Daily News Digest July 31, 2023
War, Climate and My Presidential Campaign
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, July 28, 2023
Cornel West for President
CornelWest24.org
press@cornelwest24.org
Cornel West
I am running for President because these are urgent times, not times for business as usual, not times for shutting down debate, including debate on the existential questions of war and climate.
If we want to end Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and alleviate the suffering of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, we must find ways to end the conflict, not fuel it with cesspools of weapons. Instead of seeking solutions at the negotiating table, President Biden is sending barbaric cluster bombs that will blow off the hands of Ukrainian children for years to come. He has authorized 3,000 U.S. reservists to be deployed to Europe, adding to the over 100,000 U.S. service members already stationed there, including 15,000 on Russia’s doorstep in Romania and Poland. As Ukraine’s counteroffensive continues to falter, will Biden end up sending our sons and daughters to fight and die in Ukraine?
Biden is walking us into a nuclear WWIII, while robbing money from poor and working people to fatten the bank accounts of war profiteers at the Pentagon trough.
It is unconscionable to spend over $100 billion to continue the war in Ukraine, while 34 million people at home are food insecure, 1 in 4 Americans are saddled with medical debt, 60% live paycheck to paycheck, millions lack access to clean water and hundreds of thousands of homeless people sleep in tents on our city streets. It is unconscionable to spend over $100 billion to continue the war in Ukraine while our ecosystems collapse and extreme weather envelopes us in 112 degree heat, wildfires, hurricanes and floods. This is thievery in plain sight–thievery. Let’s look at who is profiting from this carnage. Raytheon. Northrop Grumman. Lockheed Martin. Why is the Biden administration hurling our money at the CEO of Raytheon, who makes 22 million dollars a year?
War is a racket. And so is the fossil fuel industry.
The corporate criminals who knew about global warming but lied, telling us that burning fossil fuels would not burn up the planet, are profiting lavishly from this war by replacing Russian-sanctioned energy with our own exports of dirty fossil fuels. The U.S. is now Europe’s top crude oil supplier. Not only that, but Biden’s domestic policies have worsened the climate crisis. The man who ran on a platform to rescue us from climate catastrophe has issued more oil drilling permits than Trump, another climate enemy. Last year, ExxonMobil made $56 billion, an all-time record for an oil company, while Shell raked in $40 billion. Chevron and Total also made out like bandits, pocketing $36 billion each.
We must get serious about the climate crisis that is making our planet uninhabitable.
If I were President, I would sit down with China’s President Xi to talk about these existential crises of climate and war. I would urge him to use his leverage as Russia’s number one trade partner to push Putin to the negotiating table, and I would promise to do the same with Zelensky so we can end this senseless carnage with a diplomatic resolution that addresses neutrality for Ukraine, referendums for the Donbas and Crimea, a demilitarized border, nuclear disarmament and security guarantees for all.
I would also stop the ridiculous and dangerous saber-rattling against China, the world’s largest exporter and owner of a trillion dollars of US debt. This saber-rattling only benefits the same war profiteers raiding our treasury for endless war in Ukraine. Instead, I would work with Chinese leaders to stop our planet from burning up in flames.
Yes, we need collaboration, not competition. We need dialogue, not cluster munitions. We need to tamp down the existential threat of nuclear war so that we can ramp up our solutions to the existential climate threat.
These are urgent times, indeed, and that is why I am running.
Images of the Day:
Capitalism is Now a Worldwide Threat to Humanity! It is on the Fast Track to Global Warming and/or Nuclear War Catastrophes!
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:
Cornel West: King’s response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a reevaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens. Cornel West
Podcasts/Vidoes of the Day:
As U.N. Warns “Era of Global Boiling Has Arrived,” Biden Resists Declaring Climate Emergency
Environment:
After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecocide’!
One of Many Ways to Begin to End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%!
‘July Should Be a Wake-Up Call’: Senator Says Biden Must Stop Approving New Fossil Fuel Projects! “We are in a climate emergency,” said Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley. “We can’t take a piecemeal approach to the massive crisis we face.” Citing the extreme temperatures baking much of the United States during July—which is set to be the hottest month ever recorded on Earth—Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon on Thursday called on President Joe Biden to stop approving new fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency.
Plastic Overshoot Day Spotlights Growing ‘Climate Nightmare’ of Global Waste “Simply praying that we can recycle our way out of this problem will not cut it,” said former Unilever CEO Paul Polman, an outspoken critic of plastic waste. That’s the amount of plastic expected to wind up in the environment across the globe this year as the amount of waste generated by humans and giant corporations continues to grow exponentially. On Friday, according to the advocacy group Earth Action, the planet reached Plastic Overshoot Day, the point at which the amount of plastic waste overwhelms the world’s capacity to manage it.
The Nuclear Energy Trap Nuclear reactors are directly in the line of fire of global warming. In fact, nuclear reactors cannot survive global warming. But that’s only the start of serious issues with the world’s newly found love affair with nuclear energy. This article examines the likelihood of nuclear energy as a fixit for global warming, or is it a victim? The world is turning to nuclear energy as one solution for raging global warming, which has been in the news on a real time basis drying up commercial rivers, depleting major reservoirs and spreading wildfires like there’s no tomorrow. Yet, that’s only a sampling of global warming knockoffs. Significantly, it’s getting worse by the year, and there are some who wonder how much worse before the climate system literally implodes with destructive capacity beyond Hollywood’s wildest imagination.
