Daily News Digest October 3, 2023
Images of the Day:
We Have to Wake Up: Factory Farms are Breeding Grounds for Pandemics
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:
From: The United States National Center for Biotechnology Information of the Institue of Health’s Essay Primary Pandemic Prevention: Factory Farms Cause Pandemics! Abstract: Over the last few decades, hundreds of human pathogens have emerged at a rate unprecedented in human history. Emerged from where? Mostly from animals. The AIDS virus is blamed on the butchering of primates in the African bushmeat trade, we created mad cow disease when we turned cows into carnivores and cannibals, and SARS and COVID-19 have been traced back to the exotic wild animal trade. Our last pandemic, swine flu in 2009, arose not from some backwater wet market in Asia, however. It was largely made-in-the-USA on pig production operations in the United States. In this new Age of Emerging Diseases, there are now billions of animals overcrowded and intensively confined in filthy factory farms for viruses to incubate and mutate within. Today’s industrial farming practices have given viruses billions more spins at pandemic roulette. How can we stop the emergence of pandemic viruses in the first place? Whenever possible, treat the cause. The largest and oldest association of public health professionals in the world, the American Public Health Association, has called for a moratorium on factory farming for nearly two decades. Indeed, factory farms are a public health menace. In addition to discontinuing the intensive confinement practices of animal agriculture, we should continue to research, develop, and invest in innovative plant-based and cultivated meat technologies to move away from raising billions of feathered and curly-tailed test tubes for viruses with pandemic potential to mutate within.
This is the issue that blights our rivers as well as our air: livestock farms produce far more manure than the land can absorb. The lobby group went on to argue against a ban on autumn spreading, which causes the worst pollution, and against a ban on the use of urea, a potent source of ammonia. The government gave it everything it wanted. The European parliament has now voted to bring EU legislation in line with the science, setting the WHO’s recommended level as the legal limit for PM2.5 pollution, but, thanks to the lobbyists and their stooges, not until 2035. There are, however, no such plans in the UK. As one of the great benefits of Brexit, the government merely aims to change the current “guidance” level of PM2.5 pollution from four times the WHO recommendation to twice the recommended level by 2040. The dates 2040 and 2050 are used by this government as synonyms for “never”. The idea that some people may freely poison others is one of the most astonishing but least contested aspects of modern life. It’s time we saw past the lies and the culture wars. It’s time to stop accepting our daily poisoning on behalf of corporate profits. — George Monibot: What’s Your Poison?
On January 31 and February 18, Dianne Feinstein sold stock in Allogene Therapeutics, with the estimated value to be between $1.5 million and $6 million.[7] According to Feinstein, the investment decisions are made by her husband, and are reported by her per Senate rules. She states that “this company is unrelated to any work on the coronavirus and the sale was unrelated to the situation.”[8] Feinstein also reportedly provided documents to the FBI related to her husband’s transactions, in order to show that she had no connection to the decision .— 2020 Congressional Insider Trading Scandal The 2020 Congressional Insider Trading scandal was a political scandal in the United States involving allegations that several members of the United States Senate violated the STOCK Act by selling stock at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and just before a stock market crash on February 20, 2020, using knowledge given to them at a closed Senate meeting. The Department of Justice (DOJ) initiated a probe into the stock transactions on March 30, 2020. No charges were brought against anyone and all investigations into the matter are closed.
Videos of the Day:
Survived & Punished: Meet Tracy McCarter, a Nurse Jailed, Then Cleared, for Stabbing Abusive Husband
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!
Antarctic Sea Ice Is at a ‘Very Concerning’ Record Low It’s winter in Antarctica, when sea ice cover typically grows. But this year’s sea ice is way behind, reaching record lows with implications for the planet. It’s winter in the Southern Hemisphere, when ice typically forms around Antarctica. But this year, that growth has been stunted, hitting a record low by a wide margin. The sharp drop in sea ice is alarming scientists and raising concerns about its vital role in regulating ocean and air temperatures, circulating ocean water and maintaining an ecosystem crucial for everything from microscopic plankton to the continent’s iconic penguins.
