Daily News Digest February 23, 2023

Daily News Digest Archives

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

Images of the Day: 

Debs Quote

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 MovementTo 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 an 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.  

Videos/Podcasts of the Day:

Black Agenda Radio February 17, 2023

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley

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 

Now That Biden is President!: The Right Wing is Against Biden’s Ukraine War, While the Democrates, Including ‘The Squad’, Fund This War!:  Paul Craig Roberts, who Reagan appointed Dr. Roberts Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economics:

Breaking News:  A Nano-Second to Midnight The main focus of the incompetent Biden Regime is on demonizing and criminalizing white Americans who are not Woke Democrats and on raising tensions with Russia which are already more dangerous than during the Cuban missile crisis.  The crazed  Jewish warmonger, Victoria Nuland, who Biden stupidly appointed and the Senate confirmed Undersecretary of State, announced that Washington considers Russian installations in Crimea “legitimate targets” and the US government supports Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory.     Yesterday Putin announced that Russia is suspending participation in the last remaining nuclear arms agreement as Washington insists on Russia’s compliance in the absence of its own.     The US Ambassador was summoned to account for Washington’s participation in the Ukrainian conflict with Russia.  The US Ambassador was told that the money, weapons, targeting information, support personnel all prove the falsity of Washington’s claim not to be a party to the conflict. The ambassador was told that the US is actively at war with Russia and actively engaged in hostile actions against Russia, and that this would have consequences.     Putin has put Russian nuclear missiles on Combat Alert Status.     Ask yourself what kind of utterly stupid and irresponsible government in Washington would bring us to such a situation.  Ask yourself what kind of imbeciles lead NATO countries who put their own countries’ survival at risk in order to please Washington.  Ask yourself what kind of completely stupid leadership there is in Finland that can’t wait to jump into this dangerous situation by joining NATO. And where is America’s idiot president while Russia puts nuclear missiles on Combat Alert?  Is he on the telephone with Putin calming down the dangerous situation?  No. The fool is in Ukraine and Poland

Bernie Sanders: ‘Oligarchs Run Russia. But Guess What? They Run The US As Well’ The driving narrative of the book(It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism) is outrage at the obscene wealth inequalities in the world’s richest economy. One of the things that Biden had the temerity —  in the Wall Street Journal’s view – to raise in his State of the Union address was a billionaire minimum tax, “because no billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a firefighter or a schoolteacher”. Under the proposed tax on annual gains in wealth, tech billionaire Elon Musk, for example, would have paid upwards of $20bn a year through the pandemic. Sanders would go further, but he concedes it’s a start. In his book he refers to America’s billionaires as oligarchs. He hopes the pejorative will finally start to catch on. “One of the points that I wanted to make,” he says, “is yeah, of course the oligarchs run Russia. But guess what? Oligarchs run the United States as well. And it’s not just the United States, it’s not just Russia; Europe, the UK, all over the world, we’re seeing a small number of incredibly wealthy people running things in their favour. A global oligarchy. This is an issue that needs to be talked about.”

Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!: 

