Daily News Digest January 11, 2024
Images of the Day:
Bendib: Begging the Question
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”
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: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, andThe 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!
Quote of the Day:
Murray Rothbard called him “the premier leader of the revolutionary movement.” Adams helped organize the Committees of Correspondence, authored “The Rights of Colonists,” founded The Sons of Liberty, and was the principal organizer of the Boston Tea Party. Even Paul Revere’s ride was to warn him. The British government wanted him for treason a year before the Declaration of Independence was written. He inspired the battle cry “No taxation without representation,” signed the Declaration of Independence, was a representative to both Continental Congresses, and served as governor of Massachusetts. — Raising a Glass to Sam Adams: 18 Choice Quotes on Liberty
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 1%’s Wealth Controls the Government! The Government’s Tax policay proves this point! The 1% get taxed less and the 99% get’s taxed more. The 99% are not represented by the Government. Onr of the damdand of the third American Revolution will Be No “Taxation Without Representation”!
Videos of the Day:
Podcast: Movies vs. Capitalism A movie-rewatch podcast that explores the politics of your favorite films through an anti-capitalist lens. Each episode, hosts Rivka Rivera and Frank Cappello are joined by a special guest for an irreverent yet critical discussion about a film and how it’s *obviously* a scathing indictment of late-stage capitalism.
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 ford 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 Crumbling Infrastructure of the United States: Another Eample of Profits First! Safety Last!”: Here’s What to Know About the Boeing 737 Max 9, the Jet That Suffered An Inflight Blowout . . . What is the safety history of Boeing 737 Max jets? The Boeing 737 Max line has a troubled history, with two fatal crashes of the Max 8 model within five months of each other, in 2018 and 2019. The first crash, in October 2018, involved a 737 Max 8 operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air that killed 189. The second incident was in March 2019, when an Ethiopian Airlines flight, also a 737 Max 8, crashed minutes after take off, killing 157 passengers.In response to those crashes, the FAA in 2019 grounded the 737 Max 8 and Max 9 while it investigated. Boeing changed an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.
Boeing Supplier Ignored Warnings Of “Excessive Amount Of Defects,” Former Employees Allege Weeks before Alaska Airlines’ terrifying debacle, one of the aircraft’s manufacturers was accused of systematically ignoring safety problems. Less than a month before a catastrophic aircraft failure prompted the grounding of more than 150 of Boeing’s commercial aircraft, documents were filed in federal court alleging that former employees at the company’s subcontractor repeatedly warned corporate officials about safety problems and were told to falsify records. One of the employees at Spirit AeroSystems, which reportedly manufactured the door plug that blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight over Portland, Oregon, allegedly told company officials about an “excessive amount of defects,” according to the federal complaint and corresponding internal corporate documents reviewed by The Lever.
Workers at Boeing Subcontractor Told to Falsify Records, New Investigation Finds “Employees had tried to warn corporate officials about serious safety problems,” says David Sirota of The Lever. AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with a breaking story, an update on the Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets that remain grounded after a refrigerator-sized fuselage door plug blew off on Friday on an Alaska Airlines plane in the air near Portland, Oregon. Officials with Alaska Airlines and United Airlines say they found loose bolts and other problems on some of the jets that have since been grounded. Meanwhile, the online news outlet The Lever is reporting workers at a Boeing subcontractor were told to falsify records after inspection teams found, quote, “excessive amounts of defects” in parts being made for Boeing. Spirit AeroSystems reportedly manufactured the door that blew out on the Alaska Airlines flight 16,000 feet in the air. The Lever reports a group of Spirit shareholders filed a federal complaint last year saying Spirit executives had, quote, “prioritized production numbers and short-term financial outcomes over product quality.” Spirit was established nearly two decades ago as a spinoff of Boeing.
United Finds Bolts That Need Tightening While Inspecting Door Plugs on Grounded Boeing 737 Max 9 Planes Four days after a section of the fuselage suddenly detached as an Alaska Airlines plane was taking off, United Airlines reported Monday its inspectors discovered several “instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug,” including bolts needing additional tightening.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
Unites States’/Israel’s Nuclear War in Gaza: Gaza Strip and Bombs With Depleted Uranium here is now enough convincing data to prove that Israel has repeatedly used depleted uranium weaponry. Such was the case in the large-scale massacre that took place in the Gaza Strip in August 2014. These weapons cause cancers and foetal malformations in the populations affected, which may take on epidemic proportions. In Iraq, in the city of Fallujah, where these bombs were launched in industrial quantities by the International Coalition led by the United States, 52% of children today are born with deformities. The lethal effects of radioactivity caused by explosions and subsequent fires, including cancer of the lungs and pleura, can persist for centuries in the environment and particularly in aquifers. We are therefore on the verge of another humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine and in particular in the Gaza Strip, where thousands of tons of depleted uranium bombs were dropped with the effects that have already been documented. In view of this situation, what is the Vice-President/High Representative thinking of doing to pressure Israel into assuming its responsibilities for this crime against humanity, and what help can the Vice-President/High Representative offer to the Palestinian authorities to carry out epidemiological monitoring, which also includes all EU citizens who have moved to the territory since then?