Antarctica Hits Records as Global Heat Looms Large for 2024 . . . A report from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) released by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Berlin in the spring of 2023 reveals how surprisingly fast the icy continent is changing and its impact on the world. At current levels of global warming, the planet is already committed to approximately 16 inches of global sea level rise, “which turns what was once considered a one in 100-year coastal flood event into an annual one.” (Source: Report: Antarctic is Changing Dramatically with Global Consequences, Phys.org, June 13, 2023). Annual 100-year coastal flooding events puts one billion people at annual risks of losing homes, coastlines, and port facilities… every year! Maybe build sea walls… everywhere, worldwide? After all, sea level rise is not going to stop on its own. In fact, already, according to the Miami Herald: “Many of the main roads in the Florida Keys could be under water as soon as 2025.” (Source: Some Keys Roads Will Flood by 2025 Due to Sea Rise, Fixing)
Carbon Offsets Don’t Work, And That’s Not News It’s been clear from the beginning that the market for ’emissions offsets’ is based on lies. Criticism of carbon offsets and carbon markets is increasing in both academic research and investigative reporting. This week, Kate Aronoff writes in The New Republic that, “Over the last few years, a drumbeat of academic research and investigative reporting has painted a bleak picture of carbon offsets and the carbon markets through which they’re traded. Just this week, a team of journalists at Carbon Brief published an exhaustive explainer on offsets and the many damning studies poking holes in a practice that’s long been a darling of climate policy wonks. That includes a study now making its way through the peer review process, which estimates that only 12 percent of carbon-offset projects ‘constitute real emissions reductions.’”
George Monibot: What’s Your Poison? Why do we put up with daily assaults on our health? It has everything to do with corporate power. There are some things we rightly find intolerable, such as the possession of poorly trained, aggressive dogs. There are other things, whose impacts are many thousands of times worse, that we decide just to live with. What makes the difference? Visibility is one reason: a photo of a large dog with bared teeth triggers primal fear. Ubiquity is another: the more widespread the problem, the more we normalise it. Split incentives is another: what if we are simultaneously both perpetrators and victims? But I think the most important factor is lobbying power. There is no corporate lobby behind the sale, let alone poor training, of American XL bullies. But there are powerful corporate lobbies behind the air pollution devastating many people’s health. Oil corporations don’t want to lose their market. Car firms want to sell existing designs for as long as possible. Even the manufacturers of wood-burning stoves run a small, but surprisingly effective, persuasion operation. Thanks to the Pollution Paradox – the dirtiest industries have the greatest incentive to invest in politics, so politics comes to be dominated by the dirtiest industries – such lobbies exert a vast impact on political choice. If people were asked to vote on whether they want their hearts and lungs damaged, their children’s cognitive development impaired, extra cancers, more stillbirths, a higher risk of dementia and earlier death, they’d be likely to reject these options. But, thanks to decades of spin, the stark nature
Native Amercan Genocide 2023: ‘We Felt So Betrayed’: Indigenous Tribe Reels After Exclusion From US Marine Sanctuary Violet Sage Walker stands on the bow of Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise ship and looks out at Morro Rock jutting up from the Pacific Ocean. The dramatic promontory – known as Lisamu’ in Chumash, the language of Walker’s tribe – is part of a stunning stretch of California coastline she hoped would soon be part of a sprawling new marine sanctuary six times the size of Yosemite. . . . The tribe has been tirelessly campaigning for the central coast to be designated as a marine sanctuary – a fight Walker’s father, Fred Collins, started more than five decades ago – and was confident the sanctuary would go ahead after a successful public comment period last year drew 10,000 supporting signatures. But then, last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) released a draft management plan for the sanctuary that left the tribe reeling. The stretch of coast they had advocated for – from Cambria to Morro Bay – had been left out. Instead, Noaa’s proposed sanctuary would start just south of Morro Bay, stretching down to Gaviota. Fossil Fuel Companies Made Bold Promises to Capture Carbon. Here’s What Actually Happened. A DeSmog review of 12 large-scale projects reveals a litany of cost-overruns and missed targets, with a net increase in emissions.
The Climate Crisis Is Salting the Water in Major Coastal Cities It isn’t just New Orleans that is menaced by sea water intrusion because of human-caused climate change.Eric Zerkel and Angela Fritz at CNN report on the great saltwater intrusion that is threatening drinking water over the next few months in New Orleans and towns to its south. The Mississippi delta was created by the silt deposited as the great river flowed south into the Gulf of Mexico, pushing away its salt water. The head of the New Orleans office of the Army Corps of Engineers, Col. Cullen Jones, is quoted by them as saying that in order to push the saltwater away, the flow rate of the Mississippi needs to be higher than 300,000 cubic feeet per second.
Palestinian Displacement in the Age of Climate Chaos Already under asault by Israeli occupation and injustice, a warming world makes the situation even more unfriendly for those living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
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
The Result of the decling income of the working clas, and due to healthcare and education for profit! (The United States is the oonly adavced country without free public health care and free hicher education for all!): Acco Accounting for the Widening Mortality Gap Between American Adults With and Without A BA The widening gap in death rates between Americans with and without a four-year college degree shows the U.S. economy is failing working class people, suggests a paper to be discussed at the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) conference on September 28. The U.S. economy, as measured by conventional metrics such as growth in gross domestic product (GDP), has recently outperformed other advanced economies. But mortality data paint a different picture, according to “Accounting for the Widening Mortality Gap between American Adults with and without a BA.” “GDP may be doing great, but people are dying in increasing numbers, especially less-educated people,” Anne Case, one of the authors, said in an interview with The Brookings Institution. “A lot of the increasing prosperity is going to the well-educated elites. It is not going to typical working people.”
Antarctica Hits Records as Global Heat Looms Large for 2024 . . . A report from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) released by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Berlin in the spring of 2023 reveals how surprisingly fast the icy continent is changing and its impact on the world. At current levels of global warming, the planet is already committed to approximately 16 inches of global sea level rise, “which turns what was once considered a one in 100-year coastal flood event into an annual one.” (Source: Report: Antarctic is Changing Dramatically with Global Consequences, Phys.org, June 13, 2023). Annual 100-year coastal flooding events puts one billion people at annual risks of losing homes, coastlines, and port facilities… every year! Maybe build sea walls… everywhere, worldwide? After all, sea level rise is not going to stop on its own. In fact, already, according to the Miami Herald: “Many of the main roads in the Florida Keys could be under water as soon as 2025.” (Source: Some Keys Roads Will Flood by 2025 Due to Sea Rise, Fixing)
Black Liberation/Civile Rights:
Former Female Inmates Speak About Widespread Sexual Abuse by Prison Staff Employees abused prisoners at 19 facilities, according to a Senate probe. Widespread sexual abuse of female inmates continues to plague federal prisons and accountability measures for staff have not contained the scourge of such violence, according to a Senate investigative report released Tuesday. Women were abused by prison staff in at least 19 of the 29 federal facilities that held female inmates since 2012, the bipartisan report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found. The Bureau of Prisons opened 5,415 cases alleging sexual abuse by federal employees from 2012 to 2022. Former inmate and survivor Briane Moore testified before the subcommittee on Tuesday, recounting how she was raped by an officer while she was imprisoned at a federal facility in West Virginia. She said the officer, a captain at the prison, would take her to private areas of the facility to abuse her out of sight of surveillance cameras.
Labor:
UAW President Again Orders Vast Majority of Big Three Autoworkers to Continue Working Two Weeks After Contracts Expired The UAW has refused to call out any production facilities in the Detroit metro area, which remains the center of the US auto industry, with tens of thousands employed in the auto and auto parts plants. Claiming there had been “significant progress” at the last minute with Stellantis, Fain did not call out any further facilities at the company, instead announcing walkouts only at the Ford Chicago Assembly Plant and the GM Lansing Delta Township Plant. With just 7,000 workers at the two factories, the announcement means that 83 percent of UAW members—more than 120,000 workers—are still on the job two weeks after their contracts expired. Fain’s announcement Friday is a continuation of the UAW’s cynical “stand up strike” policy, better termed a “stay at work order.” The UAW bureaucracy has deliberately avoided calling out the auto companies’ main profit-making centers, which produce pick-ups. This includes the Ford Dearborn and Kansas City plants, which produce the F-150s, the GM Flint and Fort Wayne plants (Chevy Silverados), and Stellantis Warren Truck and Sterling Heights Assembly (Dodge Rams).
Economy:
Five-Count Felon JPMorgan Chase Gets Hit with Another Federal Fine for 40 Million Derivative Violations; Pays 37 1/2 Cents Per Violation In the eyes of Wall Street veterans who are paying close attention to what’s going down at the mega banks on Wall Street, federal regulators are making the crime wave at these banks worse, not better. The federal fines for egregious behavior at these banks are getting smaller and more meaningless by the day.
World:
Media Completely Ignores NATO’s War Role in Libya Chaos The 2011 intervention was a link in the chain of events leading to last month’s floods and tragedy. The catastrophic floods that Storm Daniel unleashed on Libya, which have killed as many as 10,000 people, are both a natural disaster and a human-made one. In the week following Storm Daniel, a large portion of the media coverage described “war” as a reason the country was ill-equipped to handle the catastrophe. However, media discussion of NATO’s contribution to what has become Libya’s forever war has been almost non-existent. NATO’s intimate involvement — albeit by proxy — in the current war in Ukraine makes the omission all the more remarkable.
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