Daily News Digest February 21, 2023

Daily News Digest Archives

Capitalism is Now a Worldwide Threat to Humanity! It is on the Fast Track to Global Warming and Nuclear War Catastrophes!

Images of the Day: 

Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.ot Any 3rd World Country, Its USA, An Empire in Decay. East Palestine

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:

This study is motivated by the energy and cost-of-living crisis triggered by the Russia–Ukraine conflict. The relationship between resources and conflicts is complex42,43. Energy can be a cause of conflict, such as securing energy resources and competing for other resources44. Energy also can be a means of conflict. For example, involved countries limit energy supply to increase leverage over energy-dependent countries45. The 2022 energy crisis is one such example. In contrast to the oil shocks of the 1970s, the energy crisis under the Russia–Ukraine conflict involves soaring prices for all fossil fuels1. The global economy is much more interconnected than before, magnifying negative impacts through global supply chains, putting painful cost-of-living pressures on households12,13. In this context, this paper quantifies short-term living cost increases experienced by households worldwide due to global energy price hikes following the Russia–Ukraine conflict. This reflects economic actors’ limited ability to adopt new technologies and switch to other fuels in the short run. We detail how household burdens vary with international energy prices across and within 116 countries. — Burden of the Global Energy Price Crisis on Households

The Norfolk Southern train was carrying dangerous chemicals, including vinyl chloride, a highly flammable carcinogen that is more harmful than even ammonia and natural gas, according to federal regulations.    Following the derailment, locals have reported evidence of the sudden death of fish and wildlife, in addition to people having difficulty breathing, numb limbs, and rashes, among other possible physical symptoms from the chemical exposure.    Unions representing rail workers had warned of the possibility of just such a catastrophe.      In contract negotiations last year, they denounced a business model known as “precision scheduled railroading,” which aims to boost profits by running bigger and faster trains with smaller crews. The practice has even earned a nickname among rail workers: “positive shareholder reaction.” Combined with a lack of guaranteed sick pay, this created dangerous conditions for overworked rail employees. — The Rail Unions Warned Us: Greed Is Dangerous

Videos/Podcasts of the Day:

Documentaries: Who Killed Martin Luther King? by Michel Perbot

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

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 

The Media Monopoly Much Ado About Nothing: US Imperialism’s War On Spy Balloons: Inflated Hysteria In early February of 2023, citizens of the United States – ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ – are told that they have a new menace to fear. Is it a nuclear-armed stealth drone? A killer robot that invades your home? Or a cyber attack that takes away your savings and steals your identity? The truth is far more terrifying: a balloon from China! For weeks, a bright white spy balloon, visible to the naked eye from the ground, loomed above the world’s most powerful empire. Following the lead of the White House, world politics reeled in terror beneath its terrible shadow. 

Sanders Proposes ‘New Deal for Journalism’ to Ensure Media Serves Public Interest Nonpartisan, publicly funded media is “an idea that we should explore,” said the senator. . . . As some European countries do, the Vermont Independent senator said, the U.S. should have “nonpartisan public funding of media” to ensure local news outlets can stay afloat and keep communities informed about “their city council, their school board.”      Such a system would also prevent news networks like CBS from relying on advertising dollars, which Medicare for All advocates have blamed for playing a role in the corporate media’s hostility towards a nationalized healthcare system and other progressive proposals for the public good.

Money for War Not For the Social Welfare of the Planet!: In Surprise Visit to Kyiv, Biden Approves $500 Million in Aid as War Nears One-Year Mark The assistance package announced by the U.S. president includes anti-tank missiles and other weaponry.   . . . During Biden’s visit to Kyiv, his first since Russia’s invasion on February 24 of last year, he announced a fresh $500 million in military assistance to Ukraine, adding to the more than $100 billion in total aid the U.S. has delivered to Ukraine since the start of the devastating war.

Are U.S. Sanctions Against Syria Stalling Humanitarian Aid After the Earthquake? The Assad regime is using the devastating earthquake to renew calls to lift sanctions, but critics argue that sanctions protect Syrians from the possible resurgence of war. In the past decade, the people of Syria have suffered the unparalleled hardships of war and mass displacement. Earlier this month, Syrians were struck by another calamity as a historic earthquake destroyed entire towns in Turkey and Syria and buried tens of thousands of people under rubble.The desperate need for humanitarian aid has reignited a debate over U.S. sanctions against Syria and whether the U.S. government should lift them to accelerate rescue and relief efforts. The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is using the earthquake to renew calls to lift sanctions — a call that has been echoed by some progressive and Arab American groups and activists in the United States.

