Daily News Digest April 1, 2024
Freight Traffic is a Catastrophe in Waiting — Most of the Transportation Infrastructure of the United States Wasn’t Built for Today’s Traffic! Most roads and bridges were not built for 18 wheeler trucks! Most Rails where not built for 1-3mile long trains. Most ports were not designed ocean container ships a thousand feet long! Last years’ freight derailment in East Palestine hazardous waste spill, that has yet to be cleaned up, was a warning sign of the future.
East Palestine Under Mandatory Evacuation, Possible Explosion Warning After Toxic Train Derailment
Due Capitalism’s Policy of Differed Maintenance: (The practice of postponing maintenance activities such as repairs on both real property (i.e. infrastructure) and personal property (i.e. machinery) in order to save costs, meet budget funding levels, or realign available budget monies. The failure to perform needed repairs could lead to asset deterioration and ultimately asset impairment. Generally, a policy of continued deferred maintenance may result in higher costs, asset failure, and in some cases, health and safety implications.) has left us with an unfractured in dire need of repair.
Understaffing has also added to the current state of affairs!
This Weeks Cargo Ship Crash in Baltimore is new example of what is to come.:The Dali is a Big Ship, But Not the Biggest
The Ship (The Dali) That Crashed Into he Baltimore Bridge Carried 764 Tons Of Hazardous Material, and Some Containers Have Been Breached, NTSB Says
- At least 56 containers of hazmat goods were on board the Dali when it crashed, the NTSB said.
- Some of the containers were “significantly breached” and some are in the water, officials said.
- The 984-foot ship is still caught under the debris of Baltimore’s biggest bridge, which collapsed on Tuesday
These Ships Threaten the Entire Planet!:
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”
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! Globaly, With the Current Gaza War, The Right of Assembly is Under Attack! 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:
Rather than simply allowing Assange to argue the three issues on appeal, however, the panel gave the Biden administration an out. If the U.S. provides the court with “satisfactory assurances” that Assange won’t be denied any of these rights, his extradition to the U.S. can proceed without an appeals hearing. Stella Assange called the decision “astounding,” adding, “The court’s recognized that Julian has been exposed to flagrant denial of his freedom of expression rights, that he is being discriminated against on the basis of his nationality and that he remains exposed to the death penalty.” — Marjorie Cohn, US Refuses to Assure UK Judges That Assange Won’t Be Executed If He’s Extradited
Pocasts/Videos of the Day:
If we dedicate war memorials to the memory of men and women, who are cut down before their time, these (Workplaces) are war memorials. . . . — Homer Seguin, Video: Before Their Time” Cancer & Health And Safety On Our Jobs. Cancer & Health And Safety On Our Jobs (Video)
Protesters Disrupt Record $25 Million Biden Fundraiser in NYC as Thousands March Against Gaza War
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
Biden Is Quietly Funding Nuclear Weapons Upgrades That Could Imperil the Planet The continued funding of nuclear weapons development is a pork barrel of herculean proportions.
Patrick Lawrence: Imperium: Decline on the Way to Fall I just read a most remarkable piece in The Seattle Times—remarkable for its bluntly nihilistic candor. The headline atop Ron Judd’s August 2021 essay for The Times’s Pacific NW Magazine gives a good idea of the writer’s point: “The decline of American civilization.” And the subhead: “There’s more bad TV than ever; it’s available everywhere; and it’s making us fat, lazy, selfish and stupid.” News sometimes seems to travel slowly in these parts, but never mind that. If Judd’s observations were pithy three years ago, they have the gravitational pull of Jupiter as we read them today. Here is Judd bringing home his thesis: Based on our current state of national dysfunction, cultural warfare and garden-variety public psychosis—more on this after a few commercial messages urging you to ask your doctor about a new wonder drug, Byxfliptaz—it’s undeniable that the mainstream American today possesses all the crisp, mental faculties of a Jell–O salad left too long out in the sun at an August picnic at Marymoor Park.
U.S. Funded Plestinian Genocide:
U.S. Complicity in Israel’s “Plausible” Genocide “Honoring our alliances does not mean facilitating mass killing,” Representative Ocasio-Cortez said on the floor of the House of Representatives on March 22. “We cannot hide from our responsibility any longer.” “Facilitating mass killing” and “responsibility” could include United States legal complicity. While eyes are on a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, a court case in California (Defense for Children International, Palestine, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, et al.) is worth noting; the case directly challenges the United States’ support for Israel. Although the case will not force Israel to withdraw from Gaza, it does raise serious issues about the United States’ complicity in Israel’s continuous violation of human rights and humanitarian law as well as its egregious non-compliance with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ ruled on January 26 that Israel was committing “plausible genocide.” In addition, in a March 25 Report to the Human Rights Council by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese wrote in the Summary: “By analyzing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met.” In the California case, United States leaders are accused of illegal complicity in not preventing genocide as well as contributing to Israel’s genocidal actions.
“It is Criminal..Show some Humanity!” Ireland will Join ICJ case against Israel on Gaza Starvation, Genocide The Irish government has decided to intervene in the court case at the International Court of Justice against Israel on grounds of the commission of genocide. The complaint had been brought by South Africa, and the court found the charge of genocide plausible on January 26. It issued a preliminary injunction, ordering Israel to cease actions that might constitute genocide, which the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has defied. Ireland’s intervention seems to be akin to an amicus brief in the South African complaint, which will be decided by the ICJ.
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’!
Capitalism’s Wars for Oil: When Bodies Start Stacking Up From Climate Change-Related Disasters, Will These Monsters be Held to Account?
‘Ecocide’: How War and Climate Change are Often Linked The link between climate change and war has been a running theme at COP28, highlighting how many countries suffer from both deadly conflict and environmental disasters. At the UN climate talks in Dubai, war-torn Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine and have made their voices heard, complaining about the environmental impact of constant fighting.
Ecocide a ‘Critical Dimension of Israel’s Genocidal Campaign’ in Gaza: Probe Analysis by a research group found that roughly 40% of Gaza land that was previously used for food production has been destroyed by Israeli forces. The widespread destruction Israel’s military has inflicted on Gaza’s farmland and agricultural infrastructure amounts to a “deliberate act of ecocide,” according to a new investigation that uses satellite imagery to survey the extent of the damage. Released Friday ahead of Palestine’s Land Day, the analysis by the London-based research group Forensic Architecture (FA) shows that Israel’s ground forces—including tanks and other military vehicles—have advanced over half of Gaza’s farms and orchards, critical food sources that the besieged enclave’s population has worked tirelessly to cultivate in the face of decades of occupation.
‘Ecocide In Gaza’: Does Scale of Environmental Destruction Amount to a War Crime? Exclusive: Satellite analysis revealed to the Guardian shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territory’s trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts says Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unlivable. In a dilapidated warehouse in Rafah, Soha Abu Diab is living with her three young daughters and more than 20 other family members. They have no running water, no fuel and are surrounded by running sewage and waste piling up. Like the rest of Gaza’s residents, they fear the air they breathe is heavy with pollutants and that the water carries disease. Beyond the city streets lie razed orchards and olive groves, and farmland destroyed by bombs and bulldozers. “This life is not life,” says Abu Diab, who was displaced from Gaza City. “There is pollution everywhere – in the air, in the water we bathe in, in the water we drink, in the food we eat, in the area around us.”
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Port of Baltimore Endangered Black Communities Long Before Key Bridge Collapse The historic Black neighborhood of Turner Station hopes its voice will finally be heard in the rebuilding process. Around 10 p.m., Eric Johnson left his church service in Turner Station and drove across the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore County. He didn’t know it’d be his last trip across the 47-year-old bridge that had defined much of his adult life, but he was certainly glad it was. Just over three hours later, in the early morning of March 26, homes across his neighborhood began shaking violently. A few miles away, a massive cargo ship leaving the Port of Baltimore had just lost power and delivered a deadly blow to the bridge’s support beams. Almost instantly, most of the bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River.
Labor:
The War at the Point of Production: The ‘Killing Fields’ of the United States Like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, world imperialism spreads War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death, throughout the world. Author Gore Vidal describes this era as ‘Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace’. One perpetual war, which is not openly publicized, is the war for profits. It takes place every single day at the point of production, and is killing increasing numbers of workers every year. Today, workers are used as ‘cannon fodder’ both in the war in Iraq and in the war for profits at home. Workplaces have become perpetual ‘killing fields’.
Profits Before Workers Safety!: Cargo Giant in Baltimore Crash Silenced Whistleblowers The company responsible for the Baltimore bridge collapse blocked its employees from reporting safety concerns to the US Coast Guard. It is now being sanctioned by federal regulators for violating a whistleblower protection law. The company that chartered the cargo ship that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was recently sanctioned by regulators for blocking its employees from directly reporting safety concerns to the US Coast Guard — in violation of a seaman whistleblower protection law, according to regulatory filings reviewed by the Lever. E ight months before a Maersk Line Limited–chartered cargo ship crashed into the Baltimore bridge, likely killing six people and injuring others, the Labor Department sanctioned the shipping conglomerate for retaliating against an employee who reported unsafe working conditions aboard a Maersk-operated boat. In its order, the department found that Maersk had “a policy that requires employees to first report their concerns to [Maersk] . . . prior to reporting it to the [Coast Guard] or other authorities.” Federal regulators at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which operates under the Labor Department, called the policy “repugnant” and a “reprehensible and an egregious violation of the rights of employees,” which “chills them from contacting the [Coast Guard] or other authorities without contacting the company first.”
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics No. 515—Public Comment on Inflation Measurement And The Chained-Cpi (C-Cpi) Consumer Price Index Has Been Reconfigured Since Early-1980s So As to Understate Inflation versus Common Experience
- CPI no longer measures the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living.
- CPI no longer measures full inflation for out-of-pocket expenditures.
- With the misused cover of academic theory, politicians forced significant underreporting of official inflation, so as to cut annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc.
- Politicians look to expand further the concept of artificially-suppressed cost-of-living adjustments in current budget-deficit negotiations, through the use of the Chained-CPI (see Special C-CPI Supplement at end of this document).
- Use of the CPI to adjust retirement benefits, private income or to set investment goals impairs the ability of retirees, income earners and investors to stay ahead of inflation.
- Understated inflation used in estimating inflation-adjusted growth has created the illusion of recovery in reported GDP.
Extreme Heat Is Driving Up Food Prices — and It’s Only Going to Get Worse New research shows that climate change is already fueling heatflation. Sometimes climate change appears where you least expect it — like the grocery store. Food prices have climbed 25 percent over the past four years, and Americans have been shocked by the growing cost of staples like beef, sugar, and citrus. While many factors, like supply chain disruptions and labor shortages, have contributed to this increase, extreme heat is already raising food prices, and it’s bound to get worse, according to a recent study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. The analysis found that heatflation could drive up food prices around the world by as much as 3 percentage points per year in just over a decade and by about 2 percentage points in North America. For overall inflation, extreme weather could lead to anywhere from a 0.3 to 1.2 percentage point increase each year depending on how many carbon emissions countries pump into the atmosphere.
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