Daily News Digest November 24, 2023
Thanksgiving: The Beginning of the Native American Genocide!: The ‘First Thanksgiving’ Story Covers Up the All Too Real Violence in Early America
No More Thanksgivings: Glen Ford’s Challenge to America Of the traditional US holidays, Thanksgiving was by far my favorite. I can do without the excessive commercialization of Xmas with its cheesy music that broadcasts for weeks on end. Cancel the forced festiveness of New Years and the sloppy drunks it generates; ditto for the militarism of July 4th. So, what’s not good about coming together with friends and family and sharing a home cooked feast? I don’t want to ruin the party, but before you carve up the turkey, read the opening essay in Glen Ford’s The Black Agenda. His critique of the holiday is that the mythology surrounding Thanksgiving serves as a justification for our nation’s founding genocide of its native peoples and a validation of white supremacy. “The Thanksgiving story,” Ford explains, “is an absolution of the Pilgrims, whose brutal quest for absolute power in the New World is made to seem both religiously motivated and eminently human.” According to the mythos, the Pilgrims are depicted as victims of harsh weather and naïveté rather than the Christian fascists that they were.
Glen Ford; The American Thanksgiving: Rejoicing In Genocide And White Supremacy “Thanksgiving as presently celebrated is an affront to civilization.” Nobody but Americans celebrates Thanksgiving. It is reserved by history and the intent of “the founders” as the supremely white American holiday, the most ghoulish event on the national calendar. No Halloween of the imagination can rival the exterminationist reality that was the genesis, and remains the legacy, of the American Thanksgiving. It is the most loathsome, humanity-insulting day of the year – a pure glorification of racist barbarity.We should all be thankful that the time grows nearer when the almost four centuries-old abomination will be deprived of its reason for being: white supremacy. Then we may all eat and drink in peace and gratitude for the blessings of humanity’s deliverance from the rule of evil men.
Origins Of Thanksgiving: American Indian Movement The year was 1637…..700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe, gathered for their “Annual Green Corn Dance” in the area that is now known as Groton, Conn. While they were gathered in this place of meeting, they were surrounded and attacked by mercernaries of the English and Dutch. The Indians were ordered from the building and as they came forth, they were shot down. The rest were burned alive in the building. The next day, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared : “A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children. For the next 100 years, every “Thanksgiving Day” ordained by a Governor or President was to honor that victory, thanking God that the battle had been won. Newell based his research on studies of Holland Documents and the 13 volume Colonial Documentary History, both thick sets of letters and reports from colonial officials to their superiors and the king in England, and the private papers of Sir William Johnson, British Indian agent for the New York colony for 30 years in the mid-1600s. “My research is authentic because it is documentary,” Newell said. “You can’t get anything more accurate than that because it is first hand. It is not hearsay.” Newell said the next 100 Thanksgivings commemorated the killing of the Indians at what is now Groton, Connecticut [home of a nuclear submarine base] rather than a celebration with them. He said the image of Indians and Pilgrims sitting around a large table to celebrate Thanksgiving Day was “fictitious” although Indians did share food with the first settlers.
Images of the Day:
Cabal of Extreme White Nationalists
World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, since then, 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”, is Still True for Today’s World!
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: 1. Austerity,2. Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, and 3. The 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:
The original aim of OpenAI was as a non-profit venture created to benefit humanity, not shareholders. But it seems that the carrot of huge profits was driving Altman to change that aim. Even before, Altman had built a separate AI chip business that made him rich. And under his direction, OpenAI had developed a ‘for-profit’ business arm, enabling the company to attract outside investment and commercialise its services. As the FT put it: “this hybrid structure created tensions between the two “tribes” at OpenAI, as Altman called them. The safety tribe, led by chief scientist and board member Ilya Sutskever, argued that OpenAI must stick to its founding purpose and only roll out AI carefully. The commercial tribe seemed dazzled by the possibilities unleashed by ChatGPT’s success and wanted to accelerate (ie make money). The safety tribe appeared to have won out for now. “ Altman is not a scientist, but it seems he is a great ideas man, an entrepreneur in the Bill Gates tradition (with Microsoft). Under Altman, OpenAI has been transformed in eight years from a non-profit research outfit into a company reportedly generating $1bn of annual revenue. Customers range from Morgan Stanley to Estée Lauder, Carlyle and PwC.— AI: Open or Closed? The shock sacking of Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, by his own board reveals the contradictions emerging in the development of ChatGPT and other ‘generative artificial intelligence’ models driving the AI revolution.
