Daily News Digest June 30, 2022

Daily News Digest Archives

Images of the Day: 

When to Abort 

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:

Was January 6th Be Trump’s Beer Hall Putsch? Will  ‘Bipartisn Biden’s’ Justice Department Try and Convict Tump of Insurection and Will He Be Given The Same Light Sentence?: Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch: Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch: From November 8 to November 9, 1923, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and his followers staged the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, a failed takeover of the government in Bavaria, a state in southern Germany. Since 1921, Hitler had led the Nazi Party, a fledgling political group that promoted German pride and anti-Semitism and was unhappy with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the peace settlement that ended World War I (1914-18) and required many concessions and reparations from Germany. In the aftermath of the failed “putsch,” or coup d’état, Hitler was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison. He spent less than a year behind bars, during which time he dictated “Mein Kampf,” his political autobiography. The putsch and Hitler’s subsequent trial turned him into a national figure. After prison, he worked to rebuild the Nazi Party and gain power via legal political methods.

We Can Agree!

Videos: 

In the Dark of the Valley Southern California mother discovers that the Santa Susana Field Lab, the site of one of the largest nuclear accidents in U.S. history, is located only 7 miles from her home. Concealed from the public eye for 20 years and never fully cleaned up, she grapples with the idea that the site may be responsible for exposing her daughter and community to cancer-causing radioactive waste.

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!

Damning Americans’ ‘Freedom! “The basis of a democratic state is liberty.” – Aristotle Its ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Organization, expected because of the leak to Politico of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s preliminary judgment, marked a significant, democratically unhealthy and remarkable turning point in the court’s history by deleting settled law. Bottom line: You cannot trust its future rulings to be based on neutrality. Respect for it, chiefly among the most vulnerable and who conservatives sneeringly describe as “libs,” has vanished.

The United State Supreme Court Deregulation Policy has accelerated the implementation of  The Iron Heel!:  Alito’s Bad History Meets the Vendetta of Clarence Thomas If democracy dies, it will take a long and mighty struggle to get it back. In the interim, the personal damage to millions of Americans will be irreparable.     The Dobbs opinion overturning Roe. v. Wade is another marker on the road to where Republicans and the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative super-majority are taking the country. Millions of Americans cheer the journey. But a lot of them won’t like the final destination.     “Originalism” and Alito’s Fake History      Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito purported to apply “originalism”—interpreting the Constitution and the 14th Amendment based solely on their original intent when adopted in 1788 and 1868, respectively. It’s a relatively new approach. 

Alito’s Bad History Meets the Vendetta of Clarence Thomas If democracy dies, it will take a long and mighty struggle to get it back. In the interim, the personal damage to millions of Americans will be irreparable.     The Dobbs opinion overturning Roe. v. Wade is another marker on the road to where Republicans and the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative super-majority are taking the country. Millions of Americans cheer the journey. But a lot of them won’t like the final destination.     “Originalism” and Alito’s Fake History      Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito purported to apply “originalism”—interpreting the Constitution and the 14th Amendment based solely on their original intent when adopted in 1788 and 1868, respectively. It’s a relatively new approach

Papa John’s, Whole Foods, Among Corporations Benefiting From Prison Labor Your weekly rundown of news and analysis about the corporate takeover of education, water, and other public goods. Highlights

It may be hard right now to think about a strategy for overturning last week’s extremist Supreme Court ruling that outlawed reproductive freedom, but Heather Booth, a veteran of the abortion rights movement, says we must. Fighting for Abortion Rights All Over Again.     Make sure you save some outrage for West Virginia v. EPA this week, says Justin Feldman of the Harvard FXB Center for Health & Human Rights. “It’s likely to not only prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse emissions, but also prevent the federal government from regulating anything at all.” Gutting federal agencies’ regulatory capacity and authority would unleash a tidal wave of privatized, undemocratic decision-making and risks to public health, public safety, responsible contracting, environmentally sound “public-private partnerships,” public education, digital and other forms of privacy, and many other things.     The work of developing temporary workarounds to such drastic action by an out of control Supreme Court should also begin now, until the day when the basic, Constitutionally-grounded duty of government to provide for the public interest can be restored.

Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:

UN Chief Warns of ‘Ocean Emergency’ as Leaders Confront Biodiversity Loss, Pollution “We must turn the tide,” said Secretary-General António Guterres. “A healthy and productive ocean is vital to our shared future.” With the goal of hammering out a declaration to protect the oceans and their vast resources from exploitation, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday opened the body’s Ocean Conference by warning that the world faces “an ocean emergency.” 

Morally Bankrupt’ G7 Slammed for ‘Caving’ to Fossil Fuel Lobby on Climate “People in poverty around the world will pay the highest price for this backtrack by some of the wealthiest countries,” one activist warned of the group’s new statement on gas investments. “The G7 countries have once again proved that they are morally bankrupt and have no real intention to solve the climate crisis and take responsibility for this crisis caused by their disproportionate use and relentless support for fossil fuels.”

More Oil to Fuel Global Warm ng: OPEC Plus’s Accelerated Oil Production Pales in Comparison to Lost Output from US Sanctions  The global economy has suffered several shocks since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. These include lingering supply constraints from fallout of the pandemic as well as those from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both of which added pressure to prices around the world. On top of this, speculation in commodity markets has led to significantly higher oil prices, and thus higher prices at the pump and for many goods and services.     Higher energy prices are a significant political problem for US president Joe Biden and many other world leaders, who face strikes and protests. One way world leaders might seek to lower prices is work to increase the global supply of oil. Biden especially has a significant opportunity in his hands to boost global production by breaking with Trump’s failed “maximum pressure” campaigns, and ending unilateral — and likely illegal — sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. These potential increases in oil production amount to about 2.6 million extra barrels per day, which dwarfs increases Biden is likely to get directly from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the cartel that coordinates oil production in many countries.

