Daily News Digest March 31, 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:

State of Mental Health in America 16% of youth report experiencing at least one major episode in the pat year.   More than 2.7 million youth are experiencing severe major depression.     66%. Of youth with a major depression do not receive mental health treatment.

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:

Those who stand for the “neither-victory-nor-defeat” slogan are in fact on the side of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, for they do not believe in the possibility of inter national revolutionary action by the working class against their own governments, and do not wish to help develop such action, which, though undoubtedly difficult, is the only task worthy of a proletarian, the only socialist task. It is the proletariat in the most backward of the belligerent. Great Powers which, through the medium of their party, have had to adopt—especially in view of the shameful treachery of the German and French Social-Democrats— revolutionary tactics that are quite unfeasible unless they “contribute to the defeat” of their own government, but which alone lead to a European revolution, to the permanent peace of socialism, to the liberation of humanity from the horrors, misery, savagery and brutality now prevailing. —  Lenin, The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War

Videos/Podcasts of the Day:

Black Agenda Radio March 24, 2023 Witn Margaret Kimberly

 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 

US Military SpendingThe Image of the Day Shows an Incrase of Depression in The United States. I read a Head Line: Teen Anxiety is On the Rise — Especially Among Girls, LGTBQ Youth The authors of this article, really miss the point of youth depression — An Uncertent Future!:

  • Global Warming — No Habitat for Humanity Ecocide”,
  • Nuclear War Possible,
  • ·Puperization,
  • Youth Unemployment high (And new jobs are increasingly part time work.),
  • Constant Eriosian of Human and Civil Rights,
  • Increased Pollution chemical spills, train derailmente etc., and Crumbling Infrastructure
  • A lack of hope for a better future is depressing. Unleass there is a fundamental change! On the upside, most youth have come to that conclusion. Most youth are opposed to global warming and Most Young Americans Prefer Socialism to Capitalism!

Biden Climate Approval Plummets After Willow Oil Drilling Greenlighted “Voters strongly support transitioning to clean energy projects instead of building fossil fuel projects on public lands,” according to new research published as the White House moved forward with a massive lease sale.

Chinese Official Warns McCarthy Meeting With Taiwanese President Would Be ‘Provocation’A potential visit with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen “seriously violates the One China principle, harms China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and destroys peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” said one official

No Motive Needed When Dehumanization Reigns From wars abroad to massacres at home, dehumanization makes so much that is hideous possible “Chief Drake said it was too early to discuss a possible motive for the shooting, though he confirmed that the attack was targeted. The authorities were reviewing writings, and had made contact with the shooter’s father. . . .” Yeah, they’ll figure it out.     The latest mass shooting: Six people dead, including three 9-year-old children, at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. The alleged shooter, age 28 – a former student at Covenant – stomped into the school on March 27 carrying (God bless America) two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun. He/she, apparently transgender, was eventually shot dead by police.

United States Hunger: Food Banks Fear “New and Growing Crisis” of Hunger as COVID-Era Benefits End Emergency food aid was slashed to pre-COVID levels this March, forcing food pantries to scramble to meet a growing need. For three years, Sarah Wilson, a disabled 60-year-old living in rural Maryland, received $281 a month from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps. Coupled with a $1,700 monthly Social Security disability check, the former social worker made do. “My finances were manageable,” she told Truthout. “Then they notified me during the second week of February, telling me that because of an 8.7 percent increase in my Social Security payments and the end of Emergency COVID Allotments, my SNAP will be cut to $23 a month beginning in March.”

Uncle Sam’s Dams on the Border Downstream from the Hoover Dam, the Colorado River flows through the Imperial Dam outside of Yuma and goes from there in different directions: the greatest share to California through the largest canal in the US; small amounts to Arizona and Mexico.  A border defines this river: Mexico should get nothing but a silt-choked creek; the people President Herbert Hoover called “wild Indians” should get nothing at all despite reservations along the river with “senior water rights” acknowledged by treaties and adjudicated in federal courts; and the land surrounding the river and its dams is federal, either military or Indian reservation. It almost feels as if the United States defeated Mexico and the Navajos, Utes, Apaches and other Native Americans yesterday, and the US is still occupying a region in southern Arizona and New Mexico called La Mesilla, bounded by the Colorado River in the west, the Gila River in the north, and partly by the Rio Grande in the east, which Mexico sold to the US in 1853 (Gadsden Purchase) a few years after it lost California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and western Colorado and New Mexico in the Mexican-American War (1846-48).  La Mesilla now contains: American bombing ranges: a huge American testing site for artillery, mines, military vehicles, and desert training for troops; an American Marine airbase; Indian reservations; absentee corporate agribusiness; Yuma AZ and a few small towns. Lost in the middle of a huge American desert-military complex is the Imperial Dam on the Colorado River.

