Daily News Digest January 31, 2022
Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines are Free For the Whole World!
Image of the Day:
Bendib: The SEC Foxes For these suits going through the SEC’s revolving door, ethics rules are for the birds.
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:
The idea that fertilization creates “a life” with equal moral standing to a pregnant person… was crafted to serve the agenda of contemporary conservative Christian power and male authority. —Fetal Personhood: Another Big Lie From the Christian Right
Now I want to deal with the third evil that constitutes the dilemma of our nation and the world. And that is the evil of war. Somehow these three evils are tied together. The triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. The great problem and the great challenge facing mankind today is to get rid of war … We have left ourselves as a nation morally and politically isolated in the world. We have greatly strengthened the forces of reaction in America, and excited violence and hatred among our own people. — Martin Luther King Jr. Saw Three Evils In The World
Videos of the Day:
Home Demolition in Sheikh Jarrah Seen as Part of Broader Israeli Effort to Dispossess Palestinians
Cops Broke Into His Home Without Showing a Warrant, But What Happened Next is Even Worse
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!
The Attacks on History are just the Beginnings of Fahrenheit 451: Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works,[4] the novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and “firemen” burn any that are found.[5] The book’s tagline explains the title as “the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns”: the autoignition temperature of paper. The lead character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and committing himself to the preservation of literary and cultural writings.
The Left Demobilized: the Usual Suspects Are To Blame Just two years ago, the sky was the limit for progressives: Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and a Sanders’ candidacy for president. There was serious talk of forgiving student debt, of free community college, paid parental leave, finally lowering the costs of essential medicines and more. Now, the best progressives can muster is primarying the treacherous, corporate, bought-and-paid for Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema. What a difference a couple of years make! This was all entirely predictable. The Democratic party has mainly functioned since the 1930s to demobilize left movements, and these latest weren’t even movements. (Certainly thin soup compared to the militant communism FDR set out to dilute.) These were platforms in a candidacy. Platforms that the cautious, billionaire-sycophant likes of Barack Obama had no intention of ever seeing signed into law – so he coordinated the withdrawal of all other Dem presidential candidates at a critical juncture to boost Biden over Sanders. Another reason for this repulsive electoral jujitsu was that Obama doubtless believed Biden not Sanders was the only one who could defeat Trump. But he did not take the long view. Obama didn’t look past 2020. Had Sanders won, and got a few executive orders like forgiving student debt under his belt, we wouldn’t be looking at a possible fascist catastrophe in 2024. These halcyon mid-election cycle days would not feel so much like a Weimar interregnum.
As the Door Revolves: Utterly Shameless’: Former Democratic Senators Join Fossil Fuel Lobby Group Environmentalists on Thursday excoriated two former Democratic U.S. senators who announced they are joining a pro-fossil fuel group that falsely promotes fracked gas as a “solution” to the climate emergency.
Differed Maintence: What We Know About the Fern Hollow Bridge’s Condition Before The Collapse Before its collapse Friday morning, the Fern Hollow Bridge in Point Breeze shared the same designation with more than 200 bridges in the Pittsburgh region and among 45,000 bridges in the United States: Structurally deficient. That’s one in three bridges nationally that have major issues even though they remain open. Pennsylvania, along with West Virginia, is among the five states that have the most structurally deficient bridges. And Allegheny County and Pittsburgh, the City of Bridges, often rank high in the highest number of structurally deficient bridges. The National Bridge Inventory from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association identified 230 bridges in the 17th Congressional District as structurally deficient, which means that at least one part of the bridge had been recognized as in either poor or worse condition. That’s slightly more than one out of every 10 of the bridges here. But it’s not alone: According to ARTBA’s report in 2020, 14.6% of bridges in Pennsylvania are structurally deficient. It would cost $20.7 billion to make all the needed repairs on bridges in Pennsylvania alone, according to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation estimates.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!
