Daily News Digest March 6, 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:
US Encirclement of China Explained 
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:
‘We are in the midst of a climate emergency and there is no way out without radically changing the way society is organised. If humanity does not free itself from the capitalist drive for ever greater profits and ever-expanding economic growth, rising global temperatures alone will make the planet uninhabitable for humans and millions of other living species. We urgently need to find a collective road to a new way of living that is based on human solidarity and ecological sustainability!’ (See An Ecosocialist Manifesto: For an Egalitarian, Cooperative Road to Ecosocialism!) The Emergency is Now! We Need To Move Beyond Capitalism To Ecosocialism! We Need to Build a World Movement for EcosocialistRev-olution! We Need an Green Ecocosocialist Industrial Revolution! — Whither Humanity? The Environmental Crisis of Capitalism We Don’t Need a Green New Deal! — We Need a Green Industrial Revolution
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
Black Agenda Radio March 3, 2023 With Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy
Alliance for Global Justice Under Attack
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
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist East Palestine, Ohio and the Oligarchy The U.S. is an oligarchy. Stating this fact explains events that may seem mysterious if this simple truth is not spelled out. The ruling class are fully in control and ensure that their needs are met. They disregard the public good and any claims of democracy are easily exposed as a cruel hoax. Americans have no representation in congress or the white house and the corporate media are also part of the oligarchic class. They expose nothing that their partners in crime want to hide. Governmental action and inaction if the wake of a freight train derailment exemplify all of these dynamics. On February 3, 2023 a 150-car Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio near the Pennsylvania border. Twenty of those cars were carrying chemicals such as vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylene glycol, isobutylene, and ethylhexyl acrylate. One doesn’t need to be a scientist to figure out that none of these should be in the air or water. Despite photographic and video evidence of an environmental catastrophe, the accident initially received little media attention. Nothing is covered unless the Biden administration wants it to be and East Palestine didn’t make the cut when there was war propaganda about Ukraine to stir up. In addition, Biden had already made clear that the railroads are in the class of corporate untouchables who are to be placated. They are among those who were promised that “nothing would fundamentally change” and he kept his promise to them by giving the derailment little attention. However he did give these corporations all the attention they demanded. When railroad unions rejected a contract that didn’t include paid sick leave provisions the Biden administration forbade them to strike. There was a phony show among “progressives” about having made a good deal but they were lying. Barack Obama excluded the railroads from a requirement that federal contractors provide paid sick leave. Biden could have issued an executive order changing that policy. But he had no intention of doing anything that might upset the oligarchs, and the Democratic Party succeeded in presenting a false narrative. Pete Buttigieg is Secretary of the Department of Transportation (DOT), and is responsible for overseeing railroad safety. But he has made it clear that he follows his boss’s dictate to change nothing that would upset their oligarchic bosses. As DOT Secretary, Buttigieg has the ability to regulate corporations such as airlines in regard to their public service. When a series of Southwest airlines snafus left thousands of passengers stranded during the holiday season, Buttigieg made a great show of saying his hands were tied. Of course he is the one person who can direct the airlines or levy large fines. Buttigieg was a no-show when the people needed him to act. It took Buttigieg three weeks to show up in East Palestine and he only did so after Donald Trump visited. The town residents may have been better off without him. When he arrived he whined about railroad companies, “fighting us every time we try to do a regulation.” It is hard to believe that Buttigieg makes any effort to fight back when corporate chieftains tell him what to do. The duopoly worked together to cover up their mess. Ohio’s republican governor Mike DeWine and Biden’s EPA Administrator Michael Regan took a page out of Barack Obama’s Flint, Michigan book by dramatically drinking East Palestine water . Fortunately the U.S. still has plenty of lawyers, and one of many lawsuits filed in recent days specifically names the stunt as having made a “mockery of Ohio citizens.” The back and forth over freight train regulations isn’t complicated. Trump undid regulations that Obama enacted but Biden didn’t undo what Trump had done. But even worse, regulations currently on the books allowed Norfolk Souther to get away with not labeling the train as carrying hazardous materials because it also carried wheat and vegetables. All over the country trains go through residential areas carrying hazardous materials but the law doesn’t require anyone to be informed of the dangers. And yes, the oligarchs like it that way. The Biden administration is siding with Norfolk Southern in a case before the Supreme Court . A worker claims to have developed cancer as a result of exposure to carcinogens without having had the proper protective equipment. Norfolk Southern wants to restrict plaintiffs from choosing the venue in which they file suits, a practice known as forum shopping. Corporations are the biggest proponents of forum shopping, for themselves, but want to restrict where they can be sued. The Biden administration filed a brief in favor of Norfolk Southern. It doesn’t matter if the presidents are democrats or republicans, at the end of the day they end up doing what the oligarchs want. Next year in 2024 the people will be subjected to the quadrennial political hoax, i.e., a presidential election. Let’s tell the truth before the theater begins anew. The power doesn’t rest with the presidency. It rests with the people who do the presidential hiring, and they don’t care about railroad workers or any other workers or people who have hazardous chemicals traveling through their communities. Should an accident happen, their hirelings will just drink water for the camera.
