Daily News Digest October 6, 2022

Daily News Digest Archives

Images of the Day:

United States.Costal Development

The Supreme Court’s Big New Term There is a feeling with this Court that the conservative Justices could make a landmark ruling out of almost any case.Laura Gray’s cartoon from the front page of The Militant August 18, 1945, Under the Banner Headline: “There Is No Peace”

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:

Capitalism’s Housing Pronlem: In his work, The Housing Question (1872), Engels already took into account the experience of the Commune, and dealt several times with the tasks of the revolution in relation to the state.      It is interesting to note that the treatment of this specific subject clearly revealed, on the one hand, points of similarity between the proletarian state and the present state–points that warrant speaking of the state in both cases–and, on the other hand, points of difference between them, or the transition to the destruction of the state.  —”How is the housing question to be settled then? —      In present-day society, it is settled just as any other social question: by the gradual economic levelling of demand and supply, a settlement which reproduces the question itself again and again and therefore is no settlement.     How a social revolution would settle this question not only depends on the circumstances in each particular case, but is also connected with much more far-reaching questions, one of the most fundamental of which is the abolition of the antithesis between town and country.      As it is not our task to create utopian systems for the organization of the future society, it would be more than idle to go into the question here.      But one thing is certain: there is already a sufficient quantity of houses in the big cities to remedy immediately all real ‘housing shortage’, provided they are used judiciously.      This can naturally only occur through the expropriation of the present owners and by quartering in their houses homeless workers or workers overcrowded in their present homes.      As soon as the proletariat has won political power, such a measure prompted by concern for the common good will be just as easy to carry out as are other expropriations and billetings by the present-day state.” (German edition, 1887, p. 22l) — The State and Revolution

Videos of the Day:

Scott Ritter talks about the referendum in Ukraine

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 

. . . Then we get to perhaps the most chilling case of all, Moore v. Harper, which aims to establish the “independent state legislature” theory as the law of the land, essentially giving any Republican legislative majority in a swing state the power to do whatever it chooses when it comes to elections — with no checks on its power, including from state courts, the governor or any other election officials. Let’s put it this way: If this had been in effect in states like Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2020, it’s entirely possible that right-wing state legislators could have done exactly what folks like Ginni Thomas wanted them to do — refuse to count certain votes, or even appoint their own slates of Presidential electors in defiance of the voters. And you don’t even want to think about what how creative they could get with gerrymandering districts so Republicans never lose. So get ready. The Supremes are on a roll and it doesn’t look like they have any plans to “moderate” in light of the fact that the public now perceives them as nothing more than an enforcement arm of the Republican Party. Public opinion, in this case, isn’t wrong. Old-time conservative movement ideology may be widely unpopular these days, is firmly entrenched in the high court and they are making all their dreams come true. Who’s going to stop them? — Then we get to perhaps the most chilling case of all, Moore v. Harper, which aims to establish the “independent state legislature” theory as the law of the land, essentially giving any Republican legislative majority in a swing state the power to do whatever it chooses when it comes to elections — with no checks on its power, including from state courts, the governor or any other election officials. Let’s put it this way: If this had been in effect in states like Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2020, it’s entirely possible that right-wing state legislators could have done exactly what folks like Ginni Thomas wanted them to do — refuse to count certain votes, or even appoint their own slates of presidential electors in defiance of the voters. And you don’t even want to think about what how creative they could get with gerrymandering districts so Republicans never lose.     So get ready. The Supremes are on a roll and it doesn’t look like they have any plans to “moderate” in light of the fact that the public now perceives them as nothing more than an enforcement arm of the Republican Party. Public opinion, in this case, isn’t wrong. Old-time conservative movement ideology may be widely unpopular these days, is firmly entrenched in the high court and they are making all their dreams come true. Who’s going to stop them? — Supremes Gone Wild: Thought The High Court Was Bad Already? Just You Wait!

The ‘Supremes’ have been removing the leaf of US. democracy: Marjorie Cohn: The Supreme Court May Well Legalize Election Theft This Term Donald Trump’s installation of three radical right-wingers on the Supreme Court is already yielding frightening victories for religious zealots and racists. Last term, the court’s conservative majority revoked the constitutional right to abortion from half the population in the United States. This term, it is poised to eviscerate voting rights for people of color and legalize election theft.     Tomorrow, the court will hear oral arguments in Merrill v. Milligan, in which the court may well deny communities of color the right to use the Voting Rights Act to overturn racially discriminatory electoral maps.     And in Moore v. Harper, which has not yet been scheduled for argument, the court may well strip the right of state courts to stop GOP-led legislatures from trying to subvert election results like Trump supporters did in 2020.

Meet the Military Contractor Running Fare Collection on New York Subways — And Around the World Over the past decade, Cubic has taken the first steps toward actualizing its vision by snapping up contracts for the development of mobile-based, contactless fare collection systems in eight of America’s 10 largest public transit networks. Gone are the days of cumbersome tokens and flimsy farecards; now, millions of bus and subway riders can pay their fare directly by hovering a smartphone or credit card over a reader.    Transit authorities have embraced tap-to-pay technology for its convenience and speed, but privacy advocates are worried that the new fare collection systems pose serious surveillance and security risks.      The concerns came to the fore as New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or MTA, rolled out OMNY, a fare payment system backed by Cubic that’s slated to fully replace MetroCards by the end of 2023. Nevertheless, Cubic’s widespread use of touchless, mobile-based reader technology is sprouting up everywhere — including places like San Francisco and Miami, where public transit riders would need to dig deep into city documents to find Cubic’s roles

Stoking the Flames of War!: Despite Calls for Diplomacy to End War, US Confirms More Weapons Headed to Ukraine. “Are there still negotiation possibilities?” asked Noam Chomsky. “There’s only one way to find out. That’s to try. If you refuse to try, of course, there’s no option, no possibilities.”

Environment: Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:

To Understand the Scale of the Climate Emergency, Look at Hurricanes Climate breakdown is far more intense in 2022 than even many scientists expected, yet the world still isn’t treating this like a crisis Ibecame a climate activist 16 years ago. Back then, not many people cared about climate change. The eye rolls were audible. Media coverage was scarce, and what little there was glibly included “both sides”. It was frustrating and tragic to see such a clear and present danger and to know that it was still mostly avoidable, yet ignored by society.

After the Deluge In 1988 climatologist James Hansen announced, “Global warming has arrived.”     Now, 34 years later, it is painfully obvious that climate catastrophe has arrived.     Featuring scenes that have become more and more routine in recent years, summer in the northern hemisphere saw extreme heat and wildfires in many places, as well as torrential rains and colossal floods that washed away the products of human settlement in others. The worst hit by the latter, beginning in June, was Pakistan, where an agonizing humanitarian disaster put a third of the country under water and displaced 33 million people out of a population of 230 million.

We’d Be Better Without the Border The baby boom spawned me as it spawned the geraniums beside the two-car garage, as it unearthed hydrocarbons to churn out transistor radios, Chevy Impalas, flights to Hawaii, Tupperware parties and Apollo moon missions. The breakdown of Earth’s climate quietly tracked the passage of our lives, and some standards of living were sacrificed for others. In retrospect, it’s obvious. From 1961, as this map shows, crop production in the equatorial regions have declined on account of human-driven climate change, with some African and Central American regions losing forty percent.And so it continues. Today, more people are in danger of displacement for climate than for armed conflict. 

Hurricane Lessons Then the 2020 pandemic shut down everything. I lost the few friends I used to meet every Saturday at a coffeeshop. Masked people walking the streets avoided each other like a plague. ” The new black death— Climate change joined the pandemic causing more misery and death in Claremont, California, the United States, and the planet. In fact, these two anthropogenic phenomena have the same origins.     The ceaseless destruction of nature fueling development and factory farming have joined forces against humans. The colossal animal farms butchering some 9 billion animals per year (in America alone) have become factories of viruses with the potential for triggering pandemics.     So, together, the pandemic and climate chaos intensify the destructive effects humans cause to themselves and our planet Earth. Yet most humans, including those of Claremont, prefer to ignore they are causing the storms, hurricanes, draught, pollution, and the extreme heat of the ceaselessly growing climate change / chaos. 

Deep-Rooted Gender Inequities Make Women More Vulnerable During Climate Disasters  Women in developing countries such as Pakistan are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate disasters due to deep-rooted gender inequities that define the moral and social fabric of their societies.In recent years, the awful repercussions of climate change have become irrefutable and very alarming. Due to which Pakistan is facing a dire humanitarian crisis stemming from unprecedented rainfall and catastrophic floods that have impacted every part of the country. The statistics are staggering: over 1,100 dead, more than 33 million displaced and caused over $10 billion in damages. Officials estimate that this monsoon season has left one-third of the country underwater, one in seven Pakistani people have been affected by the momentous flooding. 

Water Crisis The Problem Is Massive Globally, 785 million people lack even a basic drinking-water service¹. That’s over twice the popul-ation of the United States! Drinking contaminated water can transmit diseases and back in 2017 nearly 1.6 million people died from diarrheal diseases². 1/3 of those were children under the age of 5. 

Civil Rights/ Black Liberarion:

Systemic Environmental Racism: ‘Absolutely Shameful’: Michigan Judge Drops Flint Water Crisis Charges Against 7 Officials “This means there are currently no criminal charges over 8 years later,” lamented one journalist. A Michigan judge on Tuesday dropped felony criminal charges against seven former officials in connection to the 2014 Flint water crisis that poisoned thousands of people and killed dozens.

The Long Arms of US Slavery Two new films, Riotsville USA and The Chocolate War, offer valuable insight into mechanisms of economic and racial injustice in the US and West Africa A look at the very bottom of the chocolate supply chain and the legality of contemporary child slavery.  If by chance your attention has been focused elsewhere recently, you may have missed the Supreme Court’s Big Chocolate decision. Laying down a meaningful landmark in the nation’s fraught history over the slavery economy, the Court in 2021 ruled 8-1 that US chocolate manufacturers cannot be held legally responsible for the exploitation of enslaved children, even if their business model depends on such abuse. Riotsville, USA (directed by Sierra Pettingill, 2022; 91min) Merging remarkable found footage from the National Archives with philosophical critique, this bold visual essay explores the 1960s origins of the militarization of US police forces. 

Supreme Court May Soon Roll Back Affirmative Action and Voting Rights As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes the first Black woman to hear a SCOTUS case, civil rights are under attack.    As public support of the conservative-dominated Supreme Court falls to a record low, justices are set to hear major cases on affirmative action, voting rights and online speech. The court opened its term Monday with new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson becoming the first Black woman in U.S. history to hear a Supreme Court case. Although Jackson is a welcome progressive voice on the bench, “all she’ll be able to do is to highlight the extremism of the conservative majority voting bloc on the Supreme Court,” says The Nation’s legal correspondent Elie Mystal. He adds that the term ahead includes challenges to Native American sovereignty, voting rights, LGBT rights and more.

Labor:

Child Labour Returns in the ‘Advanced’ Capitalist Countries Child labour – a horror described by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist, which is still rampant in countries ravaged by imperialism to this day – is returning to the advanced capitalist countries, where it had been regarded as a scourge of the past. As capitalism continues to rot, it is taking the youngest all over the world with it.     Reports of child labour have surfaced in the belly of the beast itself: the United States. In Alabama, the brief disappearance of a 13 year-old migrant child from her family home triggered an investigation, which led authorities to find not only her, but her two brothers aged 12 and 15, in the SMART Alabama LLC plant owned by Hyundai, which supplies car parts for the latter’s flagship plant in the US.

While the real onemployment rose to 24.6%: Read this from the Liberal Capitalist Brookings Thinktank: How Bad will the Economy Get Before Inflation Gets Better? While President Biden has officially declared the COVID-19 pandemic “over,” America now faces a new challenge in the form of an overheating economy and high inflation, and the prospect of a Federal Reserve-induced recession is looming. In the latest Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, spoke with Laurence Ball of Johns Hopkins University about his new paper, “Understanding U.S. inflation during the COVID era.” In the study, Ball and his co-authors find that the Fed may need to push unemployment higher than its 4.1% projection to return inflation to the 2% target.

Economy:

Cape Coral: A City of 204,000 in Florida Remains 86 Percent Without Power on Day Eight Since Hurricane Ian HitIf a major fire occurs in most cities and towns across America, there is a standing procedure to quickly call for mutual aid from other fire departments to achieve a speedy and safe resolution. But when it comes to the Lee County Electric Cooperative (LCEC) that provides electricity to the city of Cape Coral, Florida, something has gone terribly wrong in the process of calling for that mutual aid in a timely manner after one of the most devastating hurricanes in Cape Coral’s history.

World:

‘Who Voted for This?’: Campaigners Disrupt Truss Speech Over Fracking Ban ‘U-Turn’“Nobody voted for fracking, nobody voted to cut benefits, nobody voted to trash nature, nobody voted workers’ rights,” said one Greenpeace organizer.

Brazil elections: The First Round Warning and the Fight to Defeat Bolsonaro on 30 October The first round of the Brazilian elections are over. Our priority and central struggle now is to help the working class defeat Bolsonaro at the polls on 30 October. For this, first of all, it is necessary to understand the real proportion of votes in the first round. The 57.2 million votes for Lula and the 51 million votes for Bolsonaro correspond to 48.4 percent and 43.2 percent of the so-called “valid votes”. However, when we consider the total of 156.4 million voters eligible to vote in Brazil, it is clear that Lula received a vote of 36.6 percent of them and Bolsonaro only 32.6 percent, that is, less than a third.

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    

$158,000 Cost for ALS Treatment Called ‘A Poster Child’ for Unjust Drug Pricing  “There is no justification for pricing Relyvrio, a drug that has not been proven effective, at $158,000.” Last week, the FDA formally approved Relyvrio to treat patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive and rapidly fatal disease of the nervous system that currently affects tens of thousands of people in the