Daily News Digest Archives
As the Capitalist Robber Barons Steal from the 99% — Only the 1% Voted For Austerity — The 99% Should Decide On Austerity — Not The 1% Who Profit From Austerity!
Daily News Digest December 13, 2016
Image of the Day:
Youth Are the Future!
Quote of the Day:
As the United States enters the twenty-first century, power over the American mass media is flowing to the top with such devouring speed that it exceeds even the accelerated consolidations of the last twenty years. For the first time in U.S. history, the country’s most widespread news, commentary, and daily entertainment are controlled by six firms that are among the world’s largest corporations, two of them foreign. Even with the dramatic entry of the Internet and the cyber world with their uncounted hundreds of new firms, the controlling handful of American and foreign corporations now exceed in their size and communications power anything the world has seen before. Their intricate global interlocks create the force of an international cartel. There are pernicious consequences. While excessive bigness itself is cause for economic anxieties, the worst problems are political and social. The country’s largest media giants have achieved alarming success in writing the media laws and regulations in favor of their own corporations and against the interests of the general public. Their concentrated power permits them to become a larger factor than ever before in socializing each generation with entertainment models of behavior and personal values. The impact on the national political agenda has been devastating, For years, the mainstream news has over dramatized its reporting of congressional and White House debate on the national debt and deficit beyond their intrinsic importance. Politicians raised the issue, but it was seized upon and overblown by the major media–media that politicians use as a bellwether on what issues will get them the most public attention and partisan advantage. During these crucial years, the American economy was undergoing an astonishing phenomenon that the mainstream news left largely unreported or actually glamorized in its infrequent references: the largest transfer of the national wealth in American history from a majority of the population to a small percentage of the country’s wealthiest families.” — The Media Monopoly
Videos of the Day:
Has Obama Failed Black People? Black people in the United States are doing worse now than they were before Obama took office. The UN recently termed the police brutality against Black folks as modern-day lynching. So then why is the first Black president of the United States silent on these issues?
Climate Change is Ravaging Coral Reefs Throughout the World’s Oceans
U.S.
Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence The Washington Post late Friday night published an explosive story that, in many ways, is classic American journalism of the worst sort: The key claims are based exclusively on the unverified assertions of anonymous officials, who in turn are disseminating their own claims about what the CIA purportedly believes, all based on evidence that remains completely secret. By Glenn Greenwald
Trump and Goldman’s Revolving Door Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were two of the most unpopular presidential candidates in recent history because no matter who was elected, America was getting a presidential cabinet filled with millionaire and billionaires rife with conflicts of interest. by Michael J. Sainato
Are Obama’s Immigration Prisons for Families Legitimate ‘Childcare Facilities’? Judge Says No Following ruling, nearly 500 mothers and children were released from notorious immigrant prisons in Texas. By Sarah Lazare
Two-Step Mccarthyism One element of encrypting one’s email, a step I highly recommend everyone take before the inauguration, is called two-step verification. That seems to be at play right now on the part of the 1% with a Democratic and Republican flavor of McCarthyism rearing its head over the past few days. The first, stemming from the GOP, is a banal old-school regurgitation of the David Horowitz song and dance routine. Melissa Garriga wrote of this Professors Watchlist: Some of the professors listed as threats to young conservative minds are advocates for tougher gun laws while others speak out against Israel and the Netanyahu government. There is a history professor who dared to link slavery to capitalism and then there is Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at University of California, who claimed on social media (not in a lecture hall, mind you) that some Republicans “were catering to their KKK core of old, angry, white Southern men with reactionary views on race.” by Andrew Stewart
Environment:
Senate Finally Approves Flint Aid—At California’s Expense Michigan action shouldn’t come at expense of ‘endangered species protection in California, but that is the result of the partisan games at play,’ said NRDC by Nadia Prupis
Frightened by Donald Trump? You don’t know the half of it Many of his staffers are from an opaque corporate misinformation network. We must understand this if we are to have any hope of fighting back against them By George Monbiot
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:
December 6, 1956 Was the 60th Anniversary of the Victory of the Montgomery Bus Boycott — Why the Boycott Was Successful:
The boycott was successful, in my opinion for several reasons.
1. It had mass support and it strength developed from the unity of the Black masses to boycott the buses.
2. In order to sustain the boycott, the MIA had organized an alternative transportation system, which gave the masses the ability to get to work for over a year, something that was crucial to the success of the boycott.
In his San Francisco speech, King explained this system and decision. He stated:
One of the first practical problems that the ex-bus riders [had experienced] is that in finding some way to get around the city. The first thing that we decided to do was to use a taxi, and they had agreed to transport the people for just ten cents, the same as the buses. Then the police commission stopped this by warning the taxis that they must charge a minimum of forty-five cents a person. Then we immediately got on the job and organized a volunteer car pool. And almost overnight over three hundred cars were out on the streets of Montgomery. [applause] They were out on the streets of Montgomery carrying the people to and from work from the various pickup and dispatch stations. It worked amazingly well. Even Commissioner Sellers had to admit in a White Citizens Council meeting that the system worked with ‘military precision.’ [applause] It has continued to grow and it is still growing.
Since that time we have added more than twenty station wagons to the car pool and they’re working every day, all day, transporting the people. It has been an expensive project. Started out about two thousand dollars or more a week, but now it runs more than five thousand dollars a week. We have been able to carry on because of the contributions coming from the local community and nationally, from the great contributions that have come from friends of good will all over the nation and all over the world. [applause] [8]
I had the good fortune to meet E.D. Nixon a few hours prior to the December 13, 1965 Militant Labor Forum.
From my conversations, prior to this forum, with E.D. Nixon and Clifton DeBerry, (1964 Presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party), who, along with Farrel Dobbs (1956 Presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party) helped organize the 1956 Stationwagons for Montgomery Campaign, it became clear to me, that the success of this transportation system was made possible by the Korean War GI’s. They were able to use their experience in the army’s “motor pools” specifically and the army generally, to perform the maintenance of the automobiles and become the hard core of the drivers that sustained this transportation system for a year. It was also widely known, in Montgomery, that these men also had the ability and the willingness to defend themselves if the KKK attacked the transportation system. Due to the wide knowledge of this fact, and the world attention that the Boycott had achieved, the racists were unable to disrupt the car pool, that “worked with military precision.”
3. The democratically organized Montgomery Improvement Association had regular weekly mass meetings of thousands to decide the strategy and tactics of the movement. The people in the struggle had control and the final say–not the leaders from on high. This helped to insured the power of the movement, for the masses saw the MIA as their organization and were committed by their votes to implement their decisions.The tactics of both mass civil disobedience (the boycott) and self defense by the MIA was key to the success of the struggle
4. The power of independent mass action, independent of the politicians, was demonstrated by the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This is the power that inspired and garnered support from throughout the nation and the world.
In 1967 Martin Luther King said:
There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid, or day laborer. There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum-and livable-income for every American family. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities. . . . The coalition of an energized section of labor, Negroes, unemployed, and welfare recipients may be the source of power that reshapes economic relationships and ushers in a breakthrough to a new level of social reform. The total elimination of poverty, now a practical responsibility, the reality of equality in race relations and other profound structural changes in society may well begin here.”[9]
The Montgomery Bus Boycott led by the Montgomery Improvement Association was an example of such a coalition and it remains, to this day, one of the best models for victorious struggle in the history of working people in the United States. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a demonstration of the power of Black Unity in action independent of and not reliant to the Democratic and Republican Parties. — Roland Sheppard, The Lessons of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Labor:
Economy:
Here’s Why Russia Wasn’t Behind the WikiLeaks Emails Leak The Washington Post continues to double-down on its Red-baiting hysteria, reporting over the weekend as follows: “Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials.” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
World:
Tories and Brexit: tobogganing towards disaster with their eyes closed It is often said that the British Establishment, at the height of its imperial power, would plan for decades and centuries into the future, such was its confidence and control over its own destiny. In contrast, it has been noticeable in recent years how short-sighted the British ruling class has become – looking for short-term profits through financial alchemy and quick political fixes via risky referenda. by Ben Gliniecki
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
The High Cost of High Scores on International Tests Simon Greenhalgh is assistant principal at the Seoul Foreign School. Most of his professional career has been spent in education in Asia. In this article, he warns about the hidden costs to students in East Asia of an educational regime that values high test scores above all else that a student might do or accomplish. The recent TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey) and PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) results have been met with the usual fanfare or damp squib depending on where you reside. The idea to compare countries’ educational systems via standardized tests always seems to be an ill-considered one, and yet every year such rankings keep coming. There are people eagerly awaiting the results to see whether a country did well enough to provide cause for celebration or poorly enough to allow for an onslaught of criticism. By Diane Ravitch