Patrick Lawrence: The Return of Non-Alignment The Ukraine conflict as catalyst: I wonder how many people who pay attention understood a year ago that Russia’s intervention and the West’s extravagant support for the Kyiv regime would prompt fundamental shifts in the global order such that the world is now a very different place and the 21st century has a very new look. It escaped me, I have to say. I didn’t see last February that so many nations, so vast a proportion of humanity, would lean so swiftly into a new era, or that the principles of this new era would be so clearly defined. I certainly did not see that the good old much-missed Non–Aligned Movement would re-emerge after many years languishing in the wilderness of post–Cold War geopolitics. No, not with a declaration such as that the NAM made first in Bandung, the Indonesian mountain resort where Sukarno hosted its members in 1955, or in Tito’s Belgrade six years later, when the movement formally declared itself as an organization, but in spirit, in the ethos non–Western nations now stand up to declare as theirs.
US Is Maintaining Tensions With North Korea to Draw in Allies Against China The greatest threat to peace and stability in northeast Asia is the U.S. Indo-Pacific military encirclement of China. The U.S. military encirclement of China threatens to escalate into an Asia-Pacific war, with the Korean Peninsula at the focal point of this dangerous path. Garrisoned with nearly 30,000 combat-ready U.S. forces manning the astonishing 73 U.S. military bases dotting its tiny landmass, South Korea is the most critical frontline component of U.S. military escalation in northeast Asia. Since the Obama administration’s 2012 “pivot to Asia,” Washington has intensified tensions with Beijing, doubling down on a “full-scale multi-pronged new Cold War” through the Indo-Pacific Strategy pursued by both the Trump and Biden administrations. Sixty percent of U.S. naval capacity has been transferred to the Asia-Pacific region, and 400 out of 800 U.S. worldwide military bases and 130,000 troops are now circling China.
‘Disgusting’: Biden Embraces GOP Effort to Kill DC Criminal Justice Reforms “The 700,000 people who live in D.C. know our community better than anyone else and deserve self-determination,” said the ACLU of D.C. Progressives expressed anger Thursday after U.S. President Joe Biden said that he would sign a Republican-authored resolution repealing criminal justice reforms recently approved by the elected leaders of the District of Columbia.
On Biden Turning Down China’s Push for Peace Deal in Ukraine Why won’t the U.S. provide a serious response to the Chinese peace plan, let alone engage with Beijing at a negotiating table? There’s something irrational about President Biden’s knee-jerk dismissal of China’s 12-point peace proposal titled “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.”
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
Not a Breath of Fresh Air: Study Finds Sewage Bacteria in Ocean Spray Pathogens such as E coli, norovirus and salmonella can be blown miles into coastal communities after a rainstorm Not a breath of fresh air: study finds sewage bacteria in ocean spray Pathogens such as E coli, norovirus and salmonella can be blown miles into coastal communities after a rainstorm
Get Our Grandkids Out’: East Palestine Residents Erupt at Norfolk Southern Meeting “Every day that this community doesn’t have relocation options,” said local organizers, “is another day this community is in crisis.” At a town hall meeting in East Palestine, Ohio Thursday night, hundreds of residents had their first chance to directly confront the rail company responsible for the train derailment that took place in the town last month, and used the opportunity to share their outrage over Norfolk Southern’s failure to keep residents safe following its release of toxic chemicals from the crash site.
