Daily News Digest March 18, 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:
Louisiana Chemical Corridor (Cancer Alley) is the Country’s Largest Hot Spot For Toxic Air, Cancer Risk 
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:
What Julian Asange Exposed: FromPress freedom is at Risk If We Allow Julian Assange’s Extradition: . . . The 18 charges against him are the direct result of his having revealed a host of secrets, many of them related to the US prosecution of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They included the “collateral murder” video which showed a US helicopter crew shooting 18 people in Baghdad in 2007, including two Reuters war correspondents, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Among the files were thousands of military dispatches and diplomatic cables that enabled people in scores of countries to perceive the relationships between their governments and the US. They also showed the way in which American diplomats sought to gather personal information about two UN secretary generals. They included the “collateral murder” video which showed a US helicopter crew shooting 18 people in Baghdad in 2007, including two Reuters war correspondents, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Among the files were thousands of military dispatches and diplomatic cables that enabled people in scores of countries to perceive the relationships between their governments and the US. They also showed the way in which American diplomats sought to gather personal information about two UN secretary generals.
Videos of the Day:
‘I Just Want to Be Safe’: Yemenis Fleeing Ukraine Struggle to Find Refuge
fifa’s Hypocrisy in Palestine and Ukraine
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!
Marjorie Cohen: Extradition Looms for Assange After UK Supreme Court Refuses to Hear His Appeal Press freedom and human rights groups and Julian Assange’s fiancée have all condemned the latest barrier to his freedom. The British judicial system has erected still another barrier to Julian Assange’s freedom. On March 14, the U.K. Supreme Court refused to hear Assange’s appeal of the U.K. High Court’s ruling ordering his extradition to the United States. If extradited to the U.S. for trial, Assange will face 17 charges under the Espionage Act and up to 175 years in prison for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes. With no explanation of its reasoning, the Supreme Court denied Assange “permission to appeal” the High Court’s decision, saying that Assange’s appeal did not “raise an arguable point of law.” The court remanded the case back to the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, which is the same court that denied the U.S. extradition request on January 4, 2021.
What Biden Could Do if he Had the Will!: Progressives Hand Biden List of 55 Executive Actions Because ‘Working People Can’t Wait’ Included among the 98-member CPC’s list of 55 proposed executive orders are steps Biden can take unilaterally to:
- Protect seniors’ ability to manage their own care in traditional Medicare by quickly transitioning away from the ACO REACH pilot program;
- Dramatically lower costs of essential drugs like insulin, naloxone, hepatitis C drugs, HIV/AIDS drugs, Xtandi, EpiPens, and inhalers;
- Expand public manufacturing capacity for Covid-19 vaccine and therapeutic production;
- Put money back in the pockets of millions of Americans who are stuck in the student debt trap… by using existing administrative authority under section 432(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 to cancel federal student loan debt;
- Give millions of workers more take-home pay by strengthening outdated overtime protections;
- Stop the expansion of private prisons to detain immigrants;
- Declare a National Climate Emergency and invoke authorities under the Defense Production Act and Trade Expansion Act, mobilizing domestic industry to manufacture affordable renewable energy technologies with good-paying union jobs;
- Declare a ban on new fossil fuel leases on federal lands and waters and in environmental justice communities;
- Raise billions by closing the carried interest loophole that lets Wall Street executives managing other peoples’ money disguise part of their salary as investment returns to cut their taxes; and
- Reverse Trump administration regulations that further expanded the offshore tax loopholes created by the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
“Taken together,” Jayapal said Thursday, “these actions will have an immediate and meaningful impact on people’s lives: lowering costs and raising wages for working people to provide urgently needed economic relief, advancing racial and gender equity by investing in communities that have historically been neglected, and delivering on our promises.”
