Daily News Digest January 28, 2022
Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines are Free For the Whole World!
Image of the Day:
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:
Chris Hedges discusses the implications of the latest British High Court of England and Wales ruling and its implications for Julian Assange’s case with documentary filmmaker and journalist John Pilger. . . . CH: Welcome to On Contact. Today we discuss the latest court ruling in the case of Julian Assange with the documentary filmmaker and journalist, John Pilger. JP: This is a straightforward case. This is a man who revealed, as you have and I have and other journalists have, secrets of government. Only in this case, he reveals so many of them and so many dire secrets, they decided to shut him up and to shut down WikiLeaks. It’s a wholly vindictive prosecution. And I sat in — I sat and listened to the decision in December. It was almost unbelievable to hear them not even— well, to turn down the — to agree with the US’ right to appeal but to ignore a year and a half of evidence and evidence that was so damning against the US that, you know, there are so many points on which this whole case should have been thrown out. — On Contact: Assange can appeal UK Supreme Court (Podcast
Videos of the Day:
Despite U.S. Embargo, Cuba Aims to Share Homegrown Vaccine with Global South
“The Lords of Easy Money”: How the Federal Reserve Enriched Wall Street & Broke the U.S. Economy
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. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford to Pay!
To Send Weapons and Troops to Ukraine You’d Have to Be a Stupid Son of a Biden Have yall learned absolutely nothing? The U.S. government’s internal memos said that the only way to get Iraq to use its weapons if it even had any would be to attack it. The U.S. government’s public statements were that Iraq certainly had weapons and therefore must be attacked. The U.S. government itself had every single one of the weapons in question and knew Iraq used to have some of them because the U.S. had provided them. This was not a question of faulty information. This was not a question of political ideology. This was a question of absofuckinglute insanity. The U.S. government’s internal memos right now, if we see them years from now, will be found to have said that expanding NATO and putting troops and weapons into Eastern Europe including Ukraine has provoked Russia to put troops near its border with Ukraine — a giant success for weapons dealers, NATO’s continued existence, and militarist politicians.
As The United States (Through its Proxy Saudia Arabia) Air War in Yemen Drones On! Biden Claims He Wants to End the Yemen War. His Actions Suggest Otherwise. The U.S.’s role in perpetuating the conflict in Yemen is making peace negotiations more difficult On January 21, a coalition of forces led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) carried out an airstrike in Yemen that is now confirmed to have killed at least 87 people. As many as 266 were also wounded in the strike, which targeted a detention center in the northern city of Sa’ada that reportedly housed african migrants. Fragments of the bombs bore a unique manufacturing code for Raytheon, one of the largest U.S. weapons contractors. On the same day, the coalition bombed a telecommunications building in Hodeidah, a crucial port city that has been the site of several major battles over the course of the conflict. That strike caused a nationwide internet outage that lasted for days, resulting in delays to the limited humanitarian relief that’s allowed into the country.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!
Over the past week, several new per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been added to California’s Proposition 65 list. In March 2021, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) selected perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and its salt and transformation and degradation precursors for evaluation by California’s Carcinogenic Identification Committee (CIC). OEHHA also selected perfluoronanoic acid (PFNA) and perfluoroundecanoic acid (PFDA) for evaluation by California’s Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee (DARTIC). Several industry groups submitted comments in opposition to adding these PFAS chemicals to the Proposition 65 lists. For example, even though PFOS has been voluntarily phased out of production in the United States, the American Chemistry Council opposed listing PFOS as a carcinogen under Proposition 65, claiming that the available data doesn’t support a conclusion that PFOS presents a carcinogenic risk to humans. — New PFAS Additions to the Proposition 65 List FridayBottom of Form
Nearly 75% of Water-Resistant Products Contain Toxic PFAS, Study Finds Chemicals used in everyday products have been associated with ‘a range of serious health problems’ including cancer and birth defects A new analysis of popular brand name products detected toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” in nearly 75% of items labeled stain- or water-resistant. The study’s authors say the companies are needlessly putting customers’ health at risk. The findings highlight how the compounds are widely used in everyday products and clothing despite mounting evidence that the entire class of PFAS chemicals is associated with a range of serious health problems, and safer alternatives exist.
