Daily News Digest June 23, 2022
Humanity Will Not be Covid Free, Until the Vaccines, Like the Salk Polio Vaccine, are Free For the Whole World!
Image of the Day:
Bipartisan Biden Administration’: Does This Mean I Have to Do Something? 
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:
Videos:
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!
Marjorie Cohn: Julian Assange Is Enduring Unbearable Persecution for Exposing US War Crimes The extradition, trial and conviction of Assange would have frightening ramifications for investigative journalism. Ever since U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel formally ordered the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the U.S. last week, press freedom advocates around the world have been mobilizing. Assange Defense, on whose advisory board I serve, is organizing a national and international campaign to pressure U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden to drop the extradition request and dismiss the charges against Assange. The stakes could not be higher. The charges against Assange, including 17 under the infamous Espionage Act, could result in 175 years in prison for the journalist who exposed U.S. war crimes.
Summit of the Americas Showcases Defiance of US Domination The Summit of the Americas is typically a window-dressing exercise where political leaders from the continent meet on a regular basis to issue a joint statement of good intentions. Not this time. The one Biden convened in Los Angeles on 6-10 June was an unmitigated disaster, which showed the decreasing ability of the US to dominate its own backyard. What a difference from that first Summit, organised under the Clinton presidency back in 1994. That was at the time of the collapse of Stalinism in the USSR and Eastern Europe, when the promise of a “new world order” of peace and growth under the domination of US imperialism was shining. The ruling class was basking in optimism. In contrast, even bourgeois commentators seemed to compete amongst themselves to see who would write the most damning assessment of the gathering last week. “Summit of Americas proves the growing irrelevance of such gatherings”, commented Gideon Long in the Financial Time
What is Westinghouse Doing in Ukraine? You might think that being in the middle of a war, the last thing you would be contemplating is building more nuclear power plants. But that hasn’t stopped Energoatom, the Ukrainian state nuclear operator. Earlier this month, Energoatom inked a new agreement with Westinghouse of all companies, the American corporation that went bankrupt trying to build four of its AP1000 reactors in South Carolina and Georgia. The two in South Carolina were canceled mid-construction, while the pair in Georgia are years behind schedule and billions of dollars over-budget. But like a good corporate vulture, Westinghouse has swooped into Ukraine, to grab a golden opportunity. Already the supplier of nuclear fuel to almost half of Ukraine’s reactors, the company now plans to increase that commitment to all 15, replacing Russia’s Rosatom; to establish a Westinghouse Engineering and Technical Center; and, craziest of all, build nine new AP1000 reactors there.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
The ‘Supreme’s’ Ecocide”: The Right-Wing Supreme Court Readies to Help Destroy the Planet This would cripple virtually every regulatory agency in Washington, DC, from the EPA to the FCC to OSHA. The SCOTUS is about to use it’s ill-gotten power on behalf of the fossil fuel industry to cripple America’s ability to meet the challenge of climate change. . . . Longtime readers of my work and listeners to my program know that the Supreme Court has seized for itself extraordinary powers that the Framers of the Constitution never intended for it to have. There are summaries here and here, for example. This would cripple virtually every regulatory agency in Washington, DC, from the EPA to the FCC to OSHA. This is not an opinion unique to me or my book The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America: two Harvard Law professors just this week wrote an article for The Atlantic that lays out pretty much the same arguments.
The People vs. Petrocracy The United States is moving fast on climate change—in the wrong direction. The Energy Information Agency forecasts that by 2023, the nation will set a new annual record for oil extraction: 4.6 billion barrels. Plans to build more than 200 new natural gas power plants are in the works. More than 130 new oil and gas pipelines now under development will carry enough fuel to increase national emissions by 10 percent—560 million metric tons per year.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
The New Priortiy More Cops — Less Education!: Mayor Eric Adams Is Siphoning Funds From Public Schools to Fortify NYPD Adams’s plan lowers education department funding by nearly $1 billion, while raising the NYPD budget to $11.1 billion.
