Daily News Digest January 10, 2023
Images:
Latuff : Quo Vadis, Bolsonaro?
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 Capitalism 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:
Corporation, An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. — Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary
Still, while inflation — or even the Fed’s attempts to reduce it by eternally upping interest rates — could lead to an economic disaster that would damage the lives of so many Americans, nothing (short of nuclear war) could damage our lives the way climate change is likely to. Honestly, barring some future surprise, shouldn’t it qualify daily as the headline story of our lifetime, potentially of any lifetime? After all, whether in the melting, rainy Arctic or just about anywhere else, what we’re watching is the potential destruction of the only world humanity has ever known. And when it comes to global warming, we’re not talking about a possible future crash from which, as in the Great Depression of 1929 or the Great Recession of 2009, we can recover in a limited number of years. We’re talking about the potential for a forever crash, the Greatest Depression of all time that lurks all too obviously in our future and is already beginning to clobber us. ? — The Inflation Ever: Ending the World as We Know It
And yet, honestly, did you even notice that story? Until I mentioned it, did you know that coal use soared again last year? Was it the lead on the TV news you watch or at your crucial mainstream news website? I doubt it. It passed as if in the night, as did stories on the staggering profits of the fossil-fuel industry in 2022 — on, that is, how companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron continue to make unprecedented fortunes off the future devastation of our planet. In inflation terms, that coal report couldn’t have been a more nightmarish tale and yet the inflated use of coal and the inflated profits that go with it really don’t qualify as “front page” news, even if they help ensure that we humans will burn ourselves off this planet. After all, despite remarkable advances in the development of green-energy sources, as the New Yorker‘s environmental journalist Elizabeth Kolbert wrote last November: “At the time of the Rio summit [in 1992], fossil fuels provided roughly 80% of the world’s primary energy. Thirty years later, fossil fuels still provide roughly 80% of the world’s primary energy. In the meantime, total global energy use has increased by almost two-thirds.” Under the circumstances, you would think that some screaming headlines were in order, wouldn’t you? — The Inflation Ever: Ending the World as We Know It
It is impossible not to recognize that the people who are endlessly boasting of their freedom–we’re the best because we’re free!–loathe the very suggestion for anyone other than themselves. They are forever stitching flags, making and threatening and dropping bombs, creating instruments of torture and torture chambers and overseers and deputies and detention centers. Their notion of freedom is so strenuously calisthenic, not to say defensive, that freedom becomes a case of keeping everyone out of your backyard. Or bomb shelter: there are none, by no means incidentally, in the ghetto. — James Baldwin, A Letter to Prisoners
Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune(4): here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable “third estate” of the monarchy (as in France); afterwards, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. —Manifesto of the Communist Party
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
The Monopolization of America It is Time to Revive Anti-Trust!
If we dedicate war memorials to the memory of men and women, who are cut down before their time, these (Workplaces) are war memorials. . . . — Homer Seguin, Video: Before Their Time” Cancer & Health And Safety On Our Jobs. Cancer & Health And Safety On Our Jobs (Video)
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! Both Parties Support U.S. Capitalism’s Wars! (The Only War the Democrats Opposed was the Civil War!):
Chris Hedges: America’s Theater of the AbsurdThe 15 rounds of voting it took to install Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House is part of the carnival of folly that passes for politics Our political class does not govern. It entertains. It plays its assigned role in our fictitious democracy, howling with outrage to constituents and selling them out. The Squad and the Progressive Caucus have no more intention of fighting for universal health care, workers’ rights or defying the war machine than the Freedom Caucus fights for freedom. These political hacks are modern versions of Sinclair Lewis’s slick con artist Elmer Gantry, cynically betraying a gullible public to amass personal power and wealth. This moral vacuity provides the spectacle, as H.G. Wells wrote, of “a great material civilization, halted, paralyzed.” It happened in Ancient Rome. It happened in Weimar Germany. It is happening here.
The Hypocrisy of the U.S. Immigrant Policy: No Border Wall for Bolsonaro, Just for Victims of U.S./CIA Imperialisms Supported Governments! ‘Bolsonaro Must Not Be Given Refuge in Florida,’ Say US Lawmakers “Two years ago our Capitol was attacked by fanatics, now we are watching it happen in Brazil,” said Rep. Ilhan mar. “Solidarity with Lula and the Brazilian people.” ‘Bolsonaro”Two years ago our Capitol was attacked by fanatics, now we are watching it happen in Brazil,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar. “Solidarity with Lula and the Brazilian people.” . . . . Just two days before his term ended and he was set to relinquish power to Lula following his failed bid to overturn the October election results, Bolsonaro flew to Orlando, Florida “with plans to stay for at least a month,” The New York Timesreported. According to the Times, Bolsonaro—an ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump—has been “living in a rented house owned by a professional mixed martial arts fighter a few miles from Disney World.” The Washington Postreported last month that “days after Bolsonaro’s loss, allies met with Trump aides in the United States to discuss next steps. His son Eduardo, a Brazilian congressman, met Trump at Mar-a-Lago [in November] in Palm Beach, Florida.” Prominent U.S. lawmakers said Sunday that Jair Bolsonaro should not be given safe harbor in Florida after his supporters—animated by the far-right former president’s election lies—launched a massive attack on Brazil’s main government buildings, an assault that came a week after leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was inaugurated.
