Daily News Digest September 13, 2022
Images of the Day:
The World Has Been Slow in Helping Pakistan in Flood Relief! 
Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capilalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming Over 5 Decades 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 very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!
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:
Steven Donziger: Texaco, now Chevron, deliberately made a series of decisions that led to what experts believe is the world’s worst oil contamination. They did three things that were completely out of line with normal operating procedure that resulted in massive pollution. Number one is when they drilled for oil, they did it improperly. The drilling muds come up from thousands of feet under the ground when you perforate a well, and these muds contain heavy metals as well as synthetic chemicals that are cancer-causing and extremely harmful to the environment, to animal life and to humans. — How Chevron Polluted the Amazon and Fought Environmental Lawyer Steven Donziger
In fact, so alarming are the conditions at Austin Master and so lax is the oversight that workers have taken things into their own hands. In one case, a second former worker has covertly passed along their dirty boots, hard hat, and headlamp for independent radiological analysis. The levels of the radioactive element radium found in the sludge on this worker’s boots was about 15 times federal cleanup limits for the nation’s worst toxic waste sites. And yet, Austin Master appeared to keep workers in the dark about what they were handling. “They really didn’t tell me the gist of the material, I just knew it came from frack sites,” according to Torbett, who worked at the facility from November 2021 to February 2022. “There was no discussion of the material and its radioactivity.” — Radioactive Waste ‘Everywhere’ at Ohio Oilfield Facility, Says Former Worker Commun-ity groups present health and environmental justice concerns to the EPA, alleging workers at Austin Master Services are coated in dangerous levels of radioactive waste.
Videos of the Day:
Roundtable: Amid Tributes to Queen Elizabeth, Deadly Legacy of British Colonialism Cannot Be Ignored
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 the poor and gives to the Rich. Rax the Rich! — They Can Afford To Pay!
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.” ― Louis Brandeis
9-11: Two Essays that I Wrote in June 2022
9-11 World Trade Center Dust Cloud: How Many Will Die?! : The “dustification” and the implosion of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers sent clouds of carcinogenic dust across New York City.: . . . Cate Jenkins, PhD, a 22-year specialist with the EPA’s Hazardous Waste Identification Division and the author of a 432-page memo to the EPA’s Inspector General as background documentation for the recently released IG report.O. n January 11, 2002, a memorandum was sent by Cate Jenkins, Ph.D., the head EPA hazardous waste investigator in lower Manhattan after 9/11. This memorandum compared the asbestos levels in the Montana, Libby Hazardous Waste Superfund Site to the levels she found in Lower Manhattan. In the memo she states: The highest level of dust inside a building in Manhattan was 79,000 structures (asbestos fibers) per square centimeter (s/cm2). This was at 45 Warren St., an apartment building 4 blocks away from Ground Zero where all of the windows faced north, away from the World Trade Towers,locked in on all other 3 sides by other buildings. To the casual observer, this apartment would not be described as being heavily contaminated. There is a color photograph included at the beginning of the study,8 where a dining room table showing only a light dusting from WTC fallout, the dark grain of the wood clearly visible. In comparison, the highest concentration of interior dust found inside a home at Libby was only 3658 s/cm2. This means the highest amount of asbestos lying on a surface in Manhattan was 22 times that ever found in Libby! The logical question thus arises: Why is EPA leaving people to their own devices in the cleanup of New York City, while intervening to clean homes at taxpayers expense in Libby because of an ‘imminent and substantial endangerment to public health’?
Movie Review: 911 Dust and Deceit at the WTC
“Epa adminstatrator Christine Todd Whitman announced to New Yorkers, shortly after the 911 attacks on the World Trade Towers that ‘I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington DC that their air safe to breathe’ and that we ‘ . . . need not be concerned about environmental issues as [we] return to [our] homes and workplaces’” From the website: Director: Penny Little ©2006 Penny Little, Starring: Cate Jenkins; Rachel Hughes; Hugh Kaufman; Joel Kupferman; Carolyn Maloney; Jarrold Nadler; Jeffrey Smith; Phil McArdle; Marjorie Clarke; Gail Benzman; Robert Gulack; Suzanne Mattei; Jenna Orkin “ This disturbing film by Penny Little “911: Dust and Deceit at the WTC” exposes the environmental disaster of 9/11 through interviews with scientists, waste management specialists, government workers, volunteers, the heros and victims of the dust which permeated the air after 911.
U.S. Military Aid to Ukraine Grows to Historic Proportions — Along With Risks Ukraine is on track to become the largest recipient of U.S military assistance in the last century. But questions surround the policy. Keeping track of the numbers is challenging. Since the war started, U.S. officials have announced a flurry of initiatives aimed at supporting Ukrainian defense efforts while keeping short of a more direct involvement in the conflict. On Thursday, on a surprise visit to Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new $675 million package of U.S. military equipment as well as a $2.2 billion “long-term” investment to bolster the security of Ukraine and 17 of its neighbor countries. Weeks earlier, President Joe Biden unveiled a $3 billion aid package, the largest yet, symbolically choosing Ukraine’s Independence Day for the announcement. The administration noted on that occasion that the total military assistance committed to Ukraine this year had reached $12.9 billion, more than $15.5 billion since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. And this month, Biden also asked Congress to authorize an additional $13.7 billion for Ukraine, including money for equipment and intelligence.
Declassify the Documents From Trump’s Basement The media should be demanding more information from our government, especially about its use of informants, and not more secrecy. It is a basic rule of journalism that governments lie, and they often bribe (and sometimes torture) informants to support those lies. Whatever your feelings about former President Trump, there are reasons to be skeptical when government officials say it was necessary to raid his Florida home to recover classified documents that threatened national security. Like the former president, I was once accused by the government of mishandling classified information connected to my representation of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. There was nothing in my client’s file that posed any danger to national security. My client was an innocent shopkeeper who was sold to the Americans back in 2003 when the U.S. was paying bounties to corrupt Afghan warlords to turn in Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters, and then shipping those men 8,000 miles to our newly built prison camp in Cuba. The government decided to classify every document in the detainee files as “secret,” not to protect national security, but so it could lie with impunity and tell the American people that the prisoners at Gitmo were the “worst of the worst,” and “terrorists” captured on the battlefield.
Environment: Ecosocialism or Ecocide!
‘End the War With Nature,’ Says UN Chief From Flood-Ravaged Pakistan “That support is entirely necessary. And it is not a matter of solidarity. It’s a matter of justice.” Noting that “loss and damage from the climate crisis… is happening now, all around us,” António Guterres, calls on governments “to address this issue at COP27 with the seriousness it deserves.”
In 1974, tire industry scientists estimated that 600,000 metric tonnes (1.3 billion pounds) of tire dust were reeased by tire wear in the U.S., or about 6.5 pounds (3 kilograms) of dust released from each tire each year. In 1995, there were an estimated 280 million tires in use in the U.S.; [5]if each tire releases 6.5 pounds of dust per year, tire dust released in 1995 would total 1.8 billion pounds. A billion is a thousand million. In Los Angeles alone, at least 5 tons (10,000 pounds) of tire dust are released into the air each day. Radial tires create a finer, more respirable dust than do bias ply-constructed tires, and the percentage of tires that are radial grew from 2% in 1970 to 95% in 1990, so tire dust released in the 1990s probably enters the lungs more readily than tire dust Did In Previous Decades. Conceivably, This Might Explain Part Of The Recent Increases In Asthma In The U.S. — Tire Dustl
Carbon Black Carbon Black may be a Carcinogen in humans since it has been shown to cause lung cancer in animals. Sure.Many scientists believe there is no safe level of exposure to a carcinogen. Carcinogens, potential carcinogens and mutagens may have the potential for causing reproductive damage in humans.Many scientists believe there is no safe level of expo
Carbon black is a byproduct of the combustion of various petroleum products. When added as a filler in rubber, it increases abrasion resistance and tensile strength significantly – which helps lead to a long-wearing tire. Further, the carbon black helps to conduct heat away from the tread and belts of the tires, which also helps to increase the lifespan of the tire. The carbon black compounds also help protect the tires from UV rays and ozone, which can shorten the lifespan of tires. — What is Carbon Black?
Human Health Risk Assessment of Tire and Road Wear Particles (TRWP) in Air For over 20 years, exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM) has been a recognized health hazard, particularly as it relates to cardiopulmonary outcomes (Dockery et al. 1992; Peters et al. 2001; Chen et al. 2004; Lin et al. 2005; Pope et al. 2006; Pope et al. 2008). More recently, additional health outcomes have been proposed to be associated with ambient PM, including developmental, reproductive and cancer outcomes (World Health Organization (WHO) 2005; IARC 2016; Wu et al. 2016). Among the various sources of ambient PM, non-exhaust vehicular emissions, such as brake and tire wear, have historically contributed a relatively small proportion to ambient PM, though these particles are less-well studied than exhaust emissions. However, recent regulatory management polices addressing stationary sources, vehicular exhaust and other sources of ambient PM have resulted in an increasing importance on the study of non-exhaust vehicular emissions, which include brake wear, tire wear, pavement wear, and resuspended road dust (Amato et al. 2011; Sundvor et al. 2012; Amato 2018).
How Chevron Polluted the Amazon and Fought Environmental Lawyer Steven Donziger Decades ago, the U.S.-based petroleum corporation Texaco devastated Lago Agrio in the Ecuadorian Amazon with pollution, in what came to be known as “the Amazon Chernobyl.” It resulted in roughly 1,000 carcinogenic waste pits and 16 billion gallons of toxic wastewater dumped into pristine rivers. Among local people who drank and bathed in these waters, cancers and miscarriages skyrocketed. Represented by Steven Donziger, Indigenous peoples sued the company, which had been bought by Chevron in 2000, and won over $9 billion. Chevron, however, ignored the Ecuadorian courts and took its case to New York, where it found a friendly judge, amenable to its aim of not paying and of destroying Donziger. Contacted for comment, Chevron noted it paid roughly $40 million for environmental remediation and accused Donziger of being a disbarred racketeer convicted of criminal contempt. Details provided by Donziger, however, tell a different tale altogether. In this exclusive interview with Truthout, Donziger discusses the ongoing disaster in the Amazon, how he was targeted for his advocacy and why we must continue to confront corporate polluters.
Civil Rights/ Black Liberarion:
Systemic Environmental Racism!: Running Water Returns in Mississippi Capital – But It’s Still Undrinkable A boil water notice remains in majority-Black city and a long-term solution remains elusive Even though emergency efforts have restored running water, questions linger over whether a more lasting solution will materialize. Some of the city’s pipes are roughly a century old, and Jackson is also the target of ongoing lawsuits from residents who say its old lead pipes poisoned them and stunted their growth as children. The crisis has brought focus to America’s outdated water infrastructure, and whether it is fit for purpose amid climate crisis-related weather events of increasing severity. It has also heightened discussions about the role of systemic racism in water infrastructure crises affecting majority-Black cities across the country
Labor:
Economy:
Nonfiction Book Explains the Oligarchs’ Plot to Break Up the U.S. – To Make It Easier to Sell Off Its Parts Sarah Kendzior turned 44 on September 1. She has already had two bestselling books. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from Washington University with a focus on authoritarian regimes. We mention this as background because Kendzior’s latest book, They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent, to be released tomorrow by Flatiron Books, needs to be read as the work of a serious scholar. Six years ago Kendzior correctly predicted in numerous articles what the rise of Trumpism would bring to the United States. On August 3, 2016, three months before the presidential election, Kendzior wrote the following for Foreign Policy under the headline: “Welcome to Donald Trump’s America”:
World:
African People Bear the Weight of US’s Deadly “War on Terror” on the Continent As AFRICOM’s presence across the continent grows, so does the terrorism it is meant to curb. The 2006 U.S.-backed overthrow of the Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia paved the way for a more militant group, al-Shabab, to grow in rank and reach. This is just one example of how power vacuums caused by U.S. military intervention fortify the political will and strength of terrorist groups. In October 2017, in the one of the deadliest terror attacks in Somalia’s history, a truck bombing in Mogadishu killed over 500 civilians, injuring several hundred more. In August 2022, a deadly siege and 30-hour standoff between al-Shabab militants and the Somali security forces at Hotel Hayat in the city center left dozens dead. These attacks point to the country’s fragile security apparatus despite persistent counterterrorism offensives and $243,309,000 in security assistance from the United States in 2022 alone. The U.S.’s decades-long presence has not led to a decrease in terrorist activity but has only caused increased instability in the region and enabled such violence to flourish.
PM Names Climate Denier as UK Energy Minister, Vows More North Sea Oil and Gas Newly-installed British Prime Minister Liz Truss appointed a reputed climate change denier to head her energy ministry and vowed to increase North Sea oil and gas drilling in the hours after she took office Tuesday. Truss also said she would introduce price caps today to help Britons cope with soaring home energy bills, aiming to “give people certainty” they can get through the winter with “the energy supplies they need and be able to afford it,” Upstream reports. Truss was expected to announce £130 billion (US$150 billion) in government-backed loans to fossil energy suppliers, aimed at holding prices at today’s levels over this winter and next, the news story states. An earlier report that Truss had announced a citizens’ assembly on the climate, energy, and cost of living crises turned out to be fake news circulated by Extinction Rebellion.
Education, Health, Science, 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
Life Expectancy in Cuba is 79.08 years — Life Expectancy in the United States is 76.9 years!
If we accept that life expectancy is a good measure of human development, the latest data are revealing about capitalist societies in the 21st century. , mainly due to COVID-19 deaths. The decline from 2019 marked the largest two-year drop in life expectancy at birth in close to a century, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found. Also, disparity in life expectancy between men and women widened last year to the highest in more than two decades, with American men now expected to live just 73.2 years, nearly six fewer years than women. —Life Expectancy and Human Development in the 21st Century