Daily News Digest May 16, 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:
Thousands In U.S. March Under ‘Ban Off Our Bodies’ Banner for Abortion Rights
The Prison Industrial Complex: Racial Injustice, Social Media, and Work Labor
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:
Economist Michael Hudson On Decline of Dollar, Sanctions War, Imperialism, Financial Parasitism In the first half of this two-hour interview, Michael Hudson is interviewed about his new book. In the second hour Michael talks about how US Sanctions on Russia are not only bringing Russia and China closer together, but are undermining the dollar as a currency for other countries. The basis for the continuance of Yankee capitalism is undermined by its basis in finance
Quotes of the Day:
Fidel Castro expressed the urgency Global Warmingin his ‘Tomorrow will be Too Late speech to the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro in 1992. : He opened with these words: “An important biological species is in danger of disappearing due to the fast and progressive destruction of its natural living conditions: mankind. We have now become aware of this problem when it is almost too late to stop it. It is necessary to point out that consumer societies are fundamentally responsible for the brutal destruction of the environment. . . .
The New Jim Crow is Based Upon the Prison Industrial Complex: The profit-driven relationship between the government, the private companies that build, manage, supply, and service prisons, and related groups (such as prison industry unions and lobbyists) regarded as the cause of increased incarceration rates especially of poor people and minorities and often for nonviolent crimes The exploitation of prison labor by private corporations is one aspect among an array of relationships linking corporations, government, correctional communities, and media. These relationships constitute what we now call a prison industrial complex. The term “prison industrial complex” was introduced by activists and scholars to contest prevailing beliefs that increased levels of crime were the root cause of mounting prison populations. Instead, they argue, prison construction and the attendant drive to fill these new structures with human bodies have been driven by ideologies of racism and the pursuit of profit
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!
The The Media Monopoly Made Rcist Violence Legit: Buffalo Gunman’s Racism Directly Tied to Mainstreaming of White Nationalism, Say Critics “This hateful, white nationalist rhetoric is not just being spread by lone gunmen. It can also be found on cable news and in the rhetoric of politicians today.” Amid the outpouring of grief and heartache following Saturday’s massacre in Buffalo that left 10 people dead and three wounded, critical observers say the racial animus which evidence shows motivated the killer must be seen in the larger context of a white nationalist mindset that has increasingly broken into the mainstream of the right-wing political movement and Republican Party in recent years.
Roaming Charges: Caught in a Classic Trap Governments who manipulate population growth have two choices: making maternity pleasant, or making it inescapable. – Kate Millett, Sexual Politics
- The US running out of infant formula at the same time the Domestic Infant Supply is about to increase sets up the next GOP bodily mandate: compulsory breast-feeding (though not in public).
- According to the Washington Post, Republicans are getting more and more confident that the overturning of Roe v. Wade will not seriously harm their chances of regaining House and Senate majorities come November. This seems to me like a pretty solid bet for the GOP. How stupid do you have to be to vote for the same people who said they’d defend abortion rights and didn’t, expecting them to reinstate the very rights that were lost on their watch.
- There have been 11 murders of abortion clinic workers since 1990 and 41 bombings and 173 arsons at abortion clinics since 1977.
- The Driug War Laws are Used to Provide Slave Labor for the Prison Industrial Complex.: Overdose Deaths Are Higher Than Ever, and the GOP Is Exploiting the Crisis Experts say GOP plans to empower police would make the overdose crisis much more deadly. Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control released this week shows that an estimated 107,000 people died of a drug overdose in 2021, an increase of 15 percent over 2020. More than 1 million people have died of a drug overdose over the past two decades, and recent years have seen a significant increase in overdose deaths among Black and Native American people, a pattern that reflects the racist impacts of policing and deep disparities in health care, experts say.
- The War on Youth in the Age of Fascist Politics One of the most important registers in measuring the democratic health of a society can be found in how it treats its youth. By any current standard, which includes the quality of public schools to laws that protect the health and well-being of young people, the United States is failing miserably. Youth, especially youth of color, are not only viewed as a liability, much of their behavior is also being increasingly criminalized.
Texas Gov. Abbott’s Solution to Formula Shortage? Let Migrant Babies Starve One ACLU attorney declared that every child, “regardless of whether Gov. Abbott and Border Patrol agents consider them ‘our child’ or not, deserves food and love.”
A Look Back at Bigger Than Bernie: Can the Democratic Party Be Reformed From Within? This moment, leading to the doom that awaits Democrats in the midterm elections six months from now, seems as good as any to revisit my argument against hoping for democratic change from within the Democratic Party, which was the whole basis of the two Sanders campaigns endorsed by Jacobin magazine and allied millennial “socialists.” Since Biden’s election, not a single one of Sanders’s legislative priorities has come close to becoming reality, while House progressives recently spurned Nina Turner herself, almost the avatar of who their ideal candidate should be, to endorse her corporate Democratic opponent. Rather than the Democratic Party showing the slightest inclination to shift leftward on debt, housing, or wages, we are rapidly moving toward the familiar policy rostrum of deficit reduction, fighting inflation by hurting workers, and protecting Wall Street elites at the cost of everyone else, the agenda faithfully duplicated in the Carter/Volcker, Clinton/Rubin, and Obama/Geithner presidencies. The hipster socialists’ predictable response to the latest ignominy, the potential erasure of Roe v. Wade, is entirely along the lines of the fatalism enumerated in this essay, quickly accepting the fait accompli and moving on to notions of activism that take the absurd reality as given: “Going forward, we will be more reliant on self-managed abortion and sending abortion pills by mail. As for surgical abortion services, we will need to support organizations that help people traveling to abortion-friendly states to receive care. Find your local abortion fund and donate what you can, and share info on local funds with your friends and followers.”
