Daily News Digest February 9, 2023
Images of the Day:
Michael De Adder: Bursting the Baloon!
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:
Early on the morning of Monday 6 February, a devastating earthquake shook the Middle East, ripping the Earth apart and reducing buildings to rubble. The magnitude 7.8 quake, with its epicentre just to the west of Gaziantep in Turkey’s Anatollian region, is the strongest to hit the country in modern times. With the strength of 130 atomic bombs, it was felt as far away as Greenland. The initial earthquake and its 145 aftershocks wreaked destruction in southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria, claiming the lives of at least 6,000 people, with tens of thousands injured. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that, when the dust clears, 20,000 people might have died. As ever with such tragedies, the immediate cause may have had a natural origin, but the level of death and suffering was man made. Profiteering, corruption and imperialist war conspired to turn a long-expected seismic event into an utter catastrophe. The working class must reject cynical appeal. — Turkey-Syria Earthquake: A Catastrophe Waiting to Happen
In his book, Where do we go from here: Chaos or community?, New York: Harper & Row, 1967, King wrote the course that he was planning to take in the fight for economic equality: “There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities… The coalition of an energized section of labor, Negroes, unemployed, and welfare recipients may be the source of power that reshapes economic relationships and ushers in a breakthrough to a new level of social reform. . . . The total elimination of poverty, now a practical responsibility, the reality of equality in race relations and other profound structural changes in society may well begin here.”
Negro leaders suffer from this interplay of solidarity and divisiveness, being either exalted excessively or grossly abused. Some of these leaders suffer from an aloofness and absence of faith in their people. The white establishment is skilled in flattering and cultivating emerging leaders. It presses its own image on them and finally, from imitation of manners, dress and style of living, a deeper strain of corruption develops. This kind of Negro leader acquires the white man’s contempt for the ordinary Negro. He is often more at home with the middle-class white than he is among his own people. His language changes, his location changes, his income changes, and ultimately he changes from the representative of the Negro to the white man into the white man’s representative of the Negro. The tragedy is that too often he does not recognize what has happened to him. — Martin Luther King Jr. 1967, The Black Power Defined
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
COINTELPRO 2.0: How the FBI Infiltrated BLM Protests After Police Murder of George Floyd
[Podcast]: Liberalism: Fighting Back or Fracturing?
Black Agenda Radio February 3, 2023 Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Cuba, Africa, and Apartheid’s End: Africa’s Children Return – Part 2
Albina Community Fights for Restitution of Seized Property
Minnesota Freedom Fund Fights for Bail Justice
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
New Report Unpacks Dangers of Emerging Military Tech, From AI Nukes to Killer Robots “While the media and the U.S. Congress have devoted much attention to the purported benefits of exploiting cutting-edge technologies for military use, far less has been said about the risks involved.” Emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, lethal autonomous weapons systems, and hypersonic missiles pose a potentially existential threat that underscores the imperative of arms control measures to slow the pace of weaponization, according to a new report published Tuesday. The Arms Control Association report—entitled Assessing the Dangers: Emerging Military Technologies and Nuclear (In)Stability—”unpacks the concept of ’emerging technologies’ and summarizes the debate over their utilization for military purposes and their impact on strategic stability.”
Is Withdrawing From Treaties the Nuclear Weapons Industry’s Business Plan? The manufacture and maintenance of nuclear weapons is a uniquely profitable business monopoly with a guaranteed market. The United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) arming of the Ukrainian defense against Russia’s invasion has turned the legacy of the Cold War into a hot proxy war, intensifying the danger of an even more catastrophic nuclear war. The prior threats to launch nuclear weapons by North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and former U.S. President Donald Trump had already raised this specter. More recent threats by Russian President Vladimir Putin have sharply increased fears that the world is headed down a disastrous path. Recently, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky called for a NATO preemptive strike on Russia, and President Joe Biden further ramped up the tension with talk of “nuclear Armageddon.” Responding to the Ukraine war and these threats, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands on its Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds from midnight.
Seattle Goes Global: a Center of Empire Seattle was born in the global marketplace. The big trees that greeted the first settlers became the city’s earliest major industry, timber. Seattle had the broad, deep Puget Sound to ship boards around the Pacific, building cities from San Francisco to Manila. Old growth trees logged on the hills were sent down a muddy “skid road” to Henry Yesler’s sawmill on Elliott Bay. The trees skidded down first, then the workers spending their earnings on booze. That was the origin of the term “skid row.” The mill is long gone, but the troubled and addicted still sleep in doorways in what is today the Pioneer Square neighborhood.
Our Message to Antony Blinken on Failed US Policy on Israel and Palestine The two-state solution is no longer possible and US silence in the face of Israeli actions makes it clear that we will not defend Palestinian rights or respect their humanity
Biden Told to Act on His Climate Rhetoric by Halting New Fossil Fuel Drilling. “President Biden needs to stop approving fossil fuel infrastructure projects, end fossil fuel production on public lands and waters, and declare a climate emergency,” said one climate campaigner. President Joe Biden said during his State of the Union address Tuesday that the climate crisis is an “existential threat” and political leaders have an obligation to confront it. Seconds later, the president briefly deviated from his prepared remarks to add, “We’re still going to need oil and gas for a while”—prompting applause from Republican lawmakers.
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
Michael Roberts Blog: After Chevron ($37bn), Exxon Mobil ($56bn) and Shell ($40bn) here comes BP also with record profits of $26bn in 2022. BP used to be a publicly owed company but now its nearly all its profits are going to shareholders – indeed 14 times more than to invest in renewable energy. Between 2010 and 2020, BP and Shell handed nearly £150bn ($180bn) to shareholders.
