Daily News Digest February 7, 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:
Negro leaders suffer from this interplay of solidarity and divisiveness, being either exalted excessively or grossly abused. Some of these leaders suffer from an aloofness and absence of faith in their people. The white establishment is skilled in flattering and cultivating emerging leaders. It presses its own image on them and finally, from imitation of manners, dress and style of living, a deeper strain of corruption develops. This kind of Negro leader acquires the white man’s contempt for the ordinary Negro. He is often more at home with the middle-class white than he is among his own people. His language changes, his location changes, his income changes, and ultimately he changes from the representative of the Negro to the white man into the white man’s representative of the Negro. The tragedy is that too often he does not recognize what has happened to him. — Martin Luther King Jr. 1967, The Black Power Defined
Videos of the Day:
From Iraq and Afghanistan to Baltimore City: The ‘Throwbot’ Police spending that was approved by Baltimore City this week and highlighted by budget watchdogs includes surveillance technology cops can throw.
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 th poor and gives to the Rich. Tax the Rich! — They Can Afford to Pay!
The Sepctre of Fascism is Due to the Currrent Economic Crisis of Capitalism and its Constant Attack Upon the Working Class Since 1948, and The Default/Treachnrous Roll of the Trade Union Bureaucracy The majority of the American people were opposed to both Biden and Trump. The Majority of the People are worse off since Obama’s austerity progam, during his stay in office. Trump won because he filled a vacuum of leadership in opposition to the austerity program of the 1%’s United States. Hillary Clinton lost becuse she was a part of the austerity program. Both the Republican and the Dencratic parties support austerity and cuts to sociery’s ‘safetynet’, social security, public education. unemploymnet insurace, etc., that was won by the rise of the CIO during the 1930s and 40s.
Despite the Need for Humanity to Stop Burning Fossil Fuel, for Its Survival, as a Species. — Capitalists Battle for Control of Oil Markets! The World is Witnessing Capitalist Russia’s Quest to Keep Control of the European Oil Market and Capitalist United States’ (Pax Americana) Quest for the Control/Share of the European Oil Market.
Barry Sheppard and Malik Miah: What’s Behind US-NATO Warmongering Against Russia? The current United States-Russia crisis has its roots in Washington’s betrayal of its well-documented promise to Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in the early 1990s to not move NATO eastward. Made during the breakup of the Soviet Union, then US Secretary of State James Baker said NATO would not move “one inch” east. NATO’s existence as an anti-USSR military alliance organised and controlled by the US dates back to the beginning of the Cold War. It has continued since with the expressed purpose to militarily confront Russia. The US has more than 70,000 troops permanently stationed in European countries. It is planning to use the present crisis to send thousands more, including into former Eastern European countries, along with additional offensive weapons (called “defensive” by Washington) and other military hardware.
‘I Remember WMDs in Iraq’: Reporter Calls Out US Official on Russian Intel Claims “You just come out and say this and expect us just to believe it without you showing a shred of evidence that it’s actually true,” said Associated Press reporter Matt Lee. Veteran Associated Press reporter Matt Lee grilled a State Department spokesperson Thursday over the U.S. government’s refusal to provide direct evidence for its claim that Russia is planning to fabricate a mass casualty event as a pretext to invade Ukraine, an allegation that the Pentagon said is backed up by intelligence.
Watch: Heated exchange between AP Matt Lee and StateDeptSpox Ned Price on declassified information.
New Tlaib, Jones Measure Could Slash US Child Poverty by Two-Thirds: Analysis “With the Senate failing to extend the CTC, we must do more to protect our young people,” said Rep. Mondaire Jones. “By creating a universal, monthly child allowance, the End Child Poverty Act will do exactly that.” As millions of poor and working-class Americans families endure increased hardship due to the recent lapse of the federal child tax credit, a pair of progressive U.S. lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill that, if passed, would replace the expired lifeline with more generous benefits.
