Daily News Digest July 6, 2022
Images of the Day:
Separation of Powers (1% ‘Supemes’ Rule the 99%!)
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:
. . . Never the less, the constitution was written to allow only white males of property to vote, legalized slavery, and stated that Black People were only 4/5 human. As Noam Chomsky stated in his interview on American History and Democracy:. . . If you go back to the record of the Constitutional Convention, which took place in 1787, almost immediately after the end of the war, you see that they are already moving in another direction. James Madison — who was the main framer, and one of the Founding Fathers who was most libertarian — makes it very clear that the new constitutional system must be designed so as to ensure that the government will, in his words, “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” and bar the way to anything like agrarian reform. The determination was made that America could not allow functioning democracy, since people would use their political power to attack the wealth of the minority of the opulent. Therefore, Madison argues, the country should be placed in the hands of the wealthier set of men, as he put it. . . . To this day, we have a government and state apparatus that is designed to “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” — there is no Democracy! It has been endemic to this society to expand westward which included the genocide of the Native Americans. — My Forefathers and The 1%’s Forefathers
Videos of the Day:
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!
Ditch the Constitution and Start Over: When a Government Becomes Destructive of the Rights of the People Taken together, the anti-democratic design of the three branches of government has ensured the disproportionate power of wealthy oligarchies through U.S. history. Thus, when the conservative majority of the Supreme Court claims they are upholding the original intent of the framers, they are being true their school. With the exception of a couple of decades in the mid-20th century when the court expanded rights that are now being withdrawn, the court has been a reactionary institution protecting established powers against democratic upsurges. The recent rulings have spurred calls to reform and expand the court. But any such moves to restructure the judicial branch of government will be obstructed by the anti-democratic nature of the other two branches.
If Democrats Didn’t Suck If Democrats threw out the filibuster today and rapidly passed legislation over the next 8 months as if they gave a damn — as if they were, oh, I don’t know, the Supreme Court — and if they put just what they’re increasing the military budget by into their Build Back Better bill, if they put through with majority votes just those items they were elected on that are favored by significant majorities in the country, they’d have done enough by 6 months from now to not lose those elections. And if they kept going, they’d need never lose an election again. The whole premise of keeping the filibuster around to restrain the Republicans is the plan to go on sucking badly for 6 more months in order to lose — combined with the delusion that Republicans are going to be restrained by something that THEY can and will choose to throw out. The Republicans will certainly plan on never losing an election again. Any elections they can’t win or rig, they can ask the Supreme Court to fix up for them — and hire Al Gore to explain to us that we
Israel Is a Junior Partner of Pax Americana in the Middle East: ‘Organized Whitewash’: US Claims Israeli Military’s Murder of Journalist Not Intentional “The odds that those responsible for the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh will be held to account are all but nonexistent,” said the human rights group B’Tselem in response to findings of U.S. State Department. Human rights advocates on Monday derided the Biden administration’s assertion that Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was “likely”—but unintentionally—killed by an Israeli soldier, with one group accusing the U.S. State Department of complicity in a “whitewash” of the reporter’s death.
How the Pentagon Uses a Secretive Program to Wage Proxy Wars Exclusive documents and interviews reveal the sweeping scope of classified 127e operations. Small teams of U.S. Special Operations forces are involved in a low-profile proxy war program on a far greater scale than previously known, according to exclusive documents and interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials. While The Intercept and other outlets have previously reported on the Pentagon’s use of the secretive 127e authority in multiple African countries, a new document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act offers the first official confirmation that at least 14 127e programs were also active in the greater Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region as recently as 2020. In total, between 2017 and 2020, U.S. commandos conducted at least 23 separate 127e programs across the world.
Hell on Earth: From Tired Metaphor to an Increasingly Accurate Description When will the pain of climate change become too great to ignore any longer and will it then be too late? In recent weeks, a newly emboldened right-wing Supreme Court struck down a more than century-old New York law restricting the carrying of concealed weapons and a nearly 50-year-old precedent on bortion. Meanwhile, the January 6th Committee has been laying out in graphic televised detail how our last president tried to subvert the 2021 election. Inflation, of course, continues to run riot; gas prices have soared to record levels; the brutal war in Ukraine proceeds neverendingly; the Biden administration looks increasingly hapless; and the president himself ever older and less on target. In sum, our world seems to be in headline-making disorder, while our fate here in this country — thank you, (in)justices Alito and Thomas, not to speak of The Donald and crew! — remains remarkably up for grabs by the worst of us all.
