Daily News Digest November 28, 2023
Images of the Day:
Large Rally Held In Copenhagen in Solidarity With Palestinians
1,500 Protesters Block Manhattan Bridge Demanding Lasting Gaza Ceasefire
There Is a Lack of Lack of Humanity! 
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:
Over 22 Years Ago, Israel Was Planning the Gaza Genocide: Patrick Lawrence: Deeper Into Depravity (10/31/23 Some 22 years ago I wrote the following letter to the editor of my local newspaper: “There are now about 400,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, with more arriving daily. Most of them say that God promised them thoses lands. Unfortunately, God has not made it clear to the Palestinians that they’ve merely been caretakers for the last thousand years and are no longer needed or wanted there. Until he so informs them, I’m afraid they will, like the Native Americans, continue to interpret the term “settler” as “European invader””. By 2006, Sharon had removed all Israeli “settlers” from Gaza and turned it into a 25 x 5 mile concentration camp, now holding some 2.2 million Palestinians. And 3 million of their brethren are now living in bantustans in the West Bank. Despite internal divisions, Israelis are largely united in their desire to establish Greater Israel, from the Medditerranian to the Jordan river. That can only happen with the complete expulsion or slaughter of Palestinians from Israel and the occupied territories. Clearly that could only be undertaken with the full military support of their patron, the not so United States of America. Unlikely you say? I seem to recall that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife by a Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip, which lit the fuse that led to WWI and 20 million deaths, with 21 million wounded. And those pikers didn’t even have nuclear weapons!”
Video of the Day:
Massive Crowds Worldwide Attend Pro-Palestine Rallies
- Berlin
- Brussels
- London
- New York
- Amman
- Rotterdam
- Sanaa
50,0000 People Attend Pro Palestine Rally in Melbourne
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
Dr. Cornel West Seeks California Peace and Freedom Party Nomination for 2024 Presidential Election For Immediate Release Friday, November 25th, 2023 Cornel West for President
[email protected]
Independent candidate for President of the United States, Dr. Cornel West, is officially seeking the nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party for the 2024 presidential election in California. This decision marks a significant step in brother West’s commitment to advocating for the principles of equality, peace, and freedom that are at the core of his lifelong dedication to public service and intellectual engagement. As we approach the August 2024 party convention, we call upon all members and supporters of the Peace and Freedom Party to join us in this historic endeavor. Together, we can champion a platform that not only addresses the pressing challenges of our time but also paves the way for a future that embraces truth, love and justice.
California Green Party Platform The Green Party of California works to build an alternative system for a socially and racially just, ecologically sustainable, democratic and peaceful society that exists in harmony with nature. We call this alternative social, economic, and political system “EcoSocialism”, founded on democracy, equity, and solidarity. As Greens, we understand EcoSocialism to mean:
- An end to the capitalist, class-based power and privilege, marked by inequity, white supremacy, racism, imperialism, colonialism, ableism, heteropatriarchy, and all other forms of oppression; and
– An economic system based on social and worker (waged and unwaged) ownership and democratic control of production and exchange to best meet human and planetary needs; and
A political system founded on democratic decision-making on the local, regional, national and international levels, able to restore the balance between the worlds of nature and of humanity.
Therefore, the Green Party of California rejects the oppressive and unsustainable capitalist system that exploits both nature and people for private gain. The Green Party of California also rejects contributions from corporations, and their super-PACs and lobbyists. Our Ten Key Values (http://www.cagreens.org/ten-key-values) guide our platform that includes five main sections, each containing detailed platform planks:
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
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’!
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
Prior to Western Imperialism Intervention!: Never Forget: Jews and Muslims have Often imagined themselves in History as Siblings and Allies The forgotten history of Jews and Muslims needs to be recovered in order to challenge a multitude of dangerous false assumptions that exacerbate the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.Historically, and even theologically, Jews have always been closer to Muslims than they were to Christians. It was in Muslim lands, the late eminent historian Bernard Lewis told us, that Arabic “became the language of science and philosophy, of government and commerce, even the language of Jewish theology when such a discipline began to develop under Islamic influence.” The Moroccan-Israeli historian Michel Abitbol couldn’t have been clearer: “The transformation of Judaism following its encounter with Islam affected all aspects of Jewish life profoundly and irreversibly.” The great scholar of Jewish thought Maimonides (whose face graces the Israeli sheqel as seen above), wrote his classic Guide to the Perplexed in Judeo-Arabic. It is common today to talk about a Judeo-Christian tradition to distance the West from Islam, but one can more appropriately talk about a Judeo-Muslim one.