Hamas and Israel: Friends and Foes Israel describes its ethnic cleansing in Gaza as a “war against Hamas”, and calls any support for Palestine “terrorist sympathy”. At the same time, Israel has done everything possible to strengthen Hamas’ grip on Gaza, as a counterbalance to the socialist and secular currents of the Palestinian freedom struggle. So who is really fuelling terrorism? The slogan of the communists, “Intifada to victory”, has been deliberately misinterpreted by reactionaries and reformists around the world. In Britain, The Telegraph has accused our comrades of “inciting violence” in universities. In Switzerland, police have tried to stop our student demonstrations after several tabloids warned of “pro-Hamas rallies” at universities. In Sweden, our comrades at Lund University have been accused of calling for “waves of terror” in the local student newspaper. Any call for an intifada is equated with support for the Hamas attack on 7 October – something that could not be further from the truth. The intifadas’ revolutionary and democratic traditions of mass protests, boycotts and strikes have long been a thorn in the side of the Israeli occupying forces. And precisely because of this, Hamas has long enjoyed indirect political and economic support from Israel.
How Israel’s “Send Palestinians to Congo” plan Evokes British Colonial Plans to send Jews to Uganda Nothing illuminates the mutant perversion of Zionism under Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi) more clearly than this: He proposes to forcibly evict all Palestinians from Gaza (Palestine), and move them to Congo. This is what Great Britain proposed in 1903, as a solution to the “Jewish problem.” Rather than allow Jews to immigrate to Palestine and create a new Jewish homeland, they proposed to move them to Uganda, where the British Crown had plenty of room.
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’!
An Ecosocialist Strategy to Make 1.5° Possible “The WMO provisional State of the Global Climate report confirms that 2023 is set to be the warmest year on record. Data until the end of October shows that the year was about 1.40 degrees Celsius (with a margin of uncertainty of ±0.12°C ) above the pre-industrial 1850-1900 baseline.“ “COP28 agreed new targets, but only countries can deliver action. The stocktake ‘encourages’ them to submit ambitious new 2035 pledges aligned with 1.5°C, with a deadline of 2025. This will be the ‘moment of truth,’ one expert told Carbon Brief.”
Emissions From Israel’s War in Gaza Have ‘Immense’ Effect on Climate Catastrophe Exclusive: First months of conflict produced more planet-warming gases than 20 climate-vulnerable nations do in a year, study shows The Climate Costs of War and Militaries Can No Longer be Ignored The planet-warming emissions generated during the first two months of the war in Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, new research reveals.
Civil Rights/Black Liberation:
Who can Afford Afford Vacations?!: The Right to Housing, Not Vacation Homes Americans have been on a vacation binge since the easing of COVID-19 lockdowns, traveling for leisure in record numbers, and generating a major boom for the tourism industry. The vacation rental company Airbnb in particular, built on the euphemistic-sounding idea of a “sharing economy,” is thriving. In the third quarter of 2023, the company posted its highest-ever profits on record. But increasingly, cities are seeing rising rents, unaffordable home prices, and increased homelessness. Authorities are linking such housing-related crises in part to Airbnb, and are passing strict regulations.
Labor:
Economy:
Michael Roberts Facebook Blog: Subdued Growth, Multiple Challenges So there is no recession BUT the global economy is on track for its worst half-decade of growth in 30 years, the World Bank has warned in its latest projections for 2024.
How Bankers Profit From Our Broken Economic System Bankers brought the global economic system to its knees in 2007 and nearly did the same in 2020. Both times, the US government bailed out the banks and left them in control. How can we end this cycle of trillion-dollar bailouts and make finance work for the rest of us? Drawing from decades of research on the history, economics, and politics of banking, economist Gerald Epstein, confronts the powerful people and institutions that benefit from our broken financial system—and the struggle to create an alternative. Clear-eyed and hopeful, Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance for the Rest of Us centers the individuals and groups fighting for a financial system that will better serve the needs of the marginalized and support important transitions to a greener, fairer economy.
New York State Has Turned Over a Vast Amount of Its Financial Affairs to 5-Count Felon JPMorgan Chase There’s only one thing more dangerous than the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, being charged with (and admitting to) five criminal felony counts by the U.S. Department of Justice since 2014 and a host of other fraud charges by federal regulators. What is more dangerous is having government officials look the other way at this recidivist history of crime at the nation’s largest bank. In May, federal banking regulators allowed JPMorgan Chase to get even bigger, despite its unprecedented crime wave, by handing it the failed First Republic Bank in a sweetheart deal.
World:
Education, and Welfare:
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