Daily News Digest April 3, 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:
Hunger in the United States of America affects millions of Americans, including some who are middle class, or who are in households where all adults are in work. The United States produces far more food than it needs for domestic consumption—hunger within the U.S. is caused by some Americans having insufficient money to buy food for themselves or their families. Additional causes of hunger and food insecurity include neighborhood deprivation and agricultural policy.[1][2] Hunger is addressed by a mix of public and private food aid provision. Public interventions include changes to agricultural policy, the construction of supermarkets in underserved neighborhoods, investment in transportation infrastructure, and the development of community gardens.[3][4][5][6] Private aid is provided by food pantries, soup kitchens, food banks, and food rescue organizations.[7][8][9]
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:
Nonetheless, the quality of government reporting has deteriorated sharply in the last couple of decades. Reporting problems have included methodological changes to economic reporting that have pushed headline economic and inflation results out of the realm of real-world or common experience. Over the decades, well in excess of 1,000 presentations have been given on the economic outlook, or on approaches to analyzing economic data, to clients—large and small—including talks with members of the business, banking, government, press, academic, brokerage and investment communities. I also have provided testimony before Congress (details here). an old friend—the late-Doug Gillespie—asked me some years back to write a series of articles on the quality of government statistics. The response to those writings (the Primer Series available at the top-center of this page) was so strong that we started ShadowStats.com (Shadow Government Statistics) in 2004. The newsletter is published as part of my economic consulting services. — John Williams
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 . . . 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.” — Reparations and Capitalism
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
‘It’s Going So Fast’: The Decline of New Zealand’s Glaciers
Ukraine Is Making History – Most Important War News
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
Why Congress Should Be Curtailing War Powers, Not Expanding Them Our Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the constitutional power to declare war. Last month, the House and Senate Armed Services committees held hearings to discuss the Department of Defense’s legislative asks and priorities regarding U.S. special operations forces. In those hearings, Department officials made clear that one of their top priorities for the upcoming legislative cycle is expanding an obscure security cooperation authority: section 1202 of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes the U.S. military to work “by, with, and through” foreign partners to counter foreign adversaries like Russia and China. In advocating for an expansion of section 1202, Department officials have reportedly promised that the authority would be “limited to noncombat operations.” Congress, however, should cast a wary eye on this promise and on the Department’s overarching request for broader authority. Section 1202 is a provisional authority, in effect through 2025, that permits the Department of Defense to recruit, train, equip, and pay salaries to foreign militaries, paramilitaries, and even private individuals who are supporting U.S. “irregular warfare” operations — defined as “competition . . . short of traditional armed conflict” — against supposed malign state actors. By putting section 1202 partners on payroll, U.S. forces gain the ability to command them, directing them to achieve U.S. military objectives either alongside U.S. forces or in U.S. forces’ stead. As a result, the Department describes its relationship with section 1202 partners as one of “operational control,” and it refers to these partners as “surrogate forces.”
Social Security Payments not Kept Up With Inflation While Food Prices have Skyrocketed: 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.”
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
Global Warming is Systemic to Capitalism!: Weekly Average CO2 at Mauna Loa
Week beginning on March 19, 2023: 420.79 ppm Weekly value from 1 year ago: 417.96 ppm Weekly value from 10 years ago: 397.80 ppm. Last updated: March 31, 2023
CDC Officers Became Sick While Assessing Contamination in East Palestine The reports add “confirmation that the symptoms reported by East Palestine residents are real and are associated with environmental exposures from the derailment and chemical fire,” said one scientist. . . . As CNN reported, seven physicians and officers from the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service traveled to East Palestine in early March, a month after a train carrying toxic chemicals including vinyl chloride derailed there. The team reported developing symptoms including headaches, sore throats, coughing, and nausea while they were conducting their door-to-door assessment of public health risks. The symptoms were similar to those reported by many East Palestine residents since the crash, and are consistent with the physical effects of exposure to vinyl chloride when it is burned, as it was by officials who conducted a controlled release following the derailment to avoid an explosion.
Harvard Professor’s Fossil Fuel Links Under Scrutiny Over Climate Grant Colleagues and students query role of Jody Freeman, who won prestigious research grant despite sitting on ConocoPhillips board An eminent Harvard environmental law professor’s links to the fossil fuel industry are under scrutiny from colleagues and students after she was awarded a prestigious research grant to investigate corporate climate pledges.
As More Chemicals Spill, More Questions AriseToxic Spills Have Impacted Two Waterways Near Pennsylvania & Minnesota, Leaving Residents To Ask: Is Our Drinking Water Safe? We’ve already had 50 incidents this year across the United States, according to the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, who estimate that a chemical fire, explosion or toxic release occurs every two days in the U.S. Click on their website to see a map and list of all the chemical facility incidents.
