Daily News Digest January 23, 2024
Images of the Day:
The Fifth Horseman of Gaza’s Apocalypse: The Media Monopoly 
This Is Genocide
Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, 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”
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: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, andThe 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:
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” Martin Luther King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Videos of the Day:
Governments and Media roles in War Propaganda | THE WAR YOU DON’T SEE | John Pilger Documentary 
Prospects For Freedom In 1965- Malcolm X
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
Taxation Policy Exposes the Fact that the 1% ·— Not the Majority Rule! : Bipartisan Tax Bill Offers Generous Corporate Tax Relief, Inadequate Poverty Aid A proposed bill increases the child tax credit, but fails the poorest families. Yet corporations would see a windfall. On January 16, congressional leaders announced that a bipartisan agreement had been reached on a far-ranging, $78 billion tax package. The proposed legislation is not only bipartisan but bicameral: It was negotiated between Jason Smith, a Republican representative from Missouri and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, who is a senator chairing the Finance Committee. If passed, the bill will be realized as the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 (hereon, the Tax Relief Act).
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
The Chris Hedges Report:The Four Horsemen of Gaza’s Apocalypse Joe Biden relies on advisors who view the world through the prism of the West’s civilizing mission to the “lesser breeds” of the earth to formulate his policies towards Israel and the Middle East. Joe Biden’s inner circle of strategists for the Middle East — Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk — have little understanding of the Muslim world and a deep animus towards Islamic resistance movements. They see Europe, the United States and Israel as involved in a clash of civilizations between the enlightened West and a barbaric Middle East. They believe that violence can bend Palestinians and other Arabs to their will. They champion the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. and Israeli military as the key to regional stability — an illusion that fuels the flames of regional war and perpetuates the genocide in Gaza. In short, these four men are grossly incompetent. They join the club of other clueless leaders, such as those who waltzed into the suicidal slaughter of World War One, waded into the quagmire of Vietnam or who orchestrated the series of recent military debacles in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. They are endowed with the presumptive power vested in the Executive Branch to bypass Congress, to provide weapons to Israel and carry out military strikes in Yemen and Iraq. This inner circle of true believers dismiss the more nuanced and informed counsels in the State Department and the intelligence communities, who view the refusal of the Biden administration to pressure Israel to halt the ongoing genocide as ill-advised and dangerous.
Catastrophic Displacement Crisis in Gaza is a New Phase in More than a Century of Expulsions by Israel As a scholar of war, migration, and refugee resettlement—but more importantly as a human being—I have watched the death and mass displacement caused by the Israeli assault on Gaza with mounting horror. Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed more than 25,000 people and injured another 61,000, the majority civilians. Nearly two million people in Gaza, eighty-five percent of the population, have been driven from their homes by Israeli bombing. The current crisis in Gaza is part of a long history of expulsion and displacement of Palestinians. Since the 1880s, Zionist Jewish settlers, pre-state militias, and later the Israeli military have engaged in the project of maximizing land under their control while minimizing the number of Palestinians in that territory. Dispossession of millions of Palestinians is foundational to the creation of the State of Israel and its continued expansion into more Palestinian territory.
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’!
Since environmental illness and destruction are a global concern, it requires all of humanity to act collectively, in our overall interests for our survival as a species, to correct the problem and to remove the obstacle of capitalism. It requires a society where humanity has social, economic, and political control over the entire environment. Such a society, a socialist society, is needed to ensure that all decisions affecting the environment are under the democratic control of humankind so that the production of goods will be done for the needs and survival of humanity instead of the production and the destruction of humanity and other species for profit. With common ownership of the means of production, and common control and protection of all property and wealth, science and society will be in harmony with the ecosystem and humanity’s future. With these goals we can begin to build a more effective environmental movement. As we continue to organize against capitalism and its destructive course, we can and will transform the world! In the words of Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist: Never doubt that a “small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” The Emergency is Now! We Need To Move Beyond Capitalism To Ecosocialism! We Need to Build a World Movement for Ecosocialist Revolution! The Emergency is Now! We Need To Move Beyond Capitalism To Ecosocialism! We Need to Build a World Movement for Ecosocialist Revolution! — Whither Humanity? The Environmental Crisis of Capitalism We Don’t Need a Green New Deal! — We Need a Green Industrial Revolution!
