Daily News Digest March 21, 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:
Mike Luckovich: Stopped Evolving!
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 Ukraine invasion has revealed the extent to which the U.S. is still dependent on fossil fuels,” Cerosaletti said. “Energy prices are high, and everyone’s understandably stressed about that. But if we weren’t so reliant on our own individual modes of transportation — for instance, if public transit was more accessible — banning oil imports from Russia wouldn’t seem like such a big deal. — Three Years After First Global School Strike, Youth Climate Movement Is Growing
Videos of the Day:
Partnering With Big Tech Didn’t Help Governments Fight Covid. But It Did Waste a Lot of Money.
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!
Poll Shows ‘Incredible’ 80% of US Voters Support Windfall Tax on Big Oil “GOP and members of Congress refuse to act, it’ll be concrete evidence that they’re in the pockets of the industry,” said one climate advocate.industry disinformation is failing to convince people—voters know Big Oil is to blame.”
How western imperialism Prepared the Ground For the Conflict in Ukraine Contrary to the assertions of western propaganda, the war in Ukraine is not the result of Putin’s mental state, but is the product of belligerent aggression by US imperialism and NATO. They are responsible for the current catastrophe. As the Russian army continues to shell the cities of Ukraine, western press and politicians are doing their utmost to conceal the role of western imperialism in the disaster. Far from being a neutral party, the West have been provoking the conflict for their own imperialist reasons. the As bombs and rockets fall on Ukrainian cities, workers around the world are naturally appalled at the death and destruction caused by the Russian invasion. However, the role that the West has played in this conflict is never explained.
Greenwald: The NYT Now Admits the Biden Laptop — Falsely Called “Russian Disinformation” — is Authentic One of the most successful disinformation campaigns in modern American electoral history occurred in the weeks prior to the 2020 presidential election. On October 14, 2020 — less than three weeks before Americans were set to vote — the nation’s oldest newspaper, The New York Post, began publishing a series of reports about the business dealings of the Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in countries in which Biden, as Vice President, wielded considerable influence (including Ukraine and China) and would again if elected president.
Climate Groups Blast Biden Energy Dept for Approving LNG Export Increase “Peace will only come through accelerating the transition to renewable energy, not by trading Russian oligarchs for American oil and gas barons,” said a Greenpeace campaigner. Climate action advocates this week sharply criticized the Biden administration for signing off on increasing gas exports from the United States as Europe faces supply problems exacerbated by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
Three Years After First Global School Strike, Youth Climate Movement Is Growing Three years ago this week — on March 15, 2019 — an estimated 1.4 million young people and supporters in 128 countries skipped school or work for what was then the largest youth-led day of climate protests in history. That record was soon eclipsed by even larger demonstrations later that year, with 1.8 million joining a May 24 day of action, and 7.6 million protesting for the climate over the course of Sept. 20 and the week that followed. The school strikes for climate movement, launched by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg of Sweden in late 2018, had reinvigorated the global climate movement and brought public participation to levels never seen before.
‘Disastrous News’: Widespread Bleaching of Great Barrier Reef Underway “This is a sure sign that climate change caused by burning coal, oil, and gas is threatening the very existence of our reef,” said one campaigner.