US Sanctions on Afghanistan Could Be Deadlier Than 20 Years of War An enormous price will be paid by millions of innocent people, many of whom will die, as food, health care, employment, and income become increasingly scarce. The biggest and most destructive sanction currently facing Afghanistan is the seizure of more than $7 billion of the country’s assets that are held at the US
‘Unnecessary and Irresponsible’: Biden Slammed for Continuation of Trump-Era Deportation Policy “Expelling asylum seekers has never been about public health,” said one immigrant rights group. Immigrant rights defenders redoubled their calls to end a Trump-era deportation policy known as Title 42 after the CDC confirmed Thursday that the measure will remain in place despite long-standing criticism.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!
Pipeline Safety Advocates Say Government ‘Has Failed’ the Public in the Wake of a Coastal Louisiana Oil Spill State regulators left the public in the dark for weeks after a major diesel fuel spill near New Orleans. The spill came from a pipeline owned by a company the state had just granted a permit to a nearby project. A. nonprofit advocacy group focused on improving oil and gas pipeline safety is raising concerns about public accountability and transparency in the wake of a major diesel spill in coastal Louisiana after it went unreported to the public for weeks, despite contaminating or killing thousands of fish and dozens of alligators, birds, and other wildlife. The absence of news about the spill prompted the Pipeline Safety Trust to issue a press release on January 11, noting that the spill resulted from a severely corroded pipeline awaiting repair which federal regulators had flagged more than a year earlier. “I would like the public to know that the system has failed them in this case,” Bill Caram, the trust’s executive director, said by email. On December 27, 2021, the pipeline, owned by Collins Pipeline Co., ruptured and spilled about 315,000 gallons of diesel fuel into wetlands and ponds a few miles southeast of New Orleans. Just a week earlier, Louisiana state regulators approved a preliminary air permit for a proposed renewable diesel unit at a refinery run by the pipeline firm’s parent company, PBF Energy. On January 22, I was able to photograph the oil spill site and any lingering cleanup efforts from the air, thanks to a flight provided by the nonprofit conservation group SouthWings. By then, the cleanup was nearly completed. Sheen was still visible on the top of two ponds, where most of the diesel ended up. To date, no photos documenting the scale of the spill or serious impacts to wildlife have been made public.
Prosecutors Silence Evidence of Cruel Factory Farm Practices in Animal Rights Cases The government wants to keep juries from seeing gruesome evidence of animals in distress — the very reason activists are going into farms. IN CRIMINAL TRIALS, judges routinely rule that certain evidence or testimony does not get presented to the jury. By and large, these rulings to exclude evidence benefit the defendant: Gruesome images of a murder victim, for example, are regularly kept out of the courtroom to mitigate unfair prejudice against the accused. In a recent uptick of cases against animal rights activists, who face hefty charges for removing ailing animals from farms, the typical logic behind keeping evidence from a jury is flipped on its head. The prosecutors, rather than defendants, have sought — often successfully — to suppress all mention during trial of animal cruelty even though it is the very issue that should be at the core of these cases.
Factory Farms are mot Sustainable!: UN report: The World’s Farms Stretched to ‘A Breaking Point’ The world’s climate-stressed and pollution-degraded farming and agricultural system must shift quickly to sustainable practices to feed an additional 2 billion mouths expected by 2050, a new United Nations report finds. lmost 10% of the 8 billion people on earth are already undernourished with 3 billion lacking healthy diets, and the land and water resources farmers rely on stressed to “a breaking point.” And by 2050 there will be 2 billion more mouths to feed, warns a new report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). For now, farmers have been able to boost agricultural productivity by irrigating more land and applying heavier doses of fertilizer and pesticides. But the report says these practices are not sustainable: They have eroded and degraded soil while polluting and depleting water supplies and shrinking the world’s forests. The FAO report discusses some important climate change impacts, such as changing distribution of rainfall, the suitability of land for certain crops, the spread of insects and other pests, and shorter growing seasons in regions affected by more intense droughts. While not the sole source of obstacles facing global agriculture, the report makes clear that climate change is further stressing agricultural systems and amplifying global food production challenges.