Evacuations in Minnesota After Fiery Derailment of Train Carrying Ethanol The train was operated by BNSF, which has lobbied aggressively against safety regulations in recent years BNSF, which is controlled by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, has lobbied aggressively against enhanced rail safety regulations at the state and federal levels in recent year

Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:

Did Last Week’s UN Water Conference Accomplish Anything?  An historic summit on the global water crisis was overdue, but it was just a start. Last week in New York, nations gathered for the first United Nations conference dedicated to water since 1977. Framed by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) program, the event opened Wednesday with the admission that global efforts to protect water resources were “alarmingly off track, jeopardizing the entire sustainable development agenda.”     The event closed three days later with what Earth.org called “political momentum” but no binding commitments in its final document — called the Water Action Agenda — to carry out the actions needed to “avert a global water crisis.” Instead, nations pledged to carry out more than 700 voluntary measures that would, if implemented, “edge the world towards universal access to clean water and sanitation,” and also adopted a statement of “broad agreement that water should be treated as a global common good, and that the world’s approach to water must be less siloed given its nexus with the climate crisis, and food, energy and national security,” as reported by The Guardian.

Drought in the Horn of Africa: Capitalism’s Hidden Shame Despite a near media blackout the world is facing one of its greatest humanitarian crises in history in the Horn of Africa, where climate change, civil war, and poverty are combining to create a mass tragedy of epic proportions. The reaction of most politicians in the West is closing their eyes and hoping the problem will all go away. The reason for this is obvious. This is a crisis caused by capitalism and imperialism.
The UK’s ‘Green Day’ Has Turned Into a Fossil Fuel Bonanza – Dirty Money Powers the Sunak Government In prioritising oil and gas over renewables, ministers are doing the bidding of the polluters. And we’ll all pay the price Money for the criminals, prison for the heroes: this, in brief, is the government’s climate policy. If something is damaging to the public interest, it’s likely to be rewarded and subsidised. If it’s beneficial, it will find itself in a hostile environment.     This government represents the denouement of the Pollution Paradox: as dirty money has the greatest incentive to invest in politics, it comes to run the whole system. Across these 13 years of misrule, we have seen the perversities of Conservative government multiply and intensify.

Civil Rights Black Liberation:

Black Agenda Report

Labor:

Undocumented Workers and Freelancers Demand Unemployment Safety Net in New York Hundreds of thousands of workers are currently excluded from receiving unemployment insurance in New York State. New York State’s social safety net contains a gaping hole: hundreds of thousands of workers whose labor is central to the state’s economy are excluded from receiving unemployment insurance.

Vermont Dairy Workers Battle Corporate Greed and Demand “Milk With Dignity” Migrant workers are demanding their rights and campaigning to end the exploitation of their labor.

 Economy:

Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update March 29th to 30th  FEBRUARY 2023 

  • MONEY SUPPLY — Ten-Year Benchmark Revisions lowered aggregate M2 minimally, but inflation pressures continue to mount, with an extraordinary systemic flight to liquidity, still holding at a 52-year high.
  • The most liquid “Basic M1” (now being published as a combined currency plus demand deposits number by the Fed) was by up a highly inflationary 119.9% from its February 2020 pre-Pandemic level, notching higher from January, up year-to-year by 6.2% in February 2023, versus an annual gain of 5.6% January.
  • In contrast, the less-liquid aggregate January M2 was up by 36.3% vs. pre-Pandemic levels, with declining, with year-to-year change, down by 2.4% (-2.4%) in February, softening against January’s 1.8% (-1.8%) annual drop.
  • Full Money Supply text will follow here tomorrow, along with text and new graphs for Subscribers.
  • Noted here yesterday, in the two weeks through the March 22nd FOMC, the Federal Reserve boosted Reserve Balances with Federal Reserve Banks by 14.2%, and, correspondingly, the aggregate Monetary by Base by 8.2% [too late for yesterday’s February numbers].
  • Such reversed recent tightening, given the Fed’s need to address mounting banking system woes.
  • Yet, that put the March 2023 Monetary Base on track for its first monthly gain in 5 months, with both Reserves and the Monetary Base at 11-Month highs.
  • Currency continued relatively flat, at record highs.
  • The FOMC’s release of the January Monetary Base details came in close to the ShadowStats’ estimates. Full detail tomorrow.

Congress Sweats the Small Stuff as Four Wall Street Mega Banks Have a Combined $3.3 Trillion in Uninsured Deposits On Tuesday, Martin Gruenberg, the Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the federal agency that serves as both a bank regulator and the overseer of the federal insurance program for U.S. bank deposits, testified before the Senate Banking Committee. The dangers of U.S. banks holding large amounts of uninsured deposits came up repeatedly in his testimony. For example, Gruenberg’s written testimony included these details about the ongoing banking crisis: “…on Friday, March 10, a number of institutions with large amounts of uninsured deposits reported that depositors had begun to withdraw their funds.”

World:

France: Lessons of 28 March Another day of action was held on Tuesday (28 March) to oppose the rotten Macron regime, which last week forced through an increase of the French retirement age. The struggle remains strong, evidenced by the millions of people who took to the streets. But in order for the workers and youth to emerge victorious in their battles with Macron, the old bankrupt methods of the union leaders will not suffice. Our French comrades of Révolution draw a balance sheet (published 29 March) of the last mobilisation and point the way forward.

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