When he ran for office, Biden said that global warming is an existential threat. One in office he open up the oil (fracking) fileds in the Guld on Mexico and Alaska. President Biden has been contribtuing to the existential threat of global warming!: Rapidly Melting Glaciers Threaten Collapse of Crucial Ocean Circulation Systems: Study “It’s way faster than we thought these circulations could slow down,” said one researcher. “We are talking about the possible long-term extinction of an iconic water mass.” Scientists from the United States and Australia on Wednesday warned in a new study that the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting rapid melting of Antarctic glaciers is placing a vital deep ocean current “on a trajectory that looks headed towards collapse” in the coming decades. As Common Dreams has reported, Antarctic ice is melting at an unprecedented rate, and the melting is causing fresh water to enter the ocean—reducing the salinity and density which is needed to drive the “overturning circulation” of water deep in the world’s oceans. Normally, dense water flows toward the ocean floor and helps transport heat and and vital nutrients through the planet’s oceans. The circulation helps support marine ecosystems and the stability of ice shelves.With carbon emissions continuing to rise despite clear warnings from energy and climate experts about the urgent need to draw down emissions, the deep ocean current is projected to slow by 40% by 2050, according to the study, which was published in Nature. The current slowdown would “profoundly alter the ocean overturning of heat, fresh water, oxygen, carbon, and nutrients, with impacts felt throughout the global ocean for centuries to come,” according to the study.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Exonerated Central Park 5 Member Reacts to Trump Indictment With One-Word Statement “For those asking about my statement on the indictment of Donald Trump—who never said sorry for calling for my execution—here it is,” said Yusef Salaam. Yusef Salaam, one of the exonerated Central Park Five, had just one word to say on former President Donald Trump’s indictment Thursday: “Karma.” Trump spent $85,000—over $200,000 today—on a full-page ad that ran in all four of New York’s major newspapers calling for the restoration of capital punishment so that the Central Park Five could be executed.
Labor:
US Minimum Wage Would Be $42 Today If It Rose as Much as Wall St. Bonuses: Analysis “The total bonus pool for 190,800 New York City-based Wall Street employees in 2022 was $33.7 billion—enough to pay for 771,520 jobs that pay $15 per hour with benefits for a year.”
Economy:
Michael Roberts Blog: Another sign of the recession to come. The final data on US pre-tax corporate profits in Q4 2022, show a 5-6% fall in each of the last two quarters of 2022, or a 12% fall from the peak in mid-2022. And profits fell year-on-year for the first time since the pandemic slump. So the corporate profits boom post the pandemic is over; with falling profits and rising interest rates, it is not only the banks that will get into trouble.
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
What’s the Problem With Pensions? The Macron government has forced by decree a ‘reform’ that raises the pension age to 64 years from 62 years. In Spain, where the retirement age has been fixed at 65 years for decades, the government is opting for an alternative solution to the so-called pensions problem. It is going to increase contributions from the incomes of younger higher earners to pay for older retirees. Pensions are really deferred wages, deductions from income from work to pay for a decent income when people retire. After decades of work (and exploitation), workers, male and female, should be entitled to stop and enjoy the last decade or so of life without toil without being poverty. Literally, they will have earned it. But capitalism in the 21st century cannot ‘afford’ to pay decent living incomes as state pensions when workers retire. Why? Well, the mainstream arguments are several-fold.
Guardian: Israel Hasn’t Been A Democracy For a Long Time. Now, Israelis Need to Face This Fact The protest movement will either transform into a call for genuine democracy — for Palestinians and Israelis alike or it will remain locked in the current impasse There is a certain afterglow to mass protest. It’s a feeling strongest when the slogans have just ceased to echo in the streets, when the barricades have just come down, the banners rolled back up and the flags folded and put back in their place. It is also a dangerous moment, when what looks like sudden success can just as quickly turn into defeat.
15 Million People Could Lose Coverage as Nightmarish Medicaid ‘Purge’ Begins “I feel sick,” said one physician. “Medicaid is not enough: we need seamless, lifelong universal care now.” Beginning on Saturday, states across the U.S. will start the process of stripping Medicaid coverage from millions of people as pandemic-related protections lapse, part of a broader unraveling of the safety net that was built to help families withstand the public health crisis and resulting economic turmoil. Medicaid’s continuous coverage requirements were enacted early in the Covid-19 pandemic to help vulnerable people maintain insurance amid the health emergency, resulting in record-high Medicaid enrollment. But at the end of last year, congressional negotiators agreed on a bipartisan basis to set April 1 as the beginning of the “unwinding” process for the continuous coverage mandates, which prevented states from conducting regular eligibility screenings for Medicaid recipients.