Daily News Digest January 17, 2023

Daily News Digest Archives

Editorial: Capitalism’s Unsatiable Thirst Profits and its’ Wanton Disregard for Humanity and Life

Two Recent Articles ‘Nail in the Coffin’: Study Shows Exxon Accurately Predicted Warming Decades Ago epitomize these facts.

We have known that EXXON’s scientists knew that the burning of fossil fuel would cause global warming in 1970. These new findings proved that they accurately predicted the degree that the climate would warm over five decades! And yet, they did nothing !!! In fact, they denied their own predictions and used The Media Monopoly to attract their science in order to keep warming the world, as they gained $Trillions in profits!

Humanity, right now, is endangered! All living creatures, great and small, are now threatened by nuclear war, rising seas, etc..

The recent Exxon revelations prove that capitalism is a failed system: World capitalism has been aware of the coming 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 Apocalypse, Spreading  Racism,  War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. The very future of Humanity Is Now At stake!

Rachel Carson wrote in The Sea Around Us: “It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.” 

Humans developed the capitalist system, and by its very nature, it has become inhuman! Exxon is an example of capitalism’s insatiable thirst for profits and wanton disregard for humanity and life itself.

During the capitalist crisis of world war I, Rosa Luxemburg raised the slogan of Socialism or Barbarism! During this present crisis, the slogan should be changed to Socialism or Ecocide!

Images:

The Story Of King’s ‘Beyond Vietnam’ Speech

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:

From The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights Movement : To combat the rise of the Civil Right Movement, the “war on poverty” was first launched in 1964 along with the concept of “Black Politicians”. Malcolm X described this process in his Jan. 7, 1965 speech The Prospects for Freedom, at the Militant Labor Forum, in New York City (For complete audio of the speech go here.):     They have a new gimmick every year. They’re going to take one of their boys, black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar. Fire on one end and fool on the other end. And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: ‘Look how much progress we’re making. I’m in Washington, D.C., I can have tea in the White House. I’m your spokesman, I’m your leader.’ While our people are still living in Harlem in the slums. Still receiving the worst form of education. But how many sitting here right now feel that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, in which you are struggling against, you can’t identify with that, you step back. It’s easy to become a satellite today without even realizing it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power of economic dollarism. You can cut out colonialism, imperialism and all other kind of ism, but it’s hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you’ll fold though.     After the assassination of Martin Luther King and the subsequent rebellions in the inner cities protesting his assassination, the Democratic Party’s “war on poverty” started laying dollars on any potential Black leaders and grooming Black Candidates.     John Lewis, formally of SNCC, became enlightened, he ignored the Black Panthers and saw the Democratic Party, symbolized by a jackass, as his party. Most of what W.E. B. Dubois described as the “talented tenth” were bought off by this process. The more radical concepts that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had developed at the time of their deaths disappeared from the scene. No one took up where they left off. The governmental policy, directed towards the ‘leaders’ of the civil rights movement, of the carrot (dollarism) and the stick (assassinations) had proven to be successful.  

From: Book Review: ‘Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.’ Review by Roger Hollander of the book by Roland Sheppard:  Deciding criminal guilt is largely based on proving means, motive and opportunity. When it comes to political assassination, the key question is motive.     In “Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Roland Sheppard exposes the U.S. government’s motive for assassinating Malcolm X in New York’s Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, and Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. The fact that Sheppard is one of the few remaining eyewitnesses to the assassination of Malcolm X adds a note of immediacy and authenticity to his analysis. Powerful government institutions possess, or can easily obtain, the means and the opportunity to conduct an assassination and divert attention to “a lone gunman” or a patsy like Lee Harvey Oswald. The mainstream media conveniently forget this fact as they rush to legitimize wacky theories that take the heat off the CIA, FBI, NSA and police.    In “Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Roland Sheppard exposes the U.S. government’s motive for assassinating Malcolm X in New York’s Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, and Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. The fact that Sheppard is one of the few remaining eyewitnesses to the assassination of Malcolm X adds a note of immediacy and authenticity to his analysis.

Videos/Podcasts of the Day:

Documentaries: Who Killed Martin Luther King? by Michel Perbot

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!)

