Daily News Digest August 9, 2023
Images of the Day:
Bendib:The Meaning of Democracy 
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:
Podcasts/Vidoes of the Day:
One of Many Ways to Begin to End Global Warming: Expose ‘Greenwashing’ — Tax the Polluters 100%!
After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan Should Be: ‘Ecosocialism or Ecocide’!
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%!
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!
Exploiting Haiti through the Global Fragility Act The United States has had its claws in Haiti for a century and isn’t about to let go. Foreign domination has destroyed this Caribbean country, the first Black republic in the Western Hemisphere, established by a slave uprising in 1804. Today, a deeply broken Haiti is at the top of the list for reinvasion and reoccupation by a new U.S. plot — the Global Fragility Act, passed by Congress in 2019. U.S. priority? Shield assets. This country has always treated Haiti like a colony. Its low-wage sweatshops produce garments for Walmart and Target. These are Haiti’s principal exports. Overseas mining corporations rob the island’s natural resources. Since local agriculture and industry were destroyed by free-market capitalism, vendors now flood Haiti with American oil, crops, and manufactured goods. Heads of state are chosen by neo-colonial rulers from abroad.
The Obscenely Wealthy Have Recently Experienced Obscene Increases in Their Wealth Former Clinton administration Secretary of Labor Robert Reich recently wrote an article with the subtitle “Biden’s economic policies are the most successful in the US in decades.” He continues stating that the Biden administration policies “may even put the nation on the path to widely shared prosperity for a generation” and “are beginning to alter the structure of the American economy in favor of the bottom 90%.” These policies have certainly been successful at creating greater prosperity for the 10 wealthiest people in the United States. Their wealth, after a large decline in 2022, is now almost 24% greater than it was at the beginning of 2021, right before the start of Biden’s presidency. (see second table below)
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%!
Study Warns Burning Fossil Fuels ‘Anywhere in the World’ Is Destructive to Antarctica Slashing greenhouse gas emissions is “our best hope of preserving Antarctica,” said the lead author of a new study. The warming continent of Antarctica will face increasingly extreme and damaging weather events in the coming years if world leaders don’t take “drastic action” to rein in fossil fuels, the primary driver of global climate chaos. That’s the conclusion of a study published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science amid growing alarm over the failure of Antarctic sea ice to replenish during the continent’s winter. According to scientists, Antarctica was missing an Argentina-sized amount of sea ice as of July—the hottest month on record.
Degrowth and Socialism: Notes on Some Critical Junctures The dialogue, or controversy, depending on how one looks at it, between advocates of degrowth and socialism over the past years has brought about a partial convergence expressed in recent synthesis-seeking contributions.1 At the same time, salient differences between the two currents, highly heterogeneous within themselves, still persist. These pertain to their imaginaries on how to overcome capitalism and what to replace it with, which can easily be seen even in the respective nomenclatures they employ, namely a postcapitalist future of degrowth versus socialism. From a certain viewpoint, capitalism can be seen as generalized commodity production where individual production units make independent decisions regarding what and how much to produce, which combination of inputs and technologies to employ, how to organize the production process, and so forth. As individual productive units have no choice but to relate to the rest of the picture through their products, value serves as the common ground where commodities are equated in terms of the quantity of abstract labor they contain, and where emerging profit differentials give cues on the rate and direction of new investment. The pursuit of profit constitutes the regulating principle, and production at the aggregate level is regulated as each excessive expansion or contraction sets in motion forces that counteract the deviation.
The Brockovich Report: The Struggle To Protect Our Public Lands We Talk With Documentary Filmmaker Garrett Martin About His New Movie, The River Runs On In the beginning, all was water, or so goes the Cherokee story of how the world was made. The legend is told in the opening to a new documentary, The River Runs On, which follows conservationists throughout southern Appalachia as they work to protect two of the most important national forests in America, Pisgah and Nantahala, some of the most biodiverse and visited forests in the country. Most people assume that our public lands are protected, but it’s a little more complicated than that. Right now, many factors threaten the future of our public lands including commercial logging, gas pipelines, mining, climate change, and yes, even recreation. More people than ever visited our protected and managed forests in 2020 with more than 168 million visits, creating a challenge of both meeting visitor demands and continuing the care for the long-term health of the forests and grasslands. And the trend of more visitors has continued last year and this year. In addition, forestry operations like logging generate significant amounts of nonpoint source (NPS) pollution. States report that NPS pollution is the leading remaining cause of water quality problems and that these pollutants have harmful effects on drinking water supplies, recreation, fisheries, and wildlife.
Civil Rights/Blackliberation:
Racism at Heart Of US Failure To Tackle Deadly Heatwaves, Expert Warns Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First, found ‘engine of planetary chaos’ in travels from Antarctica to California Racism is at the heart of the American government’s failure to tackle the growing threat of deadly heatwaves, according to the author of an authoritative new book on the heating planet. Jeff Goodell, an award winning climate journalist, told the Guardian that people of color – including millions of migrant workers who are bearing the brunt of record-breaking temperatures as farmhands, builders and delivery workers – are not guaranteed lifesaving measures like water and shade breaks because they are considered expendable. In The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet, Goodell documents the tragic – and preventable – death of Sebastian Perez, a Guatemalan garden centre worker who collapsed and died in Portland, Oregon, on the first day of the brutal Pacific north-west heatwave in June 2021. In the US, there are no federal rules related to heat exposure for workers – indoors or out. Racism is at the heart of the American government’s failure to tackle the growing threat of deadly heatwaves, according to the author of an authoritative new book on the heating planet. Jeff Goodell, author of The Heat Will Kill You First, found ‘engine of planetary chaos’ in travels from Antarctica to California Racism is at the heart of the American government’s failure to tackle the growing threat of deadly heatwaves, according to the author of an authoritative new book on the heating planet. Jeff Goodell, an award winning climate journalist, told the Guardian that people of color – including millions of migrant workers who are bearing the brunt of record-breaking temperatures as farmhands, builders and delivery workers – are not guaranteed lifesaving measures like water and shade breaks because they are considered expendable.
