Daily News Digest April 21, 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:
Crooked Clarence
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 Hudson Playing the Pension Funds (2915): And the other was a decision not to bail out the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the government’s pension fund insurer. They’ve decided–they passed a new law. They rewrote the law. They declared the 1974 ERISA act protecting pensions illegal, and they said if pension funds cannot pay their retirees, they get to be cut back and they don’t get to go to the government to get a guarantee. We’ve abolished the government guarantee on pension funds if the pension fund is run by a labor union, meaning if a pension fund is a multiemployer fund that has more than one employer contributing to it, like airline funds, truckers funds, Teamsters funds if you’re a truck driver, insurance employees, we’re going to give the fund managers, mainly the financial managers on Wall Street, the right to cut back on these pensions that are due. So the pensions that people had expected to receive when they made their wage contract saying, well, we’re not going to ask for as fast a wage increase if you give us security when we retire, all of this has been rewritten.
I come to warn you. I come to denounce you in your own bliss. It is made out of the ills of the others. Your paradise is made out of the hell of the poor. I come to open before you, the wealthy, the grand assizes of the poor-that sovereign who is the slave, that convict who is the judge. I am bowed down under what I have to say. Where to begin ? I know not. I have picked up in the cruel experience of suffering, my vast though struggling pleas. Now what shall I do with them ? They overwhelm me and I throw them forth pell mell before me. — From letter was written and addressed by Victor Hugo to “The Rich”
First-hand reporting from inside Ukraine by New Cold War has described the same systematic pyramid of corruption as Hersh. A member of parliament, formerly in Zelenskyy’s party, told New Cold War that Zelenskyy and other officials skimmed 170 million euros from money that was supposed to pay for Bulgarian artillery shells. The corruption reportedly extends to bribes to avoid conscription. The Open Ukraine Telegram channel was told by a military recruitment office that it could get the son of one of its writers released from the front line in Bakhmut and sent out of the country for $32,000. As has happened in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and all the wars the United States has been involved in for many decades, the longer the war goes on, the more the web of corruption, lies and distortions unravels. The torpedoing of peace talks, the Nord Streamsabotage, the hiding of corruption, the politicization of casualty figures, and the suppressed history of broken promises and prescient warnings about the danger of NATO expansion are all examples of how our leaders have distorted the truth to shore up U.S. public support for perpetuating an unwinnable war that is killing a generation of young Ukrainians. — Ukraine Leaks Punch Hole in War Propaganda
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
[Podcast] The Fall of woman: Engels, Morgan and the Family On this week’s episode of International Marxist Radio, Fred Weston, a leading comrade of the International Marxist Tendency, discusses the historical roots of women’s oppression.
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
Leaked Pentagon Doc Gives Unprecedented U.S. Intel View Into Secret Yemen War Talks Before a Chinese-brokered Saudi-Iran détente accelerated ceasefire talks, U.S. intelligence reported Saudi Arabia and the Houthis were gearing up for brinksmanship.
The Pentagon Girds for Mid-Century Wars 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.
Diplomacy for Peace, Dead in US, Blossoms Elsewhere. “Global Power Struggles Signal An End to An Era of Diplomacy.” So ran a page one headline to New York Times April 11 print edition for an article marking Joe Biden’s ceremonial visit to Ireland to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Accords. The commemoration served as an “unspoken reminder that such diplomatic breakthroughs remain a thing of the past” bemoaned reporter Peter Baker. Certainly, he is correct if one confines one’s view to the record of the US and its vassal states on the Ukraine crisis. Sec. of State Blinken has made it abundantly clear that the US wants nothing to do with negotiations to end the US proxy war in Ukraine.
Judge Who Ruled on Abortion Pill Was Handpicked by Network That Brought Lawsuit His nomination was part of a broader project championed by his former boss, a member of the Council for National Policy.
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
Erin Brockovich And Suzanne Boothby: Nothing Says Earth Day Like Recycled Plastics On Fire I hate to be so doom and gloom in the lead up to Earth Day, but it’s important to see the world as it is right now. Also: every day is Earth Day. We’ve got major problems that need solving, and I encourage everyone to get involved. It’s not about getting it perfect, but about each person asking, “How can I help?” Last week, a fire broke out at a 14-acre former factory site where officials confirmed various types of plastics had been stored for recycling. The fire sending a huge black cloud of toxic smoke over Richmond, Indiana, a city of more than 35,000 people. Yikes! I hate that this image is becoming a familiar one.
NSW to Investigate Menindee Mass Fish Kill as ‘Pollution Incident’ EPA to use statutory powers to investigate whether conditions in Darling-Baaka River breach state environment laws The New South Wales government has announced it will treat the deaths of more than a million fish in the Darling-Baaka River as a “pollution incident”, which could potentially lead to polluters being charged.
New Report Finds Widespread Toxic Vinyl Chloride Pollution Beyond East Palestine Vinyl chloride contamination primarily emanates from petrochemical production and waste disposal facilities
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Modern Day Reconstruction and Tennessee’s Expulsion of Black Lawmakers The temporary expulsion of two Black Tennessee legislators was a reminder of why even a tiny semblance of Black political independence is feared and hated. The expressions of support from traitorous Democratic Party leadership were reminders of of why a true independence struggle must continue. In September of 1868, white lawmakers in Georgia expelled all 33 African American legislators elected to the state’s General Assembly. It was, to be sure, a bipartisan affair, with 15 moderate Republicans joining the more conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives, while in the Senate, four Republicans voted for expulsion; in both chambers, a total of 38 Republicans abstained.
Nebraska Republican: Abortion Ban Needed to Ensure Dominance of White Population The lawmaker’s remarks make explicit the deep ties between white nationalism and abortion bans.
Labor:
With the Coal Miners Union ‘Leaeadrship’, by their Own Admission. in Partnership With the Employers and the Democratic Party, it is harD to win a Strike, Due to Labor Bureaucracy and the Democratic Party Collusion with the 1%!: The Key WayForward has been Demonstrated by the Railworkers’ Formation of Railroad Workers United, a rank and ffile organization of railworkers, independent of the Trade union Bureaucavy and the Democratic Party!
The mining industry interest group Alabama Mining Association (AMA) joined Warrior Met in what was clearly a well-rehearsed chorus about protecting “critical infrastructure” from “acts of violence and vandalism.” Alabama’s right-wing Governor Kay Ivey had signed legislation that enhanced and expanded laws against tampering with “critical infrastructure” for the industries only six weeks before the blast. The pressure continued. In August 2022, the NLRB levied fines greater than $13 million against the UMWA for lost profit, security costs and property damaged sustained by the coal company during the strike. Not only the company but the capitalist state was determined to make an example of the strikers. The UMWA’s response to these brutal attacks was to isolate the miners and create the conditions where they could take place with no organized opposition. A unionized mine 30 minutes away from Warrior Met was never called out, and in September 2021, the UMWA ratified a separate five-year deal with the long-idled Shoal Creek mines, instead of doing anything to unite workers there with the Warrior Met strikers. Meanwhile, the UMWA, which has total assets of nearly $200 million and pays its top 49 officials a total of over $5 million a year, strung out the workers on only $300 per week in strike pay. Miners’ wives made T-shirts to raise money, supporters set up food banks and miners scrabbled for casual work and side-gigs to support their families while still keeping their required watch on the picket lines. When the WSWS criticized the union’s isolation of the strike and raised the demand that the strike pay be increased, the trade union bureaucracy reacted furiously. This reached a crescendo when several right-wing bureaucrats physically assaulted a group of young socialists at a union fundraising event, mistaking them for the WSWS. The back-to-work letter is the UMWA’s bitter final betrayal of the strike . This entire experience underscores the fact that workers must organize themselves independently in order to fight against both the company and the state as well as their backers in the union apparatus. —With No Contract After a 2-Year Strike, United Mine Workers of America Sends Miners Back to Work at Warrior Met
Economy:
‘Illegal Corporate Price-Fixing’ Is Rampant in US Economy: Report “Large corporations which are supposed to be competing with one another are often secretly conspiring to set prices,” said one expert. “In doing so, they cause economic harm to consumers and contribute to inflation.” . . . Conspiring Against Competition: Illegal Corporate Price-Fixing in the U.S. Economy, a report published Monday by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First, is based on an analysis of government agency announcements and court records included in the nonprofit’s Violation Tracker database.
Shadow Government Statistics General Headlines
- Contrary to the happy political and financial media hype, the Pandemic-driven and FOMC-exacerbated U.S. Economic Collapse continues to harden in protracted non-Recovery, amidst mounting evidence of renewed Economic Downturn and excessive Inflation, about to re-accelerate, and still vulnerable to risks from the evolving Russia-Ukraine War, seriously conflicted FOMC monetary policies, and extraordinarily dangerous Administration fiscal activity.
- Despite recent GDP Benchmark Revisions and current gimmicked reporting, key Economic Series show not only that the Pandemic-driven Economic Collapse was worse than headlined, but also that the still-unfolding Recovery has been much weaker than indicated. Signals of renewed, faltering activity increasingly have taken on the mantle of a new Recession.
- Severe Systemic structural damage and distortions from the Pandemic-driven Shutdown continues to forestall meaningful Economic Rebound into 2023 and beyond, despite a “reopened economy,” in context of flummoxed Fiscal and Monetary Policies, and ever-evolving COVID-19 and related circumstances, and the continuing Russia-Ukraine conflict.
- The Fed’s Balance Sheet Reduction formally began in June 2022 and should have begun to relieve some Money Supply pressures on Inflation at that time, in theory. Yet hard Money Supply numbers through the deliberately slow release of the January 2023 detail, show minimal impact, presently still expanding in the most-liquid, inflation-driving “Basic M1” (Currency and Demand Deposits). Announced FOMC policies are little more than jawboning and targeted financial-market hype, until put into actual full effect. That said, expanded Federal Government Deficit Spending continues, currently at the Debt Ceiling. Despite political hype to the contrary, such is helping to accelerate the pace of domestic Inflation.
- With fundamental U.S. Dollar debasement (inflation) intensifying, irrespective of short-lived games with reduced oil prices, and especially in the context of the Fed and related entities having to balance, bail out or backstop an increasingly troubled Financial System, holding physical Gold and Silver protects the purchasing power of one’s assets, irrespective of any near-term Central Bank or other precious metals’ price machinations to the contrary.
Former New York Fed Pres Bill Dudley Calls This the First Banking Crisis Since 2008; Charts Show It’s the Third The official that oversaw the secret funneling of trillions of dollars of bailout money from the New York Fed to the grossly mismanaged mega banks on Wall Street during the financial crisis of 2008 to 2010, had the temerity yesterday to pen an opinion piece at Bloomberg News pointing his finger at current Fed officials for today’s banking crisis – without once mentioning his role in getting us here. The article was written by William (Bill) Dudley, who served as President of the New York Fed from January 27, 2009 to June 18, 2018. Prior to that Dudley was Executive Vice President of the Markets Group at the New York Fed, the group that runs its own trading floors in New York and Chicago and trades with the Wall Street mega banks it is also supposed to be supervising. The New York Fed has become the official money spigot for Wall Street bailouts while being, literally, owned by some of the biggest banks on Wall Street. (See These Are the Banks that Own the New York Fed and Its Money Button.) Prior to joining the New York Fed in 2007, Dudley worked for two decades at – wait for it – Goldman Sachs, becoming a partner, managing director and chief economist.
World:
British and French State Collude to Persecute Protestor On 17 April, British police arrested Ernest Moret, a French publisher, as he exited a train from Paris to London on a work trip. The arrest was carried out using British anti-terrorism laws, on the grounds that Moret had taken part in the recent protests against the Macron government in France. This is not only an attack on the basic democratic right to protest, but a clear sign of collusion between the French and British authorities to victimise those who dare to speak out against them. The events of the arrest itself were practically Orwellian. Two plainclothes counter-terrorism police officers approached Moret and a colleague at St. Pancras train station as soon as they entered the country, and presented Moret with ‘Schedule 7’ of the UK Terrorism Act. This allows police officers to search and interrogate individuals at border crossings, in order to determine whether they are involved in the “preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism”. In practice, this gives the police a green card to target anyone they choose.
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
Current Avian Flu Strain Deadlier Than in Past and Could Become Endemic, Study Says Scientists raise alarm over avian influenza strain’s unprecedented deadliness and reach from farmed poultry and wild birds The current strain of the avian influenza, which has been decimating bird populations globally, is perilously different than previous disease outbreaks, according to US researchers who are calling for urgent action. . . . “We’ve been dealing with low pathogenic avian influenza for decades in the poultry industry, but this is different,” said Jennifer Mullinax, co-author of the study and an assistant professor in at the University of Maryland’s department of environmental science and technology. “This high pathogenic virus is wiping out everything in numbers that we’ve never seen before,” said Mullinax. The study, published in Conservation Biology, was conducted by tracking the arrival and progression of the lethal avian flu outbreak in North America to see how the latest upsurge of the disease compares to previous ones.