JoHn Kendall: Sonnet for Independence Day
It’s the fourth of July and I’m blue, white, and red
in the face in shame for what we’ve become
as a nation, enfeebled by souls dead
to the spirit of cooperation.
Socrates said, Forgive them, they know not
what they do, and unlearn critical thinking,
chase chiton, and don’t question ancient rot —
and say: ‘He said so.’ You stand there blinking.
Good, but stupid, people yell out, Bernie!
But Bernie’s a Jew. We barely manage
with a Catholic. Deep State wants Ernie.
We get unctuous pussygate panache.
Me, I favor electing only queers,
not the standard issue sum of all fears.
Happy July Farce: An American Revolution Would be a Good Idea “Read a book, you might learn something.” – New Left historian Carl Parrini to a generation of students at Northern Illinois University; “Fuck your fireworks, fuck your Court, fuck its decisions, and fuck your Fourth.” – The author, somewhere in downtown Chicago, today Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (DOI) and the American “revolution” it signified should be taken with a ton of salt. The (DOI) articulated the revolutionary notion that “the people” have the right to dissolve a government that no longer serves their interests and the common good. But who were “the people” in the early U.S. republic? White male owners of substantive property holdings. This left out: Blacks, most of whom were branded and ruthlessly exploited as chattel slaves in the new republic; Native Americans, reviled as “savages” (more on who the real savages were below); women of all races; much of the white population, which was considered too poor to be trusted with citizenship (though they were welcome to give their lives to fight the British).
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “We Are Witnessing a Judicial Coup in Process” The Supreme Court will soon hear a case that could fundamentally change how the electoral process works in the U.S. As the Supreme Court prepares to hear a case that could fundamentally change how elections are run in the U.S., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) is sounding the alarm about extremist justices’ apparent intentions to stage a “judicial coup.” On Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Moore v. Harper, a case in which right-wing plaintiffs argue that the North Carolina Supreme Court did not have the jurisdiction to strike down gerrymandered maps that gave the GOP undue advantage in state elections. If the Supreme Court rules for the plaintiff, it could completely undermine the democratic process and empower politicians to draw gerrymandered election maps nearly unilaterally.
The Supreme Court’s Assault Is Far From Over. July 4 Is No Celebration Idon’t believe we have ever experienced a Fourth of July holiday quite like this. Last year at this time, I was challenging the notion of patriotism if that patriotism motivates people to bury an uncomfortable past so as to secure their power over the present, and future. Such an exercise is perfectly in line with the basic concept of the holiday, as far as I am concerned: A recognition of the nation’s inception should always include meditations on how, and why, or if, that nation is changing. This year, however, there are no meditations, but only the shocked and bleary thoughts of a car accident survivor seconds after the impact. So much has changed so jarringly, and not just because of COVID-19. After White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s historic testimony before the 1/6 select committee, every conversation I had the next day began with “DID YOU SEE?” It was a breath of fresh air to be able to discuss real courage for a change, but Hutchinson’s performance could not obscure the fact that a president beyond control tried to turn a heavily armed mob on Congress to overthrow the election results. It could not obscure the better-than-average chance that same person could become president again in 2024.
Nuclear War Could Mean Annihilation, But Biden and Congress Are Messing Around Biden and the bipartisan leadership in Congress are pretending that the surging danger of nuclear war doesn’t exist.
Chris Hedges: The Disappearance of Meghan Marohn There is a national epidemic of missing girls and women. This is the story of a friend who has become one of these grim statistics. There is a national epidemic of missing girls and women. This is the story of a friend who has become one of these grim statistics.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
The Key Impacts of Livestock Production Upon the Land Livestock is responsible for more ecological damage to the western landscape than any other human activity. However, few accounting of these impacts is ever compiled. One source is my book Welfare Ranching–the Subsidized Destruction of the West. Remember that all ecological science is based on statistical averages, not absolutes. Therefore, not all livestock operations have the following impacts, which will vary from operation to operation, region to region. Nevertheless, most livestock operations statistically have at least some of the following ecological impacts on the landscape.:
Deadly Glacier Collapse in Italy ‘Linked Directly to Climate Change’ At least seven people were killed when a glacier slid down a mountainside near a popular climbing route in the Alps on Sunday. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi joined scientists in pointing to the climate emergency as the cause of a deadly glacier collapse in the Italian Alps on Sunday afternoon, saying policymakers must act to ensure avalanches don’t become a more regular occurrence. The collapse of the glacier in the Marmolada mountain range in the Dolomites “certainly depends on the deterioration of the environment and the climate situation,” Draghi said at a press conference following the disaster, which was confirmed Monday to have killed at least seven people.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Economy:
Michael Roberts Blog: Eurozone banks are making a huge profit windfall as interest rates rise. That’s because the banks got loans during the pandemic slump from the ECB at negative rates of interest! They stored that money and are now lending it out at rising rates of interest. Morgan Stanley estimates that EZ banks could earn between €4bn and €24bn of extra profit until the end of the scheme in December 2024, depending partly on how fast rates rise in the coming months. Last year, Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche’s interest income was buoyed by €494mn from the subsidised ECB liquidity, or 15 per cent of its pre-tax profit. “This trade has been quite profitable for us,” said the chief financial officer of a European bank. “It was difficult for banks to shout loudly about it — you don’t want to say that, as a bank, you were benefiting from the pandemic.” It’s good to know that somebody has benefited from the pandemic slump.