Pregnant Black Woman Wrongly Arrested in Detroit Using Facial Recognition The ACLU of Michigan has demanded that the Detroit Police Department end its use of the software. Recent reports have revealed that the Detroit Police Department wrongly arrested a pregnant Black woman for a crime she did not commit after she was misidentified by the city’s facial recognition software. The woman, Porcha Woodruff, was arrested at her house in February and held for 11 hours at the Detroit Detention Center, during which time she had contractions. The Detroit Police Department makes about 125 facial recognition searches each year, but fails to correctly identify people 96 percent of the time. While the Detroit police department has a policy that facial recognition identification can only be considered a lead and can’t be used as the sole basis for an arrest, Detroit police have arrested at least three people who were misidentified by the software since the launch of the program, Project Green Light.
Labor:
US Workers Are Raising the Heat for Economic Justice From thousands of writers and actors in Hollywood to thousands of airport workers at major travel hubs nationwide to hotel workers in southern California, working people are embracing their power in unprecedented ways. Workers have had enough. In what many have labeled “hot labor summer,” hundreds of thousands of laborers are raising their voices and taking to the streets to demand living wages and better working conditions.
Protesting ‘Repeated Labor Law Violations,’ LA City Workers Launch 24-Hour Strike “We’re FED UP with the city’s blatant lack of respect,” said the union that represents the striking workers.
Employer Debt Traps Violate Workers’ Rights, Federal Regulators Say Labor advocates say employer-driven debt is a form of illegal union-busting, and regulators appear poised to crack down. osses that foist debt on new hires, an increasingly common management practice, appear to be violating their workers’ right to organize unions. According to a report published on July 20 by federal regulators, employment agreements that require workers to pay for training if they quit before an arbitrary deadline have the same effect as another type of legally dubious contract. The study, released by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), found a “prevalence” in the labor market of so-called training repayment agreement provisions (TRAPs), which the agency said can be partially explained by companies looking for an alternative to non-compete agreements.
Economy:
Are Corporate Executives Expendable? Analysts across the political spectrum challenge massive paychecks of corporate chiefs—and whether companies can survive without them. Do our corporate CEOs deserve all those millions they annually pocket? Can a modern economy somehow survive without the “incentive” these megamillions provide? Do we, in effect, need our top corporate bosses pocketing more in a day than their workers can take home in a year?
Ellen Brown: The Federal Debt Trap: Issues and Possible Solutions “Rather than collecting taxes from the wealthy,” wrote the New York Times Editorial Board in a July 7 opinion piece, “the government is paying the wealthy to borrow their money.” Titled “America Is Living on Borrowed Money,” the editorial observes that over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), annual federal budget deficits will average around $2 trillion per year. By 2029, just the interest on the debt is projected to exceed the national defense budget, which currently eats up over half of the federal discretionary budget. In 2029, net interest on the debt is projected to total $1.07 trillion, while defense spending is projected at $1.04 trillion. By 2033, says the CBO, interest payments will reach a sum equal to 3.6 percent of the nation’s economic output. The debt ceiling compromise did little to alleviate that situation. Before the deal, the CBO projected the federal debt would reach roughly $46.7 trillion in 2033. After the deal, it projected the total at $45.2 trillion, only slightly less – and still equal to 115% of the nation’s annual economic output, the highest level on record.
Moody’s Cuts Credit Ratings on 10 Banks; Places 4 of the 15 Largest Banks in U.S. on Review for Possible Downgrade Brace yourself for some tremors in the stock prices of banks today — especially those that have counterparty risk to the biggest U.S. banks. In a move that sent Dow futures on a steady downward plunge beginning at 5 a.m. EDT this morning (clocking in at down 268 points by 8:14 a.m.), last evening the credit ratings agency, Moody’s Investors Service, took more sweeping actions in the U.S. banking sector. Moody’s cut the ratings of 10 banks by one notch, placed six banks on review for potential downgrade, and changed its outlook to negative on 11 other banks.
World:
Apartheid “Democracy” The term “democracy” is back in the news from the Middle East. Americans will assume that this has nothing to do with the Arabs. They know that news about democracy in this region must be about Israel because it “is the only democracy in the Middle East.” Well, it now turns out that Israelis too can’t agree as to what is and is not a “real” democracy. There is an increasingly violent Zionist brawl going on over this question: two sides, two different claims to know what democracy is, and both parties claiming to be the sole representative of the real thing. Each side screaming at the other. And, by the way, they are both wrong.
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
‘Understaffing’ Policy Means Fewer Employees!: Corporations Dominate the US Healthcare System. Nurses Are Fighting Back. The severe nursing shortages in hospitals across the country have turned one of the most important jobs in the medical profession into a nightmare. Judy Danella, president of United Steel Workers Local 4-200 — the union that represents Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital’s more than 1,700 nurses — stands in a church basement before a room full of her union members. Her voice quavers slightly as she delivers grim news. The hospital management, whose top administrators earn salaries in the millions of dollars, has refused to concede to any of the nurse’s core demands. Friday at 7:00 a.m. they will be locked out of the hospital and on strike. But it is not only the strike that concerns Danella, who is wearing a blue T-shirt that reads: “Safe Staffing Saves Lives.”