Daily News Digest July 12, 2022
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:
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both. — Judge Louis D. Brandeis
. . . an example of this fact is the population living “downwind” from the many oil refineries in Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area. People living near these refineries have very high rates of cancer. In EPA terms, this is called a “cancer cluster.” The EPA, in its corporate manner, determined that the high rates of cancer was caused by high rates of smoking in the area and not from the refineries’ carcinogenic pollutions! However, under the rules of Proposition 65 in California and after several years of litigation, the Gasoline Refining Industry had to post this warning in the February 24, 1999, issue of the San Francisco Chronicle:
Text of Actual WARNING:
Chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm are found in gasoline, crude oil, and many other petroleum products and their vapors, or result from their use. Read and follow label directions and use care when handling or using all petroleum products. Chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm are found in and around gasoline stations, refineries, chemical plants, and other facilities that produce, handle, transport, store, or sell crude oil and petroleum and chemical products. Other facilities covered by this warning include, for example, oil and gas wells, oil and gas treating plants, petroleum and chemical storage tanks, pipeline systems, marine vessels and barges, tank trucks and tank cars loading and unloading facilities, and refueling facilities. The foregoing warning is provided pursuant to Proposition 65. This law requires the Governor of California to publish a list of chemicals “known to the State to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.” This list is compiled in accordance with a procedure established by the Proposition, and can be obtained from the California Environmental Protection Agency. — “Trade Secrets” Cancer and the Environment (What the Bill Moyers Program Trade Secrets Revealed)
Videos of the Day:
The Chris Hedges Report: Splinterlands’ Climate Dystopia
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!
Please Meet ‘The OLIGARCH Act’ to Tax Extreme Wealth It’s a straightforward progressive annual tax on extreme wealth and it’s so simple that the oligarchs are gonna hate it. The danger that extreme wealth poses to democracy is ever-present, and the idea that it must be restrained is almost as old as democracy itself. In 1792, Thomas Paine wrote that the freedom of elections was “violated by the overbearing influence” of inherited wealth, and proposed an extremely aggressive wealth tax that would have put a hard ceiling on how much wealth a person could accumulate. Nearly a century ago, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously observed: “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
The Rush to Ecocide: While the environment requires capitalism to be regulated, capitalists demand deregulation to maintain andto increase their wealth and profits!:
‘The Uber Files’: 124,000+ Leaked Files Expose Global Dirty Dealings of Ride-Hailing Giant Internal documents reveal how company “won access to world leaders, cozied up to oligarchs and dodged taxes amid chaotic global expansion.” Over 124,000 internal corporate files and documents, including private communications between top executives, are the basis of new reporting published Sunday dubbed “The Uber Files“—a detailed look at the ride-hailing juggernaut that aggressively lobbied governments around the world to ease regulations and pass legislation friendly to the company’s bottom line but often harmful to traditional taxi rivals and its own drivers.
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
Evironmental Racism: Every Petrochemical District is a ‘Cancer Alley!
Cancer Alley: Cancer Alley (French: Allée du Cancer) is the regional nickname given to an 85-mile (137 km) stretch of land[1] along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, in the River Parishes of Louisiana, which contains over 150 petrochemical plants and refineries.[2] This area accounts for 25% of the petrochemical production in the United States.[3] The region is considered a sacrifice zone.[4] In Cancer Alley, forty-six individuals per one million are at risk of developing cancer, compared with the national average of roughly thirty individuals per one million.[3] The abnormally high cancer risk and concentration of petrochemical operations inspired the “Cancer Alley” moniker.
‘This Is an Emergency’: 1 Million African Americans Live Near Oil, Gas Facilities In some states, 1 in 5 African-American residents lives within a half-mile of an oil or gas production, processing or storage facility, a new study says. A new analysis concludes what many in African-American communities have long experienced: Low-income, black Americans are disproportionately exposed to toxic air pollution from the fossil fuel industry. More than 1 million African Americans live within a half-mile of oil and natural gas wells, processing, transmission and storage facilities (not including oil refineries), and 6.7 million live in counties with refineries, potentially exposing them to an elevated risk of cancer due to toxic air emissions, according to the study.
A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Haematological Malignancies in Residents Living Near Petrochemical Facilities Abstract Background: The petrochemical industry is a major source of hazardous and toxic air pollutants that are recognised to have mutagenic and carcinogenic properties. A wealth of occupational epidemiology literature exists around the petrochemical industry, with adverse haematological effects identified in employees exposed to ‘low’ concentrations of aromatic hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene). Releases from the petrochemical industry are also thought to increase the risk of cancer incidence in fenceline communities. However, this emerging and at times inconclusive evidence base remains fragmented. The present study’s aim was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiological studies investigating the association between incidences of haematological malignancy and residential exposure to the petrochemical industry.