100% of Breast Milk Samples Tested Positive for Toxic “Forever Chemicals” New study finds that newer PFAS chemicals build up in people, despite opposite claims made by the chemical industryToxic PFAS is used in food packaging, clothing, and other products, but national regulation lags behind state and corporate actions SEATTLE, WA—Today a new study finding toxic chemicals in 100% of breast milk samples tested was published in Environmental Science & Technology. Scientists from Toxic-Free Future, Indiana University, the University of Washington, and Seattle Children’s Research Institute led the research, which shows that toxic PFAS (per- and polyfluorinated substances)—including new generation compounds currently in use—build up in people. Despite chemical industry assurances that current-use PFAS do not build up in people, the study finds detections of these chemicals in breast milk to be on the rise globally and doubling every four years.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Eugene Debs’s Stirring, Never-Before-Published Eulogy to John Brown at Harpers Ferry In a previously unpublished eulogy to John Brown from 1908, Eugene Debs proclaimed Brown the “greatest liberator this country has known” and declared that ”the Socialist Party is carrying on the work begun by John Brown.” We publish it here in full.
The Black Left Tradition: Its Enduring Lessons and Insights Malcolm X, in his classic autobiography, condemned the cruelty and domination that Asian Indians and the Chinese had faced under European colonization. He stated, unequivocally, “[…] excepting the African slave trade, nowhere has history recorded any more unnecessary bestial and ruthless human carnage than the British suppression of the non-white Indian people.” Despite, at times, being an extremely frustrating and contradictory political figure, preaching self-help while condemning King for somehow not being “radical” enough, a major consistency in Malcolm X’s worldview was his insistence that the struggle for justice was always a global one. That black people in the U.S. had much in common with Africans and Asians and others who had experienced similar types of abuse and exploitation. “Expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights,” he exclaimed in his “Ballot or the Bullet” speech. “Take it into the United Nations, where our African brothers can throw their weight on our side, where our Asian brothers can throw their weight on our side, where our Latin-American brothers can throw their weight on our side, and where 800 million Chinamen are sitting there waiting to throw their weight on our side.”Environmental — Fracking Kills!:
It’s Time for a Global Billionaire and Millionaire Wealth Tax to Save Our Living Planet The next time you hear someone say it is impossible to solve the climate and biodiversity crises, let them know that the only thing impossible is governments actually acting without massive grassroots pressure. In their 2019 Emissions Gap Report, the U.N. states that transitioning to a zero-carbon economy by 2050 will cost between $1.6-$3.8 trillion annually. While this is an enormous amount of money, to put it into context, $16.7 trillion was spent globally by May 2021 on COVID-19 measures. It is also worth noting that should global temperatures warm by 2°C, then the cost to the global economy is estimated at between $10-$20 trillion a year, a fivefold increase. The cost of action will rise each year governments drag their feet. It will never be cheaper than $1.6-$3.8 trillion.
Labor:
One-Day Strike Nets $5+ Hourly Raise for Mississippi Bus Drivers “Strikes work,” Fight for 15 responded. Poorly paid bus drivers in a rural Mississippi school district went on strike last Friday morning and by the end of the day, they had won an hourly pay raise of at least $5, lifting their wages to $20 an hour. The strike happened after the Jefferson Davis County school board authorized paying $25 per hour to drivers hired on an emergency basis, Magnolia State Live first reported Wednesday. The emergency pay proposal—meant to incentivize retired teachers, coaches, and bus drivers to help alleviate an ongoing labor shortage—passed 4-1. However, the pay bump didn’t apply to existing drivers, some of whom were making as little as $12 an hour—less than half the newly established emergency rate.
Economy:
A Government Study Shows that Wall Street Megabanks Have Dramatically Shifted their Derivative Exposure to Corporations The last thing a volatile stock market needs right now is more surprises from the dark corners of Wall Street. Unfortunately, we can guarantee you that more surprises are coming in the way of uncleared derivatives blowing up on the balance sheets of publicly-traded corporations. How do we know this? The information in the chart above comes from a study quietly released last July by the Office of Financial Research (OFR). That’s the federal agency that provides research to bank regulators to prevent systemic financial contagion from taking down the Wall Street megabanks and the U.S. economy in another replay of 2008.
World:
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 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!
Government/Big Pharma/Medical Cartel: Biden Must Take on Big Pharma Over Cancer Drug That Costs $189,000 Per Year The medication in question Xtandi—developed with taxpayer dollars and used to treat prostate cancer—costs up to five times more in the U.S.