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 Just The 1% Who Profit From Austerity!
Daily News Digest February 28, 2017
Image of the Day:
The ‘Efficiency’ Of Capitalism
Quotes of the Day:
. . . The problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. . . . — Martin Luther King, Where Do We Go From Here?,” Delivered at the 11th Annual SCLC Convention (August 16, 1967)
. . . Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about 50 or 100 years from now — and there should be preserved the kinescopes of one week of all three networks — they will there find, recorded in black and white and in color, evidence of decadence, escapism, and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable, and complacent. We have a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television, and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late. I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge and retribution will not limp in catching up with us. Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information. Let us dream to the extent of saying that on a given Sunday night, a time normally occupied by Ed Sullivan is given over to a clinical survey on the state of American education. And a week or two later, a time normally used by Steve Allen is devoted to a thoroughgoing study of American policy in the Middle East. Would the corporate image of their respective sponsors be damaged? Would the shareholders rise up in their wrath and complain? Would anything happen, other than a few million people would have received a little illumination on subjects that may well determine the future of this country — and therefore the future of the corporations? To those who say people wouldn’t look, they wouldn’t be interested, they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach. It can illuminate and, yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it towards those ends. Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights — in a box. Good night and good luck. — Edward R. Murrow, Address to the Radio-Television News Directors Association & Foundation (1958)
Videos of the Day:
‘J is for Junk Economics’: Michael Hudson on TRNN (1/5) Michael Hudson, author of the newly released ‘J is for Junk Economics,’ says the media and academia use well-crafted euphemisms to conceal how the economy really works
Mountains of Uninvested Corporate Cash, Not Mexico, Most Responsible for Job Loss Heiner Flassbeck tells Paul Jay that unspent and uninvested wealth held by the elites is a bigger drag on employment than free trade with Mexico
U.S.:
Why Should Trump―or Anyone―Be Able to Launch a Nuclear War? The accession of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency brings us face-to-face with a question that many have tried to avoid since 1945: Should anyone have the right to plunge the world into a nuclear holocaust? by Lawrence Wittner
Resume Inflation at the NSC: Lt. General McMaster’s Silver Star Was Essentially Earned for Target Practice by Dave Lindorff
The Long History of Deportation Scare Tactics at the U.S.-Mexico Border By Cora Currier
Los Angeles Mayor Flirts With Sanctuary Movement While Collaborating With ICE By Leighton Akio Woodhouse 
The Return of American Race Laws The campaign to deport millions is a first step toward the clash of civilizations that the white supremacists in the White House believe is inevitable at home and abroad. By Chris Hedges
Environment:
Scott Pruitt Vows Rapid, ‘Aggressive’ Attack on EPA Regulations The administraion “is dead set on destroying the commonsense safeguards we all depend on to protect our environment and health,” wrote NRDC head Rhea Suh. By Andrea Germanos
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
Study Finds Connection Between Living Near Oil and Gas Development and Childhood Leukemia By Mike Gaworecki
Fracking spills are worse than they want you to know One fact has remained pretty constant since the fracking boom in America began back in the 2000s: Almost any environmental problem has turned out to be worse than the oil-and-gas industry and government regulators want the public to know. When it comes to polluting the wells of people who live near fracking rigs, the industry clings to its story line that fracking can’t possibly pollute the water table — trying to obscure the fact that shoddy well casings and other flaws pollute nearby water supplies all the time. In the case of the relationship between fracking and earthquakes, both energy executives and regulators denied for as long as possible that wastewater disposal practices were causing the quakes in previously stable environments such as Oklahoma — until the scientific evidence grew too loud to ignore. By Stuart Smith
Fukushima’s radiation would kill a person in 2 minutes This week, amid reports that radiation levels inside the damaged areas have spiked to the highest levels since the 2011 accident, the Japanese authorities sent a robot into one of the damaged reactors to see what is happening inside, since conditions remain way too unsafe for humans. What the expedition discovered was alarming: By Stuart Smith
Energy News:
Officials warn mysterious radioactive cloud is spreading — Authorities ‘baffled’ over release… “Could indicate leak from nuclear plant” — Particles “very radioactive”
“Smoke billowing” from Japan nuclear plant — Possible fire reported near reactors — TEPCO “has not identified the cause of the incident”
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:
February is Black History Month:
Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam by Martin Luther King, Jr
“I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked — and rightly so — what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty, but we must move on.
Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don’t mix, they say. Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.
In the light of such tragic misunderstandings, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church — the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate — leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.
I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia.
Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they can play in a successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.
Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the NLF, but rather to my fellow Americans, who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents. Read More
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare: