Daily News Digest September 14, 2023
Capitalism is Now a Worldwide Threat to Humanity! It is on the Fast Track to Global Warming and/or Nuclear War Catastrophes!
Images of the Day:
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:
Videos of the Day:
Black Agenda Radio September 8, 2023
Protesters Demonstrating Against UN Occupation Are Killed by Police in the Congo
Eritrean Festivals Under Attack
Excerpt from Women Rising Radio Program 45: Resisting US Military Bases and US Domination
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!
Marching for a Livable Planet: an Urgent Call to End the Fossil Fuel Era (Biden is. With Fossil Fuel — R.S.) Our global leaders are either with us, or the fossil fuel industry.
Planet Wreckers: Just 20 Countries Risk Locking 1n Global Climate Chaos United States Planet-Wrecker-in-Chief! 
To prevent catastrophe, these countries must stop new extraction projects now Just 20 countries, led overwhelmingly by the United States, Canada and Russia, are responsible for nearly 90 percent of new greenhouse gas emissions threatened by new oil and gas fields and fracking wells planned between now and 2050. If these extraction projects are allowed to proceed, they will lock in climate chaos and an unlivable future. According to Planet Wreckers, a report released this week by the research and advocacy organization Oil Change International:
- Only 20 Planet Wrecker countries are responsible for nearly 90 percent of the carbon-dioxide (CO2) pollution from new oil and gas fields and fracking wells planned between 2023 and 2050.
- If these 20 Planet Wreckers said “no” to their planned new oil and gas production, as the UN Secretary General is urging them to, 173 billion tonnes (Gt) of carbon pollution would be kept in the ground. That is equivalent to the lifetime pollution of nearly 1,100 new coal plants, or more than 30 years of annual U.S. carbon emissions.
- Oil and gas expansion by the 20 Planet Wrecker countries would make it impossible to hold temperature rise to 1.5°C. Even extracting just the fossil fuels from existing sites globally would result in 140 percent more carbon pollution than the allowed budget for 1.5°C. If these countries proceed with their new extraction, committed carbon pollution will be 190 percent over the 1.5°C budget, risking locking in more than a dangerous 2°C of warming.
- Stopping new oil and gas would put the world closer to a 1.5°C aligned emissions trajectory but would not be enough. Without any new oil and gas fields or licenses anywhere, global oil and gas production would decline by two percent per year to 2030 and by five percent per year from 2030 to 2050. However, limiting heating to 1.5°C requires governments to go further by closing down already producing fields.
- The United States is Planet Wrecker In Chief, accounting for more than one-third of planned global oil and gas expansion through 2050, followed by Canada and Russia. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is also set to be one of the largest expanders of oil and gas production despite pledging to use its COP presidency to “keep 1.5°C alive.”
- Five global north countries with the greatest economic means to rapidly phase out production are responsible for a majority (51 percent) of planned expansion from new oil and gas fields through 2050: the United States, Canada, Australia, Norway, and the United Kingdom. New drilling in countries with high incomes, diversified economies and outsized historical responsibility for causing the climate crisis, while claiming to be climate leaders, is inexcusable. These countries must not only stop expansion immediately but also move first and fastest to phase out their production and pay their fair share to fund a just global energy transition.
PFAS: ‘Better Living/Dying Through Chemistry’:
UCSF: Makers of PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Covered up the Dangers Widely used in clothing, household products and food, they resist breaking down in the environment. The chemical industry took a page out of the tobacco playbook when they discovered and suppressed their knowledge of health harms caused by exposure to PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), according to an analysis of previously secret industry documents by UC San Francisco researchers. A new paper published May 31, 2023, in Annals of Global Health, examines documents from DuPont and 3M, the largest manufacturers of PFAS, and analyzes the tactics industry used to delay public awareness of PFAS toxicity and, in turn, delay regulations governing their use. PFAS are widely used chemicals in clothing, household goods, and food products, and are highly resistant to breaking down, giving them the name “forever chemicals.” They are now ubiquitous in people and the environment. “These documents reveal clear evidence that the chemical industry knew about the dangers of PFAS and failed to let the public, regulators, and even their own employees know the risks,” said Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, professor and director of the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE), a former senior scientist and policy advisor at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and senior author of the paper. This is the first time these PFAS industry documents have been analyzed by scientists using methods designed to expose tobacco industry tactics.
Exposure to PFAS May be Harmful to Human Health Current scientific research suggests that exposure to certain PFAS may lead to adverse health outcomes. However, research is still ongoing to determine how different levels of exposure to different PFAS can lead to a variety of health effects. Research is also underway to better understand the health effects associated with low levels of exposure to PFAS over long periods of time, especially in children. What We Know about Health Effects Current peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that exposure to certain levels of PFAS may lead to:
- Reproductive effects such as decreased fertility or increased high blood pressure in pregnant women.
- Developmental effects or delays in children, including low birth weight, accelerated puberty, bone variations, or behavioral changes.
- Increased risk of some cancers, including prostate, kidney, and testicular cancers.
- Reduced ability of the body’s immune system to fight infections, including reduced vaccine response.
- Interference with the body’s natural hormones.
- Increased cholesterol levels and/or risk of obesity.
Invited Perspective: PFAS in Breast Milk and Infant Formula—It’s Time to Start Monitoring The study by Yao et al.1 in this issue of Environmental Health Perspectives advances our understanding of infant exposures to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). They note that “it is essential to provide a national baseline of PFAS exposure in human milk … and to assess the risks of emerging and legacy PFAS exposure in exclusively breastfed infants.” It is impossible to argue with that point, and in fact for years my colleagues and I have made similar calls for national breast milk monitoring programs.2 Although several countries have developed national programs to assess human exposures to environmental chemicals using blood and urine (among them the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the Canadian Health Measures Survey, the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative, the China National Human Biomonitoring study, and the Korean National Environmental Health Survey), similar efforts around breast milk are lacking. Why is this and what does it mean for infants?
Advocates Launch Campaign Featuring Children Who Didn’t Survive Climate Chaos “Premature deaths due to fossil fuel-related air pollution are silencing young voices.” To drive home the point that premature deaths from fossil fuel pollution and the climate disasters it causes—including those of children—are not “a distant, abstract concept but a pressing reality,” two advocacy groups on Tuesday launched a campaign featuring the faces of kids who did not survive the climate crisis. Fridays for Future U.S. and Youth Climate Strike L.A. generated the images using artificial intelligence with the help of creative agency Fred & Farid—but the campaign, titled “Silenced,” emphasizes that the children in the pictures represent the hundreds of thousands of children who die each year from pollution and extreme weather events such as flooding and drought.
Tap Water Study Detects PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Acrosa the USA! …At least 45% of the nation’s tap water is estimated to have one or more types of the chemicals known as per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey. There are more than 12,000 types of PFAS, not all of which can be detected with current tests; the USGS study tested for the presence of 32 types.
Marching for a Livable Planet: an Urgent Call to End the Fossil Fuel Era Our global leaders are either with us, or the fossil fuel industry
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!
Child Poverty More Than Doubles — A Year After Hitting Record Low, Census Data Shows The poverty rate in the U.S. has risen dramatically in the year since pandemic benefits ran out — and the child poverty rate has more than doubled, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday.
Stop Fighting over Deck Chairs While the Ship Is on Fire and Sinking! We are currently facing three inter-related existential crises:
- Climate change causing droughts, storms, floods, killer heatwaves, wildfires and rapidly approaching global tipping points. In addition to the death and destruction resulting from these natural disasters, some experts predictmore than a billion climate refugees in the world by 2050. Imagine the social, economic, and political impact of a tenfold increase in refugees around the world.
- Pandemics- Covid killed more than a million Americans and millions more around the world and experts predict we will experience more pandemics at a higher frequency as a result of bio lab releases, continued incursion into wild habitat, and factory farming. A recent reportestimates there are some 1.7 million unknown viruses in the animal kingdom with 850,000 of them potentially transferable to humans.
- Nuclear Annihilation- The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have set their symbolic “Doomsday Clock” to 90 seconds to midnight, the closest in its 75-year history. Nuclear war was off our collective radar (so to speak) for many years. Now, as a result of the proxy war between the two major nuclear superpowers in Ukraine and the new nuclear arms race, we are once again just one ghastly decision or dreadful miscalculation away from annihilation. The latest studies indicate that a full nuclear exchange between the US and Russia would kill five billion of the eight billion people on the planet and end civilization. Even a relatively smaller exchange between India and Pakistan could wipe out two billion people. Of course, we would take many other species with us. It’s not called MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) for nothing.
The Best Court That Money can Buy!:
Harlan Crow Funded Ginni Thomas Group Created in Anticipation of Citizens United Thomas’s group was founded to influence Supreme Court decisions following the Citizens United ruling. Anew report from Politico has sparked renewed scrutiny of how Ginni Thomas and other conservative activists co-founded a nonprofit right-wing advocacy group — which was funded, in part, by billionaire Harlan Crow — in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. The report also examines the actions of Thomas and other notable conservatives after she dismantled the group, prompting some to question whether illegal financial activities took place.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
The Right to Petition Under Attack!: Despite 116,000 Signatures, Atlanta Won’t Validate Stop Cop City Petition City officials are waiting to see if the 11th Circuit Court rules in favor of the activists and forces the validation. The Vote to Stop Cop City Coalition in Atlanta submitted more than 116,000 signatures on Monday to put a referendum about the embattled police training complex on the ballot for local voters, but city officials quickly refused to validate the signatures and move the petition along due to an ongoing legal fight over the signature-gathering process. Stop Cop City activists accused Atlanta officials of once again subverting democracy after moving forward with the construction of the 85-acre, $90 million police training complex, despite months of fierce protest and loud community opposition to a facility that activists say would further militarize Atlanta cops. City of Atlanta officials claim their hands are legally tied after winning a favorable decision from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that threw out a deadline extension granted to the activists by a lower court.
Labor:
Econommy:
The Decadent 1% is the Era of Imperialist Decay: JPMorgan’s Pampered Client, Jeffrey Epstein, Broke a Lot More Laws Than Just Sex Trafficking of Minors A closer look at the trail of lawlessness perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein while he was receiving VIP treatment from executives and licensed brokers at the largest bank in the United States – JPMorgan Chase – demands a comprehensive investigation by a genuinely independent Special Counsel. After Epstein had sexually assaulted dozens of underage school girls in Palm Beach County, Florida, the Florida State Attorney and the U.S. Department of Justice cut him a sweetheart deal that allowed him to serve just 13 months in jail from June 2008 to July 2009 – the majority of the time in a work release program where Epstein was driven to an office each day by his limo driver.
World:
The BRICS and imperialism: a Communist Approach The announcement at the recent BRICS summit that this bloc of countries would be expanded to include six new countries generated a wave of optimistic, almost pious statements from prominent leaders of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), extolling the virtues of this enlarged group of countries from the so-called ‘Global South’. António Filipe, a former MP and member of the Central Committee of the PCP, wrote in Expresso that the “growing multipolarity of the BRICS represents a possibility for each country to obtain support for development without being subject to imperial tutelage […] This is good news for the world and will not fail to have a significant impact on the development of social struggles.”
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