Video of the Day:
Israeli History Teacher Arrested & Jailed for Facebook Posts Opposing Killing of Palestinians
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
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide: From A Clean Banner: British Trotskyists’ Opposed 1948 Partition of Palestine: Socialist Appeal, organ of the Revolutionary Communist Party, December 1947: IMPERIALIST SOLUTION The purpose of the partition is to play off the Arab masses against the Jews in order that imperialism may retain its hold over the Middle East and dominate both. American and British imperialism have joint responsibility for this policy. The Stalinist bureaucracy, playing the game of power politics, has given full support to the vivisection of Palestine. This is in absolute contradiction with the policy of Marxism and even of the policy parroted by the bureaucracy itself In the last decades. Obediently tailing at the heels of the Kremlin, the British “Communist” Party has done another 180 degrees somersault, and come out for the partition of Palestine. DIVERTS REAL STRUGGLE Partition of Palestine is reactionary from every aspect – neither the Jews nor the Arab masses have anything to gain from it. It pits Jew against Arab, diverts the struggle against imperialism into a struggle between those whose common interest it is to struggle against imperialism. It plays into the hands of the Arab landowners and capitalists by diverting the attention of the Arab peasants and workers from their exploiters. The only solution to the problem of Palestine and the Middle East is the scrapping of the imperialist plans of partition, the immediate and complete withdrawal of all troops from Palestine and the Middle East. There can be no real independence or safety for the Jews or Arabs in partitioned Palestine.
Biden and the Washington Post Combine to Argue for War David Ignatius, the Washington Post’s national security columnist, has been an apologist for the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency for the past several decades. In the past, he has defended the CIA’s political assassination program as well as its torture and abuse program. He never condemned the CIA training of death squads in Central America and never deplored the Phoenix program during the Vietnam War, when the CIA ran a paramilitary campaign of interrogation, torture, and assassination that targeted many innocent victims. Now, he has a new client—the Israeli Defense Forces—and the IDF couldn’t have a better stenographer than David Ignatius. Following last week’s briefings from the IDF, Ignatius reported on November 19 that the Gaza War was “moving into a new phase that will require fewer troops and much less bombing” that should “result in fewer Palestinian casualties.” This will shock the Palestinian civilians who have been tortuously making their way to South Gaza only to meet more aerial bombardment and death. “Militarily,” according to Ignatius, the “Israeli campaign against Hamas has been relentless and successful.” This outrageous statement is belied by the absence of evidence regarding the so-called command and control center under the Al-Shifa hospital compound, let alone any success against the Hamas leadership or overall Hamas forces.
When Netanyahu Accustoms Us to an Inhuman World Without Rights or Rules, the Law of the Jungle Reigns! While the operation to exterminate and ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in Gaza has – quite rightly – monopolized the world’s attention for weeks, little or no attention is being paid to one of its crucial objectives, which is passing rather unnoticed: the habituation of our societies and of each and every one of us, i.e. of all humanity, to a new international reality devoid of the humanitarian law that has governed international or internal armed conflicts since 1949. In short, we are becoming accustomed to a world that increasingly resembles a jungle, where only the law of the strongest reigns, and where the worst atrocities against the weakest are “permitted”!
Netanyahu Threatens War on Gaza Will Continue Despite Temporary Truce Deal Now is the time to push even harder for a ceasefire, argues former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy. Under the terms of a new hostage deal, Hamas will release 50 hostages who were captured in its October 7 attack in exchange for Israel releasing 150 Palestinian women and teenagers held in Israeli prison and agreeing to a four-day pause in fighting to exchange captives and bring urgently needed humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The four-day pause could be extended if Hamas continues to release hostages, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel would continue its 47-day bombardment of Gaza that has killed 14,000 Palestinians. “This is a rare glimmer of hope,” says former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, who explains how this deal will shape Israeli politics and Netanyahu’s prospects moving forward. “The morning after this, he faces the music.”
Environment:
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’!