At first, it seemed impossible to speak about the unfolding catastrophe except as a repetition, an echo of that unholy litany: Bhopal, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl. Objections to such comparisons are easy to come up with. The chemical leak at Union Carbide’s pesticide plant in Bhopal, India killed over two thousand people more or less immediately, and as many as 16,000 in the long run. To date, there have been no human deaths associated with the East Palestine crash. And precisely because they were nuclear accidents, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl left their surroundings contaminated for years, even decades. Vinyl chloride may be toxic, but it isn’t nuclear waste, and no one believes it will still be risky to venture into East Palestine in 2035.     “We basically nuked a town with chemicals so we could get a railroad open,” remarked Youngstown firefighter and hazmat specialist Sil Caggiano, in an instantly viral local news clip. The apparent contradiction here—nuking with chemicals—is worth taking seriously. From the moment the first bombs were dropped, “nuclear” has never just meant nuclear in the American vernacular. Instead it connotes the promise of a godlike technological mastery, the capacity for apocalyptic destruction, and a certain sort of hubris: the sorcerer’s apprentice in possession of forces he does not fully understand and can’t fully control. To “nuke,” metaphorically, is to decide to unleash the full destructive powers placed at our disposal by modern science with less than full heed paid to the ultimate consequences. In this sense, I think that it is perhaps defensible to say that Norfolk Southern nuked East Palestine with chemicals.     By this definition, much of the state of Ohio has been getting nuked for a very long time—far longer than nuclear weapons have been around. I don’t know a single Ohioan from a working-class family who doesn’t live with a recognition of the quotidian toxicity to which industrial capitalism continues to subject many of the state’s residents. Quietly, unspectacularly, toxic chemicals—benzenes and chlorobiphenyls, heavy metals and polychlorinated dibenzodioxins, hazardous compounds of fluorides, sulphides, and oxides—have for over a century been leaking steadily out of tankers and pipelines and mines and barrels and factories and into Ohioan soil, water, and bodies. Watching the news from East Palestine the last few weeks, I was reminded of the outro to Warren Zevon’s 1987 song “The Factory,” narrated by a hard-luck Rust Belt laborer: “Kickin’ asbestos in the factory; punchin’ out Chryslers in the factory; breathin’ that plastic in the factory; makin’ polyvinyl chloride in the factory.” — Days of Insatiable Flame — Reflections On the Ohio Freight Train Derailment Catastrophe.

Northfolk Southern Should Pay for Its’ Mess!: A Hazmat Crew Should Do the Cleanup!: EPA (Employer Protection Agency) Orders Norfolk Southern to Clean Up Contamination From Ohio Train Crash “Let me be clear,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. “Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning up the mess they created and for the trauma they’ve inflicted on this community.”     U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan on Tuesday met with residents of East Palestine, Ohio Tuesday as he announced that the Biden administration has ordered railway operator Norfolk Southern to take responsibility for all cleanup work associated with the train derailment that forced the town to evacuate temporarily earlier this month.     The EPA issued a legally binding order to the company, requiring it to identify and clean up contaminated soil and water, reimburse the agency for cleaning services that will be offered throughout the town to give residents peace of mind regarding the safety of air and drinking water, attend public meetings, and pay for the costs the EPA incurs during the cleanup.

Ecocide — Not Eco-Activism — Is a Crime Against Humanity, Says Steven Donziger Truthout interviews Donziger as he awaits a Supreme Court decision over whether to take up the final appeal in his case. The Supreme Court is deciding whether to intervene in the private prosecution that sent embattled environmental lawyer and human rights activist Steven Donziger to federal prison and nearly 1,000 days under house arrest. The court’s decision whether to take up his case, which could come as soon as this week, could rewrite the separation of powers between the three branches of the federal government.

Civil Rights Black Liberation:

The Militant, March, 1964: March 12, 1964 Press Statement By Malcolm X Page 6 The following is the text of the statement made by Malcolm X in opening his press conference at New York’s Park Sheraton Hotel, March 12.

Because 1964 threatens to be a vary explosive year on the racial front, and because I myself intend to be very active in every phase on the American Negro struggle for Human Rights, I have called this press conference this morning to clarify my own position in the struggle — especially in regard to politics and nonviolence.

The problem facing our people here in America is bigger than all other personal or organizational differences. Therefore, as leaders, we must stop worrying about the threat that we think we pose to each other’s personal prestige, and concentrate our united efforts toward solving the unending hurt that is being done daily to our people here in America.

I am going to organize and head a new Mosque in New York City, known as the Muslim Mosque, Inc. This gives us a religious base, and the spiritual force necessary to rid our people of the vices that destroy the moral fiber of our community. .

Our political philosophy. will be Black Nationalism. Our economic and social philosophy will be Black Nationalism. Our cultural emphasis will be Black Nationalism.

Many of our people aren’t religiously inclined” so the Muslim Mosque, Inc., will be organized in such a manner to provide for the active participation of all Negroes in our political, economic, and social programs, despite their religious or non-religious beliefs.

