Daily News Digest September 26, 2023
Images of the Day:
Deep Sea Mining Is Not The Future! 
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 is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself. — Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us
Re: Janurary 6: “I have been through coups before, reporting from Latin America, and as he (Trump) spoke and as we saw, on the cameras, the gathering crowd, outside the capital, I said this is a coup! And in fact, It was a coup that did not suceed!” — Maru Jo McConnahay, Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far Right with Mary Jo McConahay
Videos of the Day:
Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far Right with Mary Jo McConahay For anyone interested in understanding why religious extremism has such a large influence in America, this fascinating interview focuses on an elite group of Catholic Bishops who oppose the current Pope and his policies of wishing to move the Church away from its abusive authoritarian past. Want to understand more about our current Supreme Court and why they demonstrated that they lied during their confirmation hearings when they said that Roe v. Wade was established law after fifty years. As soon as they had the majority, they showed their true allegiance, and it wasn’t to the law and the majority of the American people. Mary Jo McConahay is a Catholic journalist who takes the position of supporting the changes in Vatican 2, which included allowing the mass to be given in languages other than Latin. Vatican 2 stated categorically that Jews were not Christ-killers but affirmed God is Almighty and that His promise to Abraham was eternal. We discuss the Manhattan Declaration which was signed by Catholics and Protestants to work together to undermine gay rights, and women’s right to choose and to promote the freedom to religious impose their version of religion on all others.
John Kiriakou: Never Forget America’s Torture Legacy
‘Silent Coup’—How Corporations Rule the World w/Matt Kennard | The Chris Hedges Report
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!
Two More Countries Join Growing Bloc of Nations Calling for a Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty The endorsement of the fossil fuel treaty proposal by Antigua and Barbuda and Timor-Leste… shows who are the real climate leaders,” said the initiative’s political director. Two island nations on Saturday joined the growing bloc of countries endorsing a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty amid a worsening climate emergency and continued inadequate action by the larger and wealthier polluters most responsible for causing the planetary crisis.
How Capitalism is a Driving Force of Climate Change How Capitalism is a Driving Force of Climate Change Global economic growth leads to the increased consumption of natural resources, pollution, and loss of biodiversity and simultaneously widens the income gap between the wealthy and the poor. Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 provides a fictional glimpse of the world 120 years in the future, examining the severe environmental changes that have taken place and how people of upper and lower economic classes are unevenly impacted by these changes. The experiences of the fictional characters reflect real issues that future generations will experience as irreversible changes to our climate are made. Global capitalism and economic expansion are driving forces for both income inequality and climate change.
Headline: Deep-Sea Mining Could Begin Soon, Regulated or Not: Paving the Way for US Deep Sea Mining Corpoations: What’s the US Empire Doing Way Out in the Pacific Ocean Anyway? “A country can claim the right to exploit marine resources in its so-called exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from its 12 nautical-mile territorial waters,” The New York Times reported. “But it does not hold sovereignty over the zone’s surface and the airspace above it.”There is no legal basis for the United States to control the large oceanic area that includes the compact states. In defiance of international norms and rules, U.S. officials are laying claim to the large oceanic area in the central Pacific Ocean that is home to the compact states. Now that they are renewing the economic provisions of the compacts of free association with Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, U.S. officials are insisting that the compacts provide the United States with exclusive control over an area of the central Pacific Ocean that is comparable in size to the United States.
A Guide to Six Greenwashing Terms Big Ag Is Bringing to COP28 We debunk some key concepts that the world’s largest food and farming companies will be using to sway debates at the climate summit. . . . Agriculture, which is responsible for over one third of the world’s emissions, will be under the spotlight at the upcoming COP28 global climate summit in Dubai.
Petrostate Windfall Tax Would Help Poor Countries in Climate Crisis, Says Brown Former British PM calls for 3% levy on oil and gas export revenues of biggest producers to generate $25bn a year for global south Petrostates should pay a small percentage of their soaring oil and gas revenues to help poor countries cope with the climate crisis, the former UK prime minister Gordon Brown has urged. Countries with large oil and gas deposits have enjoyed a record bonanza in the last two years, amounting to about $4tn (£3.3tn) last year for the industry globally. Levying a 3% windfall tax on the oil and gas export revenues of the biggest-producing countries would yield about $25bn a year.
New Orleans Declares Emergency Over Saltwater Intrusion in Drinking Water Potential health risks of high salt concentrations for those who rely on Mississippi River lead mayor to sign declaration.
Biden’s Advisory Council Faces Scrutiny for Water Privatization Connections A 2016 report found customers of private water corporations paid 59% higher rates than those of public water systems. . . . So when a report about water infrastructure came out of Biden’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC), utility affordability advocates and labor unions took notice.The report, however, argued that to rebuild the nation’s crumbling water infrastructure, the federal government should “remove barriers to privatization, concessions, and other nontraditional models of funding community water systems.” Public water advocacy group, Food and Water Watch, immediately put out a press release criticizing the report, saying that “[p]rivatization would deepen the nation’s water crises, leading to higher water bills and less accountable and transparent services.” Food and Water Watch has done extensive research on the privatization of water utilities. In a report put out in 2016, the group found that customers of private water corporations paid about 59% higher rates than customers of public water systems.
