Daily News Digest December 16, 2022

Daily News Digest Archives

Images of the Day:

Human Rights

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:

J. Polychroniou: Of course, we know that there is an inherent clash between democracy and capitalism, but there is some clear evidence that neofascism emerges from neoliberal capitalism. Assuming that you agree with this claim, what’s the actual connection between neoliberalism and neofascism? Noam Chomsky:. . . . One consequence of the neoliberal social-economic policies is collapse of the social order, yielding a breeding ground for extremism, violence, hatred, search for scapegoats — and fertile terrain for authoritarian figures who can posture as the savior. And we’re on the road to a form of neo-fascism. — Noam Chomsky: “We’re on the Road to a Form of Neofascism”

 . . . I think we should call the inflation, The Biden Inflation, because the inflation that we’re seeing is almost entirely the result of Biden’s inaugurating a new 20- to 30-year cold war with Russia. He’s announced that it’s going to take 20 or 30 years. He said Ukraine is only the opening. His sanctioning of Russian oil, gas, and food is pushed up by inflation by about at least 10% from Europe all the way to the United States. So, on the one hand, this inflation that people are saying is the problem has led the Federal Reserve to say, “Well, there’s a cure to that Biden inflation. Let’s have a depression and lower wage rates. If only we have more unemployment, we can cure the inflation.”     So, you have the Biden inflation and exports that are forbidden from Russia going together with a deliberately central bank inspired debt deflation. And I think we should call this the Obama debt deflation because it all stems from 2008 when Obama had promised to write down the junk mortgage debt but as soon as he got into office, he said, “No, we’re not going to write down the junk mortgage debt. We’re going to write down the debtors. We’re going to evict 10 million American families from their houses because my campaign contributors are my constituency.” And so, he kept the debt on the book.     This is one of the few times in modern history – normally, when there is a business cycle, it peaks and then, there is a financial crash. And the one good thing about the financial crash is it wipes out the savings of the 1%. But Obama said, “The economy is really the 1%. The 99% are overhead and so, we’re going to preserve all of the debts on the book and write down what labor gets in net disposable income. That is, the disposable income after paying taxes and after paying debt service.” And in America and Europe and certainly, in the global sales countries, debt service has gone way up. — Michael Hudson, China the Change Agent

Videos/Podcasts of the Day:

U.S. Patriot missiles will be sent to Ukraine – Will these help? Scott Ritter

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

Ellsberg, Donziger Among Those Demanding Freedom for Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale “People forget that there are Americans being held right in our own country for political reasons, who the world regards as political prisoners, who President Biden has the power to release immediately,” said human rights lawyer Steven Donziger.

If One Cannot Stand Alone, Then They Can’t Stand for Anything!:  Sanders Caves to White House on Yemen War Powers Resolution Tuesday evening, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) withdrew the Yemen War Powers Resolution (WPR) which he had introduced in July and which the Senate was about to consider.  Sanders tweeted that he and the Biden Administration had agreed to work on a compromise War Powers Resolution with “mutually acceptable” language.

The ‘Lesser Evil’ Strikes: Climate Groups Decry Schumer’s Plan to Force Vote on Manchin’s “Dirty Deal” Environmentalists say the permitting bill would expedite harmful fossil fuel projects and weaken environmental law Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that he intends to force a floor vote as soon as this week in a bid to ram through Sen. Joe Manchin’s fossil fuel industry-friendly permitting bill, a ploy that climate groups and progressive lawmakers condemned and vowed to defeat.      Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) planned maneuver, which he confirmed to reporters Tuesday, amounts to a last-ditch attempt to salvage legislation that has thus far failed to garner sufficient support to pass Congress. The permitting bill has also drawn sustained and furious protests from environmentalists, who warn the measure would expedite climate-wrecking fossil fuel projects — including Manchin’s favored Mountain Valley Pipeline — and weaken bedrock environmental laws.

Environment — Ecosocialism or Ecocide: 

Ecosocialism Not Extinction!

Planning and the Climate The only way humanity has a chance of avoiding a climate disaster will be through a global plan based on common ownership of resources and technology that replaces the capitalist market system. In a new book by Scottish Marxist economists Paul Cockshott, Alin Cottrell, and Jan Philip Dapprich, entitled Economic Planning in an Age of Climate Crisis, the authors take up this issue.     Over the years, Cockshott and Cottrell have done sterling and important work in showing that planning in a non-capitalist economy is feasible and would work so much more effectively than the capitalist market economy.  In this new book, the authors go further to show how planning is vitally necessary if the disasters of climate change, already with us, are to be itigated and the planet is no longer degraded by greenhouse gas emissions.  And they spell out how planning by replacing the market would work.

 The Reinsurance of Global Warming There is no insurance for global warming. Nor is there a reinsurance against the devastating impact of global warming.     With billions of dollars at stake, reinsurance corporations are keen observers of global warming. Here is why and what we will have to expect if the world continues, as António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, recently said,  Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing.      Global temperatures keep rising.      And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.

‘Firmageddon’: Oregon Conifers Suffer Record Die-Off as Climate Crisis Hits Hard More than a million acres of state forest contain trees that have succumbed to stressors exacerbated by a multi-year drought Scientists have discovered a record number of dead fir trees in Oregon, in a foreboding sign of how drought and the climate crisis are ravaging the American west.     A recent arial survey found that more than a million acres of forest contain trees that have succumbed to stressors exacerbated by a multi-year drought. Images released by the US forest service show Oregon’s lush green expanses dotted with ominous swathes of red.

Climate Disaster Is Turning the Planet into a Tinderbox    Mike Savala’s boots scuffed the edge of a singed patch of forest littered with skinny fingers of burnt ponderosa pine needles. Nearby, an oak seedling sizzled as a yellow-shirted firefighter hit it with a stream of water. Spurts of smoke rose from blackened ground the size of a hockey rink. A 100-foot Ponderosa pine towered overhead. “Third response today,” said Savala, shaking his head.

Climate Crisis Is Profoundly Disrupting Conditions in the Arctic, New Study Says The Arctic is getting rainier and seasons are shifting, with broad consequences for people, ecosystems and wildlife.  In the Arctic, the freedom to travel, hunt and make day-to-day decisions is profoundly tied to cold and frozen conditions for much of the year. These conditions are rapidly changing as the Arctic warms.     The Arctic is now seeing more rainfall when historically it would be snowing. Sea ice that once protected coastlines from erosion during fall storms is forming later. And thinner river and lake ice is making travel by snowmobile increasingly life-threatening. Ship traffic in the Arctic is also increasing, bringing new risks to fragile ecosystems, and the Greenland ice sheet is continuing to send freshwater and ice into the ocean, raising global sea levels.

There Are No ‘Safe Radiation’ Levels! Background Radiation Has Increased 600 Percent – 1 mSv In 1950 To over 6 mSv Today; Where Is This Coming From? Physicist Dr. Paolo Scampa And Dr Busby Weigh In On The Evidence And Root Causes:  . . . Background Radiation Has Increased 600 Percent – 1 mSv In 1950 To over 6 mSv Today; Where Is This Coming From? Physicist Dr. Paolo Scampa And Dr. Busby Weigh In On The Evidence And Root causes  “Eisenbud points out that the world Inventory of radioactive materials prior to World War II, both in the environment and in the laboratory, was confined to those which occurred in nature, with the exception of a relatively few millicuries of radioactivity produced in cyclotrons during the late 1930s. Construction of large nuclear reactors during the war and the associated operations for extracting plutonium from irradiated uranium resulted in the first extensive occasions for contaminating the environment with radioactive substances.”

Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough – What Is It And How Does It Work?  . . .Why is Nuclear Fusion so Important? Nuclear fission produces a lot of radioactive waste, which can be dangerous and must be stored safely – potentially for hundreds of years.     The waste produced by nuclear fusion is less radioactive and decays much more quickly.     Nuclear fusion doesn’t need fossil fuels like oil or gas. It also doesn’t generate greenhouse gases, which trap the Sun’s heat and are responsible for climate change.     Most fusion experiments use hydrogen, which can be extracted cheaply from seawater and lithium, meaning fuel supplies could last for millions of years.     It has been described as the “holy grail” of energy production.

Civil Rights Black Liberation:

Black Agenda Report

 Labor:

Notes on a Victory for D.C. Domestic Workers On December 6th, the D.C. Council unanimously approved a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, extending crucial recognition and labor protections to thousands of domestic workers. The legislation is expected to pass its final vote on December 20th. I spoke with Erica Sklar, the National Organizer for the Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network who advocated alongside the winning coalition.

Economy:

Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update December 14th to 15th

  • IN THE NEWS: The Fed’s December FOMC Meeting hiked rates by a quarter point, with more rate hikes to follow, in hopes of an economic downturn in 2023 [a full FOMC update follows here tomorrow]
  • Separately, dominated by still-weakening gasoline prices, yesterday’s November 2022 Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) and ShadowStats Alternate CPI estimates showed weaker, albeit still massively high annual inflation rates, respectively of 7.11%, down from 7.75%, and 15.23%, down from 15.91%, with the Index levels still steepening against pre-Pandemic levels [see the Updated ALTERNATE CPI DATA Tab].
  • Also yesterday, the November 2022 Cass Freight Index® showed monthly and annual declines, with December 2022 prospects holding on track for a year-to-year drop of 5% (-5%), albeit “about flat for the full year,” given “normal seasonality.” — PENDING COVERAGE: Thursday, December 15th, a review of the December 2022 FOMC meeting. Separately, November 2022 Retail Sales and Industrial Production will be released and detailed.

Senate Banking Hearing on FTX Collapse Pits a Courageous Law Professor Against Paid Shill Kevin O’Leary If you are an average American without insider knowledge of how Congress works these days, you might have felt that you had stepped onto the set of Alice in Wonderland while watching the Senate Banking Committee hearing yesterday.     The hearing was convened to examine the sudden collapse of the crypto exchange, FTX; its tentacles that reach into the federally-insured banking sector; and legislation that may be required to rein in the mushrooming risks that crypto poses to U.S. financial stability.

World:

‘Nurses Have Had Enough’: Largest-Ever NHS Strike Kicks Off in UK Over Low Pay “We strike because it’s our right—and our duty—to stand up for fair pay and for patient safety,” said the head of the Royal College of Nursing union.     Tens of thousands of nurses across the United Kingdom are set to walk off the job Thursday in what’s been described as the largest-ever strike by National Health Service workers, who said they were forced to act after the government refused to negotiate over pay amid painfully high inflation.

Health Education 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