Daily News Digest June 20, 2022
Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines, Like the Salk Polio Vaccine, are Free For the Whole World! The Covid Pandemic is Not Over! Yesterday(6/16), in the U.S.. There Were Over 96,374 and Two Days Ago, There Were Over 119,909 New Covid CaseS
Image of the Day:
House Dems Urge Biden to Work With Cuba to Vaccinate Workers transport a shipment of Cuba’s Soberana Plus Covid-19 vaccine — to be donated by the Cuban government to Syria—at Jose Martí International Airport in Havana, on January 7, 2022. (Photo: Yamil Lage/ AFP via Getty Images)
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!
Quotes of the Day:
“Cuba’s strategy to market the vaccine has a combined goal of serving humanity and impacting global health. We are not a multinational, with the financial objective as the number one motivation. Our aim is to create more health,” said Vérez Bencomo, Prensa Latina reported. — Cuba Readies 100 Million Doses of Anti-COVID Vaccine (Janurary 22, 2021)
“Experts believe that these vaccines hold enormous potential for other low-income countries,” the lawmakers note. “Unlike with the mRNA vaccines available in the United States, the Cuban vaccines are inexpensive to produce, less challenging to manufacture at scale, and do not require deep freezing.” “Cuba recently announced an ambitious plan to produce and distribute 200 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines at significantly reduced cost to low-income countries, including technology transfers for local vaccine production where possible, as well as medical brigades to build capacity for vaccine distribution where needed,” they add. — House Dems Urge Biden to Work With Cuba to Vaccinate
Videos:
Craig McNamara — Because Our Fathers Lied Craig McNamara came of age in the political tumult and upheaval of the late 60s. While Craig McNamara would grow up to take part in anti-war demonstrations, his father, Robert McNamara, served as John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense and the architect of the Vietnam War. This searching and revealing memoir offers an intimate picture of one father and son at pivotal periods in American history. Because Our Fathers Lied is more than a family story — it is a story about America.
Black Agenda Radio June 17, 2022 A Washington DC Black Lives Matter organizer’s efforts to prove police surveillance of her activities, an anti-imperialist summit countered the U.S. narrative at Summit of the Americas, a defense attorney for Guantanamo detainees tells his story, and commentary about the January 6th congressional hearings.
Black Lives Matter Organizer Under Police Surveillance April Goggans is an organizer with Black Lives Matter DC. She filed a Freedom of Information act request with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington in order to determine the extent of surveillance on her activities. After 5 years of seeking information, and denials that such information existed, she appealed a judge’s dismissal and has been granted a hearing. She is joined by Max Rameau, an organizer with Pan African Community Action.
Anti-Imperialist Summit Erica Caines is Co-Coordinator of the Black Alliance for Peace Haiti and the Americas Committee. She is also co-editor of the Hood Communist blog. She discusses the recent anti-imperialist summit held during the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.
A Guantanamo Defense Attorney Speaks Bryan Bullock is an Indiana based attorney who specializes in employment discrimination and civil rights cases. But from 2005 to 2011 he served as habeas counsel for 3 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Recent photos were released of the first detainees arriving there more than 20 years ago. We talk to him about his involvement in these cases and the status of those still being held.
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!
United Statates For Profit Health Care SystemL More Than 100 Million People in US Have Health Care Debt, Study Shows Elizabeth Woodruff drained her retirement account and took on three jobs after she and her husband were sued for nearly $10,000 by the New York hospital where his infected leg was amputated. Ariane Buck, a young father in Arizona who sells health insurance, couldn’t make an appointment with his doctor for a dangerous intestinal infection because the office said he had outstanding bills.Allyson Ward and her husband loaded up credit cards, borrowed from relatives, and delayed repaying student loans after the premature birth of their twins left them with $80,000 in debt. Ward, a nurse practitioner, took on extra nursing shifts, working days and nights.The three are among more than 100 million people in America ― including 41% of adults ― beset by a health care system that is systematically pushing patients into debt on a mass scale, an investigation by KHN and NPR shows.
House Dems Urge Biden to Work With Cuba to Vaccinate . . . Citing the “enormous potential” of Cuban Covid-19 vaccines to tackle enduring global inequities, a group of 26 House Democrats on Thursday urged President Joe Biden to review U.S. policy toward the long-embargoed nation to ensure that sanctions do not impede its international vaccination campaign. “Cuba’s goal of vaccinating people in low-income countries offers an important opportunity and bridge for our nations to work together once again on urgent healthcare issues facing the world,” states a letter led by Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.).
If only there were a vaccine against capitalism. — A Mask-Less World: How the Corporate-Capitalist War on Humanity Is Wreaking Havoc At the end of May, as I was waiting to board a flight from Newark to Geneva, I overheard a high-decibel monologue being delivered by an older American businessman to a fellow passenger of undetermined nationality. The topic of the monologue was the coronavirus, which the American’s daughter—a nurse in New York—had just contracted for the first time since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.The moral of the story, according to the American, was that “everybody’s acting like Corona is done, but it’s not”. Ironically, his own insight did not inspire him to don a face mask either in the airport or on the airplane
War Crimes, Fr om Nuremberg to Ukraine I was in Nuremberg during the war crimes trials which followed WWII. My father, Brig. Gen. Telford Taylor, was Chief Prosecutor during the second, American phase. The French, Russian and British staffs had gone home to continue trials at home, but the US stayed longer, and scheduled about 400 additional defendants. They were divided into twelve categories: judges, doctors, industrialists, etc. There were 142 convictions and ten death sentences.
