Daily News Digest March 7, 2023
Systemic to Capitalism: Global Warming, Racism. And War
Global Warming is Systemic to Capitalism What are the Greenhouse Gas Changes Since the Industrial Revolution?
Racism is Systemic to CapitalismFrom its Origins, Racism has Been been an intuecgal pard of the Capitalist system: ” 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.” — Capital, Volume One, Part VIII, Chapter 31, (the) “Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist”.
Wars for Markets are Systemic to Captialism
Lenin said in Chapter 7: Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalismthe First World War (1914–1918) was “an annexationist, predatory, plunderous war”[3] among empires, whose historical and economic background must be studied “to understand and appraise modern war and modern politics”.[4] That for capitalism to generate greater profits than the home market can yield, the merging of banks and industrial cartels produces finance capitalism, and the exportation and investment of capital to countries with undeveloped and underdeveloped economies. In turn, that financial behaviour divides the world among monopolist business companies. In colonizing undeveloped countries, business and government will engage in geopolitical conflict over the exploitation of labour of most of the population of the world. Therefore, imperialism is the highest (advanced) stage of capitalism, requiring monopolies to exploit labour and natural resources, and the exportation of finance capital, rather than manufactured goods, to sustain colonialism, which is an integral function of imperialism. Moreover, in the capitalist homeland, the super-profits yielded by the colonial exploitation of a people and their economy permit businessmen to bribe native politicians, labour leaders and the labour aristocracy (upper stratum of the working class) to politically thwart worker revolt (labour strike) and placate the working
Global Warming is Systemic to Capitalism What are the Greenhouse Gas Changes Since the Industrial Revolution?
Racism is Systemic to CapitalismFrom its Origins, Racism has Been been an intuecgal pard of the Capitalist system: ” 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.” — Capital, Volume One, Part VIII, Chapter 31, (the) “Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist”.
Wars for Markets are Systemic to Captialism
Lenin said in Chapter 7: Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalismthe First World War (1914–1918) was “an annexationist, predatory, plunderous war”[3] among empires, whose historical and economic background must be studied “to understand and appraise modern war and modern politics”.[4] That for capitalism to generate greater profits than the home market can yield, the merging of banks and industrial cartels produces finance capitalism, and the exportation and investment of capital to countries with undeveloped and underdeveloped economies. In turn, that financial behaviour divides the world among monopolist business companies. In colonizing undeveloped countries, business and government will engage in geopolitical conflict over the exploitation of labour of most of the population of the world. Therefore, imperialism is the highest (advanced) stage of capitalism, requiring monopolies to exploit labour and natural resources, and the exportation of finance capital, rather than manufactured goods, to sustain colonialism, which is an integral function of imperialism. Moreover, in the capitalist homeland, the super-profits yielded by the colonial exploitation of a people and their economy permit businessmen to bribe native politicians, labour leaders and the labour aristocracy (upper stratum of the working class) to politically thwart worker revolt (labour strike) and placate the working
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:
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:
Deferred maintenance is the practice of postponing maintenance activities, such as repairs on both real property — infrastructure — and personal property — equipment and systems — in order to save money, meet budget funding levels, or realign available budget funds. The failure to perform needed repairs could lead to asset deterioration and ultimately asset impairment. Generally, a policy of continued deferred maintenance results in higher costs, higher failure rates, and in some cases, health and safety problems. . . . This is not a political statement. I’m not taking a side with any political affiliation. I am simply trying to make the point that unless the general public wakes up, our generation and the next generation and the next and so on ultimately will pay the price of our decisions in the form of facilities and other infrastructure elements that are crumbling underneath our feet. — Paying the Price for Deferred Maintenance
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
“They All Knew”: Media Matters Files FEC Complaint That Fox News Broke Election Laws, Lied for Trump
Meet the Bronx Activists Who Won a Historic Settlement for NYPD’s Violent Attack at 2020 BLM Protest
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 Disturbing Groupthink Over the War In Ukraine At this dangerous moment, with threats of nuclear conflict looming, we need a vigorous debate about U.S. policy toward Russia and Ukraine. THERE IS A disturbing aspect to the discourse in Washington, D.C., and European capitals surrounding the war in Ukraine that seeks to quash any dissent from the official narrative surrounding NATO’s military support for Ukraine. As the world was thrust into Cold War 2.0, the Western commentariat dusted off the wide brush wielded for decades by the cold warriors of old, labeling critics of the policy of massive weapons transfers to Ukraine or unquestioning support for the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Russian stooges or puppets. This is a dangerous trend that encourages groupthink over a potentially nuclear conflict. Citizens have every right to question the role of their governments, particularly in times of war. Some of the dynamics around policing criticism of Zelenskyy or the Ukrainian government or the U.S. support for it are reminiscent of the efforts to stifle criticism of Israel through charges of antisemitism. Not only is this an intellectually bankrupt line of attack, but it also runs contrary to the vital principle of free debate in democratic societies. It also seeks to relegate to a dungeon of insignificance the vast U.S. record of foreign policy, military, and intelligence catastrophes as well as its abuses and crimes by pretending that only lackeys for Moscow would dare question our role in a foreign conflict on the other side of the globe.
