Daily News Digest February 28, 2023
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:
Two Weeks After East Palestine Derailment: PHOTOS: Norfolk Southern Train Carrying Hazardous Materials Derails Outside of Detroit
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 East Palestine train disaster was a direct result of Corporate Greed/Differed Maintanence Policy! — Roland Sheppard
The East Palestine disaster was a direct result of the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and plastic. The hazardous chemicals being transported by the derailed train — including vinyl chloride, a known carcinogen — are used to make PVC, the world’s third most used type of plastic, typically used in pipes to deliver drinking water, packaging, gift cards, and toys that kids chew on.So let’s be clear about what happened this month in Ohio: Thousands of residents were ordered to evacuate — all to make PVC plastics. People reported rashes, headaches, and other symptoms associated with chemical exposure — all to make PVC pipes used to deliver drinking water, when alternatives to PVC piping exist. Thousands of fish in nearby streams were killed — all to make plastic toys our children play with and chew on. Ohioans’ drinking water may have been threatened — all to make cheap vinyl shower curtains. When I talk to restaurant owners about the need to eliminate plastic packaging, they often say they use plastic because it’s cheap. Don’t tell residents of eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania that plastics are cheap — or the people of Louisiana and Texas, living in the shadow of where PVC is manufactured.Plastic’s risks to human health shouldn’t be understated. Long-term exposure to vinyl chloride is associated with lymphoma, leukemia, and cancers of the brain and lungs. It can increase the risk of miscarriage and birth defects in pregnant women. Experts have advised East Palestine farmers and other residents to test their wells over the next few months in order to protect the health of both people and livestock. A Cornell University scientist stated that nearby soil should be tested to make sure crops aren’t contaminated. Plastic is not cheap. Just ask the Americans living this nightmare. No parent should have to worry about their little ones digging in the dirt or splashing around in the local creek. Residents will be dealing with this toxic train derailment for years to come. — Our Reliance on Fossil Fuels and Plastic Caused the East Palestine Disaster
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
Ray McGovern: The Last Chance to Avoid World War III?
Texas Decision Could Remove Abortion Pills From Pharmacies Nationwide
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
When Neoliberals Declared War on the Poor For Bill Clinton and Dick Morris polls were everything. Morris developed what he called a “neuro-psychological profile” of the American voter, and established an iron rule that no initiative could be undertaken by the White House unless polling showed an approval rating of 60 percent. By constant polling, he concocted what he called a “values agenda,” for Clinton. At the top of the list was affirmative action. “Mend it, don’t end it” was the mantra, which meant, in practice, destroy affirmative action from the inside while professing support for the general principle.
John Kiriakou: A Trip to Cuba By John Kiriakou I was very fortunate to have been able to travel to Cuba a week ago as part of a delegation of American authors, poets, and writers to participate in the 31st annual International Book Festival. The Cubans included my first book, The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror, in the permanent collection of the Cuban National Library, and there was a small ceremony to commemorate it. I had several impressions as a first-time traveler to Cuba. I spent most of my career at the CIA and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff either living in or working on the Middle East, and I have almost no familiarity with Latin America. I found the Cubans to be very friendly and profoundly proud people. I was able to meet with scores of intellectuals, poets, artists, professors, and medical professionals. A common sight was a group of people sitting in a cafe, drinking coffee, and debating literature, Afro-Caribbean culture, music, and even women’s studies. The education system is very strong in Cuba, and literally everybody in the country is schooled in literature and history, with a strong concurrent background in science and math. Another thing that struck me almost immediately was how poor the country is. The US embargo has caused great damage to Cuba and to the Cuban people. But Cubans are very resilient. They’ve learned over the past 61 years how to tough it out. They don’t tolerate pressure from US, the Chinese, the Russians, or anybody else. They’re fiercely independent. They would rather do without than be told what to do.
Global Coalition Urges OECD to End ‘Reprehensible’ Oil and Gas Export Financing Such public funding, according to more than 175 civil society groups, is “helping prop up fossil fuel projects and infrastructure which would otherwise be too risky for the private sector to finance alone.” More than 175 civil society groups spanFeb 27, 2023ning 45 countries urged the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—an alliance of mostly rich nations—to end export financing for oil and gas, warning in a joint statement Monday that failure to do so would compromise global efforts to keep “a livable future within reach.”
To Prevent More ‘Catastrophic Derailments,’ Rail Workers Outline Plan for Immediate Reforms “We demand that the railroad be run safely, efficiently, and professionally, and not as some ‘cash cow’ for Wall Street investors and billionaires,” said one union leader. “Much of what is wrong with the rail industry today can be fixed easily and quickly.” In a statement, Railroad Workers United (RWU) pointed to the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) newly published preliminary report on the February 3 crash and subsequent burnoff of vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals, which suggests that an overheated wheel bearing likely caused the train to derail. The inter-union alliance of rail workers also cited NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, who said Thursday at a press conference: “This was 100% preventable. We call things accidents—there is no accident. Every single event that we investigate is preventable.”
