Daily News Digest June 6, 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:
Steve Bell on Global Temperatures Heading Towards ‘Uncharted Territory’
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:
On the Eve of Ecocide!
The Whole World, it is Rapidly Warming, With Floods, Droughts, and Pollution.. A Green World is Just and Illusion, As Profits are Soaring, — Hunger/Poverty Growing The Ecocidic Apocalypse Now Showing! Capitalism’s Taking Us to Dystruction!
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. — Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. — Thomas Jefferson
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
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
Ralph Nader: Reverse the Accelerating Warfare State Before It’s Too Late! Welcome to America – Land of the Free, Home of the Brave sleepwalking its way through Sucker Land. It gets worse, People. Not only did the Pentagon, and indirectly the giant munitions corporations like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Dynamics get exempted, they were told by both the GOP and the Democrats to get ready, in the coming years, to receive additional tens of billions of dollars that the Generals and Biden didn’t even ask for. Biden wants to increase last year’s Pentagon budget by $48 billion, and the blank-check solons on Capitol Hill are inclined to match him. Except for a few dozen progressives, the support for this Niagara of dollars is bipartisan even though the Pentagon budget is and has been unauditable.
The Debt Limit Bill: Yet Another Triumph For Bipartisanship Democrats and Republicans have previously joined hands to support the invasion of Iraq, huge corporate tax cuts, and more. This weekend, President Joe Biden is expected to sign a bill raising the federal debt limit for approximately two years. It passed the House 314-117, with 149 of the yes votes coming from Republicans and 165 from Democrats. The bill passed the Senate 63-36. Forty-four Democratic senators voted for it, along with 17 Republicans and two independents. The New York Times concludes that, compared with previous Congressional Budget Office forecasts, it will cut federal spending by $55 billion in 2024 and $81 billion in 2025. Moody’s Analytics estimates that, thanks to the bill, there will be 120,000 fewer jobs at the end of 2024 than there would be without it. According to the CBO, cuts to Internal Revenue Service enforcement will lead to tax revenues falling to the degree that it will actually increase the deficit on net, thereby accomplishing the exact opposite of the bill’s purported aim.
A good thought, but Sanders and the Democratic Party are Part of the Problem — Not the Solution!: When 3 Men Richer Than 165 Million People, Sanders Says Working Class Must ‘Come Together’ When 3 Men Richer Than 165 Million People, Sanders Says Working Class Must ‘Come Together’ Big-money special interests “want to divide us up,” said the independent senator at a living wage rally in South Carolina, “and we are determined to bring working people together.” As President Joe Biden signed into law an agreement Saturday that would shield wealthy tax cheats from stronger IRS enforcement while at the same time enacting cuts to key anti-poverty programs, Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressive allies were busy denouncing the immoral, low-wage economic system in the United States in which just a small handful of mega-billionaires have accumulated more wealth than tens of millions of hard-working but low-paid workers and their families.
Weapons Industry-Funded Think Tanks Behind the Case for Endless War in Ukraine When you hear a think tank scholar comment on the Ukraine war, chances are you’re hearing from someone whose employer is funded by those who profit from war, but you’ll probably never know it. “To be brutal about it, we need to see masses of Russians fleeing, deserting, shooting their officers, taken captive, or dead. The Russian defeat must be an unmistakably big, bloody shambles. …To that end, with the utmost urgency, the West should give everything that Ukraine could possibly use,” argues Eliot Cohen in The Atlantic. What neither Cohen, who also famously pushed for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, nor The Atlantic acknowledge in the article is that most of the weapons Cohen mentions in the article — including long-range missiles, F-16s, and even F-35s — are made by funders of Cohen’s employer, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Envionment:
Don’t Look Up Director Adam McKay to Triple Donations to Just Stop Oil Hollywood director of climate crisis satire praised protestors for waking up ‘sleeping governments’ and will triple donations over weekend The Hollywood director of Netflix film Don’t Look Up has pledged to triple donations to Just Stop Oil over the weekend, the group has said. Adam McKay, who made the satire on the climate crisis as well as Step Brothers and The Big Short, said he stands with the protesters, praising them for waking up “sleeping governments”
Environmental Advocates Push the EPA to Take a Stand on Reproductive Justice Pregnant people’s health is threatened by climate change and pollutants. The EPA can make protecting them a priority. Waning abortion access has dominated conversations around reproductive justice, but a lesser known principle of the movement to maintain bodily and reproductive autonomy is being threatened by a changing climate and a slew of environmental contaminants. One of the main tenets of reproductive justice is the ability to raise a child in a safe and healthy environment, according to SisterSong, one of the leading reproductive justice collectives in the country. But the evidence that pollutants are impacting the health of pregnant people is everywhere.
Pesticide Firms Withheld Brain Toxicity Studies From EU Regulators, Study Finds Exclusive: The same studies were submitted to US regulators and some are relevant to safety levels, the researchers say Pesticide companies failed to disclose a series of studies assessing brain toxicity to European regulators, according to new research, despite the same studies having been submitted to US regulators. When the EU authorities were made aware of the studies, between 14 and 21 years after they were conducted, new safety limits were applied in some cases and evaluation is still under way in other cases.