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
A Vote for Trump or Biden is a Vote for Ecocide!
Sanders has Been ‘Barking Left’, Since Cornel West Announced as a Green Party Candidate for the Presidency, In his Role as a Sheepdog for the Democratic Party!: Sanders ‘Disappointed, But Not Surprised,’ as Senate Rejects 10% Military Spending Cut ” Somehow, we never have enough money for healthcare, education, or housing, but always have more than enough money for a bloated and wasteful Defense Department that cannot even pass an independent audit.”
Civil Rights/Blackliberation:
Labor:
What Happened to the Big UPS Strike? Can a union achieve a “historic victory,” a gamechanger in contract negotiations without an actual strike? The Teamsters claim they have achieved such a victory. On Tuesday, July 25th, contract negotiation resumed between the Teamsters and United Parcel Service (UPS) after a two week hiatus. It was a short meeting before both sides posted statements to their websites and social media outlets. Many rank and file UPS Teamsters were caught off guard by the sudden announcement. Yet, two days before the Tentative Settlement (TA) was announced, Noam Scheiber of the New York Times, appeared to understand something that the broad U.S. and labor left had largely ignored about Teamster General President Sean O’Brien: For all his pugilistic statements, Mr. O’Brien remains an establishment figure who appears to prefer reaching a deal to going on strike, and he has subtly acted to make one less likely.
Economy:
Resisting the Debt System The combination of the pandemic, sharp global recession, inflation, and interest rate hikes by central banks has triggered a new debt crisis throughout the Global South. The United Nations recently released a new report that found a total of fifty-two countries, nearly 40 percent of the developing world, in “serious debt trouble.” Already, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are renegotiating their debt—not to abolish it, but to grant more loans and reschedule their loan payments—all to preserve the debt system that keeps the Global South in hock to Western capital. Ashley Smith interviews Éric Toussaint about the history of this debt system and the new debt crisis. Toussaint is a historian and political scientist, the spokesperson of the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt, and part of the Scientific Council of ATTAC France. He received his PhD from the Universities of Paris VIII and Liège and is the author of many books, including The Debt System: A History of Sovereign Debts and Their Repudiation and the newly released The World Bank: A Critical History.
It’s not Goldilocks Both the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank raised their policy interest rate again this week. The Fed rate now stands at its highest in 22 years. The ECB rate has never been as high. The ostensible reason for this is that hiking interest rates until the pips squeak in the economic orange will eventually get the inflation rate of consumer prices down to the (arbitrary) central bank targets of 2% a year. This policy is based on the theory that accelerating inflation was being caused by ‘excessive demand’ by consumers (workers). So raising interest rates, by increasing the cost of borrowing (mortgages, consumer credit and loans to firms), will slow down spending and investment sufficiently to bring ‘demand’ back into line with ‘supply’. As I and many others have argued, this theory is full of holes. It assumes that the cause of inflation is excessive demand and not insufficient supply. The latter side of the price equation is ignored. And yet the evidence on the causes of the inflationary spike since the end of the pandemic slump clearly shows that it was a supply ‘shock’ (the word used by the mainstream to describe anything disturbing the supposed harmony of supply and demand in a market economy).
World:
Sanctions on China, Export Controls on Rare Earths for the U.S.: Two, It Turns Out, Can Tango If Washington intended to bully Beijing economically and indefinitely, July 3 was a rude awakening. That’s when China announced export controls on two, vital rare earth metals, germanium and gallium. In and of itself this move clobbers one sector of U.S. industry, such as it is. But even worse is what it portends. China has 60 percent of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals. The other 40 percent are in locations of dubious accessibility. But that’s not all. Ninety percent of the processing of those rare earth minerals occurs in the country U.S. sanctions have royally pissed off, namely China. Why are rare earth minerals so critical? The technology for wind and solar energy and for electric vehicles depends on them. Also, microchip production requires gallium and germanium. High-tech defense weapons use rare earth minerals as well. Personally, I think not being able to flood the planet with those weapons any longer would be a boon for mankind. But I doubt armament moguls agree. Bigwigs at Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are probably far from pleased by this latest development, about which Wei Jianguo, former Chinese vice minister of commerce, said to China Daily that these new export controls were basically just the beginning. If the Biden bunch keeps adding technology sanctions, more rare earths will be restricted. In other words, certain kinds of U.S. manufacturing will grind to a halt.
The Korean War at 70: Imperialism’s legacy of bloodshed and division Today marks 70 years since the truce that brought a stop to the Korean War and divided the peninsula. Events surrounding the conflict revealed both the brutality and cynicism of US imperialism, and the crimes of Stalinism, leaving a historic scar. . . . The Armistice is not a peace agreement. Technically, the two states that exist on the Korean Peninsula to the north and south of the 38th parallel are still at war with each other.
Freedom for Boris Kagarlitsky – Mobilise International Solidarity! The prominent Russian left-wing intellectual and academic Boris Kagarlitsky was detained by the Russian security services FSB on July 25, on the basis of a criminal investigation against him for “justifying terrorism”. He was transferred to Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic, where a tribunal decreed his preventative arrest. He can be held until September 24
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