Norfolk Southern Argued Against “Emotional Evocations of ‘Deadly Chemicals’” After 2005 Derailment After East Palestine, as in 2005, harmful chemical releases are unlikely to affect the rail company’s stock price or bottom line. MORE THAN A decade before the train derailment that triggered a series of events sending a mushroom cloud of carcinogenic vinyl chloride burnoff over East Palestine, Ohio, the same rail company, Norfolk Southern, fought responsibility for another large-scale accident in Graniteville, South Carolina. The Graniteville crash released chlorine gas stored in derailed train cars, resulting in the deaths of nine people and hospital admissions for over 500. The crash, caused by two trains colliding from an improperly aligned railroad switch, released 90 tons of chlorine gas. The accident, the largest rail disaster of its type since 1978, resembled a chemical weapons attack. Many of the casualties were local textile workers who were killed by asphyxia from inhaling the gas, which hovered over a nearby plant owned by Avondale Mills.
Ohio Rail Crash: Toxic Waste Removal Suspended Amid Contamination Fears Environmental Protection Agency orders rail company to ‘pause’ shipments from site pending a review of plans to dispose of waste near Houston and Detroit Federal environmental authorities have ordered a temporary halt in the shipment of contaminated waste from the site of the train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, earlier this month, amid fears of further harm from the toxic waste. Hazardous waste disposal facilities near Houston and Detroit are planning to receive most of the contaminated water and soil from the East Palestine train wreck site, raising the risk that some of the dangerous chemicals could end up in the environment elsewhere.
Chemical ‘Accidents’ are as American as Apple pie!: Revealed: The US is Averaging One Chemical Accident Every Two Days Guardian analysis of data in light of Ohio train derailment shows accidental releases are happening consistently Mike DeWine, the Ohio governor, recently lamented the toll taken on the residents of East Palestine after the toxic train derailment there, saying “no other community should have to go through this”. But such accidents are happening with striking regularity. A Guardian analysis of data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and by non-profit groups that track chemical accidents in the US shows that accidental releases – be they through train derailments, truck crashes, pipeline ruptures or industrial plant leaks and spills – are happening consistently across the country. By one estimate these incidents are occurring, on average, every two days. “These kinds of hidden disasters happen far too frequently,” Mathy Stanislaus, who served as assistant administrator of the EPA’s office of land and emergency management during the Obama administration, told the Guardian. Stanislaus led programs focused on the cleanup of contaminated hazardous waste sites, chemical plant safety, oil spill prevention and emergency response.
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
Climate Code Red Analysis and Sea Level Warnings Climate Code Red, a very thorough and well-respected source on climate change/global warming, recently issued a three-part study on where things stand with the climate system via looking through the rearview mirror at 2022 and reflecting that charred image into the future: Faster, Higher, Hotter: What We Learned About the Climate System in 2022 by David Spratt, Research Director, Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, Feb. 20, 2023.For starters, several aspects of global warming are at all-time highs, for example, coal use is at an all-time high and not surprisingly all three of the major greenhouse gases CO2, CH4, and N2O hit record highs in 2022. According to the Global Carbon Project: Carbon emissions from fossil fuels hit a new record of 37.5B tons. Topping off these all-time records, the International Energy Agency expects fossil fuel emissions to possibly peak in 2025 but remain at a “high plateau at a high level” for a decade or more with no significant decline expected in the foreseeable future. Good luck with Net Zero.
Oil Wells Guzzle Precious California Water. Next Door, Residents Can’t Use yhe Tap A town in the oil industry’s shadow grapples with health fears as the state fails to limit companies’ use of fresh water by Hilary Beaumont in Fuller Acres, Towering refineries and rusty pumpjacks greet visitors driving along the highways of Kern county, California. Oil wells sit in the middle of fields of grapevines and almond trees. The air is heavy with dust and the scent of petroleum. The energy fields here are some of the most productive in the US, generating millions of barrels of oil annually and more than two-thirds of the state’s natural gas. And in a drought-stricken state, they’re also some of the thirstiest, consuming vast quantities of fresh water to extract stubborn oil. But in the industry’s shadow, nearby communities can’t drink from the tap. One of those communities is Fuller Acres, a largely Latino town in Kern county where residents must drive to the nearest town to buy safe water. There is no proven link between the unsafe drinking water and the oil industry that surrounds the town, but there is a history of big businesses polluting the resources they share with their neighbors. For instance, nearby farming has left a dangerous pesticide known as 1,2,3-TCP in the drinking water.
