Daily News Digest June 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:
Global Warming Breaches 1.5°C Threshold in Summer for 1st Time! 
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:
A Vote for Trump or Biden is a Vote for Ecocide:
Fossil fuel companies and the banks that finance them “have humanity by the throat”, the UN secretary general has said, in a “blistering” attack on the industry and its backers, who are pulling in record profits amid energy prices sent soaring by the Ukraine war. António Guterres compared fossil fuel companies to the tobacco companies that continued to push their addictive products while concealing or attacking health advice that showed clear links between smoking and cancer, the first time he has drawn such a parallel. — Fossil Fuel Firms ‘Have Humanity by the Throat’, Says UN Head In Blistering Attack
Videos/Podcasts of the Day:
Here’s Why Cornel West Switched To Green Party In Presidential Campaign (w/ Chris Hedges) Progressive activist and academic Cornel West grabbed headlines recently when he announced he would be running for President under the People’s Party banner. Now West has had a change of heart and will instead be running for the nomination of the Green Party. And, as if on cue, he is already being roundly excoriated by Democrats as a secret right-winger who will throw the election to Donald Trump.
After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘Sicialism or Barbaism’!
Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecoside’!
One of Many Ways to Beginto End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%!:
Taking Aim at Industry, UN Chief Warns Fossil Fuels ‘Incompatible With Human Survival’ “The world must phase out fossil fuels in a just and equitable way—moving to leave oil, coal, and gas in the ground where they belong and massively boosting renewable investment in a just transition,” António Guterres said. As United Nations climate talks came to a disappointing conclusion in Germany on Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres delivered remarks in New York City targeting “the polluted heart of the climate crisis: the fossil fuel industry.”
‘Nowhere on Earth to Escape’: World Breached 1.5C Limit Temporarily in Hottest June On Record ‘Nowhere on Earth to escape’: World breached 1.5C limit temporarily in hottest June on record ‘Every fraction of a degree of warming means significant impacts on people and communities now and in the future’ The world breached – for a time – 1.5 degrees Celsius this month, scientists confirmed on Thursday, as they issued warnings on how fast humanity is approaching the critical warming limit set by the Paris Agreement. The first 11 days of June were the hottest on record for this time of year, the European earth observation programme, Copernicus, reported. The 1.5C threshold was crossed after El Niño – a climate pattern linked to warming in the Pacific – was officially declared, and last month saw record sea-surface temperatures. ‘Every fraction of a degree of warming means significant impacts on people and communities now and in the future’
George Monbiot: The Hard Right snd Climate Catastrophe are Intimately Linked. The hard right and climate catastrophe are intimately linked. This is how As climate policy is weakened, extreme weather intensifies and more refugees are driven from their homes – and the cycle of hatred continues Round the cycle turns. As millions are driven from their homes by climate disasters, the extreme right exploits their misery to extend its reach. As the extreme right gains power, climate programmes are shut down, heating accelerates and more people are driven from their homes. If we don’t break this cycle soon, it will become the dominant story of our times.
Is Exposure To Environmental Toxins A Risk Factor For Heart Disease? The science is clear. Chronic exposure to low levels of lead, cadmium, and arsenic in our air, water, soil, and food is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, according to a new American Heart Association statement made on Monday. These metals have no function in the human body. Yet, they are found in groundwater, water pipes, paint, fertilizer, plastics, electronics, gasoline, pesticides, batteries, foods and other commonly used household items. “Large population studies indicate that even low-level exposure to contaminant metals is near-universal and contributes to the burden of cardiovascular disease, especially heart attacks, stroke, disease of the arteries to the legs and premature death from cardiac causes,” said Gervasio A. Lamas, M.D., FAHA, chair of the statement writing group and chairman of medicine and chief of the Columbia University Division of Cardiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida. This new statement is a big deal when you consider that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the No. 1 cause of death in the world, leading to at least 18 million lives lost each year.
World Bank Confirms Reallocating Fossil Fuel, Factory Farm Subsidies Key to Solving Climate Crisis “If we could repurpose the trillions of dollars being spent on wasteful subsidies and put these to better, greener uses, we could together address many of the planet’s most pressing challenges,” said one official. The World Bank on Thursday reached a conclusion that progressives have been shouting from the rooftops for decades: If governments redirected the trillions of dollars they spend annually to prop up fossil fuels as well as industrial agriculture and commercial fisheries, humanity would be in a much better position to address the climate crisis and other life-threatening global issues.
Global Temps Not Just Off the Chart, But Off the Wall the Chart Is Tagged The rapid warming over the next couple of years is likely to be our last opportunity to really act coherently as a civilization to reduce the magnitude of this crisis, and so far we are blowing it We’ve reached the scariest moment yet in the climate saga: I noted in mid-April that there were all kinds of signs that a rapid increase in global warming was underway, and every day since has borne out that warning. We now have truly remarkable data about sea surface temperature—across the world’s oceans, and especially in the north Atlantic, we’re seeing numbers that aren’t just off the charts, they’re off the wall the chart is tacked to. It seems increasingly likely that 2023 will turn out to be the hottest year yet, even though a true El Niño won’t be fully underway till late summer or autumn.
United States:
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
As the US Miliitsry is the No. 1 Global Warming Threat: Military Contractor CEOs Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank—At Taxpayer Expense “Huge CEO compensation,” William Hartung observes, “does nothing to advance the defense of the United States and everything to enrich a small number of individuals.” Does anyone have a sweeter deal than military contractor CEOs? The United States spent more last year on defense than the next 10 nations combined. A deal just brokered by the White House and House Republicans increases that amount even further—to $886 billion. Defense contractors will pocket about half of that.