Civil Right/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Joe Burns: Unions came under a withering attack by Corporate America beginning in the 1970s. With our hands tied behind our back by the rigid restrictions on strike activity imposed by Congress and the court system, unions were busted in industry after industry in the 1980s. But our unions, after decades of bureaucratization and business unionism, were not up to the fight. Business unionism was, and is, the guiding philosophy of much of the U.S. labor movement. Business unionism sees a limited role for unions in representing workers at a particular plant or employer, and are often cautious and bureaucratic. Many opted for accommodation with employers in labor management programs rather than fighting our way out of the problem. — We Need to Build a Labor Movement That’s Willing to Break the Law
The Fall of the Trade Union Movement (2010 Update) Elections: The Default of The Trade Union Movement By Roland Sheppard
Leon Trotsky foretold the ‘Partnership’ Between the Trade Bureaucracy and the Boss: From Leon Trotsky and the Iron Heel: One must accentuate especially the role which Jack London attributes to the labor bureaucracy and to the labor aristocracy in the further fate of mankind. Thanks to their support, the American plutocracy not only succeeds in defeating the workers’ insurrection but also in keeping its iron dictatorship during the following three centuries. We will not dispute with the poet the delay which can but seem to us too long. However, it is not a question of Jack London’s pessimism, but of his passionate effort to shake those who are lulled by routine, to force them to open their eyes and to see what is and what approaches. The artist is audaciously utilizing the methods of hyperbole. He is bringing the tendencies rooted in capitalism: of oppression, cruelty, bestiality, betrayal, to their extreme expression. He is operating with centuries in order to measure the tyrannical will of the exploiters and the treacherous rôle of the labor bureaucracy. But his most “romantic” hyperboles are finally much more realistic than the bookkeeper-like calculations of the so-called “sober politicians.” It is easy to imagine with what a condescending perplexity the official socialist thinking of that time met Jack London’s menacing prophecies. If one took the trouble to look over the reviews of The Iron Heel at that time in the German Neue Zeit and Vorwärts, in the Austrian Kampf and Arbeiterzeitung, as well as in the other socialist publications of Europe and America, he could easily convince himself that the thirty-year-old “romanticist” saw incomparably more clearly and farther than all the social-democratic leaders of that time taken together. But Jack London bears comparison in this domain not only with the reformists. One can say with assurance that in 1907 not one of the revolutionary Marxists, not excluding Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, imagined so fully the ominous perspective of the alliance between finance capital and labor aristocracy. This suffices in itself to determine the specific weight of the novel.
The Graph Below is a Graphic Example of the Decline in Standard of Living of the Working Class, Since the Trade Union Bureaucracy Declared Itself to Be ‘In a (Domestic) Partnership With the Boss’! Starting in the mid-1980s, This ‘partnership’ gave birth to the one, two, three, three ect. .. wage tier system! Selling out the futures of future young workers entering the labor force. And, since the lowest union wage is the immediately the highest non-union wage, this wage tier system cut the wages of the entire working class! When I was a union official, I called this system labors rush to the bottom! As in graphically shown in this: Shadow Government Statistics Graph: Real Average Weekly Earnings (Benchmark Revised) Production and Nonsupervisory Employees Deflated by CPI-W versus ShadowStats-Alternate (1990-Base) 1965 to August 2017, Seasonally-Adjusted [ShadowStats, BLS]
Economy:
President of Koch-Funded Group Says “Ukraine Doesn’t Matter to America’s Security…” as Koch Says It Will Keep Running Businesses in Russia On March 8, Wall Street On Parade reported that despite announcements by British Petroleum (BP), Shell and ExxonMobil that they were cutting business ties to Russia in response to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, another oil conglomerate, Koch Industries, remained silent. Koch Industries is the privately-owned cash cow that has fueled the infamous “Koch Brothers” creepy intrusions into every nook and cranny of American politics, using labyrinthine layers of well-financed front groups. The oldest brother, Charles Koch, whose personal wealth is estimated at $53 billion according to Forbes, remains at the helm of Koch Industries and a sprawling political power base. David Koch died in 2019.
World:
Eastern Europe’s Demographic Deficit There has been a huge exodus of Ukrainians into neighbouring countries fleeing the war in their country- three million and counting. Just as in Syria and in other countries engulfed by war, there has been a refugee disaster. But this latest exodus from Ukraine adds to the millions who have already left in the last 30 years. Even before the Ukraine-Russia conflict, there was a rising demographic deficit in Ukraine and most of Eastern Europe, including Russia. Eastern Europe’s population has been shrinking like no other regional population in modern history. Many war ridden countries like Syria have suffered significant population loss but a population drop throughout a whole region and over decades has never been observed in the world since the 1950s. The UN estimates that there are about 292 million people in Eastern Europe, and that’s 18 million less than in the early 1990s, or more than the population of the Netherlands disappearing from the region.
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!
Report Rings Alarm Over Private Equity’s Grip on Home Health, Hospice Industries “Profit incentives continue to jeopardize quality of care for patients and quality of life for employees,” a new analysis warns. The private equity industry’s business model of buying up companies and extracting as much profit as possible over a short period of time has made it a notorious force in the United States, where it has gained a solid foothold in a range of sectors—often with disastrous consequences.
The Expendable Americans in a Pandemic Every day, more than 1,000 Americans are still dying of COVID. According to a study published in the JAMA Network on Dec. 28, 2021, the vulnerable population is at increased risk of “breakthrough COVID-19 infection that can have severe and even fatal outcomes.”