Related Articls:
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Oil, Water Are Volatile Mix in West Energy Firms Buying River Rights Add to Competition for Scarce Resource By Stephanie Simon
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Big Energy Frackers Keep on Fracking With Their Own Private Water Supplies During Drought December 2022 Update: Newsom is Pro-Oil, As California is Thristy!: Drought-Wracked California Allows Oil Companies to Use High-Quality Water. But Regulators’ Error-Strewn Records Make Accurate Accounting Nearly Impossible.California’s oil industry uses hundreds of millions of gallons of freshwater a year in a state with none to spare. Most of that water is used in Kern County, where communities have long lacked affordable, safe drinking water. Last month, with California in the grips of a megadrought, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a plan centered on “the acute need to conserve water” in the face of a drier, hotter future caused by climate change. The plan outlines actions to “transform water management” and calls on California residents to step up and do their part to conserve water. Yet the plan does nothing to limit use of California’s dwindling water supplies by one of the primary drivers of climate change: the oil and gas industry. An Inside Climate News analysis of data collected by the California Geologic Energy Management Division, or CalGEM, shows high-quality water is being diverted from state domestic and agricultural supplies, predominantly in Kern County, to extract viscous crude from some of the world’s most climate-polluting oilfields.
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
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. . . .” Recently a new factor has been added to the equation — “The Drug Trade”. In the 2001 article: War on Drugs Dirty Money Foundation of US Growth and Empire Size and Scope of Money Laundering by US Banks by James Petras, Professor of Sociology, Binghamton University, he explains that 500 Billion to a Trillion dollars gets added to world capitalist economy through “illegal means.” he concludes the article with the following: “The increasing polarization of the world is embedded in this organized system of criminal and corrupt financial transactions. While speculation and foreign debt payments play a role in undermining living standards in the crisis regions, the multi-trillion dollar money laundering and bank servicing of corrupt officials is a much more significant factor, sustaining Western prosperity, U.S. empire building and financial stability. The scale, scope and time frame of transfers and money laundering, the centrality of the biggest banking enterprises and the complicity of the governments, strongly suggests that the dynamics of growth and stagnation, empire and re-colonization are intimately related to a new form of capitalism built around pillage, criminality, corruption and complicity. ‘This Goes Straight to the Top.’”
Labor:
According to RWU Co-Chair Gabe Christenson, “Railroad workers experience firsthand every day the dangers inherent in this style of railroading. It has impacted their safety and health, state of mind, and lives on and off the job.” RWU General Secretary Jason Doering adds, “Every day we go to work, we have serious concerns about preventing accidents like the one that occurred in Ohio. As locomotive engineers, conductors, signal maintainers, car inspectors, track workers, dispatchers, machinists, and electricians, we experience the reality that our jobs are becoming increasingly dangerous due to insufficient staffing, inadequate maintenance, and a lack of oversight and inspection. We recognize that limits on train lengths and weights are necessary to prevent catastrophic derailments.” RWU demands immediate action by government regulatory agencies and Congress to rein in Class One railroads. This action must ensure sufficient staffing to do the job properly, efficiently, and safely, with all trains operating with a minimum of a two-person crew. Train length and weight must be capped at a reasonable level to mitigate the increased likelihood of breakdowns, train separations, and derailments. Adequate and proper maintenance and inspections of locomotives and rail cars, tracks and signals, wayside detectors, and other infrastructure must be implemented. Ample training and time off without the harassment of draconian attendance policies must also be standardized. “We demand that the railroad be run safely, efficiently, and professionally, and not as some ‘cash cow’ for Wall Street investors and billionaires,” notes Hugh Sawyer, RWU Treasurer. “Much of what is wrong with the rail industry today can be fixed easily and quickly by acting on what is outlined above. We demand action NOW.”— Railroad Workers United
Economy:
The Same Day Sam Bankman-Fried Is Hit with a New Count of Bank Fraud, Three Regulators Warn About Crypto Bank Runs On December 13, the U.S. Department of Justice released an 8-count criminal indictment against the former crypto kingpin, Sam Bankman-Fried. He was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to defraud the Federal Election Commission and commit campaign finance violations.
World:
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!
A Health Care Cliff is Coming . . . For a while, Medicaid was improved during the pandemic. In exchange for increased federal matching funds, states agreed not to kick anyone off the program until the end of the federal Public Health Emergency. We didn’t have to keep applying — we could focus on staying healthy, taking care of our families, and doing our jobs. That enhanced coverage will end on March 31. The Urban Institute estimates that 18 million people will lose coverage as a result. That includes an estimated 7 million eligible people who will lose care anyway thanks to paperwork confusion and inefficiencies, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports. Children, Black, and Latinx people will be disproportionately affected. But people of all ages and races will be impacted. The majority of people on Medicaid are working class white people like me.