Daily News Digest August 30, 2023
Image 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:
When Amy Coney Barret Counldn’t Correctly Answer a Question on the First Admendment, One Knew That the Right to Protest was in Danger!: When asked by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) to name the five freedoms, Barrett was able to name freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly, before looking puzzled and saying, “What else am I missing?” Sasse then told Barrett she had forgotten “redress or protest.” The question, like essentially all that have come from Republican senators, seemed to be asked so that Barrett would be able to answer without much effort. — Amy Coney Barrett Forgets Right To Protest Is A First Amendment Freedom
The Right to Life is threatened by environmental degradation, including climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, which are closely linked to other fundamental challenges impeding the realization of this right, including poverty, inequality, and conflict,” reads the document, which was updated after a two-year period of gathering input from children around the world. “States should take positive measures to ensure that children are protected from foreseeable premature or unnatural death and threats to their lives that may be caused by acts and omissions, as well as the activities of business actors, and enjoy their right to life with dignity. — UN Affirms Climate Crisis Threatens Children’s Rights, Potentially Bolstering Youth-Led Lawsuits
Arrestees, attorneys and legal experts who have spoken with the Guardian about Cop City arrests to date have noted that the state may wind up not moving on the charges for years, only to later drop them. “The way these processes take so much time is a form of punishment that is normalized,” said Tennenbaum, who is 36. “I may be dealing with this until I’m 40.” After hearing about the Cop City arrestees, journalist Will Potter, author of Green Is the New Red, said it “feels like flashbacks”. Potter’s book details the federal government’s legal campaigns against animal rights and environmental groups such as Earth First and the Animal Liberation Front, in the 1990s and 2000s. “From my reporting on the history of government tactics,” he said, “fear is always used to send a message to the larger movement – and also to tie up energy, momentum, money and time.” The idea, Potter said, is to marginalize dissent; his research has led him to doubt “if the charges actually matter” to the state. “I’m not convinced … the plan is to solve a crime, or to protect the public,” he said. “It’s all political theater.” — ‘Threatened and Vulnerable’: Cop City Activists Labeled As Terrorists Pay High
Videos of the Day:
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 is Ecoscialism or Ecocide!
The Planet Can’t Survive the Business of War Wars and their escalation—the mass destruction of human life that is almost invariably accompanied by destruction of the natural world—happen because preparations for war bring leaders ever closer to the brink. A new war, a new alibi. When we think about our latest war—the one that began with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, just six months after our Afghan War ended so catastrophically—there is a hidden benefit. As long as American minds are on Ukraine, we are not thinking about planetary climate disruption. This technique of distraction obeys the familiar mechanism that psychologists have called displacement. An apparently new thought and feeling becomes the substitute for harder thoughts and feelings you very much want to avoid. Every news story about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s latest demand for American or European weaponry also serves another function: the displacement of a story about, say, the Canadian fires which this summer destroyed a forest wilderness the size of the state of Alabama and 1,000 of which are still burning as this article goes to press. Of course, there is always the horrific possibility that Ukraine could pass from a “contained” to a nuclear war, as out of control as those Canadian fires. Yet we are regularly assured that the conflict, close to the heart of Europe, is under careful supervision. The war has a neatly framed villain (Vladimir Putin) and—thanks to both the U.S. and NATO—a great many good people containing him. What could possibly go wrong?
UN Affirms Climate Crisis Threatens Children’s Rights, Potentially Bolstering Youth-Led Lawsuits “States should take positive measures to ensure that children are protected from foreseeable premature or unnatural death and threats to their lives,” reads the updated document A group of children in Portugal who are expected to present arguments in a climate case at the European Court of Human Rights next month may have a stronger legal standing following a formal opinion issued Monday by a United Nations committee, which affirms that the climate, biodiversity, and pollution crises present “an urgent and systemic threat to children’s rights globally.” After consulting with more than 16,000 children in more than 120 countries, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child updated the 1989 Convention on children’s rights to say that there is an urgent need to address the “triple planetary crisis” and to explain “how children’s rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child apply to environmental protection, and confirms that children have a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.”
Global Air Pollution Is Cutting More Than 2 Years Off Average Human Life Expectancy: Report “Particulate pollution remains the world’s greatest external risk to human health, with the impact on life expectancy comparable to that of smoking.” High and rising levels of global particulate matter pollution—caused by wildfires, the combustion of fossil fuels, and other factors—are cutting 2.3 years off of the average human’s life expectancy, according to research unveiled Tuesday. The latest version of the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), produced annually by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), estimates that fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution’s impact on global human life expectancy is “comparable to that of smoking, more than three times that of alcohol use and unsafe water, more than five times that of transport injuries like car crashes, and more than seven times that of HIV/AIDS.”
Growing Number Of Countries Consider Making Ecocide a Crime Mexico latest country where government is considering passing new laws to criminalise environmental destruction A growing number of countries are considering introducing laws to make ecocide a crime. Mexico is the latest country where politicians are seeking to deter environmental damage – and to get justice for its victims – by criminalising it. Karina Marlen Barrón Perales, congresswoman for Nuevo León, has submitted a bill to the Mexican congress introducing a new crime of “ecocide”. While damaging the environment is already an offence in most countries, recognition of ecocide elevates the most egregious cases to a crime – with accompanying penalties.
