Daily News Digest February 3, 2023
Images of the Day:
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:
The SCORPION unit is what ‘fund the police’ rhetoric looks like in reality,” Working Families Party National Director Maurice Mitchell said in a statement to The Intercept. “Instead of pouring more money into militarized forces that brutalize, terrorize, and even murder, we should fund libraries, after-school programs, good jobs, and other investments proven to keep us safe. — What $28 Million Bought the Memphis Police Department
With today’s rate hike, the Fed is pushing us dangerously close to an unnecessary recession that would spell disaster for low wage workers, workers of color & vulnerable communities. Workers & families shouldn’t have to pay the price for inflation! — Groundwork Collaborative
Those running Ukraine and the oligarchs who control those running Ukraine are highly dependent on neo–Nazis bearing arms and other ultranationalists. These groups are present in Kyiv’s ministries and in the regime’s intelligence services and, ends justifying any and all means, count assassinations among their methods. A new makeup job will not change this. Fraud is a way of life among the ruling cliques and atop the military. The world’s largest black market in illicit weaponry, a human-trafficking cesspool, 122nd of 180 nations in Transparency International’s corruption rankings: Not even Vogue, with photographs by Annie Liebovitz, can make this look good other than among those with a crying need to believe the orthodoxy because they have a crying need to submit to authority. — Patrick Lawrence: The Pathology of Ukrainian Nationalism
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
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, Beyond Vietnam
Missing Links in Textbook History: Indigenous Peoples Oh, the history books tell it, They tell it so well. The cavalries charged, The Indians fell. The cavalries charged, The Indians died. Oh, the country was young, With God on its side.— Bob Dylan, With God on Our Side (1963). By the time I started high school I had come to see the world in Manichaean terms, full of good guys and bad guys. We, the Americans, were the good guys, often presented as settlers defending our families against hostile Indians. It was dangerously easy to accept the notion that history is pretty simple. So simple, in fact, that a few lines from vintage Dylan offer a pretty good summary of what is said in secondary textbooks about indigenous peoples.
US Spends Most on Health Care of Rich Countries But Has Worst Life Expectancy A new report uncovers the myriad ways in which the U.S. is a global outlier in health spending and health outcomes. As the only wealthy country without universal health care, the U.S. is a global outlier, with both the highest health care spending and the worst health outcomes across several metrics, a new report by the Commonwealth Fund confirms. A report released on Tuesday found that, in 2021, the latest year for which data is available, the U.S. spent 17.8 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care. This is nearly twice the proportion that the average country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) — a group of 38 wealthy countries in the global North — spent on health care in 2021 or about 9.6 percent.
An Evidence-Based Look at Mass Shooters in the US The US has become a shooting gallery (New York Times, January 24, 2023). Here is a list of mass shootings in the US since the 1920s. Mass shootings involve 3 or 4 deaths and often additional injuries among survivors. The list is quite telling, and the list makes the shootout at the OK Corral look like child’s play and there is absolutely no intent of any kind of humor involved here! The US frontier or West is one place where machismo and guns (“Gun Sellers’ Message to Americans: Man Up,” New York Times, June 22, 2022) were turned into national ideals. It is no longer adequate to list the endless mass gun shootings in the US and pass them off to an unbridled Second Amendment frenzy, fascists in the streets, or bald-face machismo. No other so-called “developed” nation comes close to the mass shooting deaths in the streets, buildings, and other places in the US. We are nonpareil in that respect.
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
Outrage as US Government Advances $8bn Alaska Oil Drilling Plan Interior department report recommends scaled-back version of ConocoPhillips’ Willow project despite Biden campaign pledge The Biden administration has advanced a $8bn drilling project on Alaska’s north slope. The ConocoPhillips Willow project, which would be one of the largest oil and gas developments on federal territory, has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists, who say its approval runs counter to the president’s ambitious climate goals.
Emissions Divide Now Greater Within Countries Than Between Them – Study Report finds ‘relatively small group’ of rich people contribute disproportionately to emissions The difference between the carbon emissions of the rich and the poor within a country is now greater than the differences in emissions between countries, data shows. The finding is further evidence of the growing divide between the “polluting elite” of rich people around the world, and the relatively low responsibility for emissions among the rest of the population.
‘Shell Is Richer Because We’re Poorer’: UK Oil Giant Sees Record $40 Billion Profit “Oil company bosses and shareholders are being allowed to get even richer by banking huge profits, while normal people are facing enormous energy bills and millions are being forced into fuel poverty.”
