Daily News Digest May 10, 2022

 Daily News Digest Archives

Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines, Like the Salk Polio Vaccine, are Free For the Whole World!

Images of the Day:

Mike Luckovich: Forced Choices

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:

Is Irish Reunification on the Horizon? Sinn Féin Wins Historic Victory in Northern Ireland Election

 Opinion | Fossil Fuel Firms and Agricultural Traders Cash In on the War In Ukraine

    Quotes of the Day:

The Supreme Court Codified The Open Undemocratic Rule of the 1%! Minority! Since Then, We Have Witnessed the Greatest Transfer of Wealth In History!: The 2010 Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United vs FEC case effectively blocked the ability to enact limits on campaign spending. The Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to the billions of dollars that have since poured into the election system, enabling those with access to concentrated wealth to have vastly more influence over our political system than the average American.       Since the Citizens United case, election spending has skyrocketed, as large-scale donors—including global corporations, individuals, and industry and union lobbies, even foreign government interests—funnel money into the electoral process.  — Citizens United Decision

You might be interested in: The Supreme Court is Our Enemy, with or without Ketanji Brown Jackson     No one should be forced to bring a pregnancy to term. No one should be forced to give birth. No one should be forced to become a parent.      In order to prevent this, we must fight for far more than what Roe offers: the nominal right to obtain an abortion.      While Roe has been on the books, the Hyde Amendment was passed with the support of Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden, preventing Medicaid from covering abortions; Democrats, for their part, had ample opportunity to codify abortion rights in law, but they simply didn’t do so; clinics throughout the country have been shuttered, and more and more restrictive legislation has been passed, limiting people’s access to abortion.      Those who are most affected are working and poor people, often women of color and immigrants, who are unable to take the time to travel long distances and pay out of pocket to obtain an abortion.     So, we need far more than a defense of Roe v. Wade. We need free, legal, and safe abortions that are actually accessible to every person.     We need free birth control. We need comprehensive sex education in quality public schools.     It must also be said that there are many who want to become parents who find that they have no options or support.  There are people who desperately want to conceive, but are unable to shell out the enormous expense of fertility treatments and IVF. There are those who wish to adopt, but are unable to due to prohibitive costs. There are also those who wish to adopt who face legal discrimination from queerphobic institutions.      There are those who want children and have children, but don’t know how they’ll manage with the absurd cost of childcare, the lack of parental leave, and the expenses of healthcare.      We need to fight for both the right to not become parents, and for the right to parenthood. — For the Right to Choose Motherhood

 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!

Barry Sheppard: Musk, Twitter, Google, Censorship and the National Security State  The world’s richest man, Edmund Musk, is bying the  social media company Twitter, for $44 billion.     If he was in Russia, Western propaganda would call him an “oligarch” but since he in in the United States he is referred to as a very successful businessman, a euphemism for a capitalist who owns about $265 billion total wealth.     The top 1 percent of the population own more total wealth than the bottom 90 percent, and Musk is the top of the top.   The deal could still fall through, but assuming that doesn’t happen, what will his takeover of Twitter likely mean?    He says he wants Twitter to be a place of “free speech”.     The far right Republicans and armed groups like the Proud Boys have used the slogan of “free speech” to justify their views and even violent actions like the January 6, 2020 takeover of Congress.

Why has the United States Become the Leader in Promoting Global Warfare? Five Reasons Why Washington Can’t Break Its War Addiction Why has the United States already become so heavily invested in the Russia-Ukraine war? And why has it so regularly gotten involved, in some fashion, in so many other wars on this planet since it invaded Afghanistan in 2001? Those with long memories might echo the conclusion reached more than a century ago by radical social critic Randolph Bourne that “war is the health of the state” or recall the ancient warnings of this country’s founders like James Madison that democracy dies not in darkness, but in the ghastly light thrown by too many bombs bursting in air for far too long.