Labor:
The Fed’s Austerity Program to Reduce Wages To Wall Street and its backers, the solution to any price inflation is to reduce wages and public social spending. The orthodox way to do this is to push the economy into recession in order to reduce hiring. Rising unemployment will oblige labor to compete for jobs that pay less and less as the economy slows. This class-war doctrine is the prime directive of neoliberal economics. It is the tunnel vision of corporate managers and the One Percent. The Federal Reserve and IMF are its most prestigious lobbyists. Along with Janet Yellen at the Treasury, public discussion of today’s inflation is framed in a way that avoids blaming the 8.2 percent rise in consumer prices on the Biden Administration’s New Cold War sanctions on Russian oil, gas and agriculture, or on oil companies and other sectors using these sanctions as an excuse to charge monopoly prices as if America has not continued to buy Russian diesel oil, as if fracking has picked up and corn is not being turned into biofuel. There has been no disruption in supply. We are simply dealing with monopoly rent by the oil companies using the anti-Russian sanctions as an excuse that an oil shortage will soon develop for the United States and indeed for the entire world economy.
This Shadow Government Statistics Graph Demonstrates That Wages Don’t Cause InflationShadowStats (1990-Based) measure, real earnings have been in fairly-regular decline for the last four decades, which is much closer to common experience than the pattern suggested by the CPI-W. See the Public Commentary on Inflation Measurement for further detail. This process has led to a greater productivity and windfall profits for the capitalist, without more value being added to society.
Study Shows Excess Corporate Profits in the US Have Become ‘Widespread’ A new research paper finds that corporate price markups and profits jumped to their highest levels in seven decades last year. A new paper published Tuesday shows that U.S. corporate price markups and profits surged to their highest levels since the 1950s last year, bolstering arguments for an excess profits tax as a way to rein in sky-high inflation. Authored by Mike Konczal and Niko Lusiani of the Roosevelt Institute, the analysis finds that markups—the difference between the actual cost of a good or service and the selling price—”were both the highest level on record and the largest one-year increase” in 2021.
Economy:
Crypto Victims’ Cries for Help Are Piling Up at a Federal Complaint Center Crypto Victims’ Cries for Help Are Piling Up at a Federal Complaint Center The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is the federal agency that was created under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 in response to Wall Street’s harrowing abuses to average Americans in the leadup to the financial crash of 2008. One of its key benefits is that it has a complaint database where consumers can post their complaints to the agency, and the general public and reporters can read those complaints on a public website. The general public benefits by seeing what types of complaints are being made against a financial institution they might be considering doing business with and reporters can look for dangerous patterns that are emerging.
World:
Tories in Turmoil: Picking Fights and Waging Wars In a desperate attempt to save themselves, Johnson and the Tories are waging war on anyone and everyone. Their reckless actions are damaging the interests of British capitalism – and preparing the ground for explosive class struggles. “For want of a nail,” begins the old proverb, ending with the famous lines: “[…] For want of an army a battle was lost, For want of a battle a war was lost, For want of a war a kingdom fell, And all for want of a nail.” Two weeks after narrowly escaping a vote of no confidence, it is clear that Boris Johnson and his ministers are looking to pursue all manner of battles in order to distract from the crisis within their own party. For the sake of saving their own political skins, this myopic government is willing to wage war on anyone and everyone: prolonging the war in Ukraine; threatening a trade war with the EU over the Northern Ireland (NI) protocol; declaring war on migrants, refugees, and human rights campaigners; and whipping up a culture war against trans people, the Black Lives Matter movement, student activists, and many more. To top it off, the Tories are waging a class war: continuing with cuts to public services; attacking the jobs, pay, and conditions of public sector workers; and teaming up with the bosses and the gutter press to demonise and denounce union members who dare to organise and fight back. But like the proverbial search for a nail, by picking fights on all these fronts, Johnson and the Tories – driven solely by self-preservation – risk seeing their whole kingdom fall.
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!