Daily News Digest August 17, 2023
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:
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
Why No Insurrection Charge? Ralph Nader on How Trump Could Still Be Reelected Unless DOJ Acts
Environment:
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’!
Gradual Change Doesn’t Cut It! — A Green Industrial Revolution is Needed Now!: Counter-Offensive: Fossil Fuel Giants Boost Global Production After a brief pause, Big Oil has resumed heavy spending on new wells and infrastructure The perspective of green capitalism is based on a comprehensive energy transition from fossil to renewable energy sources. Since the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen governments, corporations and opposition parties have been relying on the assumption that the energy companies can be persuaded to rethink their business and initiate a transition process towards renewable energy and engagement in the “green” economy. That reliance has only increased since the climate talks in Paris in 2015.
Just Five Oil Giants Set to Blow an Eighth of the World’s Carbon Budget by 2050: Analysis “This puts the world on a dangerous trajectory of significantly overshooting climate targets.” Just five fossil fuel giants—BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and TotalEnergies—are set to use nearly an eighth of the world’s dwindling carbon budget by 2050 as they continue to increase oil and gas production, driving up planet-warming emissions that are fueling catastrophic extreme weather worldwide.
Kids Who Live Near Fracking Sites Are Up to 7 Times More Likely to Develop Lymphoma: Study “Once again, science confirms fracking is extremely hazardous to human life.” Researchers in Pennsylvania published a series of studies late Tuesday showing that children who live near fracking operations are roughly five to seven times more likely to develop lymphoma than kids whose homes are at least five miles away from drilling sites.
A Quarter of the Global Population Is Facing ‘Extremely High Water Stress’ “Living with this level of water stress jeopardizes people’s lives, jobs, food, and energy security,” warns a new report from the World Resources Institute. A report published Wednesday by the World Resources Institute estimates that roughly two billion people around the world face “extremely high water stress” each year as the climate crisis fuels worsening drought conditions.
New York Advocates Rally Against Dumping of Radioactive Waste in Hudson River “Gov. Hochul is running out of time to save the Hudson,” said Emily Skydel, Hudson Valley organizer for Food & Water Watch. “With less than a month until Holtec’s planned toxic dump, Gov. Hochul must waste no more time protecting our river. Gov. Hochul must sign the ‘Save the Hudson’ bill now—before it’s too late.” “We have spent decades cleaning up the Hudson, and now the river is, once again, a major economic driver for the region and the state as a whole,” said one state lawmaker. “Let’s keep protecting the Hudson!”
Green Groups Call on Biden Admin to End Support for ‘Scientifically Bankrupt’ Wildlife Killing “The FWS is tasked with preventing extinctions, using sound science when making decisions to prevent those extinctions, and with being accountable to the entire public—not funding controversial predator-control actions for the purported benefit of a few.”
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!
A U.N. Plan to Stop Corporate Tax Abuse Big business wants you to think that reforming corporate taxes is a boring and complicated subject, but it’s actually simple and exciting. Hey, let’s debate international tax policy! The United Nations has released an advance version of a report from Secretary-General António Guterres titled “Promotion of Inclusive and Effective International Tax Cooperation at the United Nations,” which explicitly criticizes the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s proposed base erosion and profit shifting 2.0 reforms, which in turn obviously means that zzxzxvcaspppmmmdzzzzzzzzzz.
New 4% Tax on Wealthiest Residents Will Fund Free School Meals in Massachusetts 26 percent of children in the state are food insecure, according to the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey. Public school students in Massachusetts are set to get a free breakfast and lunch after the state implemented a new 4 percent tax on the state’s wealthiest residents. Massachusetts is the eighth U.S. state to make free school meals permanent.
Democratic National Convention Chair’s Firm Helps Clients Fight Labor Law Reform Minyon Moore is an executive of a group that has aided corporate fights against gig worker protections and sick leave. President Biden has a go-to line in speeches, saying he’s “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.” Next year’s Democratic National Convention, though, will be run by an executive of a public affairs firm that is helping companies such as Lyft and Tenet Healthcare fight labor protections. Last week, Minyon Moore, a principal at public affairs and consulting firm Dewey Square Group (DSG), was announced as the chair of the 2024 Democratic National Convention. As chair, Moore will lead the team of Biden allies planning for the event that will be held in her home city of Chicago.
Biden’s Climate Bill Leaves Workers Behind in Shift To Electric Cars, Union Says Legislation gives incentives to companies to manufacture EVs without protections for workers, says head of autoworkers union Joe Biden’s landmark climate legislation has been “disappointing” and failed to deliver protections to car industry workers confronted by the transition to electric vehicles, according to the head of the US’s leading autoworkers union, which has pointedly withheld is endorsement of the president for next year’s election. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed by Biden a year ago this week, has bestowed huge incentives to car companies to manufacture electric vehicles without any accompanying guarantees over worker pay and conditions, Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), told the Guardian.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/15/biden-climate-bill-car-workers-union
Marjorie Cohn: Supreme Court Has an Originalist Roadmap to Disqualify Trump From the Presidency A new article written by two conservative law professors is an urgent call to action to disqualify Trump from office. “[O]n the basis of the public record, former President Donald J. Trump is constitutionally disqualified from again being President (or holding any other covered office) because of his role in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 election and the events leading to the January 6 attack.” Those words were written by two prominent conservative legal scholars in a comprehensive 126-page paper that will be published next year in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. The article is an urgent call to action that provides a roadmap to disqualify Trump from running for or assuming the presidency again.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Arkansas Will Not Recognize AP Black History for Credit, Only European History One critic of the state’s action described it as “racism pure and simple.” The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, last Thursday to discuss how to respond to the recent coup in Niger. The deadline put forward by ECOWAS for the coup leaders to step aside and restore President Mohamed Bazoum to power elapsed the previous Sunday without the military intervention that countries like Nigeria had.
