Daily News Digest January 13, 2023

Daily News Digest Archives

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Citzens United in DelsionSince 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:

Despite my disappointment at some of the URPE sessions, there were two excellent papers on capitalist accumulation and its impact on labour.  Carlos Duque of UNAM Mexico followed up his excellent paper of 2021 on the rate of profit in Colombia, which supported Marx’s law of profitability, with a new paper on the accumulation of capital and employment.     Duque showed that Marx’s general law of accumulation holds, not only in the advanced capitalist economies, but also in the Global South..      The level of employment has a significant long-term relationship (cointegration) with both the fixed capital stock and labor productivity. In line with Marx’s theory, ie. the level of employment expands with fixed capital stock and contracts with labor productivity. In turn, the mass of profits has positive effects on both the fixed capital stock and the labor productivity.      This supports Marx’s theory of ‘capital-biased technical change’ ie a rising organic composition of capital.  “The overall results are consistent with the Marxian economics framework presented in the paper but not with other economic paradigms like the neoclassical or Keynesian where, for instance, there is no Marx’s biased technological change and the effects of employment over profits are positive.”     And another Latin American Marxist economist, Sergio Camara from UNAM, came to similar conclusions in his paper on The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation and a Labor-Shortage Theory of Cycles.    Camara showed that Marx’s general law has both short term and long term consequences.       In the short term, capital investment can increase employment and cause labour shortages, but longer term, it will shed labour and restore the industrial reserve army.  It’s a cyclical process.     It was good to finish a review of these radical sessions with some further empirical support for Marx’s law of accumulation. — ASSA 2023 Part Two: The Radical – Monopoly and War

Videos/Podcasts of the Day:

Night Raids: Victims of CIA-Backed Afghan Death Squads Known as “Zero Units” Demand Accountability

As Historic Storms & Flooding Kill 19 in California, Why Is Media Ignoring Role of Climate Change?

California’s Onslaught of Storms is Far From Over. Will It Ever End?

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!)

Capitalists have Always Rigged Politics — Now It’s Abundantly Clear!:  1 New GOP Picks for House Financial Oversight Panel Took Over $6.1 Million From Wall Street “The MAGA majority in charge of overseeing the financial industry are completely awash in Wall Street money,” said one analyst. “Consumers beware as financial scammers rejoice.”mA new Accountable.US analysis published Wednesday revealed that the 11 new Republicans tapped to serve on the House Financial Services Committee collectively accepted more than $6 million from Wall Street during the 2022 election cycle, leaving them ready to do the “industry’s bidding.”

‘The Squad’ has Always Voted for the Military Budget!: Corporate Democrats Go to Bat for Bloated Pentagon Budget “We should not assume that there is no room to trim the Pentagon budget,” said one expert. “Doing it correctly would not only make us safer, it would free up funds to address other urgent national priorities.” A group of corporate Democrats led by Rep. Jared Golden of Maine sent a letter Wednesday defending the out-of-control U.S. military budget and expressing concerns about looming attempts by House Republicans to cut it, even as several GOP lawmakers insisted the Pentagon would be safe from their coming austerity spree.

The Decline of Capitalism: Living in a Ghost Town: the Decline of Western Liberalism When I was growing up everyone was engaged in politics and, generally, people felt that they had some say in what happened to them. That has diminished significantly. And we now find ourselves living in an era in which power has been severed from politics, with disastrous consequences. The vast discrepancies in wealth we now witness is but one by-product of the diminished vision of human existence that now constitutes Liberal society. And it is the diminished nature of that vision that tellingly reveals that Western Liberalism is in its terminal phase.

Labor and Education Activists Must Challenge Private Tech Takeover of Schools It’s time we pushed back against the industry premise that education’s purpose is to prepare workers for the job market. Too many education activists have implicitly accepted the conventional wisdom that education’s purpose is preparing workers to compete for jobs in the global marketplace. Such a curriculum tends toward using standardized testing based on metrics set by international finance and governance organizations.