How Long will Palestinians go on Being Scapegoats for the West’s Atrocities in WWII? If an Arab writer would create a Palestinian version of Schindler’s List, and if an Arab, or a filmmaker sympathetic to Arabs, would create the movie, I wonder what the story would look like. I wonder what the writer would write. I wonder what the filmmaker would create. How much do we know about Gaza when it is described as an open-air prison? How much do we know about the genocide in Gaza perpetrated by Netanyahu?
President Raeisi: U.S. Accomplice in Israel’s Crimes, Cannot Make Decisions For People of Gaza Iran’s President Ebrahim Raeisi says as an accomplice in the Israeli regime’s crimes against the people of the Gaza Strip, the United States has no right to be part of any decision-making process for Palestinians in the besieged territory. The Iranian president made the remark in a Sunday phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. During the conversation, Raeisi emphasized that the US is “the killer of the people of Gaza” and any intervention by Americans in determining the future course of developments in the Palestinian territory “would mean continuation of this country’s crimes against Palestinians.”
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’!
A Slow-Motion Gaza: Or How to Carbonize the Planet Earth Imagine this: humanity in its time on Earth has already come up with two distinct ways of destroying this planet and everything on it. The first is, of course, nuclear weapons, which once again surfaced in the ongoing nightmare in the Middle East. (An Israeli minister recently threatened to nuke Gaza.) The second, you won’t be surprised to learn, is what we’ve come to call “climate change” or “global warming” — the burning, that is, of fossil fuels to desperately overheat our already flaming world. In its own fashion, that could be considered a slow-motion version of the nuking of the planet. (No longer Slow Motion — R.S.) Put another way, in some grim sense, all of us now live in Gaza. (Most of us just don’t know it yet.)
George Monbiot: Shitshow Toxic chemicals deliberately added to sewage are being spread across a vast area of farmland, with potentially catastrophic effects. We’re suing the government to stop it. It’s an experiment with 8 billion test subjects, no controls and no endpoint. What happens when you release thousands of novel chemicals, most of which have not been tested for their impacts on human health or ecosystems, into a living planet? What are the effects on the development of foetuses, on human brains, other organs, immune systems, cancer rates, fertility? What are they doing to other species and to Earth systems? We seem determined to find out the hard way. The gap between our actions and our knowledge is astounding. Of the 350,000 registered synthetic chemicals, about a third are impossible to assess, as their composition is either “confidential” or “ambiguously described”. For most of the rest, deployment comes first, testing later. For instance, the health and environmental impacts of 80% of the chemicals registered in the European Union have yet to be assessed. And the EU is as good as it gets. Our own government, as one of the benefits of Brexit, has just decided to downgrade the safety information chemical companies have to provide toan “irreducible minimum”.
Exposure to Widely Used Insecticides Decreases Sperm Concentration, Study Finds Study’s author says ‘we need to reduce exposure in order to ensure men who want to conceive are able to without interference’ Exposure to several widely used insecticides probably decreases sperm concentration and may have profound effects on male fertility, new US research finds.
If Capitalism is ‘Natural,’ Why Was So Much Force Used to Build It? If capitalism is such a natural outcome of human nature, why were systematic violence and draconian laws necessary to establish it? And if greed is the primary motivation for human beings, how could the vast majority of human existence have been in hunter-gatherer societies in which cooperation was the most valuable behavior? Cheerleaders for capitalism — who generate endless arguments that greed is not only good but the dominant human motivation — tend to not dwell on the origination of the system, either implying it has always been with us or that it is the “natural” result of development. Critics of capitalism, interestingly, seem much more interested in the system’s origins than are its boosters. Perhaps the bloody history of how capitalism slowly supplanted feudalism in northwest Europe, and then spread through slavery, conquest, colonialism and routine inflictions of brute force makes for a less than appealing picture. It is not for nothing that Marx wrote, “If money … ‘comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,’ capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.”
Electric Heat Costs Way Less Than Reports Say, New Data Suggests Each year, the federal Energy Information Agency publishes a winter fuels outlook, forecasting how much households using different fuels will pay for heat from November through March. This year, it says heating-oil customers will face the steepest costs, at $1,856; followed by propane users, at $1,337; electricity users, at $1,063; and finally gas users, at just $605. But that number doesn’t distinguish between older electric-resistance appliances, such as electric baseboard heaters and electric space heaters – which are much more expensive to run – and highly efficient electric heat pumps. “Both run on electricity, but they’re fundamentally different machines,” said Wael Kanj, a research associate at Rewiring America. “It’s like averaging the top speed of a Power Wheels [toy car] and a Tesla.”
Report: Oil and Gas Production Set to Escalate Under Landmark U.S. Climate Law Increased supply is largely going into exports as massive buildout of LNG export terminals undermines the Biden administration’s much-touted climate legacy. A new report warns that oil and gas production in the United States is expected to rise under Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), even as the legislation helps to moderately lower fossil fuel demand through billions of dollars in clean energy investments. The report, “Biden’s Fossil Fuel Fail: How U.S. Oil and Gas Supply Rises under the Inflation Reduction Act, Exacerbating Environmental Injustice,” details how, despite the IRA’s significant spending on renewable energy, electric vehicles, and batteries, the policy will not be enough for the U.S. to meet its 2030 climate target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
This Rural Black Community Is at War With a Private Railroad Company The Georgia Public Service Commission is set to determine if a private company can take land from 18 property owners. Even as Sparta’s economy and population declined after World War I, the Smith family has been able to hold onto their land, despite an alarming rate of Black land loss over the years. Mark attributes it to never “owing the bank a penny” or selling the land. This is why it’s “insulting” to learn that Benjamin Tarbutton III, president of the 130-year-old Sandersville Railroad Co., wants to take the land he inherited, which served as a route to higher education and generational wealth. . . . Sandersville plans to construct a 4.5-mile rail spur that would connect the Hanson Quarry, a rock mine owned by Heidelberg Materials, to a main train line along the nearby highway. But, the company needs portions of property from 18 owners along Shoals Road, including the Smiths, to make it happen.
Labor:
Economy:
Michael Roberts: World Inequality The world has become more unequal in income and wealth in the last 40 years. That’s according to the World Inequality Report 2022, available here. Produced by the World Inequality Lab, run by Thomas Piketty and a group of over 100 analysts from around the world, the report has the most up-to-date and complete data on the various facets of inequality worldwide: global wealth, income, gender and ecological inequality. The report shows how in 2021, “after three decades of trade and financial globalisation, global inequalities remain extremely pronounced … about as great today as they were at the peak of Western imperialism in the early 20th century.” Although the World Inequality report found inequalities between nations had declined since the end of the cold war (mainly due to the rise in living standards in China), it said inequality had increased within most countries and had become more pronounced as a result of the global pandemic over thg to the WIR, the richest 10% of adults in the world own around 60-80% of wealth, while the poorest half have less than 5%. The past two years. The global concentration of personal wealth is extreme.
Watchdog to Fed: JPMorgan Is Controlling Fossil Fuels Empire, Which Just Spilled a Million Gallons of Oil in Gulf of Mexico The formidable Washington watchdog, Public Citizen, has trained its sights on JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon’s house of serial frauds and felony counts that is allowed to also operate as the largest federally-insured bank in the United States. Public Citizen’s pursuit of JPMorgan Chase began in 2019 when its Energy Program Director, Tyson Slocum, began investigating a hodge podge of private equity shell companies using the name Infrastructure Investments Fund (IIF). At the time, IIF was in the process of buying El Paso Electric and Public Citizen smelled something rotten and started digging. Public Citizen concluded that JPMorgan Chase was controlling IIF. Public Citizen then filed a series of complaints in the matter with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
World:
Palestine Solidarity: The Movement Marches On – But Where Next? The movement in support of Palestine has continued over the last week, with further mass demonstrations in cities across Britain, and student walkouts at schools and universities. To stop the slaughter, we must organise to overthrow imperialism. In the middle of the ‘humanitarian pause’ in the fighting in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets across Britain in support of Palestine, and to demand an end to the Israeli regime’s slaughter. The main demand coming out of these demonstrations was for the temporary truce to be extended into a permanent ceasefire. For the vast majority of demonstrators, this call means an end to the bloodshed. But it is clear that the Israeli ruling class is hellbent on continuing their bloody offensive, razing Gaza to the ground, and wiping Palestine off the map altogether.
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