Daily News Digest October 19, 2022
Images of the Day:
Free Trade has not Made Us Free! Economic diplomacy must involve values, including human rights and commitments to climate change,as well as prices!
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:
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. — Frederick Douglass
Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable. ot an experience about which they could write sincerely. — George Orwell
Videos of the Day:
Ralph Nader Hour: Consumer Rights Are Civil Rights
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
Back to the Streets! — Say NO to U.S. wars! Join one of 50 antiwar actions between October 15th and October 23rd Stop Washington’s war moves toward Russia and China! Stop endless wars: Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, everywhere! Join us in protest during the week of Oct 15 – 22.
Each F-35 Burns 22 Gallons a Minute: Each F-35 burns 22 gallons of jet fuel per minute, 1,340 gallons an hour. Altogether, the F-35A training flights from the runway in South Burlington Vermont burn between 4.7 and 9.4 million gallons of jet fuel and emit between 100 million and 200 million pounds of CO2 per year. That is the equivalent of the annual emissions of 10,000 to 20,000 passenger cars. Scroll down to the footnote to see details of the calculation.1 The Pentagon admits that global warming is a national security threat. Yet, the US military is the single largest user of fossil fuels on the planet, as described in the Brown University, Watson Institute study, “Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War.” The study reports that the US military is also the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases and that the Department of Defense burns 80% of all US government energy consumption. It also reports that jet fuel—the fuel used by the F-35—is, by far, the single largest category of energy consumed by the US government and by the Defense Department.
Defying Pentagon Secrecy, Reporting Exposes Retired US Generals on Saudi Payroll “The government fought us for two years to keep these records a secret,” said one Washington Post journalist. “We sued, and won.” A sweeping investigation published by The Washington Post on Tuesday after years of digging and legal battles with the U.S. government shows that at least 15 retired American generals and admirals have worked as paid consultants for Saudi Arabia’s ministry of defense since 2016.
There Are Warning Signs Pro-Trump Republicans Will Challenge Midterm Results There is little doubt that pro-Trump Republicans are going to challenge voters and contest results that they do not like in 2022’s general election. And should they lose those challenges and contests, they are not likely to accept the results. The warning signs are everywhere. There are recruitment drives to challenge voters and voter registrations. There are instructions to disrupt the process and counting of votes. There are assertions not to trust any vote-counting computer. Some general election candidates are already claiming that the results will be rigged unless they win.
New Report Vindicates Critics Who Opposed 2015 Repeal of US Oil and Gas Export Ban Big oil claimed boosting fossil fuel exports would be a boon to U.S. consumers, but researchers say the “economic instability and damage to local communities and the planet created by this rapid export expansion are only now becoming clear.” In 2015, fossil fuel industry executives and lobbyists adamantly exports would benefit consumers in the form of lower prices at the pump. Environmentalists and consumer advocates disagreed, warning gasoline costs would likely rise for the sake of higher industry profits. A report published Monday—nearly seven years after former President Barack Obama signed a measure that lifted the export ban—makes the case that recent events have vindicated opponents of the industry-led repeal effort as gas prices rise and fossil fuel corporations celebrate record profits.claimed that lifting a 40-year-old ban on U.S. oil.
Environment: Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
Our Human Irony: Fire People on a Fire Planet Upon our mastery of fire has humanity risen to global dominance. It is the most powerful tool employed by our toolmaking species, and the energy with which we make our tools and run them, from chainsaws to computers. The fires we have unlocked are also the greatest threat to our existence, from the fossil fuel combustion that is changing the climate to nuclear weapons that hold the potential for world-ending immolation
Analysis Shows Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ Found in Over 80% of US Waterways Prevalence of PFAS chemicals known to cause cancer and other harms to people and wildlife “demonstrate that existing laws and regulations are inadequate for protecting us.”
Chemtrails and Burning Fossil Fuels: Peace Activists, 220+ Groups Demand US Cancel F-35 Fighter Program “To the people in the countries the F-35 is sold to and produced in, it’s time we demand a reinvestment into life, not war,” asserted Pink Floyd rocker and peace activist Roger Waters.
Civil Rights/ Black Liberarion:
Oakland Cops Hope to Arm Robots With Lethal Shotguns While official language condoning killer robots is shelved for now, Oakland police are still pursuing the option. In a series of little noted Zoom meetings this fall, the city of Oakland, California, grappled with a question whose consequences could shape the future of American policing: Should cops be able to kill people with shotgun-armed robots? The back-and-forth between the Oakland Police Department and a civilian oversight body concluded with the police relinquishing their push for official language that would have allowed them to kill humans with robots under certain circumstances. It was a concession to the civilian committee, which pushed to bar arming robots with firearms — but a concession only for the time being.
Labor:
TUC Congress: Unite the Struggles! Bring Down the Tories! Trade union delegates are meeting this week for the TUC Congress. On the agenda are motions calling for mass coordinated action. With the Tories on the ropes, and the bosses on the offensive, the time is ripe for a militant, united fightback.
Economy:
UK Leader In Peril After Treasury Chief Axes ‘Trussonomics’ New U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt has reversed most of an economic package announced by the government just weeks ago, including a planned cut in income taxes. The U.K.’s new Treasury chief ripped up the government’s economic plan on Monday, dramatically reversing most of the tax cuts and spending plans that new Prime Minister Liz Truss announced less than a month ago. The move raises more questions about how long the beleaguered British leader can stay in office.
Martin Wolf:Restoring Britain’s Credibility Will Be Hard For Hunt — One Down and One to Go! — Talking to policymakers attending the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank made clear the blend of amusement, anxiety and anger with which many view the UK. Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mini” Budget was the wrong policy (unfunded tax cuts) at the wrong time (a global crisis). Liz Truss more than shared his folly. She might survive as a figurehead. But she lacks the judgment required of a prime minister. She should go, too. Members of parliament, not party members, should then choose the new leader and prime minister. A general election should follow. Confidence in the rationality and self-discipline of British policymaking has been damaged, just as trust in the country’s willingness to keep its word was damaged by the desire to break the agreement over Northern Ireland reached so triumphantly three years ago. To regain that confidence, a return to the status quo ante will be insufficient. Jeremy Hunt, the new chancellor, knows he cannot be sacked. He must now do whatever it takes.
Three Business Days after Credit Suisse Was Named “Credit Derivatives House of the Year,” Its Own Credit Derivatives Blew Out Credit Suisse presents a cautionary tale about creating so much innovation in the realm of credit derivatives that one gets named “Credit Derivatives House of the Year.” That award might sound like a good thing to traders who make their living cooking up and trading exotic derivatives but it might sound like a very bad thing to pension funds and mutual funds who own big chunks of the stock and bonds of that bank and remember how credit derivatives blew up much of Wall Street in 2008. On September 28, Risk.net named Credit Suisse the “Credit Derivatives House of the Year.” Three businesses days later, Credit Suisse saw its own Credit Default Swaps blow out to more than 300 basis points and some of its own bonds trade at 63 cents on the dollar. Simultaneously, its shares traded at an intraday low of $3.70 in New York on October 3, closing at $4.01, and putting it in crisis management mode.
World:
Protests and Strikes Spread in France Amid Economic Crisis and Climate Inaction A march including tens of thousands of people in Paris on Sunday represented a “great convergence” of crises facing the French public and President Emmanuel Macron’s government, said progressive leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the head of the left-wing party France Unbowed and an organizer of the massive protest. Demanding a greater investment in climate action, higher wages, and an emergency freeze on the prices of groceries, rent, and energy, people marched from the Place de la Nation to the Place de la Bastille in eastern Paris as the National Assembly struggles to pass a budget for next year and strikes at oil refineries are expected to spread to the transportation sector this week.
In South Africa, Resistance Rises to the World Bank’s Climate-Killing Mega-Projects The World Bank and International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings have witnessed protests in Washington and many other sites. Nearly 100 protesters from community, environment and youth groups joined Extinction Rebellion and the DebtForClimate.org campaign outside the World Bank’s Johannesburg office on Friday, October 14, the second such event in the last eight months. The main call was for repudiation of a massive loan – the Bank’s largest-ever project credit – made a dozen years earlier but still causing enormous financial and climate damage: the Medupi coal-fired power plant.
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
‘A Policy Failure’: 1.3 Million US Adults With Diabetes Ration Insulin Due to High Cost “Universal access to insulin, without cost barriers, is urgently needed,” said Dr. Adam Gaffney, the lead author of a new study on insulin rationing.