Cuts to Foreign Assistance Put Lives at Risk The US has a moral responsibility to keep its foreign assistance strong and stand in solidarity with those suffering. Now is not the time for global powers to cut their aid. While many countries around the world face a deadly convergence of extreme poverty, food insecurity, and violent conflict, large economies are cutting foreign assistance funding. Millions of people around the world rely on life-saving aid. According to the World Food Programme, in 2023, more than 345 million people face extreme food insecurity—twice as many compared to 2020.
High Court Targets More Long-Held Rights They’re at it again. Despite an astonishingly sane decision in favor of the Voting Rights Act on June 8, overall those wacky supreme court justices keep handing down mindboggling rulings, quite recently that the Environmental Protection Agency can only regulate so much what goes into the water supply. After all, we wouldn’t want a regulatory body to block corporations from dumping mercury in rivers and streams, would we? ‘Cause that’s what comes next, make no mistake. Regarding our right not to ingest toxins, the supremes don’t care. Indeed, as the corporate puppets on the high court shrink the EPA’s powers, the final reactionary dream come true moves closer: dismantling the agency, so corporate Amurica can get back to the business of dumping its poisons wherever it wants, accountable to no one. Specifically, on May 25, the high court curtailed the EPA’s power to regulate wetlands. “Nearly two decades ago, the court ruled that wetlands are protected if they have a ‘significant nexus’ to nearby regulated waters,” the Washington Post reported that day. “Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for himself and four others of the court’s conservatives rejected that test and imposed one that environmentalists say will remove millions of acres of environmentally sensitive land from federal regulation.”
Civil Rights/Blackliberation:
Labor:
‘A Clear Message’: 97% of UPS Teamsters Vote to Authorize Nationwide Strike “The strongest leverage our members have is their labor,” said Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, “and they are prepared to withhold it to ensure UPS acts accordingly.” In a landslide vote on Friday, United Parcel Service workers represented by the Teamsters authorized a nationwide strike as part of their effort to win a strong contract in ongoing negotiations. The Teamsters said in a statement that 97% of UPS workers represented by the union voted in support of a strike if there’s no acceptable deal with management by July 31, when the current contract—the biggest of its kind in North America—expires.
Economy:
Debt crisis: Predatory Powers Fight Over Scraps in Pillage of Poor Nations A bankruptcy crisis is looming over the world. The New York Times has called it “a debt crisis unlike anything we have seen”. This isn’t the threat of a handful of banking behemoths going under, however, but rather of entire national economies. Some 54 low and middle-income countries are today teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. National bankruptcy ushered in a near 8 percent GDP collapse of the Sri Lankan economy last year. The consequences involved atrocious suffering for the masses in that country. Now, similar agony is being prepared for millions of others. How did this global debt crisis emerge? When reading about it in the capitalist press, you could be forgiven for imagining that it’s all down to sheer recklessness of governments in poor countries. The truth is that the whole thing is the product of a conscious policy of pillage by the finance capitalists of a handful of wealthy creditor nations.
World:
The Climate Crisis Is the Latest Form of Colonialism If Bangladesh sinks, it won’t be an abstract environmental loss, but the last breath of a people that started dying the minute the British landed on Indian soil. I am from a disappearing nation. My country, Bangladesh, is one of several at risk of becoming submerged partially or completely by rising sea levels caused by climate change in the coming decades; 75% of the country lies below sea level
Health. Welfare, and Education:
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
More Than 1.2M Patients Have Been Booted Off Medicaid. Most Are Still Eligible. An estimated 76 percent of those disenrolled were kicked off for “procedural reasons” like completing paperwork late. Ahealthcare catastrophe is unfolding across the U.S. as states — now unrestrained by coverage rules enacted early in the coronavirus pandemic — continue to remove people from Medicaid at an alarming clip, mostly for procedural reasons unrelated to their eligibility for the program. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), which has been tracking Medicaid disenrollments since Congress and the Biden White House agreed late last year to begin unwinding pandemic-era coverage protections in April, estimates based on state data that more than 1.2 million people have been removed from the program in 21 states as of Thursday.
Coronavirus Surrogate Persistence and Cross-Contamination on Food Service Operation Fomites Abstract: This study investigated the persistence and transfer rate of phi 6 bacteriophage (SARS-CoV-2 surrogate) on food contact surfaces and fomites that are commonly present in food service operations. Coupons (e.g., stainless steel, cutting board) were inoculated with phi 6 and phi 6 survival was quantified over 30 days. The results showed that phi 6 persisted for up to 13 days on sponges, stainless steel, tabletops, countertops, cutting boards, and light switches. Additionally, phi 6 was found for 10 days on microfiber towels and wooden floors. We examined the transfer rate of phi 6 from food contact surfaces to wiping tools, hands, and produce. Fomites and hands were inoculated with 107 or 103 PFU/cm2 phi 6 to simulate high and low contamination levels, and surfaces were allowed to dry for 1 hr. The inoculated surfaces were swabbed with sponges or towels or touched with hands or produce, and then these samples were analyzed. The results indicated that food contact surfaces, fomites, and hands can serve as sources of viral transmission within food service operations. Enveloped phi 6 could persist for days on inanimate surfaces and pose a high risk of cross-contamination in food service operations. The results of this study could be used by the food service industry to address sanitation practices and by public health agencies to provide science-based recommendations to stakeholders.
Why Should Drug Corporations Like Merck and Eli Lilly Even Exist? These predatory corporations try to present themselves as socially responsible, but their business model continues to hurt the very people they claim to care about.