Daily News Digest December 23, 2022
Images of the Day:
Cuba Easily Leads the World in Terms of Women Inventors, With 53%!
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:
For the Democratic Party, opposition to Trump is dictated not by fidelity to democracy, but by the need to maintain support within the GOP to prosecute two wars: First, the imperialist war for global hegemony against its main rivals in Europe and Asia, and, second, its war against the working class at home. Hence the overnight, bipartisan passage of the bill earlier this month to strip rail workers of their right to strike and impose a company-dictated contract that had been voted down by the workers. For the American ruling class the preservation of the corporate-controlled two-party system through which it has ruled for nearly two centuries is an existential question. So, too, is the need to build up the repressive apparatus of the state and conceal from the working class its role in preparing the way to dictatorship. The same conditions that underlie the threat of fascism and dictatorship—the objective crisis of American capitalism, the extreme growth of social inequality, and unending and expanding war—also fuel the growth of the class struggle and the conditions for millions in the US and internationally to grasp that democratic rights can be defended only through a struggle to put an end to capitalism and establish workers’ power and socialism. — The January 6 Committee’s Referrals Against Trump and the Intensifying Crisis of American Democracy
“Some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen.” — Woody Guthrie
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. — Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president of US (1743 – 1826), Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
Zelinsky Trip: Warrior Update With Scott Ritter – What’s Up With Belarus?
Tom Lehrer – A Christmas Carol (“God Rest ye Merry Merchantmen to Make the Yuletide Pay”)
Christmas in the Trenches Music Video
Black Agenda Radio: Cuba and Black Liberation
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!
Pax Americana and The Failure of ‘Lesser Evilism’
Pentagon Blows Deadline to Explain US Role in Nigerian Airstrike That Killed 160 Civilians One human rights campaigner said the military’s failure to provide a timely response to Democratic lawmakers’ questions “does not bode well for the U.S. government’s expressed commitment to transparency and accountability.” The Pentagon’s stated commitment to transparency (As the Pentagon fails Its Fifth Audit in a Row!) on civilian casualties was questioned Tuesday in an Intercept report noting that the Department of Defense has failed to respond to a group of House Democrats who set a three-month deadline to explain the U.S. military’s role in a 2017 Nigerian airstrike that killed more than 160 non-combatants.
A ‘Reform’ But a ‘Reform’: Omnibus Spending Bill Boosts School Lunches—By Cutting Pandemic-Era SNAP Benefits The proposed Summer EBT program would be “a historic investment in the nutrition, education, and well-being” of millions of children, but it comes with a “troubling” trade-off, said policy analysts Anti-hunger advocates and economists are lauding the permanent food assistance program for children in summer months—included in the $1.7 trillion spending package unveiled Tuesday—as a historic victory in the fight against food insecurity, while also noting that the funding mechanism for the plan will sharply reduce federal pandemic-era food benefits for people across the country.
Environment — Ecosocialism or Ecocide:
How Organized Crime Plays a Key Role in the Ukrainian ConflictOn November 1, the deputy director of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation downplayed remarks made on October 30 by an agency official, who warned of Western weapons bound for Ukraine being smuggled into Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Nonetheless, the affair generated significant attention and reflected previous concerns expressed by European authorities over Ukraine’s vulnerability to organized crime and the repercussions for the continent. Organized crime emerged as a potent force in Ukraine after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Criminal groups exploited flawed economic privatization measures to amass significant economic power, while the collapse of the Soviet security state allowed armed criminal factions to replace government authority and entrench themselves permanently.
New Aboriginal Speculative Fiction: An Interview with Mykaela Saunders This All Come Back Now is a world-first collection of ‘blackfella’ speculative fiction from well-known and emerging First Nations only writers. The Aboriginal English title of the collection is taken from the opening story by Evelyn Araluen, “Muyum, a Transgression.” The stories vary in structure from stand-alone short stories or extracts from novellas and novels. Themes include: Family; old people (elders) and ancestor; government intervention in First Nations people’s lives; corporate greed; destruction of land and water; technology; language; law; ghosts and hauntings; belonging; alienation; reclaiming of sovereignty; timelessness of cultures and traditions (such that they can be revived and relearned in the process of decolonisation).