Labor:
Economy:
Why the Fed and ECB Parted Ways on Climate Change: The Politics of Divergence in the Global Central Banking Community Central banks from eight countries—Mexico, the UK, France, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Singapore, and China—formed the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) in 2017 to investigate and coordinate a response to climate change. By the end of 2022, the NGFS had over 120 members. However, among these central banks, there were considerable differences in the strategies adopted to account for and address climate change. Most strikingly, climate change has emerged as an unusual area of divergence between the European Central Bank (ECB) and the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed), despite their historical tendency to adopt similar policy tools, frameworks, and objectives. The Fed limited its approach to climate change to basic climate policy standards or “norms” that recognized some relevance of climate change to achieving its monetary and prudential objectives but avoided any support for decarbonization. In contrast, the ECB better appreciated that climate change raised profound challenges for achieving its central banking objectives. As a result, the ECB adopted proactive climate policy norms that, for example, put in place climate-related criteria for asset purchase programs and far-reaching supervisory interventions to ensure that financial institutions accounted for climate risk.
Mega Banks Take Down Stock Prices after a Fitch Warning About a Possible Downgrade to JPMorgan Chase and Its Peers Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average took a tumble of 361 points by the closing bell. Numerous headlines attributed the big decline to a weakening economy in China. But the actual trigger for angst among traders was a headline at 5:30 a.m. EDT yesterday at CNBC. The headline read: “Fitch warns it may be forced to downgrade dozens of banks, including JPMorgan Chase.” JPMorgan Chase is not just the biggest bank in the United States in terms of assets and deposits. It is the biggest bank in terms of its derivative exposure. According to the federal regulator of national banks (those operating across state lines), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), as of March 31, 2023, JPMorgan Chase Bank had assets of $3.2 trillion and derivative exposure of more than $59 trillion notional (face amount).
World:
EFF’s 10th Anniversary Celebrations in South Africa: To Fight for Real Radical Change, Break with Capitalism! On Saturday, July 29 the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) celebrated their 10th anniversary with a mass rally of 100,000 supporters at Johannesburg’s FNB stadium. This was an impressive turnout, which shows the party’s mass appeal particularly with the active layers of the youth. The rally was the culmination of various activities over the week, including a ceremony in Marikana on July 26, which is the party’s actual founding day. In his address, EFF president Julius Malema said that the Marikana massacre of August 16, 2012, in which police opened fire on striking mine workers, killing 34 and wounding 78, played a decisive role in the formation of the party.
Patrick Lawrence: Niger and the ‘New World Order’ How shall we understand the July 26th coup in Niger, in which military officers ousted Mohamed Bazoum, the nation’s Western-tilted president? It is the sixth putsch of this kind in or next to the Sahel in the past four years. Shall we write off this band across sub–Saharan Africa as coup country and trouble no more about it? The thought is implicit in a lot of the media coverage, but how often do our media dedicate themselves to enhancing our understanding of global events and how often to cultivating our ignorance of them? Do not take this latest development in Africa as an isolated event, if I may offer a suggestion. Its significance lies in the larger context in which it has occurred—its global surround, so to say. The West is besieged by the accumulating coherence and influence of the non–West and its version of the 21st century. Our media cannot bear writing or broadcasting about this. Niger, in my read, has just declared itself part of this historic phenomenon. And mainstream media can’t bear mentioning this, either. Those who deposed Bazoum are led by Abdourahamane Tchiani, former head of the Presidential Guard, and plainly nurse a deep resentment of the postcolonial presence of the French. There are also reports—in the media, those coming out of the think tanks—that Bazoum was about to give Tchiani the sack, and the events of late July were driven, mostly or primarily, by personal rivalries, resentments, or both.
French imperialism is Collapsing In West Africa The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, last Thursday to discuss how to respond to the recent coup in Niger. The deadline put forward by ECOWAS for the coup leaders to step aside and restore President Mohamed Bazoum to power elapsed the previous Sunday without the military intervention that countries like Nigeria had
Supreme Court Approves Assault on Communist Party of Venezuela Lucha de Clases – the Venezuelan section of the International Marxist Tendency – expresses its firm opposition to the recent attack on the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), orchestrated by the leadership of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and carried out by the judiciary. This manoeuvre has stripped the PCV’s membership and the legitimate leadership of the party of legal control of its name, symbols and legal identity.
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