Syria Support Movement First, as we reported previously, the large, well-funded US-supported organizations are providing aid only in occupied areas of Syria, mainly under the control of al-Qaeda affiliates.     They are getting the vast majority of US and western donations because they are heavily promoted by the western governments and their mainstream press. Of course, they never mention that they don’t provide aid to government-controlled areas, where the vast majority of Syrians live and which have been under onerous US and international sanctions, resulting in few resources with which to meet the emergency. Here are some of the main ones, which most Syrians consider useless and irrelevant at best, and supporters of their al-Qaeda terrorists at worst:

  • The White Helmets (al-Qaeda’s MASH corps in Syria)
  • Syrian American Medical Society (also loyal to al-Qaeda)
  • Doctors without Borders (good work in other parts of the world but on al-Qaeda’s side in Syria)
  • International Rescue Committee (rescuing terrorists and their families)

Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!: 

Sandra Steingraber: Re: Biden Should Wed His Cancer Moonshot To The Energy Transition  We haven’t known for very long about the damage fracking does to our bodies and environment. But today, as more gas is being fracked in the United States than ever before, the evidence is overwhelming.     With fracking,’ the public health advocate Dr. Sandra Steingraber told Rolling Stone in 2018, ‘we had six peer reviewed articles in 2009 pointing to possible public health risks.      By 2011 we had 42. Now there are more than 1,200.’ Steingraber is a co-author of a scientific and medical compendium published in April 2022 compiling available research on the risks and harms of fracking and associated gas and oil infrastructure.      The compendium, now in its eighth edition, is 577 pages long. And its warning is stark: ‘Our examination uncovered no evidence that fracking can be practiced in a manner that does not threaten human health directly or without imperiling climate stability upon which human health depends.’ 

The Myth of Safe Plastics Persists, Despite Risk of Disasters Like East Palestine The vinyl lobby has poured millions of dollars over the years into convincing lawmakers that PVC plastic is safe and sustainable. Roughly 17 miles west of East Palestine, Ohio, the Columbiana County Humane Society has been fielding a rush of calls. Residents have reported chickens dying, cats coughing, and lethargic dogs throwing up. Some animals have discolored feces; others are unable to use their hind legs. The humane society typically deals with cases of abandonment and neglect, but executive director and kennel manager Teresa McGuire said they’ve now sent adoptable animals to other facilities to make room for East Palestine pets. 1.5°C – Dead Or Alive? The Risks to Transformational Change From Reaching and Breaching the Paris Agreement Goal The historical failure to sufficiently tackle the climate and ecological crisis could create consequences that challenge the ability of societies to tackle the root causes of this crisis.   This is a doom loop: the consequences of the crisis and the failure to address it draw focus and resources from tackling its causes. We describe this as a ‘strategic risk’ to our collective ability to realise a transformation of societies that ultimately avoids catastrophic climate and ecological change.    This dangerous dynamic extends to how prospects for tackling the climate and ecological crisis are framed. We explore a key example: the growing debate over whether it is now inevitable that global heating will breach the internationally agreed goal of 1.5°C.    A systematic effort is needed to tackle threats and grasp opportunities for rapid environmental action thrown up by the deepening consequences of the crisis: to make the green transition itself more resilient. Otherwise, the world could head further into a spiral of accelerating environmental shocks and counterproductive, defensive reactions.

The Deadly Battle Over Land and Water in Honduras The new Honduran government was supposed to mark a break from the country’s corrupt past. So why are land and water defenders still being killed?

Civil Society Calls On African Union to Foster Fossil-Free Future for Continent “Instead of selling away fossil fuel extraction rights to big multinational companies, African leaders should invest in clean, renewable energies that will directly benefit people across the continent without damaging their health.”     As diplomats and political leaders headed to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for an African Union summit, civil society groups from the continent argued Friday that “rather than doubling down on the obsolete and dirty energy systems,” the A.U. must “move away from harmful fossil fuels towards a transformed energy system that is clean, renewable, democratic, and actually serves its peoples.”