Dramatic Climate Action Needed to Curtail ‘Crazy’ Extreme Weather Heatwaves, wildfires and floods are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’, leading climate scientists say The “crazy” extreme weather rampaging around the globe in 2023 will become the norm within a decade without dramatic climate action, the world’s leading climate scientists have said. The heatwaves, wildfires and floods experienced today were just the “tip of the iceberg” compared with even worse effects to come, they said, with limitations in climate models leaving the world “flying partially blind” into the future.
The Guardian View On Hydrogen Hype: It’s Perhaps not as Green as You Think The only way of producing the raw material needed for green hydrogen is sucking up Mediterranean water and desalinating it. But a report last year for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated to Germany’s green political movement, warns that this would be a dirty, energy-intensive, water-guzzling process – and put the high cost of decarbonising the rich world on to the shoulders of poorer nations. Many sun-drenched countries, especially in the Maghreb, have been sold a future as export hubs for green hydrogen. The pitch is seductive. As 1kg of hydrogen contains about three times as much energy as 1kg of petrol, it is no wonder that hydrogen is being touted as a fuel of the future. Europe’s green deal, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by the end of the decade, relies on green hydrogen production in north Africa and Ukraine.
Can the Global North Transition its Energy System Without Green Colonialism? The moment is right for Global South activists to influence European policy and the agenda of European civil society when it comes to climate and the environment.
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!
Follow the Money Trail that Got Unknown Ramaswamy in a Nationally-Televised Republican Presidential Debate At the Republican Primary Debate for President last Wednesday evening, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie referred to presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy as “ChatGPT,” the artificial intelligence chatbot. The moniker struck a bell when the bellicose Ramaswamy with a too-perfect broadcaster voice and a too-perfect permanent smile showing off perfect sparkling teeth, bellowed out on the stage that climate change is “a hoax.”
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
In The Struggle for Jobs and Freedom, After the Assassination of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and Support to the ‘Lessor Evil Democrates’ has Proven to be a Failed Stategy!:
After Birmingham, the March on Washington was called. In the space of a few months, a huge demonstration was built. This demonstration was the largest social action in the United States since the mass strikes that led to the rise of the CIO in the 1930s and late 1940s. This mass action led to the 1963 marcharch on Washington and Rally and the passage 5h3 ≈ of the Civil Rights Act in 1965. At that rally, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Chairman John Lewis was prevented from delivering his prepared speech by the march organizers. It was a notable omission. In this speech, he was going to say: “ We are now involved in a serious revolution. This nation is still a place of cheap political leaders who build their career on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic and social exploitation. What political leader here can stand up and say ‘My party is the party of “principles”’? The party of Kennedy is also the party of Eastland. The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater. Where is our party? ” — The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights Movement
‘This Is the Authoritarianism We Are Fighting’: Tennessee GOP Silences Justin Jones “The Capitol is surrounded by troopers. This does not look like a democratic body.” Tennessee State Rep. Justin Jones decried the “authoritarianism” of House Republicans on Monday after they voted to silence him for the remainder of the day’s floor session, using newly enacted chamber rules aimed at shutting down members who are deemed out of order.
Labor:
Econommy:
World:
Green Austerity and the Climate Culture War Capitalist politicians are increasingly wrapping-up austerity measures in ‘green’ packaging – provoking a backlash amongst ordinary people, and polarising the working class. This article was originally published by our comrades in Britain in the wake of the expansion of London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which penalises thousands of working-class commuters in the name of protecting the environment
How Can the US and China Prevent a War? The two countries need to pursue policies that will reduce economic tensions and foster cooperation The US and China remain on a collision course. The new cold war between them may eventually turn hot over the issue of Taiwan. The “Thucydides trap” – in which a rising power seems destined to clash with an incumbent hegemon – looms ominously. But a serious escalation of Sino-American tensions, let alone a war, can still be avoided, sparing the world the cataclysmic consequences that would inevitably follow.
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
Big pharma is Threatening o Withhold Medicine in Protest Of Regulation. A Swiss pharmaceutical company announced this month that it could slow-walk bringing a potentially lifesaving drug to market — in order to reduce the time that it could be subject to President Joe Biden’s recently enacted federal price regulations.
Those comments were made by the CEO of Genentech, whose parent company, Roche, has reaped as much as $10 billion from Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, seeing its net income go up by an average of more than 50 percent, while its spending on research and development has increased by just 25 percent. Pharmaceutical giants like Roche are earning huge sums of money on record-breaking price increases, reporting historic profits — and yet they’re launching an all-out legal, media, and lobbying assault against the modest drug pricing restrictions implemented by Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. For two decades, Congress prohibited Medicare from negotiating drug prices like most other high-income countries do. As a result, pharmaceutical companies have been able to charge Americans substantially higher prices for their products than they do elsewhere. They’ve done so even though the American public subsidized research and development costs for every drug approved for sale in the United States between 2010 and 2019.