Craig McNamara Reveals the Truth Behind the Lies of His Father, Robert McNamara The author of “Because Our Fathers Lied” lays bare agonizing truths about the America his father helped to shape. Thousands of words have been penned about Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, including by McNamara in his 1996 autobiography, “In Retrospect.” But the latest book about one of the architects of America’s disastrous Vietnam War policy, written by his son Craig McNamara, could be the most intimate look yet at his life and decisions. Although they carry the same last name, the two men seem to be radically different in almost every sense, especially when it comes to their perspectives on war and peace. McNamara joins Robert Scheer on this week’s “Scheer Intelligence” to discuss his moving, eye-opening memoir, “Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today.”
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!
Water Supply in Montana’s Biggest City Imperiled by Yellowstone Floods Residents in Billings asked to conserve water after record rain and heavy flooding shut down service from city’s main water plant The unprecedented flooding that wrecked parts of Yellowstone national park is also jeopardizing freshwater supplies in Montana’s most populated city.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
This Economy is Especially Tough on Women Right Now! Baby formula recalls. Tampon shortages. The government needs to step in. Astronomical gas prices. Skyrocketing housing costs. A looming recession. Times are tough right now for everyone but the super-rich. Especially women—who are dealing not only with attacks on reproductive rights, but also shortages of baby formula and tampons. That’s why Robert Kuttner’s idea to create a public option for baby formula makes a crucial point: “The remedy is either to break the [formula] industry up into lots of smaller producers, or even better, to have a public option, where a public entity enters the market as a major producer … When private producers disgrace themselves, social ownership starts looking very good.”
Labor:
Britain: Labor Aristocracy/Employer’s Fifth Colum Strikes Back!: Britain: Unison National Conference – A Wake-Up Call For the Left The left activists suffered a blow at the conference of Britain’s largest union, Unison, this week, as the right wing launched a vicious offensive against the NEC. This highlights important lessons in the struggle to transform the union into a fighting weapon for workers. Ever since the election of a left-wing majority on the union’s national executive committee (NEC), under the Time for Real Change (TFRC) banner, the union’s bureaucracy and right-wing agents have been pulling out all the stops to seize back control.
Economy:
World:
‘A Chilling Message to Journalists the World Over’: UK Approves Assange Extradition to US Julian Assange’s wife, Stella, slammed the U.K. government for moving to send the WikiLeaks publisher “to the country that plotted his assassination.”
Western Imperialism Turns to Pessimism In Ukraine The tables are beginning to turn in the Ukraine war, with Russian forces gaining ground in the Donbas. These developments – combined with the conflict’s economic impacts and rising class struggle – are causing western unity to fracture. It is now over 100 days since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. There is no end in sight to the war. The gung-ho statements of the West following Russia’s withdrawal from the areas it had occupied around Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv have turned into more pessimistic appraisals. Russian forces, through superior artillery, have been advancing in the Donbas – slowly, but relentlessly. Ukrainian losses are mounting. Russia has maintained its income from oil and gas, despite the West’s sanctions. And the knock-on effects of these threaten to push the world economy into a new and damaging recession.
Ecuador Rises Up Again – National Strike Against Banker President Lasso On June 13, a new national strike began in Ecuador, announced by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (CONAIE), demanding better economic conditions. Demands include the freezing of the price of gasoline, price controls on basic foodstuffs, and opposition to the privatisation plan. These demands challenge the impositions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) head on.
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!
WTO Deal on Vaccine Patents Decried as a ‘Sham’ Dictated by Rich Nations, Big Pharma “The U.S. has sat silently in negotiations with red lines designed to limit the impact of any agreement.” One campaigner slammed the agreement as “a technocratic fudge aimed at saving reputations, not lives.” The World Trade Organization’s 12th Ministerial Conference ended Friday with an agreement on patent rights that campaigners said would do virtually nothing to address vast global inequities in coronavirus vaccine and treatment access, a failure they attributed to relentless obstruction by rich countries and the pharmaceutical industry.
After WTO Failure, Nations Urged to ‘Outright Defy’ Pharma Patent Rules to Fight Covid “Governments must take immediate actions to bypass the WTO’s prioritization of pharmaceutical monopolies over human lives,” says a global coalition of nearly 300 civil society groups. The World Trade Organization’s complete failure on Friday to lift intellectual property barriers that have hindered vaccine and treatment access throughout the Covid-19 pandemic led nearly 300 civil society groups from across the globe—including Zambia, India, Bolivia, and Brazil—to call on governments to “outright defy” WTO patent rules if necessary to combat the still-spreading virus.