Daily News Digest April 19, 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:
Bendib: Pro-Life
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:
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
Black Agenda Radio April 14, 2023 Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
The Nord Stream Cover Story Falls Apart
No To War, No To NATO North American Perspectives On Ukraine, Russia, And NATO
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
Poverty is Political Poverty is an ugly stain on the social fabric. It is also part of the economic equation that when added up is called capitalism. Even one of capitalism’s first cheerleaders Adam Smith acknowledged that “no society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” The history of capitalism since that time has further proven that this economic system left unfettered cares little to none about how many people are poor and miserable. In its reasoning, this is a primary reason why most capitalist governments instituted some kind of social safety net for their citizens left by the wayside under capitalism’s inequality. Despite any altruism that might have guided the legislation creating these safety nets, the bottom line is that these safety nets have kept the poor from overturning the capitalist regime in favor of one run by the workers. Despite this, there have always been exceeding self-righteous and greedy capitalists joined by similar thinking politicians working to end any kind of assistance to the poor. We have seen their ilk control governments of Britain and the US since the late 1970s.
NPR Leaked the Leaker!: Why Did Journalists Help the Justice Department Identify a Leaker? If he’d shared the same classified materials with reporters, he would be tirelessly defended as a source. In the fallout from the Pentagon document leaks, a troubling trend has emerged: Journalists seem to be eagerly volunteering their efforts to help the Pentagon and Justice Department facilitate an investigation into the source of the leaks, with no discussion of the ethical ramifications. If the individual — whose identity has been published by journalists, and who has now been arrested by federal authorities — had shared precisely the same classified materials with reporters, regardless of his motivations, he would be tirelessly defended as a source. NPR recently decried being labeled by Twitter as state-affiliated media, writing that this is a label Twitter uses “to designate official state mouthpieces and propaganda outlets.” That unrelated controversy is notable given that an NPR staffer seems to have deputized himself to act as a government investigator by posting image analyses on Twitter. (While NPR has announced that its official organizational accounts have quit Twitter, individual staff accounts still appear to be active.)
The Pentagon Is Preparing for Wars With Russia and China, Decades From Now It is requesting its largest allocation ever for converting the latest scientific discoveries into weapons of war. Why is the Pentagon budget so high? On March 13th, the Biden administration unveiled its $842 billion military budget request for 2024, the largest ask (in today’s dollars) since the peaks of the Afghan and Iraq wars. And mind you, that’s before the hawks in Congress get their hands on it. Last year, they added $35 billion to the administration’s request and, this year, their add-on is likely to prove at least that big. Given that American forces aren’t even officially at war right now (if you don’t count those engaged in counter-terror operations in Africa and elsewhere), what explains so much military spending? The answer offered by senior Pentagon officials and echoed in mainstream Washington media coverage is that this country faces a growing risk of war with Russia or China (or both of them at once) and that the lesson of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is the need to stockpile vast numbers of bombs, missiles, and other munitions. “Pentagon, Juggling Russia, China, Seeks Billions for Long-Range Weapons” was a typical headline in the Washington Post about that 2024 budget request. Military leaders are overwhelmingly focused on a potential future conflict with either or both of those powers and are convinced that a lot more money should be spent now to prepare for such an outcome, which means buying extra tanks, ships, and planes, along with all the bombs, shells, and missiles they carry.
Lockheed Martin Got $106 From the Average Taxpayer, While Renewables Got Just $6 Tax Day analysis also shows defense contractors received four times as much money as primary and secondary education. The average U.S. taxpayer in 2022 spent over four times as much on Pentagon contractors than on primary and secondary education, according to the annual Tax Day analysis published in recent days by the Institute for Policy Studies’ National Priorities Project.
Biden’s Blueprint for Renters Bill of Rights — Not!: Largest US Corporate Landlords Reap Huge Profits Amid Double-Digit Rent Hikes “These companies fueling the housing affordability crisis are among many corporations across industries that have shamelessly profiteered.” Three months after the Biden administration unveiled a nonbinding “Blueprint for Renters Bill of Rights” that was applauded by corporate landlords for doing little to rein in unfair rent increases and evictions, a new report by government watchdog Accountable.US showed on Monday that those same property owners reaped enormous profits in 2022 as they demanded more of their tenants’ incomes in rent and excessive fees. The group found that the six biggest property management companies in the United States—Starwood Property Trust, Mid-America Apartment Communities (MAA), Invitation Homes, AvalonBay Communities Inc., AMH, and Tricon Residential—brought in $4.3 billion in net income last year, over $1.3 billion more than in 2021.
Group of Wealthy Americans Warns US Democracy ‘Will Not Survive’ Unless Rich Are Taxed Heavily “For my future, my grandchildren’s future, and our country’s future, we need to tax the rich,” said Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires. A group of rich Americans marked Tax Day on Tuesday by calling on the U.S. Congress to aggressively tax wealthy people like themselves, warning that the U.S. will remain in a state of “perpetual chaos” until lawmakers boldly confront the worsening inequality crisis.
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
People living near these refineries have very high rates of cancer. In EPA terms, this is called a “cancer cluster.” The EPA, in its corporate manner, determined that the high rates of cancer was caused by high rates of smoking in the area and not from the refineries’ carcinogenic pollutions! However, under the rules of Proposition 65 in California and after several years of litigation, the Gasoline Refining Industry had to post this warning in the February 24, 1999, issue of the San Francisco Chronicle: Text of Actual WARNING: Chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm are found in gasoline, crude oil, and many other petroleum products and their vapors, or result from their use. Read and follow label directions and use care when handling or using all petroleum products. . . . — “Trade Secrets” Cancer and the Environment (What the Bill Moyers Program Trade Secrets Revealed)
Another Petrochemical Cancer Alley!: “The Neglect Is Intentional”: Inside a Black Enclave in TX Devastated by Big Oil The oil industry built a Black enclave in Texas. A century later, residents face a climate, housing and health crisis. . . . The bells, smells, and fires lighting the midnight sky from her neighbor are only expected to become more of a nuisance for her and her 82-year-old mother, daughter, and two grandchildren. In February, the plant completed a $2 billion expansion — the biggest project in the U.S. in over a decade. The 68% refining capacity increase makes the plant’s production capabilities the seventh-largest in the world. Despite a historic focus on environmental injustices by the Biden administration, ExxonMobil leaders last year cited his administration’s calls for the country’s oil companies to ramp up production as one of the motivators behind completing the project. A recent forecast by the Energy Information Administration found that petrochemical projects ushered in during the first two years of Biden’s administration will not allow the country to reach a 50% drop in domestic greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 as once
New Report Details Harmful Impact of Air Pollution at Every Stage of Life “Controlling emissions will provide the greatest benefit to all,” says an assessment of recently published research. “While headline figures on the health impact of air pollution focus on the equivalent number of premature deaths, the wider impacts are hiding in plain sight in the contribution of air pollution to the burden of chronic diseases.”
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Environmental Racism: ‘This Is an Emergency’: 1 Million African Americans Live Near Oil, Gas Facilities In some states, 1 in 5 African-American residents lives within a half-mile of an oil or gas production, processing or storage facility, a new study says. A new analysis concludes what many in African-American communities have long experienced: Low-income, black Americans are disproportionately exposed to toxic air pollution from the fossil fuel industry. More than 1 million African Americans live within a half-mile of oil and natural gas wells, processing, transmission and storage facilities (not including oil refineries), and 6.7 million live in counties with refineries, potentially exposing them to an elevated risk of cancer due to toxic air emissions, according to the study.
Labor:
Dana Auto Parts Workers Hold Meeting Series In Toledo To Organize Joint Fight Back With Jeep Workers. On Thursday, nearly 50 current and former workers from Dana Incorporated, a global auto parts manufacturer, as well as workers from the Stellantis Toledo Jeep Assembly plant, met in Toledo, Ohio, to discuss a common strategy in the struggle against unjust firings, layoffs and corporate exploitation. The meeting series—co-sponsored by the Dana Workers Rank-and-File Committee and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC)—was titled, “Profit sharing withheld at Dana, layoffs threatened at Jeep, UAW sides with management: The rank-and-file strategy to fight back.” In calling the meeting, the Dana Rank-and-File Committee outlined a set of common demands for Jeep and Dana workers to organize around and fight for:
- No more layoffs and wrongful termination!
- Re-hire all wrongfully terminated workers with back pay
- Rank-and-file control of hiring and firing
- Roll over all temps now
- No more tiers
- Massive pay increases to keep up with rising prices
- Cost of living adjustments (COLA) to track with inflation
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics April 16th to April 18th
- The Federal Reserve appears to be re-liquefying the monetary system, returning the Monetary Base to levels seen before the March FOMC.
- In the latest economic numbers, the University of Michigan’s early-April Consumer Sentiment held shy by 37.1% (-37.1%) of ever recovering its February 2020 pre-Pandemic peak.
- Benchmark-revised Industrial Production and related Capacity were benchmark-revised to the downside in recent months and years, with headlined January to March 2023 activity reported on the monthly plus side. March 2023 Real Retail Sales showed declining monthly and annual activity, with a second consecutive quarter of real annual decline in place, irrespective of extreme monthly volatility in auto sales.
- Further, the headline March 2023 Consumer Price Index (CPI-U), ShadowStats-Alternate CPI and Producer Price Index (PPI) annual year-to-year inflation rates all dropped sharply, against the year-ago, extreme jump in oil and gasoline prices that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in late February 2022.
- The March 2023 Cass Freight Index® showed continuing declines in freight activity, consistent with an ongoing Recession. Next DAILY UPDATE coverage here will be Wednesday, April 18th, reviewing March 2023 New Residential Construction, followed on April 20th with details of March Existing Home Sales.
Poverty is Political Poverty is an ugly stain on the social fabric. It is also part of the economic equation that when added up is called capitalism. Even one of capitalism’s first cheerleaders Adam Smith acknowledged that “no society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” The history of capitalism since that time has further proven that this economic system left unfettered cares little to none about how many people are poor and miserable. In its reasoning, this is a primary reason why most capitalist governments instituted some kind of social safety net for their citizens left by the wayside under capitalism’s inequality. Despite any altruism that might have guided the legislation creating these safety nets, the bottom line is that these safety nets have kept the poor from overturning the capitalist regime in favor of one run by the workers. Despite this, there have always been exceeding self-righteous and greedy capitalists joined by similar thinking politicians working to end any kind of assistance to the poor. We have seen their ilk control governments of Britain and the US since the late 1970s.
World:
Brazil: The First 100 Days of the Lula-Alckmin Government 10 April marked the 100th day of the new Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) government in Brazil. Lula’s victory at the ballot box in 2022 was a victory of the struggle of young people and workers, who mobilised to defeat the hated Bolsonaro government and its reactionary policies. But, as we explained during the campaign, this was not the end of the struggle. Bolsonaro and his supporters have gone nowhere – even if they have been weakened – and the government of Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin is pursuing a policy of unity with the bourgeoisie, submitting itself to the fundamental interests of the ruling class and imperialism.
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