Chris Hedges: Jesus, Endless War, and the Rise of American Fascism The Democratic Party is hoping to thwart an election rout by running against the expected Supreme Court decision on abortion. This is depressingly all that is left of its political capital. The Democratic Party – which had 50 years to write Roe v Wade into law with Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama in full control of the White House and Congress at the inception of their presidencies – is banking its electoral strategy around the expected Supreme Court decision to lift the judicial prohibition on the ability of states to enact laws restricting or banning abortions.     I doubt it will work.

Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocied:

Global Burning Rising Antidemocracy and the Climate Crisis As political leaders and big business work together in the pursuit of profits and power, anti-environmentalism has become an essential political tool enabling the rise of extreme right governments and energizing their populist supporters. Eve Darien-Smith examines the out-of-control wildfires that have raged in Brazil, California and Australia, showing that they are closely linked through capitalism, colonialism, industrialization, and resource extraction.

World Drought Gets Worse, Cities Ration The planet is wheezing, coughing and sputtering because of vicious attacks by worldwide droughts aided and abetted by global warming at only 1.2C above baseline. Some major metropolises are rationing water.     What’ll happen at 1.5C?     It’s not as if droughts are not a normal feature of the climate system. They are, but the problem nowadays is highlighted by reports from NASA and NOAA stating that earth is trapping nearly twice as much heat is it did in 2005 described as an “unprecedented increase amid the climate crisis.” This trend is described as “quite alarming.”     The planet trapping heat at double the rate of only 17 years ago is off-the-charts bad news and reason enough for the world’s leaders to go all-in on global warming preventive measures, and then hope and pray that it’s not too late.

Treaties (Capitalist) Protecting Fossil Fuel Investors Threaten Global Efforts to Save the Climate—And Could Cost Countries Billions The threat of expensive payouts may already be having an effect. Fossil fuel companies have access to an obscure legal tool that could jeopardize worldwide efforts to protect the climate, and they’re starting to use it. The result could cost countries that press ahead with those efforts billions of dollars.     Over the past 50 years, countries have signed thousands of treaties that protect foreign investors from government actions. These treaties are like contracts between national governments, meant to entice investors to bring in projects with the promise of local jobs and access to new technologies.

The War to Control Fracked Oil: Who’s Cashing in on the War in Ukraine? Fossil Fuel Firms and Agricultural Traders Critics suggest investors are promoting the disruption that they then benefit from – while also slowing a move towards green energyAs Russia continues to inflict untold suffering and devastation in Ukraine, many around the world are profiting amid the horrific bloodshed.     Depressingly, given the spiraling climate crisis, fossil fuel firms – and their investors – are the biggest winners of the war, reaping the benefits of surging energy prices and new governmental measures to expand oil production.

The Factory Farm Complex Strikes Again!: The War to Control Fracked Oil: Who’s Cashing in on the War in Ukraine? Fossil Fuel Firms and Agricultural Traders Critics suggest investors are promoting the disruption that they then benefit from – while also slowing a move towards green energyAs Russia continues to inflict untold suffering and devastation in Ukraine, many around the world are profiting amid the horrific bloodshed.     Depressingly, given the spiraling climate crisis, fossil fuel firms – and their investors – are the biggest winners of the war, reaping the benefits of surging energy prices and new governmental measures to expand oil production.

‘Forever Chemicals’ May Have Polluted 20m Acres pf US Cropland, Study Says PFAS-tainted sewage sludge is used as fertilizer in fields and report finds that about 20m acres of cropland could be contaminated About 20m acres of cropland in the United States may be contaminated from PFAS-tainted sewage sludge that has been used as fertilizer, a new report estimates.PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 9,000 compounds used to make products heat-, water- or stain-resistant. Known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, they have been linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, liver problems, birth defects, immunosuppression and more.