Environment: 

Naked Capitalist Rule: ‘You Couldn’t Make It Up’: Head of UAE Oil Company Appointed Chair of UN Climate Summit The appointment of Sultan al-Jaber is “tantamount to putting the head of a tobacco company in charge of negotiating an anti-smoking treaty,” said one campaigner. Climate campaigners on Thursday warned that the United Arab Emirates all but guaranteed that the United Nations’ annual climate conference has already been captured by the fossil fuel industry as it announced the head of the country’s state-run oil company will be presiding over the summit later this year 

When Bodies Start Stacking Up From Climate Change-Related Disasters, Will These Monsters be Held to Account?

Civil Rights Black Liberation:

Book Reviews: His Name is Deorge Floyd

George Floyd, A Life, A Book Review by Malik Miah I participated in the popular uprising for racial justice after George Floyd was murdered by a white Minneapolis cop on May 25, 2020. I thought I knew his story — how George Floyd died, where he came from, and how he lived. The cold-blooded assassination of this typical Black man sparked a massive national and international response — the largest ever in this country.    But this new book goes much deeper into his early life and places him in the context of America’s racial history, going back to slavery, emancipation, legal segregation, and the white backlash that persists.     Samuels and Olorunnipa begin with the well-known events of the case. In the opening pages titled “Flowers,” they write:     “As a young man, Perry, as his family called him, had outside aspirations — to become a Supreme Court justice, a pro athlete, or a rap star. By the time his world came crashing down in the months before his death, he had been chasing more modest ambitions — a little stability, a job driving trucks, and health insurance. Still, in his dying seconds, as he suffocated under a white police officer’s knee, Floyd manage to speak his love.

Book Review: His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels, Toluse Olorunnipa A landmark biography by two prizewinning Washington Post reporters that reveals how systemic racism shaped George Floyd’s life and legacy–from his family’s roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, to ongoing inequality in housing, education, health care, criminal justice, and policing–telling the singular story of how one man’s tragic experience brought about a global movement for change.      The events of that day are now tragically familiar: on May 25, 2020, George Floyd became the latest Black person to die at the hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his death set off a series of protests in the United States and around the world, awakening millions to the dire need for reimagining this country’s broken systems of policing. But behind a face that would be graffitied onto countless murals, and a name that has become synonymous with civil rights, there is the reality of one man’s stolen life: a life beset by suffocating systemic pressures that ultimately proved inescapable.     This biography of George Floyd shows the athletic young boy raised in the projects of Houston’s Third Ward who would become a father, a partner, a friend, and a man constantly in search of a better life. In retracing Floyd’s story, Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa bring to light the determination Floyd carried as he faced the relentless struggle to survive as a Black man in America. Placing his narrative within the larger context of America’s deeply troubled history of institutional racism, His Name Is George Floyd examines the Floyd family’s roots in slavery and sharecropping, the segregation of his Houston schools, the over-policing of his communities, the devastating snares of the prison system, and his attempts to break free from drug dependence–putting today’s inequality into uniquely human terms. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews and extensive original reporting, Samuels and Olorunnipa offer a poignant and moving exploration of George Floyd’s America, revealing how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world. (less)

Black Agenda Report

 Labor:

‘Historic Victory’: After 3 Days on Strike, New York Nurses Win Deal With Hospitals “Today, we can return to work with our heads held high, knowing that our victory means safer care for our patients and more sustainable jobs for our profession.” New York City nurses and two major hospitals reached a tentative agreement on Thursday that the healthcare workers’ union celebrated as a “historic victory” after three days of striking for a fair contract. The more than 7,000 striking nurses agreed to return to work Thursday at Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore Medical Center, privately owned hospitals whose management previously refused to accept the nurses’ central demand for safer staffing requirements—pushing the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) to leverage the power of collective action.

