Daily News Digest March 7, 2022
Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines, Like the Salk Polio Vaccine, are Free For the Whole World
Image of the Day:
Climate Youth Fill the World’s Streets to #Stand With Ukraine
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:
From: Capital, Volume One, Part VIII, Chapter 31, (the) “Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist: This often-overlooked chapter is very important in today’s world. Industrial Capitalism did not come into being due to the gradual primitive accumulation of capital, but rather the industrial revolution was fueled by the wealth plundered from the colonialized world in the name of Christianity. This is the historic material basis for modern racism as an ideology, which is used to justify the holocaust perpetuated upon the majority of the world during the period of the subjugation of the colonial world to European/United States capitalist imperialism. Karl Marx was one of the first to oppose the colonial oppression of the world’s masses. He did not mince his words in, this chapter of Capital, he wrote: “ The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement, and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. … If money … comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.”
Videos of the Day:
On Contact: Race and America’s Long War On the show, Chris Hedges discusses America’s inner and outer wars and its nexus with capitalism and empire with Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History at New York University Nikhil Pal Singh. The internal violence in the United States, militarized police, and the largest prison system in the world, along with America’s endemic racism, are mirrored in the foreign wars that have been fought almost continuously by the United States since the end of the 19th century. These inner and outer wars, argues historian Nikhil Pal Singh, are intimately connected. The gunning down of unarmed black people in American cities is expressed outside our borders in the gunning down of unarmed Muslims in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia, often by militarized drones. The prison-industrial-complex at home is given form in the myriad of overseas black sites where victims, kidnapped and transported to other countries by the CIA, are held in secret, tortured, and killed.
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!
Hold All Politicians Accountable for Waging War, Not Just Putin The Russian government has invaded Ukraine using the same pretext of national security that the U.S. used to invade Iraq 19 years ago in 2003. As a U.S. diplomat who resigned from the U.S. government in 2003 in opposition to Bush’s war on Iraq, I hoped at the time that all Americans would not be vilified by the world for the actions of the Bush administration. As hard as it might be for some now, I plead that we not vilify the Russian people for the actions of their political leaders. I hope that we can be as generous to peace-seeking Russians as the world was to anti-war Americans. have visited Russia twice in the past 6 years and I know the Russians I spoke with—and I would guess that most Russians—do not want war and object to Putin’s war on Ukraine. Thousands of Russians have taken to the streets to protest the war and have been jailed. Thousands of Russians have signed letters and petitions to their own government to stop the military action against Ukraine.
Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: Outing the Iraq War White Washers Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has presented a particularly odious grouping, a good number of them neoconservatives, a chance to hand wash and dry before the idol of international law. Law breakers become defenders of oracular force, arguing for the territorial integrity of States and the sanctity of borders, and the importance of the UN Charter. Reference can be made to Hitler’s invasions during the Second World War with a revoltingly casual disposition, a comparison that seeks to eclipse the role played by other gangster powers indifferent to the rule and letter of international comity. Speculation can be had that the man in the Kremlin has gone mad, if he was ever sane to begin with. As Jonathan Cook writes with customary accuracy, western leaders tend to find it convenient “that every time another country defies the West’s projection of power, the western media can agree on one thing: that the foreign government in question is led by a madman, a psychopath or a megalomaniac.” It might well be said that the US-led Iraq invasion in 2003 was a product of its own mental disease, the product of ideological and evangelical madness, accompanied by a conviction that states could be forcibly pacified into a state of democracy. Where there was no evidence of links between Baghdad and al-Qaeda operatives responsible for the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, it was simply made up.Biden’s SOTU Speech Channeled Reagan While Nearly Ignoring Climate The entire legislative story of last summer and fall involved the Congressional Progressive Caucus fighting to the knife to defend the climate-salvaging elements of Biden’s infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better Act, only to have those efforts undermined by a cabal of corporate Vichy Democrats led by Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Hours before the speech, the United Nations released a massive report detailing how we are climate-screwed on a timetable measuring in days unless immediate action is taken. In the face of all this, Biden and his speechwriters chose to ignore the climate crisis almost completely. The betrayal here — not only of the caucus that went to war for him only to be betrayed over and over, but of the truth, of the facts, of the growing menace that seeks to burn and drown us simultaneously — is nearly unfathomable. Put another way: How would it have been if Biden had gone the whole night without ever mentioning Ukraine? Unthinkable, right? Why was it permissible for him to skip addressing the massive calamity immediately threatening life on the planet as we know it?