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
Source of the Catholic Conservative Majority of the Supreme Court: How Dark Money is Influencing the Catholic Church “Playing God” exposes the elite donors financing conservative causes in Catholic institutions. Some conservative Catholics like to disparage social changes. They say these changes are the work of worldly and sinful forces antithetical to the church’s values. Take a look, for example, at the language used on the website of a conservative Catholic organization, the Napa Institute: “a culture that is ignorant of [God’s] ways and hostile toward [the] Church,” “a confusing and changing world” which is “stridently promoting” a movement that’s “radically at odds with the Catholic understanding of the human person.” The website also refers to “the scandal and corruption of Catholics who do not align with or serve our mission . . . to bring light back into society.” The irony is that elite donors (and the wealth they control) are enabling contemporary conservative causes in the United States. Mary Jo McConahay’s Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far-Right (Melville House, 2023) examines the growing entanglement of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy with right-wing organizations that seek to weaken or overturn democratic institutions in the name of religious liberty. They want to remake the country into a nation of laissez-faire capitalism and conservative cultural ideals.
Australian Delegation Visits DC to Push For Assange’s Release An Australian delegation visited Washington, D.C. this week to push the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to cease its attempts to extradite and imprison WikiLeaks publisher and Australian national Julian Assange. The group of lawmakers, from across the Labor, Liberal, Greens and National parties, lobbied U.S. officials on Wednesday to abandon their attempt to extradite Assange from a British prison to the U.S., where he could face a 175-year sentence.
Michael Brenner: Defeat The United States is being defeated in Ukraine. One could say that it is facing defeat – or, more starkly, that it is staring defeat in the face. Neither formulation is appropriate, though. The U.S. doesn’t look reality squarely in the eye. We prefer to look at the world through the distorted lenses of our fantasies. We plunge forward on whatever path we’ve chosen while averting our eyes from the topography that we are trying to traverse. Our sole guiding light is the glow of a distant mirage. That is our lodestone. It is not that America is a stranger to defeat. We are very well acquainted with it: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria – in strategic terms if not always military terms. To this broad category, we might add Venezuela, Cuba, and Niger. That rich experience in frustrated ambition has failed to liberate us from the deeply rooted habit of eliding defeat. Indeed, we have acquired a large inventory of methods for doing so. The United States is being defeated in Ukraine. . . .It is not that America is a stranger to defeat. We are very well acquainted with it: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria – in strategic terms if not always military terms. To this broad category, we might add Venezuela, Cuba, and Niger. That rich experience in frustrated ambition has failed to liberate us from the deeply rooted habit of eliding defeat. Indeed, we have acquired a large inventory of methods for doing so.
Black Liberation/Civile Rights:
Tortured Guantánamo Prisoner Ramzi bin al-Shibh Unfit for 9/11 Trial, Says Military Judge “This decision by the military judge today does mark the first time that the United States has formally acknowledged the CIA torture program produced profound and prolonged psychological harm,” said al-Shibh’s lawyer.
Labor:
Since 2008 crash, IncreasD Wealth for the 1% and No Recovery for the Working Class!
Shadow Government Statistics Alternate Unemployment Rate (Sent to me by Email) The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers. The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment. Shadow Government Statistics Alternet Unemployment Rate is 25.20%
Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through August 2023, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.8 percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (Updated)
FRED Labor Force Participation Rate is 62.8%
UAW President Fain’s “Expanded Strikes” Will Have Zero Impact on Automakers’ Production or Sales In a Facebook live video Friday morning, UAW President Shawn Fain announced that autoworkers at Big Three assembly plants must continue working, producing relief on Wall Street and frustration among rank-and-file workers, 97 percent of whom voted for an all-out strike.
Economy:
George Monibot:Shining a Light Our forthcoming film about the undisclosed interests trashing our lives. A couple of generations ago, economists confidently predicted we would be living a life of leisure by now. Our societies would be so prosperous that we would scarcely need to work. Everyone would be well-housed and fed, public services would rise to meet our needs, there would be little cause for conflict. . . . Instead, we find ourselves working like ants to sustain the barest conditions of life. Millions are forced to take extra jobs just to make ends meet. Workers are assailed by debt, precarity and constant anxiety about getting through the month. Food banks, home dentistry, sofa surfing and outright homelessness are now familiar features of life in some of the world’s richest nations. The extraordinary wealth society has generated, instead of being widely enjoyed as economists expected, has been concentrated in the hands of a few. At the same time, the security of everyone on Earth is threatened by environmental crisis, which our political systems seem incapable of addressing.
The Perfect Storm Hits Big Banks: Tumbling Deposits, Rising Unrealized Losses, and Higher-for-Longer Interest Rates On March 30, 2022, two highly troubling events occurred: (1) Fed data showed that unrealized losses on available-for-sale securities at the 25 largest U.S. banks were approaching the levels they had reached during the financial crisis in 2008; and (2) the Fed simply stopped reporting unrealized gains and losses on these banks’ securities. As the chart above indicates, the Fed had reported this data series from October 2, 1996 to March 30, 2022 – and then, poof, it was gone and could no longer be graphed weekly at FRED, the St. Louis Fed’s Economic Data website. (See chart above from FRED.) On the same date, the Fed also discontinued the weekly data for unrealized losses or gains on available-for-sale securities at all commercial banks and small banks.) 
World:
Hitler Would Be Proud: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Delivers Anti-Russian Tirade at The United Nations German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s appearance at the United Nations in New York underlined how aggressively German imperialism is behaving again, despite its historical crimes.
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