Why You Can’t Run Government Like a Business For years we’ve all heard politicians claim they should “run government like a business.” But of course government isn’t a business — and governance is not like selling software. You’d think he’d learn, but Governor Greg Gianforte just found out again that he can’t simply ignore the Montana Constitution’s right-to-know provisions by trying to keep secret information that was produced by public employees in public buildings being paid public funds. The latest blunder by our “business” governor concerns reviews an opinions issued by his administration’s lawyers and agencies about the constitutionality of certain legislation during the 2021 legislative session. As most Montanans know, that dark session produced a record number of laws that have already been ruled unconstitutional by courts.
Ecosocialism Not Extinction!
Animal Activists Say Senate Omnibus Bill Condemns Right Whale To Extinction Provision allows Maine’s lobster industry to continue using fishing gear that maims the species, often fatally, until 2028 Animal protectionists are accusing Democrats in the US Senate of selling out the critically endangered northern right whale by including a provision in a year-end funding bill that would allow Maine’s lobster industry to continue using fishing gear that maims the species, often fatally, until at least 2028.
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
$90 Million Dollar Boondoggle!: Six Charged With Domestic Terrorism for Protesting Atlanta’s “Cop City” The Forest Defenders were urging Atlanta officials to invest in communities, not more policing. Six people in Atlanta have been charged with domestic terrorism for taking part in protests against a massive new police training facility known as Cop City. The protesters were taking part in a months-long encampment in a forested area of Atlanta where the city wants to build a $90 million, 85-acre training center on the site of a former prison farm. Conservationists have long wanted to protect the area, the South River Forest, from future development. Protesters are also urging the city to invest in alternatives to more policing. “This is basically a boondoggle that’s been given to the police to make them feel better,” says Kamau Franklin, founder of Community Movement Builders, which is a part of a coalition trying to stop the construction of Cop City in Atlanta.
Dec. 25, 1837: Christmas Day Freedom Fighters: Hidden History of the Seminole Anticolonial Struggle On Christmas day in 1837, the Africans and Native Americans who formed Florida’s Seminole Nation defeated a vastly superior U.S. invading army bent on cracking this early rainbow coalition and returning the Africans to slavery. The Seminole victory stands as a milestone in the march of American liberty. Though it reads like a Hollywood thriller, this amazing story has yet to capture public attention. It is absent from most school textbooks, social studies courses, Hollywood movies, and TV. This daring Seminole story begins around the time of the American Revolution when 55 “Founding Fathers” broke free of British colonialism and wrote the immortal Declaration of Independence. About the same time, Seminoles —suffering ethnic persecution under Creek rule in Alabama and Georgia —fled south to seek independence. Africans who had earlier escaped bondage and became among its first explorers welcomed them to Florida.
Labor:
The New Spin: ‘Understaffing’ — Which means Less Jobs, Welfare, Eductation, Healthcare, Welfare, Public Services, and Less Future for the Young. Profits Before Life, Libery, and the pursuit of happiness!
Repair as Resistance to Alienated Labor Repair is an implicit rejection of alienated labor—the kind of labor performed under the dictates of an employer who treats workers as means to maximize profits. As Marx argued in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, such labor forcibly separates workers not only from the values embodied in the objects they create, but also from their own minds, from their potentials, and from their fellow producers. Repair, in the communal forms it is taking today, can help to mend these ruptures.