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 D. Brandeis Quotes

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. MLK, Beyound Vietnam

The 1%’s  Laws and Orders?: 

Biden Used Classified Documents Accusation Against Carter Cia Nominee As a senator, Joe Biden helped kill President Jimmy Carter’s CIA director nominee because he allegedly mishandled classified materials.     President Joe Biden and his supporters have sought to downplay the significance of the improperly handled and stored classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank where Biden maintained an office. The documents are believed to relate to his time as vice president under Barack Obama. But then it emerged that another batch of classified documents was recovered from Biden’s personal garage at his home in Delaware. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter.

Watchdog Calls for Investigation Into IRS Over Repeated Failure to Audit Trump The House recently revealed the IRS didn’t finish a single mandatory presidential audit of Trump while he was in office. Agovernment watchdog group has filed a complaint calling for an investigation into the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the long-awaited release of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns revealed that the agency had failed to conduct a full presidential audit of Trump while he was in office.

Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:

From: Growing List of Fracking Concerns Now Includes Radioactivity “What we have found,” says Baskaran, who scoured the scientific literature on oilfield radioactivity in preparing the research, “is that the oil and gas industry produces an enormous amount of radioactivity.” . . . Radon is produced with natural gas at the wellhead and travels freely through the pipeline system. All radioactive elements eventually decay, meaning they give off a burst of radiation, losing a small piece of themselves to become another element. Radon-222 decays relatively quickly, after a matter of days or weeks, becoming the radioactive element polonium, which in turn will continue to fire off radiation, transforming into radioactive forms of lead, bismuth and other isotopes of polonium. It is these radioactive metals that stick to the inside of natural gas pipelines and also accumulate on various pumps, valves, and filters inside the pipeline systems. If there are emission points along the pipeline system, explains Baskaran, then the radioactive gas radon, along with lead-210, bismuth-210 and polonium-210, will likely be emitted too.     The radioactive sludge that builds in pipelines may be contaminated with radioactive lead and polonium, with some of this waste so radioactive it “must be handled as low-level radioactive waste and disposed of accordingly,” according to a 1993 article written by industry consultant Peter Gray in the Journal of Petroleum Technology, the flagship publication of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, one of the industry’s most prestigious professional groups. In 2019, another industry consultant, Alan McArthur, provided a presentation to a group of government experts known as the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors on the dangers of radioactivity in the natural gas pipeline system. He listed risks to industry workers and the environment and advised that “respiratory air and public air monitoring should be required on all” projects involving natural gas infrastructure. . . .    The two main agencies responsible for regulating pipelines — the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — have no clue. They are not checking for radioactivity emissions from pipelines and gas infrastructure before issuing permits companies must acquire before building these systems. This denies the American public the knowledge that the problem exists, thus preventing them from raising awareness and concern about the issue in comments on projects and at public meetings. . . . “It became clear to us early on that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s role was actually to facilitate completion of this destructive and dangerous infrastructure,” says Tina Smusz, a retired emergency medicine and palliative care physician and Virginia-based member of Physicians for Social Responsibility.     “Sadly, they appear to have taken no interest in this serious issue,” she continued. “On one memorable occasion, I asked members of the local gas company specifically about the radiation hazards associated with the station’s operation and maintenance, expressing my concern for the people in the neighborhood as well as the future maintenance workers. The gas company representatives dived quickly for their phones, looked blankly at each other and responded vaguely that it was not an issue.”      Furthermore, adds Smusz, “the specter of a 300-mile long radioactive Superfund site traversing two states through perpetuity has not been addressed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC,” which regulates interstate gas pipelines. Indeed, when FERC reviews pipeline projects, compressor stations are included in the review, and emissions must be reviewed under the Clean Air Act, but radioactive emissions are not included as part of this review.

Thousands Rally in the Rain to Protest Destruction of German Village for Coal Mine Greta Thunberg criticized Germany’s Green Party on Saturday for supporting the demolition of the village of Lützerath  Thousands of people demonstrated in a pouring rain on Saturday protesting the clearance and demolition of a village in western Germany that is due to make way for the expansion of the coal mine Garzweiler.     Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg joined the demonstrators as they protested the clearance of Luetzerath, walking through the nearby village of Keyenberg. Protesters chanted “Every village stays” and “You are not alone.”