Texas Says It Doesn’t Monitor Pollution Spikes, Calling It ‘Often Unnecessary’ Gaps in tracking industrial pollution before, during and after a natural disaster adversely impacts marginalized communities Last year, during Texas’s devastating winter freeze, oil refineries, chemical manufacturers and other industrial plants emitted a whopping 4.7m pounds of excess chemicals into the air that millions of people breathe.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
February Is Black History Monthe’
John Lewis 1963 March on Washington Speech “Where is Our Party” My friends let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution. By and large, politicians who build their career on immoral compromise and allow themselves an open forum of political, economic and social exploitation dominate American politics. There are exceptions, of course. We salute those. But what political leader can stand up and say, “My party is a party of principles”? For the party of Kennedy is also the party of Eastland. The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater. Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march in the streets of Birmingham? Where is the political party that will protect the citizens of Albany, Georgia?
‘Do Nothing Biden’: Time for the DOJ to Get Much More Aggressive on Voting Rights The DOJ must use its authority to challenge discriminatory reforms immediately, before the election. The new obstacles must be exposed as the insult that they are, and used to motivate even more people to vote. The right to vote is under attack in states across the country. A Republican filibuster has blocked legislation that would protect that right. President Biden can still act right now to help defend that right, by ramping up the Justice Department’s efforts to challenge those measures designed to suppress the vote. These systematic efforts to suppress the vote, to rig the rules so a minority can capture a majority of legislative seats, are testament to how important voting is in a democracy.
Labor:
In a Single Year, $1.78 Trillion Was Stolen From the Working Class The wealth workers should have received, had wages kept up with productivity, was instead given to shareholders.
Since 2008 Till Now, There Has Been a Recovery for the !%, Depression for the 99%!
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 Ferruary 2002, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.2 percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (Updated)
FRED Labor Force Participation Rate is 62.2
Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Unemployment Charts Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Unemployment held at 24.5%. 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 employment. 
Economy:
World:
Theses on Ukraine – 2014 The following theses were approved at the World Congress of the International Marxist Tendency, held between 29 July and 3 August 2014, in Greece. Despite the time that has elapsed, we believe that the core points of this analysis remain completely valid: its assessment of the situation in Ukraine; of the civil war in Donbas; of the character of the government that emerged from the Maidan events; the role of Russia and NATO, etc. The points explained within these theses are key to understanding the crisis that is currently unfolding. The root cause of the crisis in Ukraine is to be found in the disastrous effects of the restoration of capitalism. The destruction of the planned economy was a tremendous setback not only from the point of view of the economy, but also from a social point of view. From the ashes of the planned economy emerged a brutal capitalist regime, based on the large scale theft of state property by different gangs of crooks and Mafiosi, the oligarchs, which came to control the economy and as a result, the political system. Mafia-style capitalism resulted in endemic instability with western imperialism taking advantage of the crisis in Russia to exert their influence over Ukraine, unsettling the balance of power in the region for a whole period, thus creating the conditions for the present crisis. Some of the oligarchs thought their interests were better served with an alliance with the West, others were aligned with Russia, but their overriding motivation was the maximisation of profit at any cost, through legal and, mostly, illegal means. On this basis it was impossible to establish even the semblance of a functioning bourgeois democracy. One corrupt and authoritarian bourgeois regime followed another.
Joint Russia-China Statement Articulates United Opposition to Western Alliance Today’s joint statement is a historic articulation of the major shift underway from the unipolar world that has existed since the fall of the Soviet Union. momentous changes, and humanity is entering a new era of rapid development and profound transformation. It sees the development of such processes and phenomena as multipolarity, economic globalization, the advent of information society, cultural diversity, transformation of the global governance architecture and world order; there is increasing interrelation and interdependence between the States; a trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world; and the international community is showing a growing demand for the leadership aiming at peaceful and gradual development. At the same time, as the pandemic of the new coronavirus infection continues, the international and regional security situation is complicating and the number of global challenges and threats is growing from day to day. Some actors representing but the minority on the international scale continue to advocate unilateral approaches to addressing international issues and resort to force; they interfere in the internal affairs of other states, infringing their legitimate rights and interests, and incite contradictions, differences and confrontation, thus hampering the development and progress of mankind, against the opposition from the international community.
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!