Daily News Digest March 22, 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:
Martin Rowson on the Climate Crisis ‘Final Warning’Scientists warn rising greenhouse gas emissions will push the world to the brink of irrevocable damage
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:
Michael Roberts Blog: Goodbye Credit Suisse. This 167 year-old has been taken over by its Swiss rival UBS in a shotgun marriage imposed by the Swiss government. UBS is paying just $3.25bn for Credit Suisse, a fraction of its market value even during the recent crisis. The Swiss government said that this takeover was necessary because of a huge outflow of depositor funds from CS in the last few days. The alternative was public ownership – and we can’t have that. It’s a great deal for UBS shareholders, as the price for CS is so low and the Swiss central bank is providing $100bn in liquidity to manage the takeover and to cover any further depositor outflow. CS shareholders will get 80% of the value of their shares but banks and hedge funds that own CS bonds are taking a huge hit of $17bn as CS bonds have been written down to zero so that UBS does not have to take on CS debt. Bond markets will suffer from this – as it means so-called safe bank bonds are not safe from default after all. There is bound to be spillover into other bank bonds. The financial crisis is not over.
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
IPCC Climate Crisis Report Delivers ‘Final Warning’ On 1.5C
Dangers of the Drill: Fracking Is Threatening Our Communities and Health
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
Humanity at the Climate Crossroads: Highway to Hell or a Livable Future? The choice in the new IPCC report is stark: what we do in the next few years will determine our fate for millennia After a 10,000-year journey, human civilisation has reached a climate crossroads: what we do in the next few years will determine our fate for millennia. That choice is laid bare in the landmark report published on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), assembled by the world’s foremost climate experts and approved by all the world’s governments. The next update will be around 2030 – by that time the most critical choices will have been made. The report is clear what is at stake – everything: “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.” “The choices and actions implemented in this decade [ie by 2030] will have impacts now and for thousands of years,” it says. The climate crisis is already taking away lives and livelihoods across the world, and the report says the future effects will be even worse than was thought: “For any given future warming level, many climate-related risks are higher than [previously] assessed.”
Secretary-General Calls on States to Tackle Climate Change ‘Time Bomb’ through New Solidarity Pact, Acceleration Agenda, at Launch of Intergovernmental Panel Report Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message for the press conference to launch the Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, today: Dear friends, humanity is on thin ice — and that ice is melting fast. As today’s report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) details, humans are responsible for virtually all global heating over the last 200 years.
- The rate of temperature rise in the last half century is the highest in 2,000 years.
- Concentrations of carbon dioxide are at their highest in at least 2 million years.
- The climate time-bomb is ticking.
- But today’s IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb.
- It is a survival guide for humanity. As it shows, the 1.5°C limit is achievable. But it will take a quantum leap in climate action. . . .
As United States, Under Prsident Biden Consume Water for Fracking: Global Fresh Water Demand Will Outstrip Supply by 40% By 2030, Say Experts Landmark report urges overhaul of wasteful water practices around world on eve of crucial UN summit Governments must urgently stop subsidising the extraction and overuse of water through misdirected agricultural subsidies, and industries from mining to manufacturing must be made to overhaul their wasteful practices, according to a landmark report on the economics of water.
EPA’s Study of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas and Its Potential Impact on Drinking Water Resources — Executive Summary: The hydraulic fracturing water cycle describes the use of water in hydraulic fracturing, from water withdrawals to make hydraulic fracturing fluids, through the mixing and injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids in oil and gas production wells, to the collection and disposal or reuse of produced water. These activities can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances. Impacts can range in frequency and severity, depending on the combination of hydraulic fracturing water cycle activities and local- or regional-scale factors. The following combinations of activities and factors are more likely than others to result in more frequent or more severe impacts:
- Water withdrawals for hydraulic fracturing in times or areas of low water availability, particularly in areas with limited or declining groundwater resources;
- Spills during the management of hydraulic fracturing fluids and chemicals or produced water that result in large volumes or high concentrations of chemicals reaching groundwater resources; y Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into wells with inadequate mechanical integrity, allowing gases or liquids to move to groundwater resources;
- Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids directly into groundwater resources; y Discharge of inadequately treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater to surface water resources; and
- Disposal or storage of hydraulic fracturing wastewater in unlined pits, resulting in contamination of groundwater resources.
The above conclusions are based on cases of identified impacts and other data, information, and analyses presented in this report. Cases of impacts were identified for all stages of the hydraulic fracturing water cycle. Identified impacts generally occurred near hydraulically fractured oil and gas production wells and ranged in severity, from temporary changes in water quality to contamination that made private drinking water wells unusable.