Melting Glaciers Show Why Climate Targets Below 1.5°C Are Needed Earth’s systems can restore themselves, but not if global climate policy permits 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. Eighty-five percent of Northern Hemisphere glaciers terminating in the ocean have been retreating since 2000. Nine-thousands gigatons of ice have melted from glaciers since the 1960s increasing ocean levels by over an inch, with the rate of glacier ice loss tripling since 1990. Two-thirds of land-based glaciers are on track to disappear by 2100. However, glaciers worldwide have also been retreating on average since the end of the Little Ice Age, a 450-year long period from around 1400s to the mid-1800s when the average global temperature fell by 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit). Compare this to 6 degrees C (11° F) of cooling below normal with the last 100,000 year-long glacial period or ice age pulse that ended about 10,000 years ago. Cooling during the Little Ice Age was not persistent and was different in some places than others but globally, Earth cooled — a little.
‘Amazing News’: EU Proposes Ban on Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ The proposal treats the PFAS family of chemicals “as the public health menace it is,” said one advocate. The toxic materials that have come to be known as “forever chemicals” because of their ability to build up in the environment, wildlife, and humans could soon be on their way out in the European Union, after officials began consideration of ban on more than 10,000 chemical substances in the PFAS family.
Fueled by Industry Pollution, Superbugs Could Kill 10 Million People Per Year by 2050: UN Antimicrobial resistance is one of the definitive challenges of our times,” said one U.N. leader. “Getting a grip on environmental pollution is critical.” A new report out Tuesday from the U.N. Environment Program warns that as many as 10 million people could die from so-called “Superbugs” annually by 2050 as the result of antimicrobial resistance driven by environmental pollution and irresponsible practices from a range of industries. The report, titled Bracing for Superbugs, explains how pollution from hospital wastewater, sewage discharged from pharmaceutical production facilities, and run-off from animal and plant agriculture can be rife with “not only resistant microorganisms, but also antimicrobials, various pharmaceuticals, microplastics, metals, and other chemicals, which all increase the risk of AMR [antimicrobial resistance] in the environment.”
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
Review: ‘Till’ – No justice for the oppressed under capitalism Recent release ‘Till’ tells the real-life story of a black teenager in Jim-Crow-era USA, who becomes yet another victim of racist violence. As Malcolm X stated: capitalism is racist. The fight against oppression must be a fight for revolution. Shot from the perspective of his mother, Chenonye Chukwu’s new film Till portrays the real events leading up to and following the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in August 1955.
Labor:
The Result of Biden’s (and ‘Squad’ Supported) Imposed Contract: Rail Workers Blame Fiery Train Crash in Ohio on Wall Street Profit-Seeking “Do not let this thing be normalized,” said one railroad worker. “It’s time to take back our rail system from greedy profiteers who externalize risks and reap profits at our expense.” An inter-union alliance of rail workers argued Tuesday that the massive freight train crash in East Palestine, Ohio late last week was a predictable consequence of Wall Street-backed policy decisions that have hollowed out the industry’s workforce, pushed remaining employees to chronic exhaustion, and sacrificed safety (1 man crews no sick pay R.S.) for profits.
Economy:
US Blue-Chips Set For First Profit Drop Since Covid Crisis S&P 500 earnings already down about 5% at midpoint in reporting season America’s biggest companies are set to report the first year-on-year profit drop since the early days of the Covid-19 crisis, with groups missing already subdued expectations taking a particularly strong knock. Companies listed in Wall Street’s blue-chip S&P 500 index are expected to post a 5.3 percent year-on-year fall in earnings for the final three months of 2022, according to FactSet figures that take into account the 252 groups that have reported so far and analyst estimates for the other half. That would mark the first fall in profits since the third quarter of 2020, when corporate America was pummeled by the pandemic.
There Are Very Strange Things Going On at Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs’ online bank, Marcus, is offering an interest rate on its savings accounts that is 350 times the interest rate being offered by its competitors, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. That’s not normal. Not normal at all. (Above screen shots were taken this morning. Chase and Bank of America screen shots come from BankRate; Marcus screen shot comes from Marcus.). Marcus is the online banking platform offered by Goldman Sachs Bank USA – a federally-insured bank backstopped by the U.S. taxpayer. But what 99 percent of Americans don’t know about Goldman Sachs Bank USA is that it is the unit of Goldman Sachs that holds trillions of dollars in derivatives, including the kind of credit derivatives that blew up the U.S. economy in 2008 and would have taken down Goldman Sachs were it not for sneaky bailouts.
World:
PCS shows its strength: Unite the strikes to win! Civil servants are continuing their struggle over pay, pensions, jobs, and conditions – and are leading the way by coordinating action with other unions. The whole labour movement must mobilise together to kick out the Tories and end austerity.
Basket-case Britain: Horror Without End For the Working Class While Sunak’s government is thrown from pillar to post, and energy bosses rake in record profits, the working class is being attacked from all angles. British capitalism is in a dire state. Only a revolution programme can offer a way forward. Lenin once remarked about Britain that: “Here, more than anywhere else, the bourgeoisie are used to governing and know how to govern.” If he was alive today, he would have fallen off his chair laughing at the sight of this dysfunctional, crisis-ridden Tory government, which has completely lost the plot. Rishi Sunak’s administration is on the ropes, battered by economic turmoil and a series of political scandals. Deputy PM Dominic Raab has been accused of bullying. Outgoing Tory Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi is embroiled in tax-dodging allegations. Conservative backbenchers are in a mutinous mood. And the spectre of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss haunts Number 10.
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!