Daily News Digest December 21, 2022
Images of the Day:
Starve Inflation — Feed Recession 
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:
Holiday retail sales have been increasing steadily since 2020, and U.S. retailers are hoping for a strong winter retail season this year, but the labor issues that have plagued the pandemic economy — supply chain issues, worker shortages, demanding schedules, insufficient pay and a lack of workplace representation — continue to challenge workers, the backbone of the “magical” holiday season. —For Many Workers, the Holiday Season Is the Most Exploitative Time of the Year
Humanity has brought itself to a point where its terrible dependence on fossil fuels threatens to trigger a 2C jump in global temperatures compared with our pre-industrial past. The consequences will include flooding, fires, worsening storms, rising sea levels, spreading diseases and melting ice caps. Here, scientists are clear. Fusion power will not arrive in time to save the world. “We are still a way off commercial fusion and it cannot help us with the climate crisis now,” said Aneeqa Khan, a research fellow in nuclear fusion at Manchester University. This view was backed by Tony Roulstone, a nuclear energy researcher at Cambridge University. “This result from NIF is a success for science, but it is still a long way from providing useful, abundant clean energy.” — Despite the Hype, We Shouldn’t Bank on Nuclear Fusion to Save the World From Climate Catastrophe
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
NATO’s Hair Trigger: The Polish Missile Incident was a Close Brush With Nuclear Annihilation The fervor with which Poland and others sought to drag NATO into a war with Russia should ring alarm bells for everyone
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
What the Pentagon Doesn’t Want You to Know About China We must be vigilant about the warmongering lies about China. To encourage Congress to authorize the largest defense budget ever, the Pentagon just released its annual report on China, which dangerously misrepresents the country’s defense strategy. Such deliberate lies about China to drum up justification for more US war spending need to be urgently addressed. Let’s debunk these lies: On Nuclear Weapons: The Pentagon reports that China possesses around 400 nuclear warheads with no clear plan on how to use them. If this estimation of China’s arsenal is correct, it’s still trivial compared to the US’s almost 6,000 warheads. China is the only nuclear power with an unconditional “no first use” policy, and has been clear that it only intends to use its nuclear power for assurance and defense. Meanwhile, the United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war and has also flirted with escalating tensions into a nuclear war with Russia this year. Who is preparing for war?
Where Is the Debate Over This Bloated, Immoral Pentagon Budget? Why we’re not even debating the largest defense budget in history. All told, more than half of this giant spending budget is going to for-profit companies (such as Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, BAE, and Northrop Grumman) whose stock prices are surging.
Biden’s National Security Team is Trailing Badly at Halftime The preoccupation with Ukraine has kept the Biden team from pursuing alternatives to the feckless dual containment policy against Russia and China; the maximalist (and similarly feckless) denuclearization policies against Iran and North Korea; the emphasis on increased military spending; and the unwillingness to pursue arms control and disarmament measures. A dialogue is needed with North Korea, and Biden should have returned to the Iran nuclear accord. But the Biden team doesn’t even include a disarmament specialist
Can the Left Disagree Without Being Disagreeable? I have been a reporter for thirty years. During this period, I have been to many former war zones and to active war zones, including in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. I have seen things that I wish I had not seen and that I wish had not been seen by anyone, let alone experienced by anyone. The thing about war zones that is often not talked about is the noise: the loud noises of the military equipment and the sound of gunfire and bombs. The sound of a modern bomb is extraordinary, punctuated as it often is in civilian areas by the cries of little children. Imagine the trauma inflicted upon generations and generations of children by the noise itself, not to speak of the neurological fear of the adults around them and the great loss of life that they experience from early in their lives. There is no war that should be supported based on the catastrophic cost paid by humanity for the violence.
Environment — Ecosocialism or Ecocide:
Global Biodiversity Pact Draft Is an “Open Invitation to Greenwash,” Critics Say Several African nations and environmental groups criticized the agreement’s funding arrangements and targets. Climate goal of 1.5C is ‘gasping for breath’, says UN head António Guterres announces a climate ambition summit to confront ‘existential threat’ facing the planet “We are still moving in the wrong direction,” he said on Monday. “The 1.5C goal is gasping for breath. National climate plans are falling woefully short. And yet we are not retreating, we are fighting back.” He added: “The invitation [to the summit] is open. But the price of entry is non-negotiable – serious new climate action that will move the needle forward. It will be a no-nonsense summit. No exceptions. There will be no room for backsliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters or repackaging of announcements of previous years.”
In Effort to ‘Move the Needle,’ UN Chief Announces Special Summit on Climate Crisis No exceptions. No compromises,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. “There will be no room for back-sliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters, or repackaging of announcements of previous years.