The “Greening” of Cuba: Organic Farming — Cuba: “The Road Not Taken”: The Other Cuban Revolution I attended the “Dialogue With Cuba” conference at the University of Berkeley on March 23,1998. I went to the panel discussion on agriculture in Cuba and saw the film; The Greening of Cuba. In that film one can see the dramatic transformation that is taking place in agriculture.
Normally it takes 3-5 years, after the transition, to begin to achieve the previous levels of productivity. Cuba had the task of feeding its population while undergoing this transformation.The Greening of Cuba is a documentary on how well the Cubans have met the challenge. One of the gains of the Cuban Revolution has been the development of education. Although Cuba has only 2% of the population of Latin America, it has 11% of the PhD’s in Latin America. Cuban scientists were mobilized — not to protect chemicals as in this country — but to develop the alternative organic model . In the past few years Cuban scientists and planners have accelerated this process by using sophisticated biotechnology techniques, such as the mass production of naturally occurring local organisms to create biopesticides and biofertilizers. Among the alternative tactics being used for pest control, the most important are conventional biological controls based on mass releases of parasitic and predatory insects and the use of biopesticides. Cuba produces numerous formulations of bacterial and fungal diseases that attack insect pests. These are applied to crops in lieu of chemical insecticides. At present, 218 biotechnology centers are located on agricultural cooperatives, where the workers are typically people in their twenties who were born on the cooperative and have received some university-level training. Industrial production of these biopesticides is under way for larger- scale operations aimed at export crops. Many biopesticides are applied to crops in place of chemical insecticides. Cuba is also one of the world leaders in the use of biofertilizers, including the standard Rhizobium inoculants for leguminous crops, as well as free-living bacteria that make atmospheric nitrogen available for non-legumes, and solubilizing bacteria that liberate phosphorus for uptake by plants. (M0re)
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Advocates of the Iron Heel: Corporations Are Funding Police Repression From the Amazon to Hubbard County, Minnesota, corporations are funding the repression of protesters. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” Kelly Hayes talks with Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing, about the history and future of corporate collaborations with the police. Kelly also talks with attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard about newly exposed documents that reveal the lead prosecutor in Hubbard County sought corporate funding for the prosecution of Line 3 protesters.
New Jim Crow Hypocrisy: Prison Profiteer Is Using Sandra Bland’s Death to Sell Surveillance Technology Guardian RFID is a virtually unknown, but rapidly growing, company that sells digital technology to jails. It makes ID cards and bracelets that can be scanned by guards when doing head counts, meal distribution and suicide checks. Guardian RFID is yet another prison profiteer among the ever-expanding number of companies that operate as what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “parasites,” feeding off of the prison-industrial complex. What is most disturbing about Guardian RFID are its plans for super-surveillance in the carceral environment. Guardian RFID was named by Inc. magazine as the 396th fastest-growing private company in 2021, increasing its revenue by 126 percent in three years. Guardian RFID has been around for 20 years selling its products to jails, prisons and juvenile detention centers. The company claims to provide technology for 75,000 correctional officers, who they call “Warriors” protecting “America’s Thin Gray Line.”
Labor:
Economy:
Michael Roberts Facebook Blog: The The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has developed a weekly GDP growth tracker for the major economies based on Google trends data. It is premised on the economic recovery from the COVID pandemic measured against trend growth before the pandemic. That produces a reverse-square root line for real GDP growth, as illustrated in my book, The Long Depression. Graph1: The weekly tracker for US GDP growth shows the US economy still -2.8% below pre-COVID trend growth. And it’s been slipping back since November 2021 under the pressure of the Omicron wave. Graph 2: And the tracker suggests that the aggregate of all major economies has an average shortfall to pre-COVID of 2.5% in mid-January 2022 That’s a measure of the ‘scarring’ in the OECD economies from the pandemic slump.