The Nightmare Espionage Act That is Killing Julian Assange and the First Amendment The use of the century old Espionage Act in the Julian Assange case continues to set the chilling precedent of a bleak future in American journalism, a precedent that endangers even those outside US borders. Carey Shenkman, attorney, author, and litigator specializing in civil and human rights, joins Robert Scheer for this week’s Scheer Intelligence, where Shenkman offers a sobering analysis on one of the most chilling attacks on press freedom exhibited in the Julian Assange case. Using his recently published book.
Amid Global Hunger Crisis, Commodity Speculators Reap Record-Shattering Profits Commodity trading firms made a killing last year “gambling on the basics of life,” said one human rights campaigner. Commodity trading firms made a killing last year “gambling on the basics of life,” said one human rights campaigner. As much of the world reeled from high energy and food prices that left millions struggling to heat their homes and feed their families, commodity trading firms that benefit from extreme market volatility brought in record-breaking profits in 2022, capitalizing on chaos spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Citing new research from the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, the Financial Timesreported Sunday that the commodity trading industry “made record gross profits of more than $115 billion from trading activities last year.”
How the Electric Utilities Industry Created One of the ‘Largest’ Propaganda Campaigns in U.S. History The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market explores an even more ambitious history dating from the dawn of the 20th century to the present day. The book documents how today’s prevailing anti-regulatory and anti-government postures that deride Big Government and cheer for Big Business did not arise simply from grassroots demands. Instead, they arose from well-funded industry campaigns creating what Oreskes and Conway have called a manufactured consensus “quasi-religious belief” in deregulated markets and an accompanying diehard opposition to governmental solutions to public policy problems.
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
2007 Article: “Train Accidents Blamed on Maintenance Cutbacks, Crew Fatigue” Serious train accidents are caused by a variety of mechanical and/or human factors. A spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration in Washington and others have suggested that many mechanical failures are actually a result of deferred maintenance. The railroad companies, he said, in an effort to eke out greater profits have reduced or postponed maintenance to both their rolling stock and tracks. In fact, the number of rail maintenance workers is now half what it was 20 years ago’
Union Letter Says Norfolk Southern Employees Are Reporting Illness Following Train Derailment . . . Many employees “reported that they continue to experience migraines and nausea, days after the derailment, and they all suspect that they were willingly exposed to these chemicals at the direction of NS,” the letter states.
Anti-Plastic Coalition: East Palestine Disaster Exposes Need for ‘Systemic Change’ “We need systemic reforms to stop the petrochemical industry from having carte blanche to profit off of poisoning people and the planet,” says the international Break Free From Plastic alliance.
Stop Rewarding Destroyers of Our World and Punishing Those Defending It Under our outdated economic systems, those who knowingly fuel a crisis that threatens human health and survival are richly rewarded, while those who try to halt the destruction — often young people whose future is most at stake — are punished. As of early February, police have “made more than 90 arrests and dozens of detentions” to facilitate construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern B.C., “running up a taxpayer tab of more than $25 million,” according to the Narwhal. François Poirier, President and CEO of TC Energy, which owns the project, was rewarded with “$9.81-million in his first full year as CEO, including a $1.1-million bonus and share and stock option awards valued at $6-million,” the Globe and Mail reported. During the November COP27 climate talks in Egypt, more than 30 climate protesters were jailed in the U.K., adding to more than 2,000 arrests in a campaign that began in April. On January 17, climate activist Greta Thunberg and others were arrested for protesting the demolition of a German village for a coal mine expansion. On the same day, a Reuters headline read, “Big Oil’s good times set to roll on after record 2022 profits.