‘Deep Entanglements’ Connect Canada’s Biggest Pension Funds with 76 Fossil Companies, New Analysis Concludes The “deep entanglement” between Canada’s 10 biggest pension funds and a roster of 76 fossil fuel companies raises serious questions about whether fund managers and trustees are looking out for the best interest of the beneficiaries who depend on them, according to a scathing, 40-page report released yesterday by Toronto-based Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Climate Health.     The report, based on 2½ months of public records research by Shift Action Senior Manager Patrick DeRochie, identifies 80 pension managers with 124 different roles across the various fossil companies, “raising questions from beneficiaries about fiduciary duty and pension administrators’ potential conflicts of interest on climate-related investment decisions,” the organization writes.

‘The Pacific Can’t Survive if Richest Corporations and Governments Continue to Put Profits Over People and Planet’ SUVA, May 6 2022 – Vanuatu Prime Minister Bob Loughman has warned that the survival of the Pacific is in peril if the world’s biggest polluters continue to put profit over people and planet, in Suva overnight.     Prime Minister Loughman made the remarks at the launch event for a powerful coalition of civil society groups who have come together to support the Government of Vanuatu’s push to seek an International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on climate change and human rights.     “We who have contributed the least to carbon pollution continue to bear the greatest burden. The climate crisis is heart-wrenching. The climate crisis is a moral crisis, a crisis of conscience. The climate crisis is either a willful ignorance of the scientific evidence or a heartless, unprovoked and unjustified aggression by fossil fuel interests against our present and future generations and against our planet. The climate crisis is a human rights crisis,” Mr Loughman said.

Civil Rights/Black Liberation: 

Black Land Theft and the Racial Wealth Divide At the beginning of the 20th century, African Americans owned at least 14 million acres of land. By the 21st century, 90 percent of the land had been stolen from them. Now, African Americans only own 1.1 million acres of farmland and are part owners of another 1.07 million acres. Across a century, white farmers and landowners developed multiple ways to take African Americans’ land, using methods such as heirs property, tax sales, and Torrens Acts.

Labor:

Economy:

Inflation: Wages Versus Profits The Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey set the attitude of the mainstream view on the impact of inflation in February, when he said that “I’m not saying nobody gets a pay rise, don’t get me wrong. But what I am saying is, we do need to see restraint in pay bargaining, otherwise it will get out of control”.     Bailey followed the Keynesian explanation of rising inflation as being the result of a tight (‘full employment’) labour market allowing workers to push for higher wages and thus forcing employers to hike prices to sustain profits.  This ‘wage-push’ theory of inflation has been refuted both theoretically and empirically, as I have shown in several previous posts.     And more recently the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) study confirms that “by some measures, the current environment does not look conducive to such a spiral. After all, the correlation between wage growth and inflation has declined over recent decades and is currently near historical lows.”These Stock Patterns Are Impossible – Without Brazen Manipulation that the SEC is Choosing to Ignore Beginning in November of 2008, the Fed was allowed by Congress to manipulate the U.S. bond market through purchases of bonds with money it creates at the flick of an electronic button. The Fed calls this “Quantitative Easing” or QE.      Beginning on September 17, 2019 – when overnight lending rates on repo (repo means repurchase agreements between financial institutions) touched 10 percent instead of the 2-1/2 percent that the Fed wanted the market to be at – the Fed began providing repo loans at “administered rates.” It did that by jumping into the repo market with both feet, proceeding to make trillions of dollars in cumulative loans to trading houses on Wall Street, at interest rates as low as 0.10 percent by the spring of 2020

World:

North of Ireland: Sinn Féin victory a Historic Blow to the Union! Sinn Féin has emerged as the first party in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections. With a remarkable 29% of the first preference votes to the DUP’s 21.3%, the gap was even wider than predicted. Within hours of the polls closing, #UnitedIreland was trending on Twitter. This is another devastating blow to the prestige of British imperialism and another tear in the fraying fabric of the so-called ‘United Kingdom’.

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!