Daily News Digest May 18, 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:
Bendib: Below The Belt
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:
Now Is the Time for Reparations: India Walton on Buffalo Mass Shooting That Targeted Black Community
Buffalo Massacre: Gunman Cited Racist “Great Replacement” Conspiracy Theory Popularized by Fox News
Abortion Activist Renee Bracey Sherman: Democrats Demand Our Votes But Fail to Protect Our Rights
Quotes of the Day:
Ignorance is Strength: This phrase appears in George Orwell’s novel, 1984. The author has used it as the slogan of the Party in the very first part of the novel, where it reads, “War is Peace / Freedom is Slavery / Ignorance is Strength” (Part-I, Chapter-I). By using this slogan, Big Brother could reign supreme, destroy the past, and build up the future on account of the ignorance of people. Had they been aware, they would have understood Big Brother’s manipulations, and would not let him rule. Hence, their ignorance blinded them, and delegated their strength and power to the Party and Big Brother.
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!
Trump DOJ Casting Long Shadow Over Biden Admin: Analysis Former President Donald Trump and his DOJ “consistently made a mockery of the law throughout his four years in power,” the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Revolving Door Project asserted. “And while their laughable reasoning and indefensible positions were struck down at a historic rate, many cases were still waiting for Biden. Sixteen months into Biden’s presidency, an alarming number remain, either in some form of pause or advancing forward with the Biden administration adopting Trump’s position.”
‘Cancel It, Don’t Means Test It!’ Omar Says of Student Debt Progressive lawmakers and other critics continue to warn the Biden administration against the “logistical nightmare” of limiting debt cancellation by income.
Social Democrats Don’t Oppose War! Congress Approves 40 Billion Dollar Ukraine War Bill Rand Paul has never thought clearly about economics, and the relation between his morality and his partisan politics is not the subject of this column. No one needs a reminder that Rand Paul is an Ayn Randian “libertarian.” That is deadbeat and misses the crucial point in this timeline of events. Entirely. The brute fact remains that Rand at least raised the question of public accounting of a vast war budget. When there was a bipartisan stampede to approve the recent 40 billion dollar Ukraine war budget, his dissent was crucial in delaying automatic approval. The more pointed and timely question is why Bernie Sanders went AWOL, along with the entire Progressive Caucus in Congress. Whether any of them belong in any school of Marxism whatsoever is a side issue. What matters most is whether they pursue a practical policy of peace. Do they raise the ground floor of social democracy across public policies such as health care, housing, and education? Bipartisan war budgets that expand from year to year have the sure consequence of strip-mining public funds away from basic social goods and services.
White Supremacist Massacre in Buffalo Shows “Alt-Right” Ideology Leads to Murder The horrific shooting in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo stems from a long history of anti-Black violence in the U.S. On Saturday, a white supremacist walked into a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, and opened fire. He killed ten people and wounded three others; eleven of his victims were Black. The horrific attack showed the influence of other massacres by the terrorist wing of the “alt-right” that took place during the Trump presidency. The conspiratorial ideology of these attacks, once fringe, now can be found in the mainstream right wing. They also fit within the much longer history of anti-Black lynchings and white supremacist violence that have been occurring for centuries. Six similar far right attacks killed 86 people in 2018 and 2019. Their intended targets were Muslims (51 killed in Christchurch, New Zealand), Latino immigrants (23 in El Paso) and Jews (including 11 in Pittsburgh). The Christchurch massacre set up a template that other white supremacists have followed: writing a lengthy manifesto and placing it on an online platform associated with the alt-right before the violence, and then livestreaming the attack.