Towards an Anthropology of Surveillance With the rapid growth of metadata and political and corporate surveillance in America during the last two decades, anthropologists Roberto J. González and David H. Price—long-time contributors to CounterPunch—have been studying the impacts and implications of these developments. Both Price and González recently published books that critically examine surveillance in the United States (Price’s The American Surveillance State: How the U.S. Spies on Dissent and González’s War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future). Below are excerpts from an extended conversation between the two on the cultural, military, and political dimensions of surveillance, technology, culture, and power.
Environment — Ecosocialism or Ecocide:
Single-Use Plastic Cutlery and Plates to be Banned in England ‘A plastic fork can take 200 years to decompose’, said environment secretary Thérèse Coffey Single-use items such as plastic cutlery, plates and trays are to be banned in England in a bid to reduce pollution, the government has confirmed. Figures suggest that every year England uses about 1.1bn single-use plates and 4.25bn pieces of such cutlery, only 10% of which are recycled after being used. Plastic items relating to takeaway food and drink, including food containers and cutlery, make up the largest share of litter in the world’s oceans, according to research.
Critical Competencies in Children’s Environmental Health Abstract Competency in children’s environmental health allows for the development of interventions that can prevent the long-term and irreversible health outcomes that result from early environmental toxic exposures. Health effects that are thought to be at least partially influenced by early exposures include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), lower IQ, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. Despite the value of children’s environmental health, there are still gaps in workforce training for those interested in children’s environmental health. These gaps in knowledge and training highlight the need for improved ways to build the capacity of children’s environmental health professionals. Our work focused on creating a set of competencies for public health professionals interested in children’s environmental health careers as a way to meet the demand for children’s environmental health specialists. We identified 12 competencies that individuals can adopt to build their capacity as children’s environmental health professionals.
Role of the Household Environment in Transmission of Clostridioides difficile Infection: A Scoping Review Abstract The environment plays a role in healthcare-associated Clostridioides (formerly Clostridium) difficile infection (CDI); however, the role of the environment in community-associated CDI is unknown. The objective of this scoping review was to describe the literature related to the transmission of C. difficile in the household environment. We conducted searches of four electronic health and science databases to identify relevant studies. In total, 39 articles published between 1981 and 2020 met the a priori inclusion criteria. Slightly over one half (51.3%, 20 out of 39) of the articles were nonsystematic review articles and thus we excluded them from the synthesis of results. Overall, we included 19 articles in the synthesis of results. None of the studies were experimental studies. Studies assessed or estimated the prevalence of C. difficile on household surfaces, colonization of household members (human and animal), or the risk of transmission in the household. This scoping review provides an overview of the global literature related to the role of the household environment in transmission of C. difficile. We found a lack of research in this area. Further studies are needed and ideally would be designed to follow household members over time and to test the effectiveness of interventions such as targeted hygiene protocols.
Effect of Lockdown on the Air Quality of Four Major Cities in Pakistan During the COVID-19 Pandemic Abstract This study attempted to evaluate the effect of lockdown on the air quality of four major cities in Pakistan: Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, and Peshawar. Particulate matter (PM2.5) concentration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Air Quality Index (AQI) were used to determine air quality before and after lockdown. We found that air quality in all the cities improved after lockdown was imposed: PM2.5 concentrations in Karachi and Lahore decreased by 62% and in Peshawar and Islamabad by 57% and 55%, respectively. AQI in Karachi and Islamabad improved from Unhealthy to Moderate and in Peshawar and Lahore from Unhealthy to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups. Formal complete lockdown in Pakistan was imposed on March 24, 2020, and lasted until May 10, 2020, after which partial or smart lockdown was still in place. Maximum improvement in air quality was observed in April 2020, with concentrations starting to increase in May 2020 following the ease of restrictions.
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
Labor:
Damar Hamlin Nearly Died on the Job. Too Many Workers Face Similar Threats. Damar Hamlin’s accident provides a mandate for all of us to consider the value of workers’ health, safety and rights. . . . While Hamlin remains in critical condition, the media conversation has been very introspective. Mainstream outlets have criticized fans for their complicity in the harm that comes to players; argued that serious injury risk is a real part of the game; discussed the trauma of the situation and criticized the NFL for dehumanizing players. However, the media largely ignored the status of professional football players as workers, engaged in labor in a workplace, creating value and earning wages, with the most spectacular profits going to the owners. Last season, the NFL raked in $18 billion in revenue, record profits that exceed earlier years and far outpace the profits of other sports leagues in the U.S. and around the world. What would it mean if we considered NFL players — who vary in their income, stardom and power — as workers, vulnerable to the demands of capital and profit motivations, with the same health and safety needs as workers in education, health care, or industrial jobs?