The Future if Work 3 – Automation “Automation under capitalism means significant job losses among those without educational qualifications (education is now more and more expensive) and hits the lowest paid. Under capitalism, the aim is to boost profitability (and not even productivity, as much of automation can actually reduce productivity). And it is being used to control and monitor workers rather than help them achieve their tasks. Only the replacement of the profit motive could allow automation and robotics to deliver real benefits in shorter working hours and increased social goods.” In this third part of my series on the future of work, I want to deal with the impact of automation, in particular robots and artificial intelligence (AI) on jobs. I have covered this issue of the relationship between human labour and machines before, including robots and AI. But is there anything new that we can find after the COVID slump? The leading American mainstream expert on the impact of automation on future jobs is Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor at MIT.
Atlanta Fed’s Model Forecasts GDP to Contract by -2.1 Percent in Second Quarter; Morgan Stanley Says S&P 500 Could Drop Another 22 Percent If that Happens The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will release its advance estimate for U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the second quarter of 2022 at 8:30 a.m. on July 28. All eyes on Wall Street will be glued to that number as a gauge of where stock prices are headed. As of this morning, the highly respected number crunchers at the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model are forecasting a contraction of -2.1 percent in U.S. economic growth in the second quarter. (That’s the real GDP growth/seasonally adjusted annual rate.) The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow modelers will update their forecast five more times, based on additional economic data releases, before the advance estimate for second quarter GDP is officially released by the BEA on July 28.
World:
Demonstrators Rallied in the US and Europe Against NATO Summit The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is willing to intervene outside the mandates of the United Nations charter, as was done in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. On Wednesday, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Madrid, the United States and many other European countries this week to call for peace and protest against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Calling the U.S.-led military alliance a threat to peace, demonstrators decried the brutal acts carried out by NATO, asked for the scaling back of military alliances, and spoke up for peace.
Ecuador: Lessons From the June 2022 National Strike The great national strike called by CONAIE and other peasant-indigenous organisations in Ecuador ended on 30 June, after 18 days of struggle, with the signing of an agreement containing important concessions from the government. It is necessary to analyse this extraordinary movement, which faced brutal police repression, and draw the necessary lessons to continue moving forward. The main points of the agreement (which can be read below), signed between the government and the leaders of CONAIE are: the suspension of the state of emergency; the reduction in the price of a gallon of gasoline and diesel by 15 cents; the prohibition of mining in protected areas and ancestral territories, as well as in archaeological and water protection zones; support the health system for immediate delivery of medicines and supplies to hospitals and health centres; raising the human development bonus from 50 to 55 dollars; a fertiliser subsidy; etc.
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!
Covid deaths in the US (over 1 million) and China (about 5000) “History Should Judge Us” – and it will. In May and June of 2022 two milestones were passed in the world’s battle with Covid and were widely noted in the press, one in the US and one in China. They invite a comparison between the two countries and their approach to combatting Covid-19. The first milestone was passed on May 12 when the United States registered over 1 million total deaths (1,008,377 as of June 19, 2022, when this is written) due to Covid, the highest of any country in the world. Web MD expressed its sentiment in a piece headlined: “US Covid Deaths Hit 1 Million: ‘History Should Judge Us.’” Second, on June 1, China emerged from its 60-day lockdown in Shanghai in response to an outbreak there, the most serious since the Wuhan outbreak at the onset of the pandemic. The total number of deaths in Mainland China since the beginning of the epidemic in January 2020 now stands at a total of 5226 as of June 19, 2022. (Actually, the Covid deaths in the United States are over 1,043,372!)