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocied
Profits 1st — Life Last!
Coastal Fire Shows Even the Rich ‘Are Not Safe From Earth Breakdown’ “The only way out,” said one climate scientist, is to “fight side by side and to strip power away from the rich corporatists who are leading us deeper into catastrophe, even as their own homes burn.”
Civil Rights/Black Liberation: 
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley Black and Palestinian Solidarity Asantewaa Nkrumah-Ture is an organizer and dues paying member of Black Alliance for Peace Philadelphia. She recently spoke at the Al Awda conference in New York, to discuss the history of Black and Palestinian solidarity. She joins us from Philadelphia to discuss her conference reflections.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley The Cuban Revolution Lives Camille Landry is a lifelong activist and owner of Nappy Roots books in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She is also outreach coordinator for the Lucy Parsons Popular Human Rights Schools for Alliance for Global Justice, an effort to develop capacity for transformative change among grassroots activists. She has just returned from Cuba where she observed May Day activities.
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley Say Political Prisoners Names While They’re Still Alive It was recently announced that Sundiata Acoli, Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army member, will be granted parole after nearly 50 years of incarceration. The late Glen Ford, co-founder of Black Agenda Report, spoke at an August 16, 2020 webinar hosted by the Black is Back Coalition. The topic of discussion was the fate of political prisoners like Acoli. Glen spoke on the need to “Say Political Prisoners Names While They’re Still Alive.” He also pointed out that all victims of the mass incarceration system are political prisoners too. We present this excerpt of his remarks.
Labor:
‘Big News’: Over 1 Million Signatures Gathered to Put $18 Min. Wage on California Ballot “Raising the minimum wage in the Golden State is a moral imperative,” says anti-poverty activist Joe Sanberg. (But 18/hr Will Not Pay for Ca. Rent!—RS)
Economy:
Citigroup’s Stock Price Is Still Down 84 Percent from the Year of Crash in 2008 On January 2, 2008, the first trading day of the year that would become the biggest Wall Street crash since the Great Depression, Citigroup’s shares closed at $28.92. Yesterday, Citigroup’s shares closed at $4.66 (adjusted for the 1-for-10 reverse stock split the company did on May 9, 2011). That means that shareholders who have hung on to the stock for the past 14 years are still down 84 percent. In terms of assets, Citigroup is the third largest bank holding company in the U.S. with $2.29 trillion in assets as of December 31, 2021. (JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America rank first and second with $3.7 trillion and $3.2 trillion in assets, respectively, as of the same date according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.)
World:
US Imperialism’s Proxy War: Fighting Russia To the Last Drop of Ukrainian Blood “We’re not just at war to support the Ukrainians. We’re fundamentally at war, although somewhat through a proxy, with Russia, and it’s important that we win,” said US representative Seth Moulton during a Fox News appearance. He was perhaps being more frank than others, but the message has been coming loud and clear from official representatives of Biden’s administration. Asked what the US would consider success in the war, Biden’s Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said “we want to see Russia weakened”. From the very beginning US imperialism considered this as a proxy war against Russia. First they thought Russia would achieve its aims quickly, hence the withdrawal of the US embassy and the plans to extract Zelensky from the country. Then, when the situation stabilised and the Ukrainian forces put up a fierce resistance (helped by Western intelligence and supplies), they started to see an opportunity to escalate the war in order to deal a blow to Russia.
‘Horrific’: Israeli Forces (Stomtroppers) Attack Mourners Carrying Casket of Shireen Abu Akleh Israeli soldiers assaulted civilians during a funeral procession for the slain Palestinian-American journalist, “using stun grenades and tear gas and charging at them with horses and batons.” Israeli soldiers on Friday brutally beat Palestinian mourners carrying the coffin of longtime Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed earlier this week while covering an Israeli military raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
We Have More in Common With Cuba Than We Think The American working class and Cubans both face an important task: demanding dignity from the imperial core that constantly works to undermine our right to life. A week ago I returned to the United States from Cuba where I got to spend International Workers’ Day with 100 other young organizers from the U.S. alongside over 700,000 other people who celebrated in Havana that day. With the International People’s Assembly of North America, we spent a week learning about the Cuban socialist project and how the blockade imposed by the United States impacts life in Cuba. For the conditions placed on the Cuban people, it is remarkable how successful their revolution is. One thing I want to emphasize is that Cubans, citizens or government officials, will rarely say that Cuba is a perfect place. I was astounded by the critical analysis that most people seemed to have. Our hosts never strayed away from the hard questions. We engaged in important discussions about a range of topics and they asked increasingly difficult questions of us too. So many people in the United States will tell you that we live in the best country in the world despite our streets being lined with unhoused people, our education system failing, our bridges collapsing, and our people dying because they can’t afford healthcare. We are failing spectacularly—despite all we have access to in the United States—compared to many things Cuba does with only a tiny fraction of the resources.
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 Heslthcare!