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
Climate Youth Fill the World’s Streets to #Stand With Ukraine “This is an eye-opening moment for humanity to see that the world is aflame with new and old wars caused by fossil fuels,” said Fridays for Future. “People only desire to live and exist safely.” Young climate campaigners with Fridays for Future took to the streets across the globe Thursday to stand with the people of Ukraine—whose country was invaded last week by Russian President Vladimir Putin—and call for a world that prioritizes peace and freedom from fossil fuels for all.
‘Historic First’ as Hawaii Court OKs Lawsuit Against Big Oil As climate costs for communities continue to soar, Big Oil companies must be held accountable to pay their fair share “This development should send a message to communities across the country that the legal case for making polluters pay for lying about fossil-fueled damages is strong and defensible.”
Civil Rights/BlackLiberation:
The Capitalist Roots of U.S. Racial Oppression A recent BBC report attributes climate-change damage in Africa to “racialized capitalism.” That confusing term reflects a new understanding of U.S. slavery on the part of many historians. Here the term signifies the commanding role of capitalism in the oppression of Africans and of African-descended peoples in the United States. Racial hatred, by implication, takes on a secondary role as a tool useful for enforcing oppression. What follows is an attempt to highlight the contribution of capitalism to racial oppression in the United States. W.E.B. DuBois describes Europeans “scurrying down the hot, mysterious coasts of Africa to the Good Hope of Gain until for the first time a real commerce was born […] That sinister traffic, on which the British Empire and the American Republic were largely built cost black Africa no less than 100,000,000 souls, the wreckage of its political and social life, and left the continent in precisely that state of helplessness which invites aggression and exploitation.” (“The African Roots of War,” 1915)
Labor:
The State of the Working Class — No Recovery From 2009 Crash!
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 March 2022, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.3 percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (Updated)
Fred Labor Force Participation Rate is 62.3%
Another aspect is that the real unemployment rate is at 1930s depression levels.: Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Unemployment Charts Theseasonally-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. Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Unemployment Charts Fbruary 2022 ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment notched higher to 24.6% ShadowStats 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:
Imperialism Today and the Character of Russia and China In any discussion of new questions, it is necessary to go back to the fundamentals. Lenin’s text, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, provides us with the starting point for our analysis. No book has ever explained the phenomena of modern capitalism better than Lenin’s Imperialism. All the main predictions of that work, concerning the concentration of capital, the dominance of the banks and finance capital, the growing antagonism between nation states and the inevitability of war arising out of the contradictions of imperialism have been shown to be true by the history of the last 100 years.
Russia’s Use of Cluster Bombs Should Spur a Global Recommitment to Banning Them Many of the world’s most powerful countries, including the U.S. and Russia, aren’t signatories to the cluster bomb ban. The entire legislative story of last summer and fall involved the Congressional Progressive Caucus fighting to the knife to defend the climate-salvaging elements of Biden’s infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better Act, only to have those efforts undermined by a cabal of corporate Vichy Democrats led by Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Hours before the speech, the United Nations released a massive report detailing how we are climate-screwed on a timetable measuring in days unless immediate action is taken. In the face of all this, Biden and his speechwriters chose to ignore the climate crisis almost completely. The betrayal here — not only of the caucus that went to war for him only to be betrayed over and over, but of the truth, of the facts, of the growing menace that seeks to burn and drown us simultaneously — is nearly unfathomable. Put another way: How would it have been if Biden had gone the whole night without ever mentioning Ukraine? Unthinkable, right? Why was it permissible for him to skip addressing the massive calamity immediately threatening life on the planet as we know it?
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!
US Praised for Plan to Transfer Covid Tech to WHO Public health advocates welcomed the Biden administration’s announcement “The immediate medical value of Thursday’s announcement will depend on which NIH technologies are licensed.”Thursday that the U.S. will share certain medical technologies used to produce Covid-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines with the World Health Organization as part of an effort to combat the global pandemic that continues to kill thousands of people each week. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday that it will offer unspecified technologies being developed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the WHO’s Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) for licensing through the United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), which experts say will empower generic manufacturers to boost the global supply of lifesaving diagnostics, drugs, and jabs.