Daily News Digest February 19, 2024
Images of the Day:
Plain Talk: Big Pharma is Perfect Poster Child for Corporate Greed
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!
Quotes of the Day:
Disraeli identifies three species of mendacity, each worse than the one before—lies, damned lies, and statistics. — The Median Isn’t the Message
Jim Douglass, The Martin Luther King Conspiracy Exposed in Memphis: Martin Luther King’s Assassination: Pepper went a step beyond saying government agencies were responsible for the assassination. To whom in turn were those murderous agencies responsible? Not so much to government officials per se, Pepper asserted, as to the economic powerholders they represented who stood in the even deeper shadows behind the FBI, Army Intelligence, and their affiliates in covert action. By 1968, Pepper told the jury, ’And today it is much worse in my view’ — ’the decision-making processes in the United States were the representatives, the footsoldiers of the very economic interests that were going to suffer as a result of these times of changes [being actived by King].’ To say that U.S. government agencies killed Martin Luther King on the verge of the Poor People’s Campaign is a way into the deeper truth that the economic powers that be (which dictate the policies of those agencies) killed him. In the Memphis prelude to the Washington campaign, King posed a threat to those powers of a non-violent revolutionary force. Just how determined they were to stop him before he reached Washington was revealed in the trial by the size and complexity of the plot to kill him.
The Transcription of the King Family Press Conference on the MLK Assassination Trial Verdict: As Coretta Scott King stated: There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court’s unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. “This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
Behind the Lens: John Kirby and Libby Handros Explore Untimely Deaths in ‘Four Died Trying’
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
End the Attacks on Freedom of the Press/Julian Assage! End U.S. Attacks Upon Telling the Truth About U.S. Proxy Wars !: Australian PM Albanese and 85 Other MPs Vote to End Assange Incarceration “Enough is enough,” PM Albanese said The Australian House of Representatives voted on Wednesday in favor of a motion supporting the end of Julian Assange’s incarceration and to bring him back to Australia. Among the supporters of the motion is Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who, regarding the long term prosecution and detention of Assange, declared, “enough is enough.”
Yankees Go Home! Isn’t It Time to Put Down Our Deadly Toy Soldiers? Those of my youth are now long gone, lost to time and maturity, as is the illusion that my country pursues freedom and democracy in the Middle East or anywhere else. . . . I recall rooting for the Israelis, advertised then as crucial American allies, against Egypt, Syria, and other regional enemies at least ostensibly allied with the Soviet Union in that Cold War era. I bought the prevailing narrative of a David-versus-Goliath struggle. I even got a book on the Yom Kippur War that captivated me by displaying all the weaponry the U.S. military had rushed to Israel to turn the tide there, including F-4 Phantom jets and M-60 main battle tanks. (David’s high-tech slingshots, if you will.) Little did I know that, in the next 50 years of my life, I would witness increasingly destructive U.S. military attacks in the Middle East, especially after the oil cartel OPEC (largely Middle Eastern then) hit back hard with an embargo in 1973 that sent our petroleum-based economy into a tailspin. As one jokester quipped: Who put America’s oil under the sands of all those ungrateful Muslim countries in the Middle East? With declarations like the Carter Doctrine in 1980, the U.S. was obviously ready to show the world just how eagerly it would defend its “vital interests” (meaning fossil fuels, of course) in that region. And even today, as we watch the latest round in this country’s painfully consistent record of attempting to pound various countries and entities there into submission, mainly via repetitive air strikes, we should never forget the importance of oil, and lots of it, to keep the engines of industry and war churning along in a devastating fashion.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
A Cry in the Darkness: “Please Come, Come Take Me” The massacre on that street in Tel al-Hawa took place three days after Israel had been put on notice by the International Court of Justice that it needed to stop committing acts of genocide, stop killing civilians, stop killing children and health care workers, a ruling that Israel has not just ignored but openly defied. Instead, Israel blames the victims of its atrocities. Tel al-Hawa was a closed military zone, the IDF says. Any Palestinians moving on the streets were legitimate targets, the IDF says. The rules of engagement were those of the US troops at My Lai: shoot anything that moves. Even young girls and the paramedics who rushed to treat their wounds.
The Grotesque PR That Justifies Israeli Slaughter of Palestinian Children How do the people claiming this is what “self-defense” looks like sleep at night? For its victims, war is . . . yes, hell. For the rest of us—the onlooking and supportive patriots—war is an abstraction embedded in ignorance, a.k.a., public relations, served up for public consumption. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The reality of war should never directly confront the official PR of those waging it. If it does, God help the war industry! But that’s what’s happening now, as public support for U.S. complicity in Israel’s devastation of Gaza diminishes, indeed, starts turning to outrage. Official spokesmen for the Biden administration, such as John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, are forced to start mixing apologetic language in with their unwavering support for the bombing and murder of civilians . . . excuse me, Israel’s right to defend itself.
Water Crisis and Untreated Sewage Could Kill More Gaza Palestinians Than Bombs: Threat of Infant Mortality Al-Arabi al-Jadid reports, “The streets of the Gaza Strip are witnessing a catastrophic environmental crisis due to the mixing of rainwater with sewage water, which is now flooding various roads as a result of a continuous overflow, resulting from the targeting of infrastructure [by the Israeli military], and the inability to drain the necessary quantities of wastewater due to the depletion of fuel, and the complete outage of electricity.”
Environment:
Fund Climate! — Not Genocide! 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’!
The Mendacity of Capitalists: Why I Call the EPA the Employer Protection Agency!:
EPA’s Revolving Door It’s no secret that the chemical industry holds undue influence over regulatory processes in the US – corporations wield incredible power in agency processes to create the guidelines that are supposed to protect the health of our communities and the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is no exception. In reviewing the health and environmental impacts of pesticide products, EPA often relies on industry-funded studies, with this corporate science rarely available for public review. Further, chemical companies commonly sit on panels and committees that “advise” regulators.
67 Countries Banned This Toxic Product –But the EPA Says: “Go for it!” Sixty-seven (67) countries have banned paraquat, a toxic chemical used to control weeds that was discovered in the 1950s subsequently widely used throughout the world in agriculture. Despite a deadly toxic reputation, it’s still used throughout America. Moreover, it’s a cheap effective product used as a common pesticide by third-world countries that do not proactively regulate chemical products. As of 2024, the US EPA, once again, reapproved paraquat in the face of stiff public opposition and criticism via a slew of negative scientific studies. With more than 60 major developed countries banning the product, why is the United States still onboard?
‘Alarming’: FERC Ignores Climate Impacts and Rubber-Stamps Texas Pipeline “The world does not need more LNG, and FERC is out of step with the reality of the climate crisis and communities impacted by these projects,” one advocate said. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a controversial pipeline on Thursday despite opposition from local and Indigenous communities and without considering its climate impacts.
‘They Lied’: Plastics Producers Deceived Public About Recyclingreport Reveals Companies knew for decades recycling was not viable but promoted it regardless, Center for Climate Integrity study finds Plastic, which is made from oil and gas, is notoriously difficult to recycle. Doing so requires meticulous sorting, since most of the thousands of chemically distinct varieties of plastic cannot be recycled together. That renders an already pricey process even more expensive. Another challenge: the material degrades each time it is reused, meaning it can generally only be reused once or twice.The industry has known for decades about these existential challenges, but obscured that information in its marketing campaigns, the report shows.
Plastics Are Fossil Fuel Industry’s Plan B. Fenceline Communities Pay the Price. Production is concentrated in poor communities and communities of color, and residents face elevated health threats. Scientists are increasingly alarmed over the soaring amounts of microplastics (small pieces of plastic less than five millimeters) and nanoplastics (extremely small, sub-micrometer plastic particles) being discovered throughout our planet, our bodies and our food. Just this past January, new studies found huge numbers of plastic particles in bottled water and microplastics in nearly 90 percent of sampled proteins like beef and tofu. These reports follow many others that have found microplastics and nanoplastics in nearly every crevice of our world: clouds and rivers, Arctic sea ice and sea mammals, heart tissue and breast milk and even placentas.