The political ’philosophy of Black Nationalism means: we must control the politics and the politicians of our community. They must no longer take orders from outside forces. We will organize and sweep out of office all Negro politicians who are puppets for the outside forces.

Our accent will be upon youth: we need new ideas, new methods, new approaches. We will call upon young students of political science throughout the nation to help us. We will encourage these young students to launch their own independent study, and then give us their analysis and their suggestions. We are completely disenchanted with the old, adult, established politicians. We want to see some new faces — more militant faces.

Concerning the 1964 elections: we will keep our plans on this a secret until a later date – but we don’t intend for our people to be the victims of a political sellout’ again in 1964. The Muslim Mosque, Inc.:, will remain wide-open for ideas and financial aid from all quarters.

  • Whites can help us, but they can’t Join us.
  • There can be no black-white unity until there is first some’ black unity.
  • There can be no worker solidarity until there is first some racial solidarity.
  • We cannot think of uniting with others, until after we have first united among ourselves.
  • We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.
  • One can’t unite bananas with scattered leaves.

Concerning nonviolence: it Is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks. It is legal and lawful to own a shotgun or a rifle. We believe in obeying the law.In areas where our people are the constant victims of brutality, and the government seems unable or unwilling to protect them, we should form rifle clubs that can ’be used to ’defend our lives and our property in times of emergency, such as happened last year in BirmIngham, Plaque mine Ia., Cambridge, Md., and Danville, Va. When our people are being bitten by dogs, they are within their rights to kill those dogs.

We should be peaceful, law-abiding — but the time has Come for the American Negro to fight back in self-defense whenever and wherever he is being unjustly and unlawfully attacked. . If the government thinks I am wrong for saying this, then let the government start doing its job.

Labor:

 Economy:

These Charts Scared the Stock Market into a 700-Point Drop Yesterday The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 697 points by the closing bell yesterday, wiping out all of its gains this year. Here’s a rundown of what happened.    At 2 p.m. ET today, the Federal Reserve will release the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting it held on January 31 and February 1. The stock market is particularly skittish on the day prior to the release of those minutes, out of concern that an overly hawkish tone on interest rates will tank stocks.

World:

Awaiting China’s Ukraine Peace Plan At the recently concluded Munich Security Conference, Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, proved the skunk at the party, interrupting the Western cheerleading for more and more war “for as as long as it takes” by announcing that on February 24, the first anniversary of the Russian invasion, China will announce a peace plan for Ukraine which will underscore the need to uphold the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and the UN charter while also respecting Russia’s legitimate security interests.A peace plan based on these announced principles include all or most of the following elements:might

  1. An immediate ceasefire-in-place and freeze on the introduction of further weaponry into the war zone by either side.
  2. Ukrainian acceptance of a status of permanent military neutrality.
  3. A European Union commitment to an accelerated process leading to EU membership for Ukraine.
  4. 4. A prompt withdrawal of all Russian and Russian-allied forces from all Ukrainian territory outside the territory of the four eastern and southern oblasts/regions which, since the referendums and annexations of September 2022, have been considered to be Russian territory by Russia but which Ukraine still considers to be Ukrainian territory (the “Contested Regions”)

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!

Report: Credit Scores Are Lower in the South, and Medical Debt Could Be to Blame A new analysis finds a link between areas with low average credit scores and high amounts of medical debt. Credit scores are far lower on average in the South than they are in northern parts of the contiguous U.S. — and medical debt and state lawmakers’ refusal to expand Medicaid could be to blame, a new analysis by the Washington Post has revealed.     The analysis found a gap of roughly 100 points between the lowest average credit scores in the North and South, with the lowest seen most commonly in parts of the Deep South, and the highest typically found in northern states like Minnesota, Wisconsin and New Hampshire.     One of the largest factors at play is medical debt, Post researchers found. Medical debt is the most common type of debt reported in credit reports, and the South has the highest amount of medical debt in the country; according to the Urban Institute, 92 of the top 100 counties with the highest share of people struggling with medical debt, with the other eight in the adjacent states of Missouri and Oklahoma.