Daily News Digest December 19, 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:
“Unlike what happens” when fusion occurs on the sun, “which uses ordinary hydrogen at enormous density and temperature,” on Earth “fusion reactors that burn neutron-rich isotopes have byproducts that are anything but harmless,” he said. A key radioactive substance in the fusion process on Earth would be tritium, a radioactive variant of hydrogen. Thus there would be “four regrettable problems”—“radiation damage to structures; radioactive waste; the need for biological shielding; and the potential for the production of weapons-grade plutonium 239—thus adding to the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, not lessening it, as fusion proponents would have it,” wrote Jassby. “In addition, if fusion reactors are indeed feasible…they would share some of the other serious problems that plague fission reactors, including tritium release, daunting coolant demands, and high operating costs. There will also be additional drawbacks that are unique to fusion devices: the use of a fuel (tritium) that is not found in nature and must be replenished by the reactor itself; and unavoidable on-site power drains that drastically reduce the electric power available for sale.” — Fusion. Really?
The Bipartisan Confirmed Supreme Court: The trick that helps corporatists in Congress the most is making every single election existential, because when things are existential everything else goes out of the window. How Wall Street conducts business, the growing wealth gap in America, our fatally low birthrates, the inability for Americans to provide for their families, and so many other major problems all go on the back burner in so-called existential times. The never-ending media frenzy about existential times comes as corporate power has become as much if not more so a threat to your life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness than a tyrannical government. There is never room in the existential narrative about how the stakes of our economic future and the ability for people to provide for themselves are actually existential, even though the current economic crisis continues ruining people’s lives. Americans deserve a chance to vote for someone based on economic issues that determine how we live our lives, rather than a single vote they’ll take on the Supreme Court. — How The Elites Rigged Supreme Court Politics
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
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
Neoliberalism and Its Discontents All through the 1980s and 1990s, professorial mountebanks like James Q. Wilson and Charles Murray grew plump from best sellers about the criminal, probably innate, propensities of the “underclass,” about the pathology of poverty, the teen predators, the collapse of morals, the irresponsibility of teen moms. There was indeed a vast criminal class coming to full vicious potential in the 1990s: a group utterly vacant of the most elementary instincts of social propriety, devoid of moral fiber, and selfish to an almost unfathomable degree. This class appeared in the form of our corporate elite. Given a green light in the late 1970s by the deregulatory binge urged by corporate-funded think tanks and launched legislatively by Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy, by the 1990s, America’s corporate leadership had evolved a simple strategy for criminal self-enrichment
Biden, Like Trump Before Him, Derails Effort to End U.S. Support for Saudi War in Yemen A new UNICEF report finds that over 11,000 children have been killed or injured in the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led war in Yemen since 2015. A six-month ceasefire between warring parties expired in October. Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders withdrew a Senate resolution Tuesday that would have ended U.S. support for the war, following pressure from the White House. Sanders said he would bring the resolution back if they could not reach an agreement.
Spreading Covid Around the World!: Senate Passes $858bn Defense Bill That Rescinds Army Covid Vaccine Mandate Democrats agreed to Republican demands to scrap vaccination requirement for service members to win support for the bill A bill to rescind the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for members of the US military and provide nearly $858bn for national defense passed the Senate on Thursday and now goes to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.
‘A Moral and Political Disgrace’: Just 11 Senators Vote No on $858 Billion Military Budget “At a time when we spend more than the next 11 nations combined on defense, we should invest in healthcare, jobs, housing, and education—not more weapons of destruction,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. In an overwhelming bipartisan vote late Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed legislation authorizing $858 billion in military spending for Fiscal Year 2023, a sum that drew dissent from just a handful of lawmakers and outrage from watchdogs who said the money should be spent on fighting the climate emergency, poverty, and other pressing crises.
Environment — Ecosocialism or Ecocide:
Humans Are Weapons of Mass Extinction In 2020, a UN report (Global Biodiversity Outlook 5) warned: “Humanity stands at a crossroads with regard to the legacy it leaves to future generations. Biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, and the pressures driving this decline are intensifying. None of the… Biodiversity Targets will be fully met…The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of the relationship between people and nature, and it reminds us all of the profound consequences to our own well-being and survival that can result from continued biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystems.”
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
Labor:
Michael Roberts: Digital Work and Exploitation John Michael Roberts (no relation) is Professor of Sociology and Communications at Brunel University London. In his new book, Digital, Class, Work: Before and During COVID-19, Roberts argues that the pandemic has altered and fundamentally changed many social practices in society. “Nowhere is this more apparent than with the relationship between digital technology, labour and work.” Roberts criticises those theorists who claim that this post-pandemic digital capitalism means that Marx’s theory of value and exploitation of labour is no longer relevant to the nature of class relations and oppression at work in modern societies. . . . The COVID pandemic has triggered a new crisis in capitalism, but capitalism’s underlying tendencies leading towards such crises are not new. The exploitation of labour for the appropriation of surplus value remains the kernel of class relations even in the world of digital labour ie work that is processed and managed primarily through digital platforms where, in theory at least, there is often no need for workers to be together in a permanent physical space to carry out certain work tasks. Gig labor, as Roberts calls it, is still exploited in the same way as more traditional industrial labor
Economy:
Michael Roberts Blog: In December, US business activity was contracting at its fastest rate since the depth of the pandemic in 2020. The US composite PMI, which surveys business activity, fell to 44.6 in December from 46.4 in November – anything below 50 means contraction and the lower the figure, the faster the fall. Another sign that the US economy is heading into a slump in 2023In December, US business activity was contracting at its fastest rate since the depth of the pandemic in 2020. The US composite PMI, which surveys business activity, fell to 44.6 in December from 46.4 in November – anything below 50 means contraction and the lower the figure, the faster the fall. Another sign that the US economy is heading into a slump in 2023
Shadow Government Statistics Daily Up Date December 15th to 19th
- IN THE NEWS: No Economic Recovery here — Inflation-adjusted November 2022 Real Retail Sales declined month-to-month and year-to-year, on top of downside revisions to September and October activity.