Bloomberg’s Craig Torres Shakes Up the Fed’s Zombie Press Conference with a Gutsy Trading Scandal Question Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s press conferences are tortiously zombie affairs even for Fed wonks like us. The vast majority of questions coming from the press strictly adhere to coloring inside the lines. That means only slight variations on endless questions about inflation, asset tapering, timing of rate hikes and similar snoozers. . . . Torres: “Chair Powell, I have a quick administrative question. You know, Robert Kaplan’s disclosure of his securities transactions: In a couple of months, Chair Powell, or maybe sooner, you and I will file our tax returns. And we’ll list transactions and all kinds of things. And next to those transactions we’ll put dates. And Bloomberg asked for the dates of Mr. Kaplan’s transactions. The Dallas Fed is not giving us the dates. And I don’t see why this is a matter for the Inspector General or anybody else. I mean, why can’t he give us the dates? Will you help us get the dates of those transactions? Thanks.” Powell: “I know you’ve been all over this issue with my colleagues, Craig, on the issue of information. We don’t have that information at the Board. And, you know, I had — I asked the Inspector General to do an investigation, and that is out of my hands. I’m playing no role in it. I seek to play no role in it. And I don’t — I really — I can’t help you here today on this issue. And I’m sorry I can’t.”
World:
Lavrov Says ‘There Will Be No War’ Over Ukraine Unless US Escalates “If it depends on Russia, then there will be no war,” said the Russian foreign minister. “We don’t want wars.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted Friday that his government has no desire to take military action in Ukraine, contrary to what peace advocates and Ukrainian officials have denounced as the United States’ overly heated rhetoric in recent weeks. “If it depends on Russia, then there will be no war,” Lavrov said on a Russian radio program. “We don’t want wars. But we also won’t allow our interests to be rudely trampled, to be ignored.”
Boris Johnson: Dead Man Walking Despite mounting pressure on all sides, the Prime Minister is stubbornly clinging on. But it is clear that the ruling class is looking to replace him. This is opening up a crisis for the whole establishment, preparing an explosive situation. “In a revolutionary period the old ‘superstructure’ falls apart, and, in full view of everyone…” (Lenin). In the past, disputes amongst the ruling class occurred behind closed doors. They would keep their squabbles away from the prying eyes of a ‘third party’ – namely, the working class. ‘Discretions’ at the top, which were widespread, were kept safely under wraps. But not anymore. Scandals at the top are being revealed on a daily basis. The sordid intrigues and corruption in the Tory Party, Downing Street, the Royal Family, and the establishment more generally, are played out in full view of the public. It seems like the old ‘superstructure’ is crumbling.
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!
Anti-Vaxxers and Big Pharma, Partners in Crime The common accusation hurled at proponents of covid-19 vaccines, like me, is that we are carrying dirty water for Big Pharma. The overwhelming evidence that vaccines are safe, does not matter. The fact that they are effective at keeping people out of the hospital, doesn’t matter. The scientific certainty that vaccines reduce transmission (especially among the boosted, even against omicron), doesn’t matter. These truths, the conspiracists boldly tell us, are simply cooked up by Big Pharma’s goons and spoon-fed to the gullible masses by mainstream media and their corporate overlords. Anti-vaxxers have a laundry list of reasons why they will never accept the hard data, let alone give it an unbiased look. Hospitals and public health departments are all in on the big hoax too, you see, paid off by all those covert pharmaceutical agents. Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci are getting rich off the devious scheme, and we are all suckers for buying the tricksters’ plandemic lies. The real goods, the disbelievers confess, are being censored, and like climate change denialists, they alone hold the keys to what’s really going on. After all, Big Pharma has a huge incentive to spread their filthy lies, they are greedy after all. You remember the opioid-pushing Sacklers, don’t ya? What many of the skeptics do not realize, however, is that by discounting vaccine efficacy and overlooking the mountain science supporting their use, they are inadvertently aiding and abetting the very Big Pharma villains they claim to despise. How is that, you ask? There is one big reason: Big Pharma does not want to inoculate the world’s poor against covid-19 and neither do the anti-vaxxers.