‘This is Nonsense, for Real’: Philly Hits a ‘Crossroads’ of Environmental Justice at Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) Oil Refinery Billboards, web ads, and SEPTA banners tout a fresh start for the South Philly refinery site, one that’s green, sustainable, and good for neighbors. Meanwhile, the site’s new owner is seeking permits to continue to store and sell potentially hundreds of millions of gallons of petroleum — and surrounding communities feel betrayed. “They said they was going to come in, clean it up — it was going to be friendly to the community,” said Shawmar Pitts, a member of the activist group Philly Thrive who grew up near the refinery, at a permit hearing Thursday. “All this is bull crap, man. This is nonsense, f real.”
The Time to End Burning Fossil was Yesterday! — Tommorow is Now!
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Since the 2008 Crash There it has Been Very Prosperous for the 1%! But No Recovery for the 99%!
Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through July 2020, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.2 percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (UIpdated)
FRED: Labor Force Participation Rate is 62.2%
Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Unemployment Charts The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.
Economy:
World:
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!
Ecososciaism Or Ecocide!: The 1st Ecosocialist Manifesto
The twenty-first century opens on a catastrophic note, with an unprecedented degree of ecological breakdown and a chaotic world order beset with terror and clusters of low-grade, disintegrative warfare that spread like gangrene across great swathes of the planet – viz., central Africa, the Middle East, Northwestern South America – and reverberate throughout the nations. In our view, the crises of ecology and those of societal breakdown are profoundly interrelated and should be seen as different manifestations of the same structural forces.
The former broadly stems from rampant industrialization that overwhelms the earth’s capacity to buffer and contain ecological destabilization. The latter stems from the form of imperialism known as globalization, with its disintegrative effects on societies that stand in its path. Moreover, these underlying forces are essentially different aspects of the same drive, which must be identified as the central dynamic that moves the whole: the expansion of the world capitalist system.
We reject all euphemisms or propagandistic softening of the brutality of this regime: all greenwashing of its ecological costs, all mystification of the human costs under the names of democracy and human rights.
We insist instead upon looking at capital from the standpoint of what it has really done.
Acting on nature and its ecological balance, the regime, with its imperative to constantly expand profitability, exposes ecosystems to destabilizing pollutants, fragments habitats that have evolved over aeons to allow the flourishing of organisms, squanders resources, and reduces the sensuous vitality of nature to the cold exchangeability required for the accumulation of capital.
From the side of humanity, with its requirements for self-determination, community, and a meaningful existence, capital reduces the majority of the world’s people to a mere reservoir of labor power while discarding much of the remainder as useless nuisances.
It has invaded and undermined the integrity of communities through its global mass culture of consumerism and depoliticization.
It has expanded disparities in wealth and power to levels unprecedented in human history.
It has worked hand in glove with a network of corrupt and subservient client states whose local elites carry out the work of repression while sparing the center of its opprobrium.
And it has set going a network of transtatal organizations under the overall supervision of the Western powers and the superpower United States, to undermine the autonomy of the periphery and bind it into indebtedness while maintaining a huge military apparatus to enforce compliance to the capitalist center.
We believe that the present capitalist system cannot regulate, much less overcome, the crises it has set going. It cannot solve the ecological crisis because to do so requires setting limits upon accumulation – an unacceptable option for a system predicated upon the rule: Grow or Die!
And it cannot solve the crisis posed by terror and other forms of violent rebellion because to do so would mean abandoning the logic of empire, which would impose unacceptable limits on growth and the whole “way of life” sustained by empire. Its only remaining option is to resort to brutal force, thereby increasing alienation and sowing the seed of further terrorism … and further counter-terrorism, evolving into a new and malignant variation of fascism.
In sum, the capitalist world system is historically bankrupt. It has become an empire unable to adapt, whose very gigantism exposes its underlying weakness. It is, in the language of ecology, profoundly unsustainable, and must be changed fundamentally, nay, replaced, if there is to be a future worth living.
Thus the stark choice once posed by Rosa Luxemburg returns: Socialism or Barbarism!, where the face of the latter now reflects the imprint of the intervening century and assumes the countenance of eco-catastrophe, terror counterterror, and their fascist degeneration.
But why socialism, why revive this word seemingly consigned to the rubbish-heap of history by the failings of its twentieth century interpretations?
For this reason only: that however beaten down and unrealized, the notion of socialism still stands for the supersession of capital. If capital is to be overcome, a task now given the urgency of the survival of civilization itself, the outcome will perforce be “socialist”, for that is the term which signifies the breakthrough into a post-capitalist society.
If we say that capital is radically unsustainable and breaks down into the barbarism outlined above, then we are also saying that we need to build a “socialism” capable of overcoming the crises capital has set going. And if socialisms past have failed to do so, then it is our obligation, if we choose against submitting to a barbarous end, to struggle for one that succeeds.
And just as barbarism has changed in a manner reflective of the century since Luxemburg enunciated her fateful alternative, so too, must the name, and the reality, of a socialism become adequate for this time.
It is for these reasons that we choose to name our interpretation of socialism as an ecosocialism, and dedicate ourselves to its realization.