Fracking Report: Prior to Biden’s Increase of Francking Since the War in Ukraine: Fracking 101 (2019) Hydraulic fracturing has upended the global energy landscape and made fossil fuels big business in the United States. Mounting evidence shows that it poses serious threats to our health, environment, and climate future. Here’s a look at the fracking boom and its increasing risks. Fracking consumes a massive amount of water. In the United States, the average can run between 1.5 million and 9.7 million gallons of water to frack a single well, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The amount depends on a few factors, including the type of well and rock formation. (A fracking operation in the Horn River Basin in Canada, for example, used almost 16 million gallons of water.) Water used for hydraulic fracturing is typically fresh water taken from groundwater and surface water resources. Although there are increasing efforts to use nonpotable water, some of these sources also supply drinking water. U.S. water consumption for fracking is still considered “negligible” compared with other industrial water uses (such as the cooling of coal-fired power plants). But fracking operations can strain resources in areas where freshwater supplies for drinking, irrigation, and aquatic ecosystems are scarce (and often becoming scarcer thanks to climate change). Water used for fracturing is too contaminated to return to its source without extensive treatment and so typically is disposed of deep underground, where it is removed from the freshwater cycle. The amount of water used per frack job has grown over time, exacerbating fracking’s impact on water supplies. In fact, a Duke University Analysis found that while U.S. producers scaled back on the installation of new wells between 2011 and 2016, the amount of water used for hydraulic fracturing surged. In the already drought-ridden Permian Basin region of West Texas, for example, water use for fracking during those years increased by as much as 770 percent. (Also concerning is the fact that the amount of wastewater generated during a well’s first year of production increased by as much as 1,440 percent during the study period.) The authors predicted fracking’s water footprint—the amount of water used and discarded—could increase by up to 50-fold in some regions by 2030. 
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. Tax 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
Analysis Warns ‘Punitive’ Republican Attacks on SNAP Could Take Food Aid From 10 Million+ “SNAP is successful at reducing poverty and food insecurity and should be both protected this year from cuts and be strengthened,” argues an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The United States Used Nuclear Weapons During the Afghanistan Iraq Wars! From the Article The Queen’s Death Star Depleted Uranium Measured in British Atmosphere from Battlefields in the Middle East, shows how depleted uranium spread worldwide after the “Shock & Awe” bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq: The Sunday Times Online, February 19, 2006, reported on a shocking scientific study authored by British scientists Dr. Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan: “Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War 2 result in contamination of Europe? Evidence from the measurements of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), Aldermaston, Berkshire, UK”. The highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured in the atmosphere in Britain, were transported on air currents from the Middle East and Central Asia; of special significance were those from the Tora Bora bombing in Afghanistan in 2001, and the “Shock & Awe” bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003. Out of concern for the public, the official British government air monitoring facility, known as the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), at Aldermaston was established years ago, to measure radioactive emissions from British nuclear power plants and atomic weapons facilities.
Civil Rights Black Liberation:
Ecocide and Ecoside The Rights of Nature and Indigenous Communities are Inseparable Ecocide doesn’t mean killing a home here or a home there. It’s a crime of gigantic proportions and much worse than genocide, which is confined to humans, a crime with consequences for all living and non-living beings and their home, the now fragile planet we live in. It’s global in spread and globalising in consequences because everything in nature is connected, so nothing escapes. A group can denounce a crime of ecocide, but this doesn’t capture its immensity. It’s like an amoeba. You poke it somewhere and it bulges out somewhere else. Eventually the amoeba dies too because this is a crime against life itself.
Labor:
Tens of Thousands of LA Teachers to Strike in Solidarity With Support Workers “How do we properly service our students when we are being overworked and underpaid and disrespected?” asked one special education assistant. Demanding “respect and dignity” for tens of thousands of school support workers who help the Los Angeles Unified School District run, the union that represents 35,000 teachers in the city has called on its members to join a three-day strike starting Tuesday as school support staffers fight for a living wage. Members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 “work so hard for our students,” said United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) on Monday. “They deserve respect and dignity at work. We will be out in force tomorrow to make sure they get it.”
Economy:
Ralph Nader: Reckless Capitalist Banks Rescued by Government Socialism – Again! Once again, government socialism – ultimately backed by taxpayers – is saving reckless midsized banks and their depositors. Silicon Valley Bank (S.V.B) and Signature Bank in New York greedily mismanaged their risk levels and had to be closed down. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), in return, to avoid a bank panic and a run on other midsized banks went over its $250,000 insurance cap per account and guaranteed all deposits – no matter how large, which are owned by the rich and corporations – in those banks.
At Year End, JPMorgan Chase Held Over $1 Trillion in Uninsured Deposits Versus $119 Billion at First Republic Jamie Dimon is the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., which is also ranked the riskiest global bank by its regulators. But instead of getting his own house in order in the midst of a banking crisis, Dimon has been peculiarly focused elsewhere. Over the past five days, Jamie Dimon’s legions of publicists have been burning up the phone lines with reporters, pushing the narrative that Jamie Dimon is some kind of financial wizard who needs to have a seat at the table to save the regional bank, First Republic Bank. (Scroll down here to see the exhaustive public relations effort that has gone into this narrative.) Last Thursday, news hit the wire services that Dimon had lined up 11 banks willing to place $30 billion in uninsured deposits into First Republic Bank. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo each ponied up $5 billion – or two-thirds of the $30 billion. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) caps federal deposit insurance at $250,000 per depositor, per bank.
World:
Israeli Official Condemned for Genocidal ‘No Such Thing as Palestinians’ Comment The “only difference between Smotrich and ‘liberals’ is that he’s open about Zionism being genocidal,” said one observer. While condemning the latest anti-Palestinian rights comments from far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, advocates on Monday said his remarks were “genocidal” and noted that A day after Palestinian and Israeli leaders met in Egypt to discuss deescalating tensions ahead of Ramadan and Passover, Smotrich spoke at a memorial service in Paris where he claimed the Palestinian people are “an invention” dating back to the mid-20th century to fight Zionism.
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