Glen Greenwald: Romney’s “Treason” Smear of Tulsi Gabbard is False and Noxious, But Now Typifies U.S. Discourse The Founders limited “treason” in the Constitution due to grave concerns it would be weaponized to criminalize dissent: exactly how the term is now routinely used. The crime of “treason” is one of the gravest an American citizen can commit, if not the gravest. It is one of the few crimes other than murder for which execution is still a permissible punishment under both U.S. federal law and the laws of several states. The framers of the U.S. Constitution were so concerned about the temptation to abuse this term — by depicting political dissent as a criminalized betrayal of one’s country — that they chose to define and limit how this crime could be applied by inserting this limiting paragraph into the Constitution itself; reflecting the gravity and temptation to abuse accusations of “treason,” it is the only crime they chose to define in the U.S. Constitution. Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution states:
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
Enviromental Racisn: In the United States, cancer rates are far higher than the national average in predominantly Black communities such as Mossville, St. Gabriel, St. James Parish and St. John the Baptist Parish, located in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”, which is home to more than 150 refineries and petrochemical plants, including the world’s largest producer of Styrofoam. Large polluting industrial facilities in the United States are disproportionately located in communities with the highest percentages of persons of African descent, the lowest household incomes and the highest proportion of residents who did not graduate from high school. A leading scholar wrote that, “[e]nabled by state zoning, a wave of chemical plants dropped on African American communities like a bomb”. Cancer Alley contains 7 of the 10 United States census tracts with the highest risk of cancer from air pollution. In 2020, air concentrations of cancer-causing chloroprene in St. John the Baptist Parish were 8,000 times higher than the acceptable level established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. — UN Report Names the World’s Most Polluted Places
Civil Right/Black Liberation:
Black Caucus Fails on Ukraine The members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) follow Biden’s Ukraine policy in lock step. In doing so they fail their constituents and discredit the legacy of Black politics.
WORKING PAPER: The Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement: The Threat of A Communist-Nationalist Alliance Against the West, 1958 Declassified papers from NATO’s archives detail a comprehensive counter-revolutionary strategy against decolonization, including the active sabotaging of Afro-Asian solidarity and the “spirit of Bandung.”
Nuclear white-male… The latest from BAR’s poet in residence. Soy Porque Somos (I Am Because We Are): a Black-women-led and Life-Based Project for a New ColombiaThis article was written before the March 13 primaries when Francia Marquez received more than 780,000 votes. She received more votes than any Black politician in Colombian history. Would her outstanding performance, surpassing even candidates from right-wing parties, be enough to secure her the nomination to run as vice-president candidate in the frontrunner party Pacto Historico?
In Solidarity with Haitian Workers and Migrants Haitians will leave their country by any and all means as long as they live under US backed oligarchic rule. Poverty wages which ignited garment worker strikes explain the urge to seek asylum. Black Alliance for Peace explains.
Sanctions Anyone? Imperialist Contradiction or the Unintended Consequence of Involuntary Decolonization The US sanctions regime has created great damage throughout the world but also hastens the decline of imperialism.
BAR Book Forum: Marlon B. Ross’ “Sissy Insurgencies” In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Marlon B. Ross. Ross is Professor of English at the University of Virginia. His book is Sissy Insurgencies: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness.
BAR Book Forum: Robin Brooks’ “Class Interruptions” In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Robin Brooks. Brooks is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Her book is Class Interruptions: Inequality and Division in African Diasporic Women’s Fiction.
When US Soft Power Meddled in An Election – In Russia
In 1996 the Clinton administration very openly interfered in Russia’s election. The successful effort to keep Boris Yeltsin in office led to his protege Vladimir Putin becoming president.
My Talk with President Joe from Scranton about Ukraine
Despite the dangers it presents, the crisis in Ukraine is ripe for satire.
“Artistic Freedom,” Censorship, Counter-Revolution, and Cuba The human rights industrial complex attacks the Cuban government with a dubious petition. The signatories make no mention of the 60-year long blockade that creates suffering for the people they claim to support.
America’s New Dystopian Normal The high covid death toll in this country is a result of capitalist austerity policies. The Biden administration is continuing them and has declared an end to the pandemic when it still exists.
