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 14, 2016
Images of the Day:
Richest 62 people as wealthy as half of world’s population, says Oxfam 
Social Security
Quote of the Day:
Instead bring fearless clarity to bear on the reality of what you have accepted. The murder of 500,000 children. The millions murdered in the wars you started and the wars bred by your wars. Assassination. Torture. Dehumanization and demonization of your fellow human beings, both at home and abroad. “It is your acceptance of these things that has brought you to the final turning point represented by a berserk demagogue’s rise to power. Now there is nothing left for you to do but resist: resist with all your might, with every means at your disposal — but always, always, with the full knowledge of how you came to this place, and your own connivance and collusion in this descent. Keep this in mind as you fight, so that it doesn’t happen again. You are not exceptional, you are not plucked out by God for special favor: you are human beings like all the rest, and like so many human beings in so many societies down through the ages, you have failed to look your own evil in the eye, you have failed to confront and condemn acts that make you shudder with horror when you hear of them committed by other nations. “Own this knowledge — this terrible, tragic knowledge — and let it guide as you fight the putrescence that past crimes have now brought gushing forth, and as you build something better in the aftermath. Otherwise, you are lost, and we are lost, the world itself is lost.” — Message From the Future: Your Acceptance of Evil Has Condemned Us All
Videos of the Day:
Esteban Volkov, grandson of Leon Trotsky on Trotsky’s book “Stalin”
Black Agenda Radio for Week of December 12, 2016
The General’s Son: From Privileged Zionist to Activist for Palestinian Rights – RAI (1/3)
Surveillance: State-of-the-art “It’s sort of like reading someone’s mind”
U.S.
Message From the Future: Your Acceptance of Evil Has Condemned Us All by Chris Floyd
The ‘Lessor/Greater Evil”
Richest 62 people as wealthy as half of world’s population, says Oxfam Charity says only higher wages, crackdown on tax dodging and higher investment in public services can stop divide widening The vast and growing gap between rich and poor has been laid bare in a new Oxfam report showing that the 62 richest billionaires own as much wealth as the poorer half of the world’s population. By Larry Elliott
Judgement and The Ghost Ship Tragedy: America Has Abandoned Its Artists The people who lost their lives in the Ghost Ship Artist Collective warehouse fire, were victims of a constellation of unfortunate circumstances, including the criminal negligence of a badly maintained building. They themselves did absolutely nothing wrong. Many were artists and musicians, and most were young, living and working in the Bay Area. It’s no small feat to make it work as a creative here, in one of the most expensive places on Earth. You accept crappy buildings and absentee landlords because you simply must in order to live and create and develop your talents. By Danielle Thys
Oxfam Names World’s Worst Tax Havens Fueling ‘Global Race to Bottom’ Corporate tax dodging is ‘propping up a dangerously unequal economic system that is leaving millions of people with few opportunities for a better life’ by Deirdre Fulton
The Corporate Media’s Assault on Free Speech: an Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair “One might well ask which foreign government had a larger roll in assisting Trump’s victory over Clinton and more to gain: Russia or Israel. Sheldon Adelson spent a reported $25 million in support of Trump and Netanyahu was publicly campaigning for Trump from Tel Aviv.” — Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch Editor by Mike Whitney
Environment:
Native Waters, Native Warriors: From Standing Rock to Honduras Around the globe, land has become gold-standard currency. As a result, Indigenous and other land-based peoples face threats to the natural commons on which they live, produce food and sustain community, culture and cosmovision. By Beverly Bell 
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Fiery Accidents and Toxic Pollution: Louisiana’s Environmental Woes Offer a Warning to Trump Last month, a large cloud of flammable gas ignited at an ExxonMobil refinery near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Six workers were injured during the 14-minute-long fire, and four of them were hospitalized with severe burns. Federal investigators said the flammable plume escaped during “unplanned maintenance” around a pump. Soon after the accident, Anne Rolfes, the director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a group that tracks petrochemical pollution and accidents in the state, told reporters that the fire was not an isolated incident. There was a fire at the refinery in December 2015, and the facility reported 890 accidents to the government from 2005 to 2014 — an average of over one per week. “This refinery has a terrible safety record,” Rolfes said. “Exxon defers maintenance and workers pay the price.”The refinery is one of the country’s largest and a major reason why ExxonMobil ranks among the top five air polluters in the nation. Rolfes says the rest of the country can learn a lot from Louisiana as it prepares for the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to gut regulations and expand oil and gas production. Trump’s likely pick for secretary of state is none other than ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. By Mike Ludwig
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:
Black Agenda Radio for Week of December 12, 2016
Baraka: Fear of Trump Defeated the Green Party: Voters “wanted a change, but were concerned that if they stood with the Green Party challenge, that would in effect be a vote for Donald Trump — and we know that the propaganda was very effective in advancing that notion,” said the Greens’ vice presidential choice, Ajamu Baraka. The veteran activist, who is also a BAR editor and columnist, told a conference of Southern Human Rights Organizers, in Jackson, Mississippi, that there is a “pattern of repression” against Black people and the working class in cities across the country — most of them “administered and managed by Democrats.”
Dixon Defends Stein Vote Recount: Jill Stein and the Green Party are “not jumping into bed with the Democrats” with their call for a recount of votes in three mid-western states narrowly lost by Hillary Clinton, said Bruce Dixon, co-chair of the Georgia Green Party. “How are we going to ignore pervasive evidence of widespread, multi-state vote tampering, and then turn around in 2017 and tell people they should campaign for office” on the Green ticket? Dixon, who is also managing editor of BAR, said Bernie Sanders should have filed a recount complaint against Hillary Clinton for “stealing” the primary elections in states like Massachusetts and California. “It seems that Bernie and his people were too intent on staying in the [Democratic] club.”
The Democratic Party Can’t Be Fixed: “The powers in the Democratic Party preferred Trump to Bernie Sanders,” said veteran anti-war activist David Swanson, publisher of the influential web site War Is A Crime. “They wanted Hillary or nothing, and that’s what they got.” Those same people, he said, resist naming Rep. Keith Ellison as head of the Democratic National Committee. “The Democratic Party, in my mind, needs to be abandoned. The idea of taking it over and reforming it and fixing it is old, and getting a little tiresome.”
No to Trump and Clinton – Yes to Black Self-Determination: One day before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and six days before the presidential inauguration, the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations will gather at Freedom Plaza, in Washington, DC. “The January 14 mobilization is part of the process of replacing, moving out of the way, those sell-out, opportunist leaders who have pretended to represent the interests of our people,” said coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela. He said the rally will highlight “our 19-point program to put self-determination at the center of Black political struggle” on the widest range of issues.
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare: