Daily News Digest November 18, 2022
Images of the Day:
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!
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:
One of the most striking aspects of the declassified document is the apparent absence of even a glimmer of self-awareness by Bush about the significance of the death and destruction he was unleashing with his global war. The interview took place just as a massive insurgency was erupting in Iraq against a U.S. occupation that would kill thousands of U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. While the document is a rough transcript and summary, Bush comes off as almost childishly simplistic in his insights and analysis. The lack of any sensitive information contained within the document should spur questions as to why it took more than 18 years to be made public. — U.S. Government Quietly Declassifies Post-9/11 Interview With Bush and Cheney
It is perfectly clear that the existing state is neither able nor willing to do anything to remedy the housing difficulty. The state is nothing but the organized collective power of the possessing classes, the landowners and the capitalists as against the exploited classes, the peasants and the workers. What the individual capitalists (and it is here only a question of these because in this matter the landowner who is also concerned acts primarily as a capitalist) do not want, their state also does not want. If therefore the individual capitalists deplore the housing shortage, but can hardly be persuaded even superficially to palliate its most terrifying consequences, then collective the capit- alist, the state, will not do much more. At the most, it will see to it that the measure of superficial palliation which has become standard is carried out everywhere uniformly. And we have already seen that this is the case. ― Friedrich Engels, The Housing Question
Videos of the Day:
Black Agenda Radio November 11, 2022 with Margaret Kimberley
Real Estate Development and the Scarcity of Affordable Housing in New York City
Formerly Convicted Persons Deprived of Voting Rights in Florida
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 Republicrats 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
The “Free Press” Lies – Again! : The Russian defence ministry claimed that, on Tuesday, it had not targeted anywhere within 35km (22 miles) of the Ukraine-Poland border. In a comment, the ministry said: “Statements by various Ukrainian sources and foreign officials about allegedly ‘Russian missiles’ falling in the village of Przewodów are a deliberate provocation with the aim of escalating the situation.” The Russians also claimed to have identified the wreckage as a Ukrainian S-300 from photographs. — The Deadly Russian Missile That Never Was
Patrick Lawrence: More Futile Pacific Overtures Nearly halfway through Biden’s term in office he finally met the Chinese president to discuss the single most important relationship between any two nations anywhere in the world. . . . This first face-to-face encounter since Joe Biden began his presidency comes after nearly two years of diplomatic drift during which the U.S. has escalated the threat of open conflict, incessantly provoked the Chinese on the Taiwan question and the administration’s bench of incompetents makes one mess after another. All the while Beijing has been consolidating an extensive range of ties with non–Western nations in the declared cause of a new world order.
Tenants Demand Emergency Measures From White House as Rents Skyrocket President Joe Biden spent much of 2022 facing Republican attacks over inflation and anxiety among Democrats who worried that working-class voters would turn against them in the midterms over the economy. For months, candidates and pundits waxed poetic about the rising price of everything from a gallon of gas or milk to a platter of crudité. But activists meeting with Biden administration officials and top Democrats in Congress this week say a massive budget item for millions of households did not get enough attention ahead of Election Day: Rent. Historic rent increases over the past two years are a core driver of inflation, and the median cost of rent exceeded $2,000 per month for the first time ever in June. Corporate landlords raised prices in 2021 and saw soaring profits despite the COVID-19 pandemic, with one executive calling inflation an “extraordinary gift that keeps on giving.” Rent prices are still rising in 2022 after spiking last year, and eviction rates already reached pre-pandemic levels in cities across the country. In August, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics clocked the highest annual rate of rent inflation in the past 35 years.
Citing Orwell, Judge Blocks ‘Positively Dystopian’ Censorship Law Backed by DeSantis The federal judge lambasted Florida officials’ argument that “professors enjoy ‘academic freedom’ so long as they express only those viewpoints of which the state approves.”In an order that begins by quoting the famous opening line of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, a federal judge on Thursday blocked key provisions of a Florida censorship law that aimed to restrict how state university professors teach race, gender, and U.S. history. “‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,’ and the powers in charge of Florida’s public university system have declared the state has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom,'” Judge Mark Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, an Obama appointee, wrote in his scathing decision, which temporarily halts enforcement of parts of the law championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis—a possible 2024 presidential candidate.
Environment: Ecosocialism or Ecocide!:
“A Continuation of Colonialism”!: How Scientists From the “Global South” are Sidelined at the IPCC Researchers say systemic bias at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has led to projections that perpetuate economic inequality. When Yamina Saheb started work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2019, she was stunned at the treatment meted out to researchers from the “global south.” Diversity, equity, and inclusion seemed laughably alien concepts at the organization, which is tasked under the United Nations Environment Programme with charting a safe path for humanity through the climate crisis. Saheb, an energy economist specializing in the built environment, had a foot in the south as a dual Algerian-French citizen, and so she had long been aware of issues of inequity in the global research community. But the IPCC, which is structured to “bring together experts from all around the world” in working groups, exceeded her expectations of institutional prejudice. The IPCC, in her view, was a place of glass ceilings for researchers from poorer countries. There were arbitrary bureaucratic obstacles to getting research read and accepted, technological deficits, onerous paywalls, and systematized bias in scientific journals. Climate sustainability thinkers from sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and southeast Asia were treated as second-class participants. “It looked like a continuation of colonialism,” Saheb told me.
In COP27 Speech, Lula Vows to Make Amazon Destruction ‘A Thing of the Past’ “There’s no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon,” said Brazil’s president-elect. Leftist Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva vowed Wednesday to halt deforestation of the Amazon and to establish a special ministry to protect Indigenous forest dwellers from human rights abuses. “The planet, at every moment, warns us that we need each other to survive.”
Factory Farming Intensifies Climate Change, Releasing Vast Volumes of Greenhouse Gases. We now know that man-made climate change is real and that it poses a great threat to the planet and its inhabitants. Current data suggest that we need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in developed countries by at least 80% by 2050 in order to have a chance of staying below an average temperature rise of over 2ºC 1. Factory farming is a major contributor to the climate change challenge, releasing vast volumes of greenhouse gases. Factory farming produces greenhouse gases throughout the ‘supply chain’. For example, forest clearance to grow the crops and rear the animals reduces vital carbon ‘sinks’ and releases gases previously stored in the soil and vegetation. Factory farming also requires large amounts of energy in order to function. This isn’t just to rear the animals, but also to grow the vast amounts of feed they need. According to a study published by The Royal Society 2, feed is the dominant energy user, taking around 75% of the total energy required. The rest is needed for factors such as heating, lighting and ventilation
Silence of the Lambs Livestock farming is responsible for more greenhouse gas pollution than all the world’s transport. Yet governments won’t touch it. There are just two actions needed to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown: leave fossil fuels in the ground and stop farming animals. But, thanks to the power of the two industries, both aims are officially unmentionable. Neither of them has featured in any of the declarations from the 26 climate summits concluded so far. Astonishingly, the sectors themselves are seldom mentioned. I’ve worked through every final agreement produced by the summits since they began. Fossil fuels are named in only six of them. Just one hints at using less overall: the others propose only to improve efficiency (which, as we have known since the 19th century, can often paradoxically increase fossil fuel use), attempt technical fixes or, in the case of last year’s agreement in Glasgow, phase down “unabated” coal burning, while saying nothing about reducing oil or gas. Not one of them suggests extracting less. If fossil fuels are removed from the ground, they will be used, regardless of governments’ vague declarations about consumption.
Civil Rights/ Black Liberation:
- Wakanda Must Fall
- Bittersweet Freedom for Mutulu Shakur
- MANIFESTO: The Nairobi Manifesto, 1985
- Social Democracy Will Not Save Us
- Colia Clark Presente!
- Identity Without Responsibility
- Migration and Climate Emergency in North Africa
- COP27 Deliberations Reaffirm Imperialist States as Main Obstacle to Ending Climate Change
- Statement and Petition Against Inhumane Deportation of Haitian Migrants from the Dominican Republic
- Against Wildlife Republics: Conservation and Imperialist Expansion in Africa
Labor:
As The Class Struggle Grows In US, Another Rail Union Rejects White House-Backed Contract The opposition of the railroaders draws strength from the fact that it is part of a broader development of the entire working class. Monday’s rejection of a contract by members of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB) was the latest blow to the sellout national railroad agreement brokered by the White House. The IBB is the smallest of the 12 craft unions in the industry, with only 500 members, but its members were the third consecutively to reject the deal, following workers in the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes (BMWED) and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS) late last month. Momentum is clearly building for the defeat of the deal, with less than a week left in voting by 60,000 engineers and conductors, who have been the center of opposition. Moreover, a strike even by the 500 IBB members would be the equivalent of a national strike of 120,000 railroaders, because workers in other crafts would honor the picket line.
Just How Much is the Uaw Strike Fund Worth? Ahead of a historic United Auto Workers election, leadership gives rank-and-file members an incomplete view of union finances. $30,000 At Detroit’s Greektown Casino, restaurant tabs approaching $7,000, top shelf cigars, Louis Roederer Cristal champagne, firearms, a $1 million lake house, and, of course, cocaine. This is just a partial accounting of the lavish spending that drew federal prosecutors to charge over a dozen United Auto Workers officials — including two former presidents — over the past five years with embezzling union funds and money laundering. UAW rank-and-file members are currently voting on whether to replace UAW President Ray Curry and allies of now-imprisoned officials in the incumbent Administration Caucus; reformers are running under the banner of UAW Members United on a platform of “No concessions. No corruption. No tiers.”
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update November 15th to 16th
- IN THE NEWS: STILL AT FOUR-PLUS DECADE HIGHS, INFLATION PROBLEMS ARE ABOUT TO SOAR ANEW (November 15th). As an early bounce in gasoline and oil prices begins to surface, with the extreme Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) depletion shutting down in December, October 2022 PPI
- Finished Goods inflation (the only meaningful PPI aggregate) turned higher month-to-month by an adjusted 0.61%, versus 0.34% in September and a 1.05% (-1.05%) drop in August, dominated by monthly Energy inflation up by 2.69%, with both measures at four-month peaks.
- Nonetheless, where annual October 2022 Goods inflation of 10.53% still held well shy of its extreme June 2022 reading of 17.65%, it otherwise still was at a 41-year high and likely headed much higher, again, with the rebounding energy prices.
The Latest Digital Token Scheme from Hell: New York Fed Teams Up With Just two business days after the crypto exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy and headlines swirled around the world suggesting it had used its crypto token to perpetuate a massive fraud reminiscent of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, the New York Fed thought this would be an ideal time to announce it was launching a digital token pilot with the serial fraudster, Citigroup. (See here for the unintelligible, jargonized version from the New York Fed; here for the decrypted translation from CoinDesk; and here for a sampling of Citigroup’s rap sheet.). If the New York Fed teaming up with Citigroup isn’t troubling enough, the New York Fed also reveals that “ Legal services are being provided by Sullivan & Cromwell LLP….” for the pilot token project. (Why does one need to hire a Big Law firm for a pilot program using a “theoretical” concept?)
World:
Indigenous Resistance dnd the Roots Of Ecuador’s National Strike Runaway gas prices helped spark the recent 17-day national strike in Ecuador, but rampant neoliberalism, environmental “In this part of the country, you have the traditional exploitation of oil. And also, they have the most poverty in the country. So, it’s a lie that the extractive industries make prosperity [for] the society.”
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
As over 100,670 People Have Died From Covid, and a New Omicron Subvariants Now Dominant in the U.S., Raising Fears of a Winter Surge :
13 Senate Dems Join GOP in Voting to End Covid Emergency Declaration, Kick Millions Off Medicaideclaration for Covid-19, a move that would kick millions of people off Medicaid as experts warn of a winter infection and hospitalization surge.One public health advocate warned that final passage of the resolution would “affect the cost of vaccines, tests, and treatments, restrict access to Medicaid and telehealth, and restart student loan payments.” Thirteen members of the Senate Democratic caucus—including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer—joined Republicans on Tuesday in approving a resolution aimed at terminating the national emergency declaration for Covid-19, a move that would kick millions of people off Medicaid as experts warn of a winter infection and hospitalization surge. While the White House said Tuesday that President Joe Biden will veto the resolution if it passes the House and reaches his desk, the Senate vote sparked outrage among public health experts and others who stressed the far-reaching implications of the resolution.
William Robinson: How Covid-19 Will Lead to a Global Capitalist Police State The coronavirus pandemic is thriving under capitalism, and in the process creating conditions for an even more repressive system to emerge Capitalism was in crisis before the COVID-19 pandemic, and existing conditions of inequality, dispossession, and ecological ruin set the stage for the deadly success of the coronavirus. But how has COVID-19 changed capitalism, and where is the system headed now? The system shock of the pandemic has provoked growing resistance from the working class. At the same time, the wealthiest fraction of society has exploited the crisis of COVID-19 to accelerate their accumulation of wealth and violent dispossession of the world’s majority. Professor William I. Robinson argues that humanity is now on a path towards the election of a “global police state,” unless it can be stopped by organized resistance from below. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Robinson about his new book, Global Civil War: Capitalism Post-Pandemic, in the first of a multi-part interview.