All ‘Studies’ are Based on the Current Rate of Global Warming Ignoring the Dialectic of a Constantly Rising of the Rate of Global Warming, but as Global Warming Increases, the Rate of Global Warming Increases. Which Increases Global Warming. etc. etc.! : Even With Emission Cuts, 2º Heating is Likely by 2054 A new study has found that emission goals designed to achieve the world’s most ambitious climate target – 1.5º Celsius above pre-industrial levels – may in fact be required to avoid more extreme climate change of 2º. The study, published January 30 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides new evidence that global warming is on track to reach 1.5º C above pre-industrial averages in the early 2030s, regardless of how much greenhouse gas emissions rise or fall in the coming decade. The new “time to threshold” estimate results from an analysis that employs artificial intelligence to predict climate change using recent temperature observations from around the world.
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
Reparations and Capitalism The World Conference on Racism held in Durban, South Africa, several years ago, not only raised the issue of Israel as an apartheid state, but also raised the issue of reparations for the colonialized world due to centuries of rape and plunder of the world’s masses by capitalism. Most of the arguments on this subject were first written by Karl Marx, over 130 years ago in “Capital”, Volume One, Part VIII, Chapter 31, (the) “Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist”. This often-overlooked chapter is very important in today’s world. Industrial Capitalism did not come into being due to the gradual primitive accumulation of capital, but rather the industrial revolution was fueled by the wealth plundered from the colonialized world in the name of Christianity. This is the historic material basis for modern racism as an ideology, which is used to justify the holocaust perpetuated upon the majority of the world during the period of the subjugation of the colonial world to European/United States capitalist imperialism. Karl Marx was one of the first to oppose the colonial oppression of the world’s masses. He did not mince his words in, this chapter of Capital, he wrote: ” The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement, and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. … If money … comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.”
Labor:
There has Been No Recovery!: Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through December 2003, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.3 percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (Updated)Fred Labor Force Participation Rate is 62.3%
Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Unemployment Charts The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to because they cannot find full-time employment.Dec 2022 ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment held at 24.4% on top of U.6 declining to 6.5% from 6.7%
Economy:
18 States Send a Message to FTX Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey: We’re Watching You A showdown in the Delaware bankruptcy proceedings for Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed crypto exchange, FTX, before presiding Judge John Dorsey is scheduled for next Monday morning at 9:30. (You can listen to the hearing live at this link. Just turn on your speakers and click on the box with the flag.) The battle lines have been drawn for the showdown – but not in the manner that Big Law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, had hoped. The U.S. Trustee, who represents the U.S. Department of Justice in bankruptcy cases, has been asking Judge Dorsey to agree to the appointment of an independent examiner in the case since December 1. And over the past two months, the deeply conflicted Sullivan & Cromwell law firm has been aggressively opposing the U.S. Trustee’s pursuit of an independent examiner.
World:
Consequences of Brexit Are Surfacing as UK Faces Severe Labor Shortages Unharvested crops are rotting in the U.K. amid a post-Brexit labor shortfall of 330,000 workers. In November, the Office for National Statistics reported that more than 13 percent of businesses in the U.K. were experiencing labor shortages. That number has been something of a constant since the fall of 2021, when much of the economy began reopening after the extended pandemic lockdowns. In some industries, however, the numbers were far, far worse: more than one-third of restaurants and hotels reported they couldn’t find enough staff — with a quarter of pubs, restaurants and hotels forced to shut during days that they used to be open because of worker shortages — and more than one in five construction companies reported problems hiring workers.
Education. Health, 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!
Guidance on “Long COVID” as a Disability Under the ADA, Section 504, and Section 1557 Although many people with COVID-19 get better within weeks, some people continue to experience symptoms that can last months after first being infected, or may have new or recurring symptoms at a later time.1 This can happen to anyone who has had COVID-19, even if the initial illness was mild. People with this condition are sometimes called “long-haulers.” This condition is known as “long COVID.” In light of the rise of long COVID as a persistent and significant health issue, the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice have joined together to provide this guidance. This guidance explains that long COVID can be a disability under Titles II (state and local government) and III (public accommodations) of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),3 Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504),4 and Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Section 1557).5 Each of these federal laws protects people with disabilities from discrimination.6 This guidance also provides resources for additional information and best practices. This document focuses solely on long COVID, and does not address when COVID-19 may meet the legal definition of disability.