Daily News Digest April 7, 2022
Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines, Like the Salk Polio Vaccine, are Free For the Whole World
Images 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!
Videos of the Day:
Ukraine Update: Russia’s Economic Weapons, China Buying Russian Firms, and US Biolabs in Ukraine?
‘Master Class in War Profiteering’ by Us Oil Giants, New Analysis Details “Oil and gas companies are feeding off humanitarian disaster and consumer suffering in order to reward Wall Street,” said Lukas Ross at Friends of the Earth.
Pakistan in Crisis After PM Imran Khan Dissolved Parliament & Accused U.S. of Plotting Regime Change
Quotes of the Day:
War does not determine who is right – only who is left. — Bertrand Russell
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. Taxthe Rich! — They Can Afford to Pay!
‘Pausing a Crisis Doesn’t End It’: Biden to Extend Student Loan Payment Freeze Again “We have to keep pushing. This isn’t enough,” said the Debt Collective. President Joe Biden is reportedly planning to keep the moratorium on student loan repayments in place through August 31, an extension that progressives criticized as inadequate as they continued pressuring the White House to fully cancel all outstanding federal student loan debt.
Supporting Militarism Will Not Bring Justice, Only Death I am appalled and saddened by the photographs of corpses in the streets of the Ukrainian town called Bucha. I am equally appalled and saddened by the reports of Ukrainian soldiers killing every person in Buka who was not wearing a blue-colored patch signifying their Ukrainian citizenship. These photos remind us once again how brutal and horrible war actually is. In both instances, I am skeptical of the absolute truth of both claims. After all, mainstream media is not known for its truthfulness in wars. In fact, the media has all too often lied in order to get populations to support war. I am further appalled by those on the Left who support a wider war. Of course, most of these folks live hundreds if not thousands of miles from the actual killing and dying.
Marjorie Cohn: Federal Judge’s Opinion May Compel DOJ to Bring Criminal Charges Against Trump Donald Trump and his lawyer, former Chapman law school dean John Eastman, launched “a coup in search of a legal theory,” U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter recently wrote in his stunning 44-page opinion. Carter found it “more likely than not” that Trump committed two federal crimes to further his and Eastman’s “campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history.” Carter’s opinion provides a road map for Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice to bring criminal charges against Trump. Although the House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol (“Select Committee”) can send a criminal referral to the Justice Department, only the department can file a criminal indictment.
The Five Hands of “The Slap Heard around the World” Perhaps you’ve heard? An actor recently slapped a comedian in public and people are still talking about it. No? Well, it’s true—it happened at the Oscars last Sunday and some people are calling this breach of civility “The Slap Heard around the World.” It has given rise to many serious and solemn questions about violence. To be honest, I can see both sides of this highly non-frivolous issue: on the one hand, you don’t make light of the medical condition of another person’s spouse in front of a live TV audience of millions. On the other hand—even though I understand Smith’s anger as a point of honor (and although he appeared to be enjoying the joke until his wife rolled her eyes)—violence is seldom the answer. That said, and on the third hand, although I am not categorically against punching the odd bully in the nose (and as a kid had seen it work wonders for playground morale), I don’t think Chris Rock was being a bully. He was being a cheap-shot artist. He was being a comedian in 2022, and we pay comedians good money to push the limits so that we can all talk about how indignant we are about it afterward. Many, perhaps most, comedians these days are cheap-shot artists in one sense or another and have been for a long time (see Gilbert Gottfried, the late Norm MacDonald, Don Rickles, and everybody else). Rock seemed to think that it was a dumb throwaway line, “a G.I. Jane joke.” This has given rise to endless “how could he have not known?” queries.
Biden’s Refugee Plan Is Insufficient Amid Crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan The processing of refugees continues to be bogged down by staffing shortages and a denuded infrastructure. The Biden administration’s decision to admit 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, announced last week in the wake of the president’s European tour, is a huge step in the rebuilding of the U.S.’s once-vaunted refugee program after years in which the Trump administration all but neutralized it. However, the program must expand further if the U.S. plans to attempt to accommodate the steep increase in refugees that the coming year will likely bring.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
The ‘Supreme Court’ Doesn’t Have the right to Oppose or Set Safety Regulations! Impeach the ‘Supreme’ Court! How the Supreme Court Could Make Your Life More Dangerous If Republican appointees on the Supreme Court succeed in gutting regulatory agencies, we all lose. This agenda is anti-worker, anti-consumer, and anti-environment. The only thing it’s good for is corporate profits. Your life could get a lot more dangerous. Republican appointees on the Supreme Court seem poised to strip away basic safety standards for our workplaces, our food, our air and water.
Capitalism’s Carbon Footprint: ‘Terrifying’ IPCC Report Chronicles ‘Fast Track to Climate Disaster’, Shows Narrowed Path to 1.5°C With the options for holding global warming to 1.5°C quickly closing, countries must immediately phase down fossil fuel production, embrace low-carbon technologies that are already practical and affordable, mobilize citizens around the benefits of decarbonization, and increase low-carbon financing three- to six-fold, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes in a 2,913-page report With the options for holding global warming to 1.5°C quickly closing, countries must immediately phase down fossil fuel production, embrace low-carbon technologies that are already practical and affordable, mobilize citizens around the benefits of decarbonization, and increase low-carbon financing three- to six-fold, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes in a 2,913-page report released yesterday. Global greenhouse gas emissions hit an estimated 59 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide or equivalent (CO2e) in 2019, 12% higher than in 2010 and 54% higher than in 1990, the IPCC says in its shorter Summary for Policy Makers (SPM). While the annual rate of increase was lower between 2010 and 2019 than in the previous decade, emissions were still rising rather than rapidly declining, producing the “highest increase in average decadal emissions on record”. Emissions since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution stand at an unfathomable 2,400 billion tonnes, 42% of them occurring since 1990 and 17% in just 10 years, between 2010 and 2019. That leaves a carbon budget of just 500 gigatonnes—less than a decade at current emission rates—to blow the remaining carbon budget that would give humanity a 50-50 chance of averting the worst impacts of the climate emergency by holding average warming to 1.5°C. To keep 1.5° alive, global emissions must peak by 2025, the report says. For two-thirds odds of hitting a 2.0°C target, the available carbon budget is just 1,150 Gt, the IPCC writes. Based on current trends, average global warming is on its way to 3.2°C by 2100.
SPECIAL REPORT: IPCC’s ‘Litany of Broken Promises’ Warns of ‘Enormous, Growing Emissions Gap The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s latest report on climate change mitigation warns of an “enormous, growing emissions gap,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said yesterday, adding up to a “file of shame” the puts humanity on track toward an unliveable world. The report “is a litany of broken climate promises,” Guterres said in a video message responding to the 2,913-page release. And it puts humanity “on a fast track to climate disaster: Major cities underwater. Unprecedented heat waves. Terrifying storms. Widespread water shortages. The extinction of a million species of plants and animals.” That set of predictions “is not fiction or exaggeration,” he added. “It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies.” The IPCC climate mitigation report is the third in a series of three in-depth releases leading up to the UN agency’s full climate science assessment due in September, ahead of the COP 27 climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. It combines an alarming assessment of the limited carbon budget available to keep global warming within 1.5° or even 2°C with an inventory of options for getting emissions under control. Our special report on the IPCC’s climate mitigation report includes these stories:
- ‘Terrifying’ IPCC Report Chronicles ‘Fast Track to Climate Disaster’, Shows Narrowed Path to 1.5°C
- Slam Brakes on Carbon to Avert ‘Humanity’s Biggest Emergency’, IPCC Observers Urge
- Emissions from Existing Fossil Plants Will Exceed 1.5°C Warming Target, Report Finds
- Pathways to 1.5°C Still Possible, But Only with Steep GHG Cuts, IPCC Concludes
- RETHINKING DEMAND: Tackling Consumption Can Deliver 40-70% Cut in End Use Emissions
- ENERGY: IPCC Highlights Plummeting Cost of Solar, Batteries, Wind
- LAND USE: Policies Must Break Down Silos, Listen to ‘Multiple Users’ to Meet Climate Targets
- CITIES: As Urban Emissions Rise, ‘Aggressive and Immediate’ Policies Offer Hope
- TRANSPORT: Sector Needs Major Overhaul to Meet Climate Targets, Says IPCC
- INDUSTRY: Report Cites Electrification, Demand Reduction as Net-Zero Strategies
- Climate Action Depends on Cooperation between Developed, Developing Countries, IPCC Finds
On-Going Environmental Degradation is No Joke What will future generations and historians deduce when they look back at this turbulent period in world history and what the “leading nations” did or did not do to address the problems that are so serious they actually threaten the future of life as we know it on the planet? Given the increasingly complex and dire circumstances as we head into April, 2022, one thing seems all too clear – it’s no April Fools joke. For instance, there’s nothing to laugh about in a study recently released by the Environmental Integrity Project on the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. The report, published by “former EPA enforcement attorneys to advocate for effective enforcement of environmental laws” found “alarming results of water quality tests in all 50 states. More than 700,000 miles of waterways, about 51 percent of assessed river and stream miles, are impaired by pollution. That’s in addition to another 55 percent of lake acres and 26 percent of estuary miles.” The term “impaired” identifies lakes, rivers and streams that are too polluted to even meet minimum standards “for swimming and recreation, aquatic life, fish consumption or as drinking water sources.”
Slam Brakes on Carbon to Avert ‘Humanity’s Biggest Emergency’, IPCC Observers Urge Monday’s climate mitigation report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows it’s still possible to hold global warming to 1.5°C, with little or no overshoot and no reliance on speculative carbon dioxide removal technologies—but only with much faster government action and a sixfold increase in annual funding for solutions that work. “The bleak and brutal truth about global warming is this: barring action on a sweeping scale, humanity faces worsening hunger, disease, economic collapse, mass migration of people, and unbearable heat,” said Oxfam Climate Policy Lead Nafkote Dabi. “It’s not about taking our foot off the accelerator anymore—it’s about slamming on the brakes. A warming planet is humanity’s biggest emergency.”
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Economy:
These Charts Show How the Fed’s Secrecy Has Killed the Price Discovery Function of the Stock Market As the chart above indicates, from March 20, 2020 through May 12, 2021 the share prices of the French global bank BNP Paribas, the Canadian global bank, Royal Bank of Canada, and the German global bank, Deutsche Bank, were surging in value. But unbeknown to the marketplace, thanks to a dark curtain the Federal Reserve of the United States drew tightly around one of its secret loan programs, the trading units of these three foreign global banks were being propped up with vast sums of cheap loans during that span of time by the Fed
World:
Pakistan: The Infighting of the Ruling Class and the Fig Leaf OF ‘Democracy’ A political and constitutional crisis has opened up in Pakistan, leading to a back and forth over a no-confidence vote in the Imran Khan government. In reality, these fissures at the top are merely symptoms of a deeper rot in Pakistani capitalism, which has been rocked by the global capitalist crisis, while the ruling class endures the consequences of attempting to play different imperialist blocs off of one another. Such pathetic charades will never end while the capitalist system stands!
Greece: Rail Workers Strike in Defiance of Imperialism! Workers at the Greek rail company TRAINOSE in Thessaloniki have forced the bosses to back down, after refusing to assist with transporting NATO tanks from the port of Alexandroupoli to Ukraine. The following statement was originally written in Greek on 5 April 2022, prior to the general strike that commenced the following day.
Health, Education. and Wealfare:
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!
The ‘American Way’ — No Risk Vaccine Production — Big Profits for Big Pharma! Coronavirus vaccines are likely to be worth billions to the drug industry if they prove safe and effective. As many as 14 billion vaccines would be required to immunize everyone in the world against COVID-19. If, as many scientists anticipate, vaccine-produced immunity wanes, billions more doses could be sold as booster shots in years to come. And the technology and production laboratories seeded with the help of all this government largesse could give rise to other profitable vaccines and drugs. So while much of the pioneering work on mRNA vaccines was done with government money, the privately owned drugmakers will walk away with big profits, while governments pay for vaccines they helped to fund the development of in the first place! — Michael Roberts – COVID Vaccines: Calling the Shots