Industry Knew About Gas Stoves’ Air Pollution Problems in Early 1970s The American Gas Association is trying to discredit research on the health impacts of gas stoves today. But newly revealed documents show it was discussing indoor air pollution concerns five decades ago. At the end of December 2022, when Americans were getting ready to spend hours indoors with family and friends — often in their kitchens, preparing holiday meals on the stovetop — a new study reignited a decades-old debate. The peer-reviewed research by the environmental think tank RMI (formerly Rocky Mountain Institute), the University of Sydney, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine estimated that “nearly 13 percent of childhood asthma cases in the United States can be linked to having a gas stove in the home.” The backlash was swift and fierce. The American Gas Association (AGA) trade group called the findings “not substantiated by sound science,” and added that “any discussion” of a possible connection between asthma and the use of gas for cooking was “reckless.
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
“Haole,” Hawaii, Hate Crimes, and White Supremacy Most white Americans aren’t used to being identified racially, not used to thinking about our whiteness, and certainly not our settler status. Is “haole” hate speech? Is it a racial slur? This perennial question was reanimated by a highly unusual federal hate crimes case in which two Native Hawaiian men were sentenced this week to several years in prison. The Department of Justice (DOJ) argued the men’s use of the Hawaiian word “haole” was evidence of “anti-white” hatred. The court decision against the men sets a dangerous precedent in Hawai’i and nationally given the climate of escalating white supremacy fueled by narratives of anti-white victimization.
A Woman’s Place is in the Economy Don’t let out of touch lawmakers use the debt ceiling to set women back generations. A lot has changed since 2011, the year I graduated high school. Tiktok was invented, there are now 12 Kardashian grandchildren, and I’m about to turn 30. But some things never change. Back then, at the height of the Tea Party era, conservative Republicans threatened to default on the U.S. debt—not reduce it, mind you, but default on it—unless they could choke federal spending that makes the economy work better for everyone. If you’re experiencing deja vu, it’s because they’re now doing it again, threatening to tank the economy unless they get deep, harmful social spending cuts. And as we enter Women’s History Month, it’s impossible to ignore the impacts this will have on women in particular. These right-wing lawmakers are essentially using their old playbook to renegotiate women’s place in the economy.
Labor:
Why an Alliance of Rail Labor & the Community is Essential Railroad Workers United is proud to be at the forefront of the emerging labor-community alliance to defend our mutual interests. Railroad workers and the communities we operate through have similar yet differing interests. But these interests are surely close enough that they pose a historic possibility, a window of opportunity, for a new alliance that would strengthen both labor and community vis a vis the rail carriers.
Economy:
Jamie Dimon Is Fighting a Deposition in a Devastating Lawsuit Charging JPMorgan With Being the Cash Conduit for Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Crimes The Attorney General’s office of the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) has filed a First Amended Complaint against JPMorgan Chase that has less redactions than an earlier version. The complaint makes devastating and detailed charges. It charges that the bank sat on a pile of evidence that Jeffrey Epstein was running a child sex trafficking ring as it continued to keep him as a client; accept his lucrative referrals of wealthy clients; and provided him with large sums of cash and wire transfers to pay off victims – one of whom was a “14-year old sex slave.”
World:
France: a Struggle At the Crossroads The mobilisation against the pension reform in France is entering a decisive phase. All the days of action since 19 January have confirmed the extent of the opposition to the Macron government’s planned attacks on pensions and, beyond that, its entire policy. But as we anticipated, these 24-hour mobilisations in and of themselves could not make Macron back down on the heart of his offensive: the postponement of the retirement age, the increase in the length of the contribution period, and the abolition of special regimes for certain sectors of the workforce. From now on, all eyes are on a new stage of the struggle, starting on 7 March’
George Monibot: Silence in Court Environmental protesters are forbidden to explain their motivations to juries, making a mockery of justice. To tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”: this is the oath defendants in an English court must take. But when David Nixon sought to do so, he was sent to jail. Nixon, who had taken part in an Insulate Britain protest blocking a junction in the City of London, was on trial for causing a public nuisance, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. He sought to explain his motivation to the jury. But the judge, Silas Reid, had instructed the defendants not to mention their reasons for taking action: namely climate breakdown, fuel poverty and the need for better insulation. When Nixon disregarded this instruction, Reid handed him an eight-week jail sentence for contempt of court.
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!