Many Africans Reject Washington’s Position on Ukraine Crisis Many African nations refrain from condemning Russia’s role in the Ukraine crisis. They are taking a more independent stance because of their histories of imperialist control and ties with the USSR and the Russian Federation.
Labor:
Economy:
Cracking Down on Russian Oligarchs Means Cracking Down on U.S. Tax Havens As part of sanctions against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States, United Kingdom, and other European Union nations are cracking down on Russian oligarchs, freezing assets and tracking the yachts, private jets, and luxury real estate holdings of oligarchs. “I say to the Russian oligarchs and the corrupt leaders who bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime: no more,” Biden said in his State of the Union address. “We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.” Targeting Russia’s elites, who have stolen trillions from their own people, is an important strategy to pressure Putin, who himself may be among the wealthiest people on the planet. But the U.S. faces a major obstacle in this effort, which is our country has become a major destination tax haven for criminal and oligarch wealth from around the world, not just Russians. While other EU countries have been increasing transparency and cracking down on kleptocratic capital, the U.S. is a laggard. As the Pandora Papers disclosed, the U.S. has become a weak link in the fight against global corruption.
The Fed’s Lack of Transparency Is Harming the Dollar as the World’s Reserve Currency Yesterday, it was widely reported in the business press that Saudi Arabia is considering pricing its oil deals with China in China’s own currency, the Yuan, rather than in U.S. Dollars, which is the currency of choice for the bulk of the global oil trade. While it should be noted that this talk has been making headlines for the past four years without actually coming to fruition, the U.S. should stop taking the respected status of the Dollar for granted. Three of the key reasons that the U.S. Dollar has been able to maintain its status as the global reserve currency are the following: a stable government which is not subject to being toppled by coups; a large working population which allows federal tax payments to be automatically collected from paychecks in order to pay the nation’s debts on time; and, until 2008, a well-functioning financial system.
World:
NATO is Not a Defensive Alliance Reading US reports on the deadly Russian rocket attack on the so-called International Peacekeeping and Security Center in western Ukraine, one could be excused for thinking that the Russians might have been destroying some UN peacekeeping base. In fact, the deceptively named target, as a few US news reports on the attack did note, is actually a joint NATO/Ukrainian military base near the border of NATO member Poland that has specifically long been where US and NATO military trainers have worked with Ukrainian troops, teaching them the finer points of handling the lethal equipment being supplied to them by the US and some NATO nations like France, Germany, Britain, and Turkey. (400 Florida National Guard troops were doing just that before being hustled back to Florida as Russia began threatening an invasion into Ukraine a few weeks ago.)
Oligarchs Have Shaped Our View of Russia, But It’s Putin’s Corrupt Elite That has Hobbled Him in Ukraine War Deeply satisfying it may be to see yachts, palaces and other assets belonging to the Russian super-rich being seized in Europe and the US. But this will not necessarily do serious or terminal damage to Vladimir Putin’s regime because, just as the powerThe Fed’s Lack of Transparency Is Harming the Dollar as the World’s Reserve Currency Yesterday, it was widely reported in the business press that Saudi Arabia is considering pricing its oil deals with China in China’s own currency, the Yuan, rather than in U.S. Dollars, which is the currency of choice for the bulk of the global oil trade. While it should be noted that this talk has been making headlines for the past four years without actually coming to fruition, the U.S. should stop taking the respected status of the Dollar for granted. Three of the key reasons that the U.S. Dollar has been able to maintain its status as the global reserve currency are the following: a stable government which is not subject to being toppled by coups; a large working population which allows federal tax payments to be automatically collected from paychecks in order to pay the nation’s debts on time; and, until 2008, a well-functioning financial system.of the oligarchs used to be underestimated, it is now often exaggerated. Ever since Putin took power more than 20 years ago, it is the siloviki – the “people of force” or “strongmen” – drawn like Putin from the old KGB – who have controlled the Russian state.
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!