Daily News Digest September 6, 2023

 Daily News Digest Archives

Image of the Day:

Cornel West 2024!

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:

It’s impossible for a chicken to produce a duck egg… The system of this country cannot produce freedom for an Afro-American. It is impossible for this system, this economic system, this political system, this social system, this system period. It is impossible for it , as it now stands, to produce freedom right now for the Black man in this country — it is impossible. And if ever a chicken did produce a duck egg, I’m certain you would say it was certainly a revolutionary chicken. — Malcolm X, Harlem ’Hate Gang’ Scare Militant Labor Forum, May 29, 1964 

To combat the rise of the Civil Right Movement, the “war on poverty” was first launched in 1964 along with the concept of “Black Politicians”. Malcolm X described this process in his Jan. 7, 1965 speech The Prospects for Freedom, at the Militant Labor Forum, in New York City (For complete an audio of the speech go here.):  They have a new gimmick every year. They’re going to take one of their boys, black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar. Fire on one end and fool on the other end. And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: ‘Look how much progress we’re making. I’m in Washington, D.C., I can have tea in the White House. I’m your spokesman, I’m your leader.’ While our people are still living in Harlem in the slums. Still receiving the worst form of education. But how many sitting here right now feel that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, in which you are struggling against, you can’t identify with that, you step back. It’s easy to become a satellite today without even realizing it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power of economic dollarism. You can cut out colonialism, imperialism and all other kind of ism, but it’s hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you’ll fold though.

Video:

Black Agenda Radio September 1, 2023

Former Teacher Shani Robinson Tells Her Story of Prosecution By Fani Willis

Gun Violence and Racism

Exonerations in New York State

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!

World Meteorologists Point to ‘Vicious Cycle’ of Heatwaves and Air Pollution The climate crisis and soaring temperatures are worsening air quality, WMO says, with ‘knock-on effects’ Heatwaves across the world are worsening air quality and pollution, scientists have said. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has said extreme temperatures are not the only hazard from heatwaves but that they also cause pollution-related health problems.    In their annual air quality and climate bulletin, the meteorologists have highlighted a “vicious cycle” of climate breakdown and air pollution.

 NOAA Finds Carbon Concentrations Highest in 800,000 Years as Sea Level Rise Hits Record The new global report states that burning fossil fuels is “the main driver of increasing atmospheric CO2.” Amid a summer of extreme heat across the Northern Hemisphere, an international report led by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revealed Wednesday that greenhouse gas concentrations, global sea level, and ocean heat content hit record highs last year.    “This report is a truly international effort to more fully understand climate conditions around the globe and our capacity to observe them,” NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Director Derek Arndt said of State of the Climate in 2022, which features contributions from more than 570 scientists in over 60 countries.

Biden Administration Blames (Inaction) Republicans and Industry for Not Standing Up for Public Health! EPA Delays New Air Quality Standards or Ozone Pollution Until After 2024 Election Decision on regulations for ground-level ozone – AKA smog – avoids election-year battle with industry groups and Republicans The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is delaying plans to tighten air quality standards for ground-level ozone – better known as smog – despite a recommendation by a scientific advisory panel to lower air pollution limits to protect public health.    The decision by the EPA Administrator, Michael Regan, means that one of the agency’s most important air quality regulations will not be updated until well after the 2024 presidential election.

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!

Glen Greenwald: The top 2 priorities of CIA and the US Security State:

  • Infinitely prolong the war in Ukraine to weaken Russia.
  • Control online political speech to banish dissent.

The liberal-left overwhelmingly supports both. The few who oppose both, like Cornel West, are demonized. 

22 Years of Drone Warfare and No End in Sight “I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.”     That’s what a young Pakistani boy named Zubair told members of Congress at a hearing on drones in October 2013.      That hearing was during the Obama years at a time when the government had barely even acknowledged that an American drone warfare program existed.    Two years earlier, however, a Muslim cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman, both American citizens, were killed by U.S. drone strikes in Yemen just weeks apart. Asked to comment on Abdulrahman’s killing, Obama campaign senior adviser Robert Gibbs said: “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their children. I don’t think becoming an al-Qaeda jihadist terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.”

Grease and Glue The opening paragraphs of a September 1, 2023, article in The Atlantic magazine by Adriane Fugh-Berman, a doctor and professor of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center, caught my eye:     “What do some Supreme Court justices and physicians have in common? Both take gifts from those who stand to profit from their decisions, and both mistakenly think they can’t be swayed by those gifts.     The opening paragraphs of a September 1, 2023, article in The Atlantic magazine by Adriane Fugh-Berman, a doctor and professor of pharmacology and physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center, caught my eye: “What do some Supreme Court justices and physicians have in common? Both take gifts from those who stand to profit from their decisions, and both mistakenly think they can’t be swayed by those gifts.

Civil Rights/Black Liberation:

Black Agenda Report

Labor:

I Worked in Federal Prison Sweatshops for 23 Cents an Hour Federal Prison Industries dangles the promise of workforce readiness as it exploits incarcerated workers like me. PRISON LABOR IS a staple of the American economy. Whether it’s fish farms or electronics recycling, woodworking or vehicle remanufacturing, our nation’s supply chain is bolstered by a hidden labor force of overworked and underpaid incarcerated people. I would know — I was one of them.     Throughout my 13 years of incarceration, I held a prison job whenever possible. From the kitchen of the city jail in Bristol, Virginia, to the mess halls of federal prisons in West Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, I worked. At first, I didn’t think of myself as exploited. As far as I was concerned, I was just doing my job and my time the best way I knew how.

Econommy:

Study Finds 75 Percent of U.S. Banks Didn’t Hedge Interest Rate Risk; Unrealized Losses on Securities $516 Billion at End of First Quarter A group of academics have conducted a study that found that during the fastest pace of Fed interest rate hikes in 40 years, the majority of U.S. banks failed to hedge their interest rate risk. The report’s findings include the following:

  • “Over three quarters of all reporting banks report no material use of interest rate swaps.”
  • “Only 6% of aggregate assets in the U.S. banking system are hedged by interest rate swaps.”
  • “Banks with the most fragile funding – i.e., those with highest uninsured leverage — sold or reduced their hedges during the monetary tightening. This allowed them to record accounting profits but exposed them to further rate increases. These actions are reminiscent of classic gambling for resurrection: if interest rates had decreased, equity would have reaped the profits, but if rates increased, then debtors and the FDIC would absorb the losses.”

World:

Global Plastics Treaty Comes Closer to Reality With Release of First Draft Advocates called the draft an “important milestone” but remain wary of language on recycling and waste management. In March 2022, 175 countries agreed to write a global treaty to address the plastic pollution crisis. Now, a year and a half later, they finally have a rough draft. The chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution on Monday released a “zero draft” of the global plastics treaty, laying out a long list of proposals and sub-proposals for how the world can stem the tide of plastic pollution. It includes language on reducing plastic production and eliminating hazardous chemicals, steps that experts say are needed to mitigate the industry’s harms. But advocates say negotiators need to do more work to establish how much reduction is needed, and to prevent an outsize focus on recycling.

RAAC Crisis and Collapsing Schools: Product of a Crumbling System The Tory government is under intense scrutiny in the face of another huge scandal, with the lives of thousands of children and workers placed at risk due to cuts to school maintenance budgets. The whole system is broken. We need a revolution. More than 100 schools have been forced to close buildings made with dodgy concrete, just days before the start of the new term. This is an absolute crisis for the thousands of students, staff, and parents affected, as well as for the Tories. The alarm was raised after the recent collapse at a school of a reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) beam, which had shown no prior sign of stress.

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

Successfully Applying For Social Security Disability s Difficult. Applying as a Long Covid Patient is Even Trickier

Key Points

COVID’s Total Cost to the Economy Will Reach $14 Trillion by End of This Year, Research Finds The economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. will reach US$14 trillion by the end of 2023, our team of economists, public policy researchers, and other experts have estimated.     Putting a price tag on all the pain, suffering and upheaval Americans and people around the world have experienced because of COVID-19 is, of course, hard to do. More than 1.1 million people have died as a result of COVID-19 in the U.S., and many more have been hospitalized or lost loved ones. Based on data from the first 30 months of the pandemic, we forecast the scale of total economic losses over a four-year period, from January 2020 to December 2023.