The Corporate Term ‘Underdaffing’ means less  Jobs!): The Frightening Rise In Low-Quality, Low-Paying Jobs: Is This Really A Strong Job Market? For over 100 consecutive months, the United States government has reported that the economy has produced 50-year highs in employment and record lows in unemployment.     The data from the Department of Labor (DOL) suggests that we are in a Utopian period of economic prosperity due to the historic low rate of unemployment. By many metrics, the job market is doing well and, in some spots, it’s blazing hot.    There is a big disconnect. The reality for most people is inconsistent with the employment figures. Stories of job seekers spending an exceedingly long period of time searching for a suitable job, lackluster salary offers, relatively small wage increases for employees and the rapid growth of gig-economy jobs—such as Uber and Lyft drivers, Instacart shoppers and DoorDashers—repudiate the “best job market ever” narrative.     There have been some new reports that back up the claims of people who say that the job market is not as hot as advertised. A study by the Brookings Institute, a nonprofit public policy organization that conducts research to solve problems facing society, found that a large amount of the newly created positions are “low-wage” jobs. According to the report, low-wage workers make up a huge part of the workforce. A staggering amount of people—over 53 million; 44% of all workers ages 18 to 64 in the U.S.—earn low hourly wages.

Economy:

Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in the U.S. City Average (CPIAUCSL)Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar in the U.S. City Average

FTX Bankruptcy Proceedings Thus Far Show a Shocking Miscarriage of Justice To grasp the severity of the miscarriage of justice that occurred yesterday at the hands of Judge John Dorsey in the bankruptcy hearing for collapsed crypto exchange, FTX, one first needs a brief bit of background. The FTX companies that the bankruptcy lawyers are attempting to resuscitate or sell off to other crypto outfits (while the law firms collect millions of dollars in billable hours for their work) are peddling a product – crypto – that is created out of thin air and has no legitimate productive purpose. (See Over 1,600 of the Brightest Scientific Minds in Technology Have Signed a Letter Calling Both Crypto and Blockchain a Sham.)

World: 

UK Could Face ‘Banking Crisis Worse Than 2008’ If City Fails to Prepare for Fossil Fuel Collapse Report from climate activist groups says City is unprepared for potential collapse in value of fossil fuel assets The UK could suffer 500,000 job losses and be forced to spend £674bn of taxpayer cash to rescue its banks and ensure financial stability, unless the City prepares for the value of fossil fuels to collapse as a result of climate crisis regulations, research shows.

Peru: Mass Movement of Workers and Peasants Defy Capitalist Coup Despite Brutal Repression One month after the coup against president Castillo on 7 December, the new illegitimate government of Dina Boluarte has used brutal police and army repression to put down protests, leaving 45 dead. Workers and peasants have resisted the coup with mass demonstrations, road blockades, national and regional general strikes and the formation of committees of struggle across the country in a movement that has its epicentre in the poorer, more indigenous southern departments. Who was behind the 7 December coup and what are the prospects for the mass movement of resistance?

Britain: NHS catastrophe – Support the Strikers! Kick Out the Profiteers! The NHS is in the midst of a deep crisis. Chaos is unfolding in A&Es, with record-breaking wait times. This catastrophe has been a long time coming – the result of years of austerity and privatisation. But health workers are fighting back.    By August last year, NHS waiting lists had reached an all-time high, with seven million people awaiting hospital treatment. At the time, the director of NHS England, Sir Stephen Powis, warned that the country was in for “a difficult winter ahead”.

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 

Privatization Scam Threatens to Replace Traditional Medicare Altogether by 2030 Medicare Advantage serves private health insurers and investors at the expense of the public interest. Many Americans know Medicare Advantage as the Medicare program heavily advertised during its enrollment periods, including its special enrollment period that ended just last month. The incessantly repeated television ad for Medicare Advantage, which has often been narrated by 1960s quarterback Joe Namath, is full of disinformation — and it’s a profitable scam for health insurers. The disingenuously named privatized program has all kinds of disadvantages compared to the traditional Medicare program that dates back to 1965. Medicare Advantage could more accurately be called Medicare Disadvantage, based on its track record: