Daily News Digest April 27, 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:
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:
These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes – nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the “good” and the “bad,” to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in soil – all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called “insecticides,” but “biocides.” — Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, 1962
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
Black Agenda Radio April 21, 2023 With Margaret Kemverly
Gerald Horne on U.S. Politics – Part 1
Congressional Action on the Middle East
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 .
Bendib: Where The Money Is
The Saga of the Corrupt Supreme Court: Gorsuch Failed to Report Real Estate Deal 9 Days After Joining Supreme Court A prominent law firm’s CEO purchased land Gorsuch and his wife had invested in, just days after he was sworn in. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch failed to disclose that the CEO of a prominent law firm that frequently argues cases before the Court purchased a large piece of property he had invested in — a transaction that occurred just days after Gorsuch had been appointed to the bench in 2017, a new report reveals. The report comes just weeks after a separate report uncovered that Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose high-dollar contributions from a right-wing billionaire.
Clarence Thomas Billionaire Benefactor Harlan Crow Bought Citizenship in Island Tax Haven Leaked documents reveal the GOP megadonor held dual citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis as he lavished the Supreme Court justice with gifts. Harlan Crow, the billionaire GOP donor who paid for luxury travel on his private jet and yacht for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was a dual citizen of the U.S. and the island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis as recently as last year, according to recently unearthed documents. In 2012, Crow and his family were granted passports for St. Kitts and Nevis, a tax haven known for impenetrable financial secrecy, through a cash-for-citizenship scheme. Documents provided to the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation by a whistleblower as part of its Passport Papers investigation and reviewed by the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO, and The Intercept suggest Crow and his brother Trammell S. Crow paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the passports. Financial transparency experts say the island’s tax regime would make tracking Crow’s assets, including gifts to Supreme Court justices, extremely difficult.
Is This What You Voted For? Washington just approved millions of dollars more money for military aid to Kyiv. That means the government there has been given over $35.4 billion in weapons and ammo since February 24, 2022. That’s around $88 million a day in a little more than a year. The Kyiv government has also been given tens of billions in dollars of other aid during this period. In addition, the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security are budgeted to receive around a trillion dollars for war and homeland security in 2023. Meanwhile, Medicaid is being taken away from millions, SNAP/EBT benefits are being cut. Tenants are being tossed from their homes because they can’t pay the rent. Social Security and Medicare are being targeted and the rich pay relatively little in taxes. Is this what you voted for?
Patrick Lawrence: Force-Marching the Europeans Am I the only American to travel overseas and feel embarrassed by the conduct of the diplomats Washington sends abroad to speak for our republic? It is pretty strange to find yourself, an ordinary citizen, apologizing for the intrusive, cajoling, bullying, badgering and otherwise crude utterances of this or that ambassador in this or that nation. But such is the state of things as the late-phase imperium fields its elbows-out undiplomats—a term I borrow from the Swiss, who suffer one as we speak. Scott Miller, the Biden regime’s ambassador to Bern for a little more than a year, is indeed a doozy in this line. In his often-demonstrated view, he is in Switzerland to tell the Swiss what to do. At the moment, Miller is all over this nation for not signing on as a participant in Washington’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine—pressuring ministers, denigrating those who question the wisdom of the war, offending the Swiss in speeches and newspaper interviews. It is a one-man assault on Switzerland’s long, long tradition of neutrality, waged in the manner of an imperial proconsul disciplining an errant province. Swiss commentators question why the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, the FDFA, has not expelled this tone-deaf ignoramus.
U.S. Hydrogen Bombs in Germany:Treaty Law Enforcer Endures Prison, While U.S. Nuclear Bombs in Europe Give Putin an Idea You have to hand it to Dennis DuVall. At age 81, he’s on the cutting edge of the hottest of political and military issues — nuclear weapons — and has put life and limb on the right side of history. On March 23, DuVall began a 60-day prison sentence in Germany for refusing to pay fines for nonviolent interference with the lawless stationing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Deutschland, at the Büchel air base. (U.S. H-bombs are also ‘forward deployed’ in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey.)
Environment — Ecosocialism of Ecocide!:
Ocean Warming Study So Distressing, Some Scientists Didn’t Even Want to Talk About It “This is one of those ‘sit up and read very carefully’ moments,” said one science journalist. Scientists are so alarmed by a new study on ocean warming that some declined to speak about it on the record, the BBC reported Tuesday. “One spoke of being ‘extremely worried and completely stressed,'” the outlet reported regarding a scientist who was approached about research published in the journal Earth System Science Data on April 17, as the study warned that the ocean is heating up more rapidly than experts previously realized—posing a greater risk for sea-level rise, extreme weather, and the loss of marine ecosystems. Scientists from institutions including Mercator Ocean International in France, Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the United States, and Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research collaborated to discover that as the planet has accumulated as much heat in the past 15 years as it did in the previous 45 years, the majority of the excess heat has been has been absorbed by the oceans.
Land, Sea and Air: Climate Change Driving Planetary Crises The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Global Climate 2022 report, released April 21, shows the planetary scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere caused by record levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. For global temperature, the years 2015-2022 were the eight warmest on record despite the cooling impact of a La Niña event for the past three years. Melting of glaciers and sea level rise — which again reached record levels in 2022 — will continue to up to thousands of years. The WMO report follows the release of the State of the Climate in Europe report by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. It complements the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment report, which includes data up to 2020.
What’s Wrong With Biomass Burning? Everything! Presently around the West, the Forest Service, timber advocates, and far too many conservation organizations are promoting biofuels and biomass energy as “Green Energy.” The FS and its allies want to cut more wood (which they term fuels or “waste” while I call it wildlife habitat and carbon storage) from the forest and use it to produce some products that society values, like jet fuel or even heating buildings. But the only thing “green” about biomass energy or fuel is the subsidies that government agencies bestow. Those promoting the biomass fuel and energy juggernaut suggest that burning wood is “clean energy “and carbon neutral. However, biofuels and biomass energy are not clean, not carbon neutral, and not sustainable.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Labor:
Economy:
Regulation Won’t End Bank Crises. We Must Put Shadow Banks Under Public Control. Regulations designed by banks to shield their interests will never be enough to halt banking crises, an economist warns. Regulation Won’t End Bank Crises. We Must Put Shadow Banks Under Public Control.
Jamie Dimon’s Deeply Conflicted Role as “Rescuer” of First Republic Bank Requires a Credible Investigation The Board of Directors and shareholders at the largest bank in the U.S., JPMorgan Chase – which has more than 5,000 Chase Bank branches dotting the landscape from coast to coast – have ample reason to ask themselves where the loyalties of the bank’s Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon exactly lie. Dimon, who has come under withering negative publicity for the bank’s many years of catering to the cash payoff needs of child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, had an urgent incentive to want to change the subject. So a media blitz ensued around his role as rescuer of the sinking carcass of a much smaller bank, First Republic Bank – which has its own dubious distinction of being the bank that wired the hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels by Trump attorney, Michael Cohen.
World:
Cuba’s President Extolls the Cuban People, Discusses Problems Addressing Cuba’s recently-convened National Assembly on April 19, President Miguel Díaz-Canel expressed confidence that the Cuban People would overcome warlike measures imposed by the United States. “Congratulations to everyone on the Day of Victory!” he proclaimed. “On April 19 in 1961 on the sands of Playa Girón (Girón Beach) Cuba won the right to celebrate this day in providing for the first great defeat of imperialism in America. It was the triumph of the just against the unjust, of little David against the giant Goliath, of a socialist Revolution under the nose of the empire.” “Thanks to this victory we today, on the tenth such occasion, install the People’s Assembly.” He declared that each of the 470 deputies “defends the interests of the majority,” that none of them won their seat through money or from the backing of an electoral party.
The Toxic Legacy of US Foreign Policy in Vieques, Puerto Rico Puerto Ricans had no say in the U.S. war of conquest with Spain over its colonial possessions or in the Treaty of Paris that dictated they were to become the property of a new empire. The United States acted according to a well-crafted strategic narrative of white saviorism and American exceptionalism without concern for the people whose land it stole. It wanted to further its control to the south and east via its expansionist foreign policy – and it needed to extend military power beyond its violently acquired borders to do so; the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, known as the cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, provided the impetu
Poland: Millions of Tonnes of Ukrainian Grain Put EU Unity to the Test The carefully maintained picture of a unified bloc of unconditional support for Ukraine turned slightly grainy recently, as Poland imposed import bans on Ukrainian agricultural products. The move widened the rift within the EU as Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria followed suit. These unilateral moves have added to the friction that already existed between Brussels and these frontier states. The irony will not be lost on workers as the foremost sabre-rattling regime in the region suddenly turns a cold shoulder to its new-found Ukrainian friends. Polish magnates very much enjoy their theatrical bravado, but only as long as it doesn’t pose any serious threat to their pofits.
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