Pesticide Use and Climate Crisis Locked in ‘Vicious Cycle’ Backed by Polluting Industries While agrochemical corporations promote “flawed solutions,” said one advocate, “we need deeper, transformative approaches to actually solve the root problems of our broken food system.” Even though synthetic pesticides—the majority of which are derived from fossil fuels—contribute significantly to planet-heating pollution and increase the vulnerability of food systems, industrial agriculture interests continue to recklessly portray further pesticide use as a sensible response to the climate emergency’s worsening impacts

Civil Rights Black Liberation:

Book Review: ‘Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.’ 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 eye witnesses to the assassination of Malcolm X adds a note of immediacy and authenticity to his analysis.     Sheppard describes the unusual absence of security on the day of Malcolm X’s assassination, and he recounts his personal observations of what happened in the crucial moments. He tells of a second suspect apprehended that day by the New York Police, a man whose existence later disappeared from the official version of events.      However, when Sheppard was interrogated at the Harlem Police Station, he saw this man walking freely into one of the offices. Sheppard recognized him as the assassin.    In 1999, the King family launched a civil suit to expose the facts surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The conclusion: “After considering all the evidence, a Memphis jury ruled that someone other than James Earl Ray had been the shooter … that the City of Memphis, the state of Tennessee and federal government agencies were all involved in the assassination.”     Motive.    The heart of Sheppard’s work is his analysis of the motive for these two government assassinations.     There is nothing more threatening to the U.S. corporate elite, the government, the military and the mass media than the prospect of revolution. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were developing beyond their original Black liberation philosophies. They were emerging as powerful advocates and organizers for revolutionary change in the American economic and political system.

Labor:

Democrats, Including the ‘Squad’, Supported The Rail Bosses, and Trade Union Bureaucracy Against the Workers Demonstrating Which Side Their ON!: In Railroad Workers’ Fight, Democrats Must Show Whose Side They’re Really On When rank-and-file members of four of the twelve unions rightly rejected a proposal that did not grant them enough paid sick days, Biden invoked the Railway Labor Act of 1926 and sent the rebuffed contract to Congress for ratification. It was the first time a President had applied that law since 1992, when then-U.S. Senator Joe Biden was one of just six Senators to oppose the measure. Biden breached the trust of American workers and did untold damage to his brand as the “most pro-union President you’ve ever seen.” Progressive Democrats understood both the symbolism and the substance of the President’s actions. But thanks to quick work by Sanders and Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal, of Washington State, progressives put a separate measure up for a vote that included seven days of paid sick leave, to add to the railway contract bill. However, the Senatefailed to reach cloture, and the measure died. (Yet another reason to ax the filibuster.)

 Economy:

Michael Roberts: A Burst of Optimism: Unfounded? There has been a burst of optimism about the state of the world economy since the beginning of the year.  At the end of last year, the consensus of many economic forecasts was that the major economies were heading into a slump in 2023.  Most of the internatiol agencies were forecasting a slowdown in economic growth at best and at worst a contraction in national outputs of the major economies.  I too posted a forecast for 2023 as “the impending slump”.    As for the US, the mood is very positive.  Last month’s net job figures showed a jump of over 500,000, with the official unemployment rate falling to 3.4%, its lowest in 54 years!      Also the latest retail sales data showed a sharp jump up in January, suggesting Americans are continuing to spend and keep the economy buoyant. As the labour market is booming and consumers are spending, all talk of a recession this year is clearly baloney.     But wait, let’s examine the data more closely.      Continuing with the US economy, the best performing among the top seven (G7) capitalist economies, much of the last year’s increase in employment and the low unemployment rate can be explained by statistical adjustments and by the large number of people who have not returned to work after COVID, thus causing a very tight labour market.     January saw a statistical adjustment that added in an extra 1.6m to add to the payrolls that had been missing from data.  And here’s the other thing.  Back last March 2022, there were 132.6m Americans in full-time work. In January 2023, there were 132.6m.  So there was no increase in full-time jobs in ten months. Instead part-time jobs rose by 1.5m!  What we have is a ‘strong’ labour market where workers can only get part-time, often casual work, and where they often take two or three jobs to make ends meet in the face of rocketing prices of necessities 

World:

India: Farmers Mobilise Against Pollution in Punjab For the past six months, there has been a movement around the subdivision (small town) of Zira in the North Indian state of Punjab. The movement centres around pollution of groundwater, caused by the Malbros International Private Limited distillery in the area.

‘Ireland For All’: Tens of Thousands March in Dublin to Support Refugees “There are enough resources in this country for everyone to have a decent home, job, and services and welcome refugees,” said one progressive lawmaker. Demanding an “Ireland for All,” tens of thousands of Irish people on Saturday marched through Dublin to make clear their opposition to recent violent attacks on migrants and rallies claiming the country “is full” and can’t accept refugees.     Carrying signs reading, “Protect Lives, Not Borders” and “Everyone Is Welcome,” the demonstrators on Saturday called on the federal and city government to ensure there is enough housing for everyone and to address the cost-of-living crisis—which advocates said the far-right is exploiting to drum up anti-immigration sentiment.

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!