End Fossil-Fuel Era to Address Colonial Injustices, Urges Prominent Historian West should address ‘colonisation of the present’ and not focus on past, argues David Van Reybrouck Cities in the global north that curb their carbon emissions are doing more to address colonial injustices than those who focus their efforts on taking down statues and changing street names, one of Europe’s leading historians has said.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
The Historic Role of Police Brutality in the Black Community and African American Oppression To begin to understand, the role of the police, the following quotes By Jam Baldwin, which are still true today — they act like a army of occupation.:
Harlem (The Black Community) is policed like occupied territory.—James Baldwin, A Report from Occupied Territory
And the police are simply the hired enemies of this population. They are present to keep the Negro in his place and to protect white business interests, and they have no other function. They are, moreover — even in a country which makes the grave error of equating ignorance with simplicity — quite stunningly ignorant; and, since they know that they are hated, they are always afraid. One cannot possibly arrive at a more surefire formula for cruelty. — James Baldwin, From ‘Victim’ to ‘Threat’: James Baldwin and the Demands of Self-Respect
Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. By Roland Sheppard. Malcolm X was assassinated fifty years ago, on February 21, 1965. Three years later, Martin Luther King, Jr. was also assassinated (April 4, 1968). These murders marked an escalation in the U.S. Government’s war against the Civil Rights Movement. In the 1960s, Roland Sheppard regularly attended Malcolm XIS meetings in Harlem. Between 1964 and 1965, he was in charge of security when Malcolm X spoke at the Militant Labor Forum in New York City. He is one of the few remaining people who personally witnessed the assassination of Malcolm X in the Audubon Ballroom. A life-long socialist, Sheppard was active in the Civil Rights Movement, the movement against the U.S. war in Vietnam, the Black Liberation Movement, the struggle for women’s liberation, for union rights, for workers democracy, and for socialism. He worked for 31 years as a union painter until his 1994 election as an official for Painters Local 4 in San Francisco.
Economy:
Worldwide Puperization: Annual Fuel Poverty Statistics in England, 2024 (2023 data)
Headline Statistics
- In 2023, there were an estimated 13.0 per cent of households (3.17 million) in fuel poverty in England under the Low Income Low Energy Efficiency (LILEE) metric, effectively unchanged from 13.1 per cent in 2022 (3.18 million)1.
- The aggregate fuel poverty gap for England in 2023 was estimated at £1.32 billion under the LILEE metric, up by 20 per cent since 2022 (£1.11 billion) in real terms. The average fuel poverty gap for England in 2023 (the reduction in fuel costs needed for a household to not be in fuel poverty) was estimated at £417, up by 20 per cent since 2022 (£348).
- Due to improvements in energy efficiency, there has been a slight increase in the share of households meeting the 2030 fuel poverty target in 2023 with 54.0 per cent of all low income households living in a property with a Fuel Poverty Energy Efficiency Rating (FPEER)2 of band C or better, up from 53.1 per cent in 2022.
- It is projected that in 2024, fuel poverty will decrease to 12.7 per cent (3.12 million) with the average fuel poverty gap falling by 8 per cent in real terms to £385 (in 2023 prices). In 2024, an estimated 55.5 per cent of all low income households are projected to live in a property with a fuel poverty energy efficiency rating (FPEER) of band C or better.
- These statistics also include an affordability measure of the number of households who are required to spend more than 10 per cent of their income (after housing costs) on domestic energy. In 2023, 36.4 per cent of households (8.91 million) exceeded this threshold up from 27.4 per cent in 2022 (6.66 million)
Jamie Dimon Is Desperate to Pin the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal on Jes Staley; Bloomberg News Is Carrying His Water — Again After hurling salacious allegations for months against Jes Staley in a federal lawsuit JPMorgan Chase had brought against its former executive, the bank decided last September to quietly settle the case without disclosing the terms. The bank sued Staley after it had been sued by victims of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and after it had been sued in a separate lawsuit by the Attorney General of the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a private island compound that was a frequent venue of Epstein’s sex trafficking of minors. Lawyers for the U.S. Virgin Islands charged that JPMorgan Chase had “actively participated in Epstein’s sex-trafficking venture from 2006 until 2019.” (Both cases were settled last year by the bank, with it paying a whopping $290 million to the victims and $75 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands.)
World:
Europe Farmers’ Revolt: A Bitter Harvest for Ruling Class Unrest is spreading across the European countryside, from Poland to Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Romania and Greece. Farmers are on the move, and they have not flinched from using the most militant methods – in stark contrast to the ‘respectable’ methods we are used to from the trade union leaderships. They are getting concessions and millions of workers are taking note. The ruling class has been thrown into a state of alarm. Under this pressure, Ursula von der Leyen has promised to scrap proposals to halve pesticide usage. The French, Spanish and Greek governments have all promised to boost subsidies to the sector. France has also scrapped a planned diesel tax increase under pressure from the farmers, while President Macron in France and Taoiseach Varadkar in Ireland have both come out against the trade deal with food-producing nations in Latin America’s Mercosur. The clear lesson is that militancy pays.
Austrian State Apparatus Attacks the IMT Over Palestine Solidarity In yet another scandalous attack on freedom of expression, a number of our Austrian comrades have been summoned by a state prosecutor for their support for the IMT and Palestine. We thoroughly reject the baseless accusations of the Austrian state, and express our complete solidarity with the comrades subject to this attack
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