An Oil Spill in the Gulf Of Mexico Has Grown o 1.1 Million Gallons Authorities are still trying to determine the cause and source of the spill, which started near a pipeline southeast of New Orleans, Louisiana.
US Coast Guard looking for source of pipeline leak in Gulf of Mexico A 67-mile long line was closed last Thursday an estimated 1milliom gallons of crude oil was released The US Coast Guard said on Tuesday it was still seeking the source of a leak from a pipeline linked to a Houston-based firm, off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico which it estimated had released more than 1m gallons of crude oil.
Gulf Oil Spill Shows ‘Danger of Banks Owning Energy Companies’ “The Federal Reserve must enforce the Bank Holding Company Act and disallow Wall Street banks from controlling energy infrastructure, as it poses systemic risks,” said a Public Citizen campaigner. Banking giant JPMorgan Chase has financial ties to a company that owns the pipeline suspected of leaking up to 1.1 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico—a situation that watchdogs say demonstrates the danger of such business relationships.
Backlash Forces EPA to Pause Toxic PFAS Waste Imports to US From Netherlands North Carolina residents push back against environmental agency bringing 4m lbs of ‘forever chemical’ waste to region The increased amount of PFAS waste processed locally would be “devastating”, said Emily Donovan, co-founder of the Clean Cape Fear non-profit. “We are tired of being a PFAS sacrifice zone and watching our friends suffer and die,” Donovan said. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 15,000 compounds most frequently used to make products water-, stain- and grease-resistant. They have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a range of other serious health problems. They are dubbed “forever chemicals” because most do not degrade in the environment.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Harvard Law Review Editors Vote to Kill Article About Genocide In Gaza The article on the Gaza war and the Nakba was commissioned, edited, fact-checked, and prepared for publication — but was then blocked amid a climate of fear. a week after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, by which time Israel’s all-out assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had killed thousands of civilians, the online editors of the prestigious Harvard Law Review reached out to Rabea Eghbariah. The two online chairs, as they are called, had decided to solicit an essay from a Palestinian scholar for the journal’s website. Eghbariah was an obvious choice: A Palestinian doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School and human rights lawyer, he has tried landmark Palestinian civil rights cases before the Israeli Supreme Court. Eghbariah submitted a draft of a 2,000-word essay by early November. He argued that Israel’s assault on Gaza should be evaluated within and beyond the “legal framework” of “genocide.”
Labor:
OpenAI Says Sam Altman to Return as Chief Executive Under New Board Former Salesforce chief Bret Taylor and former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers to join as directors Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles.
Ousted OpenAI chief Sam Altman will return to run the company he co-founded, following days of speculation and turmoil at the leading generative artificial intelligence start-up. In a dramatic reversal, Altman, who was fired by OpenAI’s board of directors last week, will be reinstated under the supervision of a new board, the company said late on Tuesday in California. Greg Brockman, the co-founder and president who quit the company on Friday after Altman was fired, will return alongside him. It was not announced what role he would take up on his return.
Economy:
World:
Kenya Mau Mau Uprising: When British Imperialism Conducted a Colonial War of Terror in ‘Self-Defence’ Throughout the self-proclaimed ‘civilised’ western world, the ruling classes have banded together to denounce Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October and have rallied around Israel’s ‘right of self-defence’ as it bombs Gaza to smithereens. But this is not the first time we have been told to accept a bloody war against an oppressed people in the name of the oppressor nation’s ‘self-defence’. King Charles III’s recent four-day trip to Kenya has stirred memories of one of the worst atrocities of Britain’s brutal colonial era. From 1952-1960, faced with an anti-colonial uprising, loyal British forces engaged in the extensive collective punishment of 1.5 million Kenyans – all in ‘self-defence’. Such was the brutality of the period that the British attorney general in 1957 described the situation as “distressingly reminiscent of conditions in Nazi Germany”.
A Duty to Obey: David McBride, Whistleblowing and Following Orders The unpardonable, outrageous trial of Australian whistleblower David McBride was a brief affair. On November 13, it did not take long for the brutal power of the Commonwealth to become evident. McBride, having disclosed material that informed the Australian public about alleged war crimes by special forces in Afghanistan, was going to be made an example of.
Health, 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