Rail Industry Has Spent $654 Million on Federal Lobbying Over Past 20 Years: Analysis The industry has also spent more than $60 million over the past two decades lobbying officials in 20 states, including California, Texas, and New York. A new analysis by the campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets found that the rail industry has spent $653.5 million on federal lobbying over the past two decades as it has worked—often successfully—to fight off stricter safety regulations and antitrust enforcement.
Rail Workers Warn Safety Bill Loopholes Are Big Enough to ‘Run a Freight Train Through’ “If the language is not precise, the Class 1 railroads will avoid the scope of the law without violating the law, yet again putting the safety of our members and American communities into harm’s way,” said one union leader.” Amid heightened national focus on railway safety in the wake of the East Palestine, Ohio disaster and other recent accidents, one railroad workers’ union warned Friday that, while welcome, a bipartisan rail safety bill has “loopholes big enough to operate a 7,000-foot train through.” The Railway Safety Act of 2023—introduced earlier this week by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), John Fetterman(D-Pa.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)—is meant to “prevent future train disasters like the derailment that devastated East Palestine.” The legislation would impose limits on freight train lengths—which in some cases currently exceed three miles. The measure was introduced a day after Democratic U.S. Reps. Ro Khanna(D-Calif.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) put forth a bill that would require the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to impose stricter regulations on trains carrying hazardous materials.
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
Labor:
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics DAILY UPDATE –- March 2nd to 8th
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Opening coverage –- The most recent Monetary, Economic and Inflation news covers the January 2023 Money Supply, Real Construction Spending and New Orders for Durable Goods.
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overage for the January 2023 Real Merchandise Trade Deficit and February 2023 Employment and Unemployment respectively will follow on Wednesday, March 8th and Friday March 10th.
World:
A Local, Regional, and National ‘Town’ Government!:
Socialist Survival Tactic: Cuba’s Worker Parliaments Defending itself from the extremely hostile bully to the north is old hat and a constant activity for Cuba. This was especially so, after the collapse of the USSR and European socialism roughly 35 years ago nearly crushed Cuba, which immediately lost its chief trading partners, while the U.S. blockade strangled it. Forced to turn inward, Cuba strove to improve its productivity and workforce, without damaging the twin foundations of the revolution, education and health care. That it did so, that this small, besieged nation turned a dangerous even deadly situation around, happened thanks to the efforts of committed revolutionaries like Pedro Ross, who helped found the workers’ parliaments – specifically to save the revolution at this lethal juncture. It worked. Now Ross has written a book about it. His recently published How the Workers’ Parliaments Saved the Cuban Revolution details the at first frantic, but soon thereafter steady, methodical and committed continuation of efforts to prevent the Cuban economy from capsizing. Cuba had managed to do this before. When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, 70 percent of Havana’s trade was with the U.S. That vanished overnight. With the post-revolution blockade, Cuba needed new trading partners; the country found them in the USSR and the Eastern Bloc. But when socialism in those nations collapsed, Cuba’s “gross domestic product fell by nearly 35 percent,” Ross writes. “Cuba lost more than 70 percent of its foreign markets. The oil supply fell from 13 million tons to 5.8 million. In 1990, 3 billion rubles in products were no longer received.” To make matters worse, the U.S. intensified the blockade. To make matters worse, the U.S. intensified the blockade. Because, of course.
Roaming Charges: The Road to Huwara If they could they would murder us all. But they want to uproot us. I say our answer is to strike at them and reaeepen our roots. We have made a series of decisions recently that in the face of international reality is not a simple one: to deepen our roots, to deepen our settlements and to expand our homeland. This is the battle in which we find ourselves. – Benjamin Netanyahu, four days after Israeli settlers invaded and torched the West Bank village of Huwara.
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!