Jim Gale, founder of Food Forest Abundance, pointed out in a recent interview with Del Bigtree  that in the United States there are 40 million acres of lawn. Lawns are the most destructive monoculture on the planet, absorbing more resources and pesticides than any other crop, without providing any yield. If we were to turn 30% of that lawn into permaculture-based food gardens, says Gale, we could be food self-sufficient without relying on imports or chemicals.

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

Labor:

‘Arise Yea Prisoners of Starvation!: Britain: RMT Strikes – Rail Workers’ Struggle Breathes Confidence Into the Movement A wave of strike action by RMT members on the railways has emboldened the entire trade union movement. From posties to barristers to airport staff: workers everywhere are moving into action. We say: Unite the struggles! Bring down the Tories!     The scores are in following the first round of battle between the RMT and the bosses. And the verdict is unanimous: the union has chalked up a win, landing a series of heavy blows against the Tories, the bosses, and their lackeys in the media.    All three days of strike action over the last week were solid, with RMT members bringing the railway network to a standstill. At the same time, solidarity and support has flooded in from across the trade union movement, and from the wider working class.

Economy:

Report: JPMorgan Chase and Citibank Hold 90 Percent of All Gold and Other Precious Metals Derivatives Held by All U.S. Banks Last Tuesday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released its quarterly report on derivatives held at the megabanks on Wall Street. As we browsed through the standard graphs that are included in the quarterly report, one graph jumped out at us. It showed a measured growth in precious metals derivatives at insured U.S. commercial banks and savings associations over the past two decades and then an explosion in growth between the last quarter of 2021 and the end of the first quarter of this year.

World:

Pax Americana: Michael Roberts Blog: NATO has a very important summit meeting today. Sweden and Finland are to be welcomed as new members.   and NATO has invited Asia-Pacific partners Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand who are taking part for the first time in a NATO Summit.      Behind this is the aim to expand NATO to cover not just ‘defence’ in Europe but also into Asia.     “Leaders will endorse a new Strategic Concept, which will assess our changed security environment and reaffirm NATO’s values, purpose and tasks. It will set out NATO’s joint positions, including on Russia and emerging challenges, and for the first time, it will also address China.”     Yes, China is now in the orbit of ‘containment’ by NATO, originally supposedly just a cold war alliance against the Soviet Union.

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!  

 Leon Trotsky and the Iron Heel  The book produced upon me – I speak without exaggeration – a deep impression. Not because of its artistic qualities: the form of the novel here represents only an armor for social analysis and prognosis. The author is intentionally sparing in his use of artistic means. He is himself interested not so much in the individual fate of his heroes as in the fate of mankind. By this, however, I don’t want at all to belittle the artistic value of the work, especially in its last chapters beginning with the Chicago commune. The pictures of civil war develop in powerful frescoes. Nevertheless, this is not the main feature. The book surprised me with the audacity and independence of its historical foresight.    The world workers’ movement at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century stood under the sign of reformism. The perspective of peaceful and uninterrupted world progress, of the prosperity of democracy and social reforms, seemed to be assured once and for all. The first Russian revolution, it is true, revived the radical flank of the German social-democracy and gave for a certain time dynamic force to anarcho-syndicalism in France. The Iron Heel bears the undoubted imprint of the year 1905.      But at the time when this remarkable book appeared, the domination of counterrevolution was already consolidating itself in Russia. In the world arena the defeat of the Russian proletariat gave to reformism the possibility not only of regaining its temporarily lost positions but also of subjecting to itself completely the organized workers’ movement. It is sufficient to recall that precisely in the following seven years (1907–14) the international social-democracy ripened definitely for its base and shameful role during the World War.     Jack London not only absorbed creatively the impetus given by the first Russian revolution but also courageously thought over again in its light the fate of capitalist society as a whole. Precisely those problems which the official socialism of this time considered to be definitely buried: the growth of wealth and power at one pole, of misery and destitution at the other pole; the accumulation of social bitterness and hatred; the unalterable preparation of bloody cataclysms – all those questions Jack London felt with an intrepidity which forces one to ask himself again and again with astonishment: when was this written? Really before the war?     One must accentuate especially the role which Jack London attributes to the labor bureaucracy and to the labor aristocracy in the further fate of mankind. Thanks to their support, the American plutocracy not only succeeds in defeating the workers’ insurrection but also in keeping its iron dictatorship during the following three centuries. We will not dispute with the poet the delay which can but seem to us too long. However, it is not a question of Jack London’s pessimism, but of his passionate effort to shake those who are lulled by routine, to force them to open their eyes and to see what is and what approaches. The artist is audaciously utilizing the methods of hyperbole. He is bringing the tendencies rooted in capitalism: of oppression, cruelty, bestiality, betrayal, to their extreme expression. He is operating with centuries in order to measure the tyrannical will of the exploiters and the treacherous rôle of the labor bureaucracy. But his most “romantic” hyperboles are finally much more realistic than the bookkeeper-like calculations of the so-called “sober politicians.” . . .