Civil Rights Black Liberation:

From:The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights Movement: At the time of Martin Luther King’s assassination, he was willing to risk jail and to organize a mass demonstration, in defiance of a court injunction and National Guardsmen, in armored personnel carriers equipped with 50-caliber machine guns, to help the striking Memphis municipal garbage workers.  These workers ultimately won their union contract, and thousands of ordinary working families in that city got living wages that allowed them to educate their children, buy houses, live decent and dignified lives, and even retire.     From Martin Luther King’s Last Speech, April 3, 1968, I’ve Been to The Mountaintop: Now about injunctions: We have an injunction and we’re going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal, unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is, “Be true to what you said on paper.” If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions. Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn’t committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren’t going to let dogs or water hoses turn us around, we aren’t going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.

Rewind] Sam Pollard: The FBI’s Crusade Against MLK Was Darker Than  You Think The film director discusses his documentary “MLK / FBI” on J. Edgar Hoover’s sickening surveillance of the civil rights hero. “You are done. There is only one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.” That’s the shocking ending to the infamous letter Civil Rights hero Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. received in 1964 essentially urging him to commit suicide.  The letter and accompanying package containing blackmail were sent by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as King quickly caught on. While the full, unredacted letter was finally published by the New York Times in 2014, the audio recordings of an extensive FBI wiretapping operation targeting King have been sealed until 2027. With just a few years left before they come to light, director Sam Pollard did a deep dive into the FBI’s surveillance of MLK under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover in his documentary “MLK / FBI,” released by IFC Films earlier this month.

Martin Luther King Disobeyed Unjust Laws: The State of America, Today, Requires Th We Not Forget That . . . Martin Luther King Jr. is a symbol of peace, justice and nonviolence, but he is often misquoted, misunderstood and invoked for nefarious purposes that have nothing to do with his legacy. While many like to speak of King’s “dream” and his commitment to peace, part of remembering him means understanding his belief that society has a responsibility to disobey unjust laws. And right now in America, we have become the land of unjust laws and policies — from voter suppression to bans on teaching race and racism.    In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King said we have a duty to disobey unjust laws. “I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws,” he wrote. “Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’”     King was unwavering in advocating for civil disobedience to break systems of oppression — disobeying unjust laws in the open, and with love.

 Labor:

Economy:

‘Every Billionaire Is a Policy Failure,’ Says Oxfam as Global Elite Gather in Davos Billionaires have seen their wealth skyrocket over the past two years, adding roughly $2.7 billion per day to their fortunes while ordinary people struggle to afford basic necessities.     As the world’s corporate and political elite convened in Davos, Switzerland for the first winter World Economic Forum in three years, an analysis published Monday by Oxfam International found that the global rich have captured nearly two-thirds of all wealth generated since 2020—a period marked by a devastating pandemic, worsening costs of living crises, and continued fallout from the climate emergency.     In a new report titled Survival of the Richest, Oxfam shows that the top 1% worldwide grabbed $26 trillion of the $42 trillion in new wealth created, close to twice as much as the bottom 99% of the global population.

Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update January 13th to 17th

  • IN THE NEWS: University of Michigan’s early estimate of the January 2023 Index of Consumer Sentiment gained against December but still held shy by 36.0% (-36.0%) of ever-recovering pre-Pandemic levels.
  • The December 2022 Cass Freight Index® showed a decline of 3.9% (-3.9%) year-to-year while gaining month-to-month by a seasonally adjusted 1.2%, although dropping in the month by an unadjusted 3.3% (-3.3%).
  • Yesterday’s Calendar-Year 2022 headline CPI-U Annual Inflation of 8.0% was the worst since 1981. That said, the ShadowStats Alternate Calendar-Year 2022 Annual Inflation of 16.2% was the worst in 105 years, since 1918, the last year of World War I. Separately, the BLS announced it would gimmick headline CPI inflation reporting anew, in the year ahead, inconsistent with 2022 reporting.

World: 

Over a Hundred Thousand Israelis Protest Netanyahu Government Over 100,000 marched in Tel Aviv against the government, in one of the biggest protests in Israel in many years Tens of thousands of Israelis marched in central Tel Aviv and in two other major cities on Saturday night, protesting far rightwing PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the legal system and weaken the Supreme Court — undermining democratic rule just weeks after his election.

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 

Here is the Truth: Medicare Advantage Is Neither Medicare Nor an Advantage Medicare Advantage is a money-making scam. I should know. I helped to sell it.     Right now, well-funded lobbyists from big health insurance companies are leading a campaign on Capitol Hill to get Members of Congress and Senators of both parties to sign on to a letter designed to put them on the record “expressing strong support” for the scam that is Medicare Advantage. But here is the truth: Medicare Advantage is neither Medicare nor an advantage.