Daily News Digest July 15, 2022
Image of the Day:
Bait and Switch Maneuver As The Cornerstone of Modern US Politics: Deceiving Voters as the Art
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:
The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists. — Ernest Hemingway on the Politics of War
Videos of the Day:
As Biden Visits Israel, Palestinians Urge U.S. Not to Build Jerusalem Embassy on “Stolen Property”
Family of Slain Palestinian American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to Biden: Hold Israel Accountable
“Shameful”: Biden’s Trip to Saudi Arabia for More Oil Ignores Human Rights Abuses, Khashoggi Murder
“Reinfection Wave”: Ed Yong on BA.5 Omicron Variant Spread Amid Mask Mandate Rollbacks, Funding Cuts
United StatesThe 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!
Pax Americana and The Failure of ‘Lesser Evilism’
Just before the 2000 Presidential Election, in September 2000, George Bush’s think tank, The Project for the New American Century, put into writing a document titled Rebuilding America’s Defenses, Forces and Resources For a New Century. In that document they called for war upon Iraq, a US military presence in the middle east, and the construction of military bases throughout Asia and the world to enforce, what they termed, as a ‘strategic goal’, the preservation Pax Americana — the ‘new world order’ that was proclaimed after the first Gulf War. There has been no objection or opposition, from the Democratic Party, to this ‘strategic goal’ for this century, even though the document stated, two years prior to 9/11:
When the 1%, that don’t need to get bailed out, The Government ‘Baillsout the !%. The 99%, who need a bailout, don’t gat a bailout , That’s not Democracy! That’s 1% Rule!
The Plot Against American ‘Democracy’! They say comedy is tragedy plus time, but it is clearly too soon for the events of Jan. 6 to be presented as comedy Right-wing extremist organizations are still operating throughout the United States, have influence on some members of Congress, and continue to maintain links with their counterparts in other countries.
Bernie Sanders: The Great Microchip Corporate Giveaway At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, the American people are sick and they are tired of the unprecedented level of corporate greed that is taking place from one end of this country to the next.
- They are sick and tired of paying outrageously high prices at the gas pump and at the grocery store while the oil companies and the food companies are seeing profits at an all-time high.
- They are sick and they are tired of struggling to pay for the basic necessities of life while 700 billionaires in our country became $2 trillion richer during the pandemic.
- They are sick and tired of CEOs making 350 times more than the average worker, while over half of our people live paycheck to paycheck.
- They are sick and they are tired of seeing multi-billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson taking joy rides to outer space, buying $500 million super-yachts and living in mansions with 25 bathrooms when some 600,000 people are homeless in America.
- They want Congress to address corporate greed and make sure that the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
- The last poll that I saw had Congress with a 16% approval rating. This to me is shocking, really shocking. And I suspect it has to do with the fact that the 16% are not yet fully aware of what Congress is doing.
- So what is Congress doing? For nearly two months, a 107-member conference committee has been meeting behind closed doors to provide over $50 billion in corporate welfare with no strings attached to the highly profitable micro-chip industry.
- And yes, if you can believe it, this legislation may also provide a $10 billion bailout to Jeff Bezos so that his company Blue Origin can launch a rocket ship to the moon.
For all of my friends who tell us how concerned they are about the deficit, how we cannot fund the needs of our children, how we can’t fund the needs of our seniors, a $53 billion blank check to some of the most profitable corporations in America and a $10 billion bailout to the second wealthiest person in our country is an absolute outrage. It is why the American people today have such low regard for Congress.
Imperial Detritus: After the American Century Given Washington’s freewheeling penchant for using force to impose its claimed prerogatives abroad, the imperial nature of the American project has become self-evident. When the U.S. invades and occupies distant lands or subjects them to punishment, concepts like freedom, democracy, and human rights rarely figure as more than afterthoughts. Submission, not liberation defines the underlying, if rarely acknowledged, motivation behind Washington’s military actions, actual or threatened, direct or through proxies.
Omar Slams NDAA Provision Blocking US Aid to Afghans Amid ‘Horrific’ Crisis “We should be doing everything in our power to deliver humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people,” said the Minnesota Democrat, “not needlessly limiting the aid we can supply.” Rep. Ilhan Omar warned Wednesday that a provision buried in the sprawling National Defense Authorization Act would bar the Pentagon from distributing aid to the people of Afghanistan even as they’re engulfed in a massive humanitarian emergency following two decades of deadly U.S. occupation.
Noam Chomsky: Humanity Faces Two Existential Threats. One Is Nearly Ignored. A major public opinion study asked people to rank the import of 29 current issues. Nuclear war wasn’t even on the list. We live in dangerous and disconcerting times. Humanity is facing two existential threats that could end civilization as we know it — as well as other life on Earth. Yet, in the case of both global warming and nuclear weapons, international cooperation is sorely missing. What is even worse with regard to nuclear weapons is that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is a growing trend toward normalizing the idea of nuclear war. In fact, as Noam Chomsky argues in this exclusive interview for Truthout, dismissals of the true threat of nuclear annihilation have grown to highly dangerous levels and “the means for reducing the threat of terminal war are being cast out the window.” But it doesn’t have to be that way. “Human agency has not ended,” Chomsky points out. “There are realistic ways to protect humanity from the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose.”
Environment —Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
Biden the Global Warmer: 70,000 Acres of Federal Land Were Just Handed to the Fossil Fuel Sector Bids for oil and gas leases exploded on the day of the Supreme Court’s EPA ruling. In direct violation of warnings by the International Energy Agency that new oil, gas and coal development should have ceased in 2021, and by UN Secretary General António Guterres that government support for fossil fuel production is “delusional,” the federal U.S. government closed out the second quarter of the year with thousands of acres of federal land on the auction block before oil and gas interests. In total, developers scooped up access to over 70,000 acres of lands held in public trust in Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming for $22 million — which advocates say is a paltry sum when compared with the billions of dollars the climate crisis is estimated to cost annually in association with oil and gas extracted
Logging Is Slashing US Forests’ Ability to Absorb Carbon by Over One-Third Everybody’s heard about the importance of protecting the Amazon rainforest. But when it comes to protecting forests here in the United States, a lot of people in business, government and the environmental movement seem to have a willful ignorance. That needs to change. U.S. forests need protection, now. We must end government policies shaped by the logging and wood products industries that sound sensible but are actually meant to expand logging, rather than contain it. We are calling out big, influential environmental organizations whose efforts end up furthering the interests of industry. Forests — and people and the planet — are paying too high a price for the wood product sector’s profits. Forests are the only proven, large-scale system we have for soaking up carbon and locking it away for centuries. But logging is slashing U.S. forests’ ability to accumulate carbon by over one-third. And because felled trees immediately release most of the carbon they store, logging in the United States releases about 723 million tons of carbon dioxide every year.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Black Agenda Report July13, 2029
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist FBI Still Targets Black People for Entrapment
Editors, The Black Agenda Review EDITORIAL: Down with the Bestial Atrocities Against Blacks in Buffalo, New York! 1980
Black Alliance for Peace An Open Letter to His Excellency, Mr. Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), President of Mexico, on the Renewal of the UN Occupation of Haiti
Djibo Sobukwe NATO and Africa
Roberto Sirvent BAR Book Forum: Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s Book, “Epistemic Freedom in Africa”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor BAR Book Forum “Sports and Black Struggle”: Interview with Courtney M. Cox
The Mapping Project Prison in Plain Sight: Visualizing the Economic Veins That Fuel Our Carceral Reality
Vijay Prashad, Manolo De Los Santos How Cuba Is Eradicating Child Mortality and Banishing the Diseases of the Poor
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor U.S.-led Imperialism is the World’s Leading Purveyor of Chaos
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence Drunken Count Ghouliani took the fifth the 6th—low Barr last days of Pompeo… (For Amiri)
Tanupriya Singh One Year After a Brutal Crackdown, the Struggle for Democracy Remains Alive in Swaziland
Black Alliance For Peace The Black Alliance For Peace Denounces Biden Regime’s New Sanctions on Cuba and Stands with the Cuban People
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist Black Agenda Radio July 8, 2022
U.S. Interference in Cuba on July 11, 2021
Democrats Remove Green Party from North Carolina Ballot
Labor:
Economy:
The Wall Street Banksters Ball!: Senators on Senate Banking Committee Accuse Fed Chair Powell of Hampering Trading Scandal Investigation This month marks the 10th month since the worst insider trading scandal in the 109-year history of the Fed made media headlines. Yesterday, Senator Sherrod Brown, the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, along with two of his fellow Senators on that Committee (Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock) and two additional Senators who do not serve on that Committee (Jeff Merkley and Kirsten Gillibrand) sent a stunning letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. The overall thrust of the letter suggested that the Fed had attempted to quiet public outrage over the Fed’s trading scandal by issuing new trading conduct rules for Fed officials but had failed to put the force of law behind those rules or set up a proper chain of command.
World:
United States 1s No.1 in Income Inequality!
Michael Roberts Blog: So poor in productivity, unequal in incomes and weak in growth is British capitalism that the average British household is worse off than other major countries by £8,800 over the last 15 years – in a new report by the Resolution Foundation.
Japan: Shinzo Abe’s Assassination – Dramatic End for a Bastion of Bourgeois Reaction On Friday 8 July, a few minutes after 5pm local time, Shinzo Abe was pronounced dead. The former PM of Japan, and one of the most influential bourgeois politicians of the last decade, not only in his country but in East Asia generally, was assassinated while making an electoral speech in favour of one of his fellow Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) members.
Marxist Tendency Ukraine: Ukraine: Communist Party Banned by Hypocritical Zelensky Government! At the start of July, the Ukrainian courts ordered the closure of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) and the seizure of its assets. The anti-democratic attack is part of a scandalous campaign to crush political dissent and stain the image of ‘communism’ by associating it with Russian imperialism. The Russian invasion in February gave a new pretext for the Zelensky regime – so-called defender of European democratic values – to repress political opposition, under the guise of fighting Russian collaborators. The Ukrainian state already banned the activity of a number of political organisations and media outlets with this excuse. Of course, no evidence of collaboration was presented and some of these entities openly opposed the Russian invasion. As we have explained before, attacks on basic democratic rights in Ukraine started well before the invasion.
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!