The War at the Point of Production: The ‘Killing Fields’ of the United States . . . Like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, world imperialism spreads War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death, throughout the world. Author Gore Vidal describes this era as a ‘Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace’. One perpetual war, which is not openly publicized, is the war for profits. It takes place every single day at the point of production, and is killing increasing numbers of workers every year. Today, workers are used as ‘cannon fodder’ both in the war in Iraq and in the war for profits at home. Workplaces have become perpetual ‘killing fields’. According to Lisa Cullen, the author of A Job To Die For, “Every day, 165 Americans die from occupational diseases, and 18 more die from a work-related injury. On the same day, more than 36,400 non-fatal injuries and 3,200 illnesses will occur in America’s workplaces.” Every year 60,225 Americans die from occupational diseases while 6,570 more die from work-related injuries. In that same year, more than 13,286,000 non-fatal injuries and 1,168,000 illnesses occur in America’s workplaces. Again: “Each year, this unknown workplace epidemic extends into nearby communities to claim the lives of 218 innocent bystanders and injure another 68,000.”(1). In 2005, it was estimated by Paul A. Schulte, Ph.D., of the United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), that the total rate of disabling occupational injuries in the United States reaches 3.8 million per year. Worldwide, at least 800,000 deaths and 100 million injuries may be accounted for by occupational factors. (2) (200)
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update January 8th to 12th
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In The News: The Federal Reserve continued to shrink the Monetary Base sharply, in December 2022, although still not close to hitting inflation-dampening sensitivities.
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The December 2022 seasonally adjusted Unemployment Rate was in the context of minimally benchmark-revised seasonal adjustments back through 2018, with headline December 2022 Unemployment dropping to 3.5% from a revised 3.6% (previously 3.7%) in November. The temporary Holiday surge in seasonal, part-time hiring boosted December Payrolls, yet long-term discouraged and marginally attached workers continued to disappear from the headline Labor Force.
Shadow Government Statistics Annual Growth and Money Stock Levels Since 2006 
JPMorgan Chase Hit with Lawsuit for Facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s Crime Network; Similar Charges Were Brought Against It for Facilitating Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme Making headlines around the world last week was the news that the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Denise George, was fired just days after she filed a federal lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, charging it with facilitating the sex trafficking of children by Jeffrey Epstein. George was fired by the Governor of the Virgin Islands, Albert Bryan Jr. Unfortunately, those headlines and the mainstream news articles that accompanied them, fail to capture the worst parts of this story, which includes the following: the 30-page lawsuit filed by Attorney General George on December 27 in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York includes a “Sealed Document Placed in Vault” according to the Docket Sheet in the case; after the paragraph headlined as “JP Morgan Ignored Obvious Red Flags Relating to Epstein’s Accounts,” large segments of the lawsuit have been redacted with black lines covering full paragraphs; pages 15 through 22 of the lawsuit are completely white, with no black line redactions and no text; the case has been assigned to Judge Jed Rakoff, who lately seems to be the only Judge in that large courthouse that is allowed to oversee sensitive matters pertaining to JPMorgan Chase – the largest bank in the U.S. which has a rap sheet that reads like the Gambino crime family and which has racked up five criminal felony counts – to which it pleaded guilty. (See Judge Rakoff Signs a Dangerous Protective Order in Whistleblower Case Against 5-Count Felon JPMorgan Chase.)
World:
Decoding Israeli ‘Extremism’ Anyone with but half eye open during the last several decades should by now realize that undisclosed Zionist Long Game preceded the establishment of Israel in 1948, and aims at extending Israeli sovereignty over the whole of Occupied Palestine, with the possible exception of Gaza. The significance of Netanyahu’s public affirmation of this previously secretive long game is that it may be reaching its final phase and the far right governing coalition is poised to pursue closure.
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
Free Speech and Academic Freedom in the American Corporate University Free speech and academic freedom are under attack in American higher education. From the right the allegation is that wokeness and political correctness have taken over, articulating a political agenda that is anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-capitalism, and pro-LGBTQ. From the left, the indictment is that schools continue to replicate stereotypes in their curriculum that perpetuate discrimination against marginalized groups. Efforts by administrators to police curriculum raise concerns of academic freedom among faculty, whereas doing nothing leaves students feeling they are victims of institutional biases and unresponsive to them. The fundamental issue here is not of ideology—it is the inherent problem of the corporate university where free speech and academic freedom are not seen as core to the education mission. Instead both are compromised by the needs and pressures of the corporate structure of contemporary higher education in America.