Iraq’s Oil Boom Blamed for Worsening Water Crisis in Drought-Hit South Pollution from gas flaring – the burning of natural gas associated with oil extraction – is also a major concern in the oil-rich but extremely dry south Western oil companies are exacerbating water shortages and causing pollution in Iraq as they race to profit from rising oil prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Water scarcity has already displaced thousands and increased instability, according to international experts, while Iraq is now considered the fifth most vulnerable country to the climate crisis by the UN. In the oil-rich but extremely dry south, wetlands that used to feed entire communities are now muddy canals.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Racist Killer Cops: CDC Report Recognizes Police-Perpetrated Killing as Major Cause of Violent Death Federal researchers detailed huge racial disparities in deadly police violence, but crucial data is still missing. In a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), federal researchers acknowledge in detail that police-perpetrated killings are a major cause of violent death in the United States, and Black and Indigenous men are disproportionally killed by police compared to all other groups tracked in the data. Experts say the analysis is a step forward for the CDC, but crucial data on people who died while in police custody or inside local jails is likely missing from the report. Reforms meant to address police violence have stalled across the country, and reckless police shootings and reports of lethal neglect continue to make headlines three years after George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis, sparking a nationwide uprising.
Labor:
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics Daily Update (June 4th to 7th). LATEST ECONOMIC HEADLINES:
- Fed Appears to be Easing Anew.
- May 2023 Jobs Reporting Conflict: Unemployment spiked sharply, but so too did Payroll Employment [the UNEMPLOYMENT ALTERNATE DATA Tab and accompanying graph are updated]. Hint: Early Payroll reporting often is revised massively, but not so the initial headline Unemployment Rate.
- April 2023 Real Construction Spending declined year-to-year for the 19th straight month, despite a monthly gain and upside revisions.
- University of Michigan’s full-month May 2023 Consumer Sentiment held shy by 41.4% (-41.4%) of ever recovering its February 2020 Pre-Pandemic Peak level.
- Combined First-Quarter 2023 GDP and GDI signaled a Recession in place [The GDP ALTERNATE DATA Tab and accompanying graph are updated]. –
- Inlation pressures continued, with April 2023 Money Supply reflecting still-extreme flight to liquidity. The most-liquid “Basic M1” (currency plus Demand Deposits) held 118.1% above its Pre-Pandemic Level and is increasing year-to-year, versus the Aggregate M2 Money Supply holding up by 30.0%, but declining year-to-year, amidst no signs of an overheating economy.
The Three Large Banks that Blew Up This Year Were Not Even on the FDIC’s Problem Bank List The second, third, and fourth largest bank failures in U.S. history occurred this year. And yet, none of the banks that blew up were on the “Problem Bank List” that is prepared quarterly by the federal bank regulator that is supposed to be on top of these things – the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). When the FDIC released its quarterly Problem Bank List for the quarter ending December 31, 2022, it showed just 39 banks were a problem with combined assets of a meager $47.5 billion. Given that rosy picture, one can understand the shock to the American people when Silicon Valley Bank blew up on March 10 with $212 billion in assets and had to be put into FDIC receivership. Two days later, on March 12, Signature Bank failed and was put into FDIC receivership. As of December 31, 2022, Signature Bank had $110.4 billion in assets.
World:
The Widening Fissures in World Relations and the Task of Communists The crisis of capitalism is also the crisis of the post-USSR world order, which was based on the domination of US imperialism. With the rise of China as a world power, Russia taking an increasingly defiant stance internationally, and the US unable to intervene militarily on a large scale, the world policeman’s stick doesn’t carry the weight, nor guarantee the compliance, that it once did. This has major implications for the balance of power on the world stage. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, the US was defeated. In Libya, it was outflanked. Meanwhile, second-rate powers, many of them longstanding allies of the US, have increasingly diverged from Washington’s wishes. In the Ukraine war, the Americans saw an opportunity to weaken Russia, which is the most powerful ally of their main rival, China. But a man stuck in quicksand should not move, they say. Rather than restoring the standing of US imperialism, the war has exacerbated the contradictions in world relations, and further undermined American authority.
Hundreds of Thousands Rally Against Poland’s Authoritarian Right-Wing Government “We are now at a crossroads between being an authoritarian and a democratic country,” said one activist. An estimated 500,000 people took to the streets of the capital Warsaw and other Polish cities on Sunday to protest the nation’s far-right government, which has assailed reproductive freedoms, attacked the rights of LGBTQ+ people, and cracked down on critical civil society groups and media outlets.
Guns Vs Butter: Tories Wage War on the working Class During a recent tour by Zelensky, Rishi Sunak pledged to continue supporting the Ukrainian war effort with millions more in military aid. But while the Tories prolong the conflict for their own cynical reasons, workers are footing the bill. At the recent G7 summit in Japan, Rishi Sunak guaranteed President Zelensky that Britain will continue its crusade for ‘freedom’ and ‘sovereignty’ in Ukraine. “From providing Challenger tanks to long-range missiles and pilot training,” Sunak sternly stated, “the UK’s support for Ukraine’s defence will never waver.”
Education. Heal, 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
Gangster Capitalism and the Politics of Fascist Education Capitalism has always been constructed on the basis of organized violence. Wedded to a political and economic system that consolidates power in the hands of a financial, cultural social elite, it construes profit making as the essence of democracy and consuming as the only obligation of citizenship. Matters of ethics, social responsibility, the welfare state, and the social contract are viewed as enemies of the market, thus legitimating the subordination of human needs to a relentless drive for accumulating profits at the expense of vital social needs and the larger public.[1] Driven by a ruthless emphasis on privatization, deregulation, commodification, a sclerotic individualism and ruthless model of competition—neoliberal capitalism has morphed into a machinery of death—an unabashed form of gangster capitalism.