Big Oil is Behind Conspiracy to Deceive Public, First Climate Racketeering Lawsuit Says Lawyer in a civil lawsuit launched by towns in hurricane-hit Puerto Rico describes why it is using laws used to target mob bosses The same racketeering legislation used to bring down mob bosses, motorcycle gangs, football executives and international fraudsters is to be tested against oil and coal companies who are accused of conspiring to deceive the public over the climate crisis.
3M sets 2025 Deadline to Stop Making ‘Forever Chemicals’ Company’s current net sales of manufactured PFAS, which are linked to cancer and heart problems, are about $1.3bn US industrial conglomerate 3M on Tuesday set a deadline of 2025 to stop making PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals”, that are used in everything from cellphones to semiconductors and have been linked to illnesses ranging from cancer, heart problems to low birth weights. The per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are known as forever chemicals because the substances do not break down quickly and have in recent years been found in dangerous concentrations in drinking water, soils and foods across the country.
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
Chris Hedges: Teaching Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago in Prison There are many disturbing similarities between the brutality imposed on Stalin’s victims and the injustices endured by the incarcerated in federal and state prisons. Two nights a week for the last four months, I plowed my way through the three volumes of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago with 17 students in the college degree program offered by Rutgers University in the New Jersey prison system. No one in my class endures the extremities imposed on the millions who worked as slave labor, and often died, in the Soviet gulag, or work camps, set up after the Russian revolution. The last remnants of the hundreds of camps were disbanded in 1987 by Mikhail Gorbachev, himself the grandson of gulag prisoners. Nor do they experience the treatment of those held in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and our secret black sites who undergo mock trials and executions, torture, extreme sensory deprivation, and abuse that comes disturbingly close to replicating the hell of the gulag.
Labor:
Economy:
Corporate Monopoly Power: a Main Driver of Inflation National exit polls following the 2022 midterm elections found that inflation was the number 1 issue among Americans in deciding how they voted.1To the extent that they relied on mainstream news outlets, such as cable news and newspapers, voters did not learn of any specific cause of inflation, much less implicating U. S. corporate monopolies. Large U. S. multinational corporations are, however, major drivers of inflation by price gouging. An analysis by the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy included these findings between 2019 and 2021:
Mr. Gensler, the U.S. Stock Market Structure Is an Institutionalized Wealth Transfer System The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, announced in June that he was going to tackle the structure of the U.S. stock market – ostensibly to make it fairer to the little guy. His plans were released last Wednesday in a mountain of paper that even Wall Street veterans are having difficulty digesting. (See here, here, here, here, and here.) While the overall thrust of the proposed changes appears to be to provide more transparency to order execution, the proposals fail to address key structural issues that have allowed the U.S. stock market to operate as an institutionalized wealth transfer system — moving vast sums of money from the pockets of average Americans to the richest one percent.
World:
Israel Deports Palestinian Human Rights Lawyer Who Sent War Crimes Case to ICC Salah Hammouri had been held in Israeli prisons without charge or trial since March On Sunday, December 18, Israeli authorities forcibly deported Palestinian lawyer, human rights defender, and father of two, Salah Hammouri, from his homeland. Born in Jerusalem to a French mother, Hammouri is also a French citizen and, until recently, held a Jerusalem ID before it was revoked by the Israeli government. Hammouri’s deportation was ordered by Israeli authorities almost two weeks ago under allegations of affiliation with terrorist activities. Human rights groups have called on the French government to stop the expulsion.
When are the Train Strikes This Week? Rail Strike Dates Over Christmas 2022, And If Trains Are Running Trade unions have been calling for better pay for their members amid the cost of living crisis, with inflation at a 40-year high Rail staff are among those walking out in the lead-up to Christmas, with industrial action expected to continue even further. Trade unions have been calling for better pay for their members amid the cost of living crisis, with inflation at a 40-year high. Strikes have affected the rail network since the summer, with unions locked in long-running disputes with train companies over pay and working conditions.
UK Court Upholds ‘Inhumane’ Plan to Send Asylum-Seekers to Rwanda “People will not stand by and watch this government treat refugees like human cargo,” said one rights groups. Human rights advocates on Monday vowed to continue fighting the United Kingdom’s plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda if they arrive in the U.K. after crossing the English Channel by boat, after the country’s High Court ruled that the Conservative Party’s plan is lawful.
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
Upending of Daily Life During Pandemic Led to Traumatic Stress Among US Mothers: Study Due to a variety of factors, researchers said, “mothers may be particularly susceptible to psychological stress effects from the Covid-19 pandemic.” A study by the National Institute of Health in the first 16 months of the coronavirus pandemic found that mothers in the U.S. were especially likely to report high levels of stress during the public health crisis if they experienced major disruptions to their daily lives at work, their children’s schools, or in their interactions with their communities—as the majority of people surveyed said they did.