- November 2022 Industrial Production declined month-to-month, slowing year-to-year, reflecting parallel movements in the meaningful Manufacturing and Mining sectors.
- Capacity Utilization continued to sink, increasingly shy of ever recovering its August 2018 economic peak. PENDING COVERAGE: November 2022 New Residential Construction will be released and reviewed here on Tuesday, December 20th.
A Sam Bankman-Fried Company that Was Not in Bankruptcy Has Gone Poof; Regulators Are Drawing a Dark Curtain Over the past week Wall Street On Parade has reached out to a number of individuals connected to FTX Capital Markets, the stock trading platform and SEC-registered brokerage firm that was majority owned by the indicted crypto kingpin, Sam Bankman-Fried. We’ve received two answers to our questions: Either, “I can’t talk about it” or “no comment.” Regulators have been just as tight-lipped. When we emailed one of the lawyers handling the bankruptcy process for FTX, James Bromley of Sullivan & Cromwell, the response came back from a crisis management/public relations firm, Joelle Frank. Their response was “decline to comment.” Bankman-Fried’s ability to enter the regulated world of stock trading in the U.S. while, according to Justice Department prosecutors, he was operating a vast fraud, raises red flags about what other crypto firms may be doing or contemplating.
World:
US Weapons Makers Set to Profit as Japan Readies $320 Billion Military Buildup Japan, a professed pacifist nation since the end of World War II, is set to become the planet’s third-biggest military spender. It will be armed with U.S.-built missiles capable of striking China. In a significant departure from its postwar national security strategy—nominally limited to self-defense along with hosting U.S. troops—Japan on Friday announced its plan to embark on a five-year, $320 billion military buildup to secure offensive strike capacity amid growing regional tensions.
The Yemen Yes-Men Ride Again The Yemen Yes-Men Ride Again “Today,” US Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Masquerading-as-I — VT) said in a December 13 statement, “I withdrew from consideration by the U.S. Senate my War Powers Resolution after the Biden administration agreed to continue working with my office on ending the war in Yemen. Let me be clear. If we do not reach agreement, I will, along with my colleagues, bring this resolution back for a vote in the near future and do everything possible to end this horrific conflict.” Promises, promises.
What Do Ukrainians Want? Not an Uncompromising Battle That Puts Them in Grave Danger After nine months of war, carnage, and surging armament, concessive peace is still feasible, a peace that the U.S. could promote by moderating its acceleration of military provision.
Why Not Pay Fine Imposed for Actions Against Nuclear Threats? I’ve been sentenced to a 50-day jail term in Germany for refusing to pay fines imposed for trespass convictions after two “go-in” actions against nuclear weapons threats. The actions were two uninvited entries into Germany’s Büchel Air Base where up to 20 US hydrogen bombs are stationed under a policy called “nuclear sharing.” The sentence will begin on January 10 at the Billwerder prison in Hamburg.
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 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
Engels on the Housing Question: Wishful Thinking Vs. Real Solutions: If capitalism can only move the housing problem around, then “the solution lies in the abolition of the capitalist mode of production and the appropriation of all the means of life and labor by the working class itself.” In other words, the response shouldn’t be to turn individual workers into individual owners, but the totality of society into collective owners. This was entirely feasible at that time. As Engels writes: “One thing is certain: there are already in existence sufficient buildings for dwellings in the big towns to remedy immediately any real ‘housing shortage,’ given rational utilization of them.” These words, again, were penned in 1872. How much has changed? ATTOM Data Solutions, a data warehouse for property records, found that in 2019 there were 1.5 million vacant single-family homes in the U.S. That same year there were just over 500,000 homeless people in the country. The same irrational situation exists today as it did back then. Under capitalism, this is considered progress! It’s important to emphasize that Engels is intervening in a particular debate in a particular historical movement. He isn’t proposing a comprehensive or dogmatic program in which reforms are a hindrance to revolution. Instead, he was insisting that the fundamental contradiction in the housing question is between the exchange value and its use value of housing. The core issue is that housing is a commodity rather than a right, and that this struggle must be part of a revolutionary program. “Each social revolution,” he says, “will have to take things as it finds them and do its best to get rid of the most crying evils with the means at its disposal
Rents Blast Through the Roof Some people have all the luck. They also have all the housing. Who are these proverbial winners? Well, for starters include whoever winds up buying a record-breaking $90-million penthouse on posh Fisher Island near Miami Beach. The price for this swanky tropical abode blasts past the $60-million record, previously set by billionaire Ken Griffen when he bought his Florida condo, according to the Wall Street Journal November 26. Ah, the carking cares of the astronomically rich, beset with dispensing tens of millions of dollars in chump change. At least they needn’t concern themselves with the troubles pestering the rest of us proles, particularly our younger cohort, summed up in a November 30 Washington Post headline: “Millennials Shut Out of the Housing Market, Again.” Indeed, nine million millennials moved back in with their parents this year, Bloomberg’s Alex Tanzi reported on December 6.