Economy:
Michael Roberts:BookReview Slouching Towards Utopia; or Hurtling Towards Disaster? By Branfor Delong
Bradford DeLong is one of the world’s most prominent Keynesian economists and economic historian who is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. DeLong served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration under Lawrence Summers. He is a architype liberal Democrat in US politics and a classical Keynesian in economics. He has published a new book, entitled Slouching towards Utopia: an economic history of the 20th century. It’s an ambitious work aiming to analyse and explain the development of the capitalist economy in what he considers its most successful period: the 20th century. In particular, DeLong claims that capitalism as a progressive force for developing the needs of humanity only took off from 1870 up to the Great Recession of 2008-9, which completed what he calls “long twentieth century”. What were the reasons that enabled capitalism to deliver faster economic growth and a quantum jump in living standards from 1870 onwards? DeLong says they were “the triple emergence of globalization, the industrial research lab, and the modern corporation.” These factors “ushered in changes that began to pull the world out of the dire poverty that had been humanity’s lot for the previous ten thousand years, since the discovery of agriculture.” So growth was down to the expansion of capital and market economies from northern hemisphere to the rest of the world; the application of new technology and scientific discoveries; and through modern companies that developed them for the market. In effect, DeLong claims that capitalism worked during the 20th century to improve the lot of humanity; despite two horrific world wars; incessant regional conflicts; and intensive exploitation of multi-national companies of the globe. But this “long twentieth century” ended in 2010, with the advanced capitalist economies “unable to resume economic growth at anything near the average pace that had been the rule since 1870.”
Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto Companies Bilked a Potential 10.3 Million User Accounts; That’s 250 Times More than Madoff During testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on December 13, John Ray III, the newly appointed CEO of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, told members of Congress that FTX U.S. had 2.7 million user accounts while FTX International had 7.6 million user accounts. That’s a total of 10.3 million potential customers of FTX that may have been bilked out of some or all of their funds by the alleged mastermind, Sam Bankman-Fried, and his co-conspirators. That’s more than 250 times the defrauded customers of Ponzi mastermind Bernie Madoff. While Ray acknowledged that some FTX users had multiple accounts, even if you cut the 10.3 million user accounts by as much as two-thirds, 3.4 million accounts is still 85 times the number of Madoff victims.
World:
Peru: Farce of Early Election Solves Nothing The mountain has laboured and brought forth a mouse. Yesterday, the Peruvian Congress once again considered the question of an early election, which it had rejected last Friday. When Dina Boluarte illegitimately took over from president Castillo, she announced she would stay in office until 2026. That has become untenable. Clearly a section of the ruling class in Peru understands that it must reform the political system in order to try to quell the huge wave of indignation raised by the congressional coup against President Castillo on 7 December. The brutal repression, which has already left almost 30 dead, the state of emergency, the army on the streets, the curfew, etc. are not, in and of themselves, able to guarantee a return to bourgeois stability. Hence the need for new elections to give this illegitimate regime a veneer of legitimacy.
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
Capitalism Starves Artists, Not Piracy: How Artists Can Thrive Under Socialism “Piracy versus artists” is a false dichotomy. On the basis of a democratically planned economy cemented by world proletarian revolution, we could generously fund art, film, books, music, and architecture and make them free for all” Recently, the FBI shut down z-lib.org, a popular website for pirated books and articles. The FBI was not able to get its hands on the actual servers, so currently the 11 million books and 84 million articles are still available intermittently through Tor. But this may change soon as the two people who run the site are facing serious criminal charges. This was a big blow to users of the site, many of whom are students who used it to get textbooks, which are commonly priced between $100 to $300 apiece. In a single semester, z-lib.org could save a single student thousands of dollars. It also helped readers access fiction and information at no cost, obviously, as well as banned books and articles locked away by expensive academic journals.
Our Health Care System is Broken…Fixing It is Not Hard Americans are being slammed by a “tripledemic” this holiday season as three major respiratory illnesses—COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)—are spreading at indoor gatherings. Hospitals are once more in danger of running out of beds, and the Biden administration has revived a program to mail out free at-home COVID-19 testing kits. It seems that the United States has learned nothing from the early months of the pandemic when our health care system broke along the fissures created by corporate models of profit-based medicine. Take the current shortage of antibiotics and other medications. Axios reported that “Parents have been calling [pharmacies and other health care providers], distraught over the trouble they’ve had securing everything from Children’s Tylenol to amoxicillin to Tamiflu.” Hospitals are also running out of drugs. The reason for this is that the pharmaceutical industry, which operates adjacent to the healthcare industry, functions on thin margins, producing just enough inventory based on projections in order to maximize profits and not overproduce items that may remain unsold. But when a crisis hits, the projected supply is outstripped by demand.