Ignorance is Strength!: Ad Hoc Book Bans, a Shortcut to Civic Illiteracy PEN America’s recent report Banned in the USA surveys the avalanche of school book bans that happened between July 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022: In nine months, 1,568 individual bans. Targeting 1,145 unique book titles. 874 authors, 198 illustrators, and 9 translators. In 86 districts, 26 states. Affecting a total of 2,899 schools. Over 2 million students. Of these 1,568 challenges, 282 were submitted in February 2022 by a couple whose child attends an elementary school in McKinney Independent School District (ISD) in Texas. For each of the books they were challenging, the parents recorded the same exact complaint: “Contains 1 or more of the following: Marxism, incest, sexual explicit material—in written form and/or visual pictures, pornography, CRT, immoral activities, rebelliousness against parents, and the material contradicts the ISD’s student handbook.” Copy and paste. Two hundred and eighty-two times. Hit send.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocied!:
Rising Authoritarianism and Escalating Climate Change Are Supported by the Same Industries The biggest obstacles, a recent U.N. climate report noted, are national leaders who are unwilling to regulate fossil fuel corporations, reduce greenhouse gas emissions or plan for renewable energy production. Today, it’s easy to find political leaders—on both the political right and left—working on behalf of corporations in energy, finance, agribusiness, technology, military and pharmaceutical sectors, and not always in the public interest. These multinational companies help fund their political careers and election campaigns to keep them in office.
Study Finds Many Existing Oil and Gas Sites Must Be Shut Down to Avert Climate Disaster “Our findings show that halting new extraction projects is a necessary step, but still not enough to stay within our rapidly dwindling carbon budget,” said one researcher. A new study published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters shows that keeping global warming below the key 1.5°C threshold by the end of the century will require not just halting the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure, but also shutting down many existing sites.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Economy:
Warren Buffett Is Taking a Flyer on $3 Billion of Citigroup’s Stock — After It Loses 40 Percent in a Year Tongues are wagging this morning about the 13F filing by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. The filing shows that in the first quarter of this year, Berkshire Hathaway bought 55,155,797 shares of Citigroup stock for its portfolio, which came to the tidy sum of $2.9 billion as of March 31, 2022. The tongue-wagging stems from the fact that over the past 52 weeks, Citigroup’s stock has lost 40 percent of its value, with no sign that the bleeding will stop anytime soon.
World:
Double-Standards at the UN Human Rights Council It is no secret that the UN Human Rights Council essentially serves the interests of the Western developed countries and does not have a holistic approach to all human rights. Blackmail and bullying are common practices, and the US has proven that it has sufficient “soft power” to cajole weaker countries. It is not necessary to threaten in the chamber or in the corridors, a phone call from the Ambassador suffices. Countries are threatened with sanctions — or worse — as I have learned from African diplomats. Of course if they abandon the illusion of sovereignty, they are rewarded by being called “democratic”. Only major powers can afford to have their own opinions and to vote accordingly.
Crisis, Protectionism and Inflation: War Prepares the Way for Revolution The crisis in Ukraine has created a perfect inflationary storm. The war, the western sanctions on Russia, the pandemic, protectionism and climate change are unravelling decades of low commodity prices in a crisis that is only getting deeper. This unprecedented concatenation of factors is preparing a disaster, as summed up in a sobering analysis by Pascal Lamy, former Director-General of the World Trade Organisation: “Frankly speaking, when I look at things to come, I’m pretty horrified, and I’ve been in international issues for, what, 30, 40 years of my life. I think I never saw a period where the risks were as high with this cumulation of Covid impact on the world economy, especially on developing countries; the food crisis; the energy price crisis; the debt crisis, which is looming in many parts of the developing countries; the impact of this on the financial system. I see risks piling up. And of course, you know, the invasion of Ukraine is a sort of straw that really could break the camel’s back, and I’m much more worried than I’ve ever been in the last decades, unfortunately.” (‘Le Pen, patriots and the anti-globalist movement’, Financial Times)
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!
Biden’s Medicare Privatization Scheme is Raising Alarm Bells. There’s good news and bad news about the Joe Biden administration’s ongoing pursuit of the Direct Contracting Entity (DCE) program, also known as ACO REACH. The bad news is that the idea remains a threat to the health of seniors and an alarming Trojan horse that could lead to the privatization of Medicare. The good news is that resistance to it is beginning to gain some traction. Late last month, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed a resolution “to stop privatizing the United States Medicare system.” The resolution, which warns that the introduction of the DCE pilot program “opened the door to the complete privatization of Medicare” and urges equity issues be resolved “within the traditional Medicare system,” was introduced by councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who is far from being a radical. (While a progressive, Mosqueda has repeatedly butted heads with socialist councilmember Kshama Sawant, watering down the latter’s proposed “Amazon tax” — a sign of how potently unpopular the Medicare contracting program is.)