Person Learning in Face of Largest Surge Of Pandemic FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JANUARY 4, 2022 For six months, the mayor’s CPS bargaining team has stalled at the table, rejecting CTU safety proposals as Lightfoot refuses to stand up robust testing, student vaccines and other safety protections in schools.
- 7:00 a.m., Wednesday, January 5: Press conference with parents, CTU educators and officers, via Zoom. The press conference will be livestreamed to the CTU’s Facebook page.
- 3:00 p.m. Wednesday, January 5: Car Caravan for safety in our schools. Assemble at Union Park, Ashland Ave. and Washington Blvd., Chicago
Chicago, January 4, 2022 — The Chicago Teachers Union issued the following statement today, after the Union’s elected House of Delegates voted by 88% to support a resolution to return to remote education during this deadly surge in the absence of safety guarantees from the Mayor’s CPS team. 73% of the CTU’s rank and file members voted in favor of that resolution this evening after the House sent the resolution to the general membership for an up or down vote. Those votes were cast over a four-hour period in a rapidly convened vote to address a groundswell of safety concerns raised by members in recent weeks. Delegates had set a threshold of two-thirds for the resolution to be considered approved, unlike a strike vote, which requires 75%. Tonight, as educators, parents, neighbors and community members we had to make the tough decision to support a resolution to return to remote learning in our city’s public schools. This decision was made with a heavy heart and a singular focus on student and community safety. Let us be clear. The educators of this city want to be in their classrooms with their students. We believe that our city’s classrooms are where our students should be. Regrettably, the Mayor and her CPS leadership have put the safety and vibrancy of our students and their educators in jeopardy. To the parents and guardians of this city, we want you to know that when you put your children in our care we put their well-being and safety first. We fight for your children like they are our own, because they are. As this pandemic continues, we will do everything in our power to ensure that our classrooms are the safest and healthiest places for your children to learn, thrive and grow. We also understand the frustration that is felt by tonight’s decision, and assure our families that we will continue to work diligently, as we have for months, to encourage the Mayor and her CPS leadership team to at last commit to enforceable safety protections centered on the well-being of our students, their families and our school communities.
Economy:
Wall Street Banks Have an Alibi for their $11.23 Trillion in Emergency Repo Loans from the Fed – It’s a Doozy From September 17, 2019 through July 2, 2020, the trading units of the Wall Street megabanks (both domestic and foreign) took a cumulative total of $11.23 trillion in emergency repo loans from the Federal Reserve. The loans were conducted by one of the 12 regional Fed banks, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – which is literally owned by megabanks, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and others. The New York Fed is also responsible for sending its bank examiners into these same banks to make sure they aren’t plotting some evil scheme that will bring down the U.S. economy, as they did with their derivatives and subprime debt bombs in 2008. Unfortunately, if a New York Fed bank examiner doesn’t listen to the “relationship managers” at the New York Fed, and insists on giving a negative review of a megabank, she can find herself fired, as New York Fed bank examiner and attorney Carmen Segarra found when she went up against Goldman Sachs. Segarra provides a fascinating look inside the New York Fed in her book, Noncompliant: A Lone Whistleblower Exposes the Giants of Wall Street. (For mind-numbing other conflicts at the New York Fed, see our report here.)
World:
Education, Health, Science, and Welfare:
After 1,000 Days in Belmarsh Prison, Campaigners Demand Freedom for Julian Assange ” One thing is clear: WikiLeaks has shown the world American war crimes. Julian Assange deserves thanks and recognition for this, not a life sentence.”
Labor Leader Gets Awarded for his Treachery!: Sir Tony Blair: Bloody Knight of the Realm Awards and honours bestowed by States or private committees, republican or monarchical, are bound to be corrupted by considerations of hypocrisy, racketeering and general, chummy disposition. From the Nobel Peace Prize to the range of eccentric and esoteric orders bestowed each year in Britain by Her Majesty, diddling and manipulating is never far behind. You are bestowed such things as a reminder of your worth to the establishment rather than your unique contribution to the good quotient of humanity. Flip many a peace prize over and you are bound to find the smouldering remains of a war criminal’s legacy.
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
Windfall Profiteering: Pfizer’s Shameless Pandemic Profiteering Lenin once said that “war is terrible, terribly profitable.” The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic measures up to warfare, not only in terms of the lives it has taken, but also the grotesque windfall it has provided to capitalist profiteers. The US-based company Pfizer has emerged as the most egregious example of Big Pharma exploiting a horrific public health crisis to swell its coffers. Known for years primarily for making Viagra, Pfizer’s name is now synonymous with one of the most effective COVID-19 vaccines on the market – although it did not create the technology behind it. Recent investigations have revealed Pfizer has reaped tremendous profits whilst holding millions of lives hostage.