Davos Profits First Life Last — Sustain the World Capitalist Order!: Michael Roberts: Davos and the Melting World Economy As billionnaires meet in luxury, Oxfam publishes a staggering condemnation of capital’s failure to meet humanity’s needs The annual jamboree of the rich global elite called the World Economic Forum (WEF) is under way again in the luxury ski resort of Davos, Switzerland. Thousands will attend and many of the ‘great and good’ of political and corporate leaders have arrived in their private jets with huge entourages. The speakers include China’s premier Li Qiang, the head of the EU, Ursula von de Leyen, Zelenskyy from Ukraine and many top business leaders. The WEF aims to discuss the challenges facing humanity in 2024 and onwards. These challenges, however, are primarily seen from the point of view of global capital and any proposed policy solutions are driven by the aim to sustain the world capitalist order. This is revealed in the WEF’s annual Global Risks Report which carries out a survey of Davos participants. The report “explores some of the most severe risks we may face over the next decade, against a backdrop of rapid technological change, economic uncertainty, a warming planet and conflict. As cooperation comes under pressure, weakened economies and societies may only require the smallest shock to edge past the tipping point of resilience.” The annual jamboree of the rich global elite called the World Economic Forum (WEF) is under way again in the luxury ski resort of Davos, Switzerland. Thousands will attend and many of the ‘great and good’ of political and corporate leaders have arrived in their private jets with huge entourages. The speakers include China’s premier Li Qiang, the head of the EU, Ursula von de Leyen, Zelenskyy from Ukraine and many top business leaders. The WEF aims to discuss the challenges facing humanity in 2024 and onwards. These challenges, however, are primarily seen from the point of view of global capital and any proposed policy solutions are driven by the aim to vThis is revealed in the WEF’s annual Global Risks Report which carries out a survey of Davos participants. The report. “explores some of the most severe risks we may face over the next decade, against a backdrop of rapid technological change, economic uncertainty, a warming planet and conflict. As cooperation comes under pressure, weakened economies and societies may only require the smallest shock to edge past the tipping point of resilience.”
Cop28 Deal Will Fail Unless Rich Countries Quit Fossil Fuels, Says Climate Negotiator G77 president Pedro Pedroso warns deal risks failing if polluters like UK, US and Canada don’t rethink plans to expand oil and gas The credibility of the Cop28 agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels rides on the world’s biggest historical polluters like the US, UK and Canada rethinking current plans to expand oil and gas production, according to the climate negotiator representing 135 developing countries.
Alongside Soaring Global Temperatures, Growing Oil and Gas Drilling and Profits We need to speak louder than the fossil fuel industry and demand urgent action from governments. We’ve just come out of the hottest year on record — by a lot! Scientists predict that this year we’ll exceed the 1.5 C limit for warming set by countries in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Meanwhile, Canada and the U.S. are setting records for oil and gas production, and industry would like to keep it that way. The main cause of the record warming — and the floods, droughts, wildfires, mass human migrations, species extinctions and economic hardships that come with it — is increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning gas, oil and coal. We’ve known this for at least half a century!
New Shell Files Could Aid Climate Cases, Attorneys Say Latest documents unearthed by Dutch climate activist seen as “valuable Newly-discovered Shell documents dating back decades could help strengthen lawsuits aiming to hold the oil major to account for climate damages, climate attorneys say. Among the files, reported for the first time today by DeSmog and Follow The Money, and published on Climate Files, there is a 1970 industry journal article where Shell appears to accept responsibility for harms caused by its products. A trove of Shell publications from the 1980s and 1990s foresee the “major adverse changes” the “greenhouse effect” is liable to cause to the climate. And a 1998 report spells out Shell’s reasons for leaving the Global Climate Coalition, a now defunct lobby group that worked to undermine climate science. The document shows that Shell had acknowledged the need to adopt “prudent precautionary measures” to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis — even as it continued to push for more production of oil and gas.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
The Only Solution to “Wealth Supremacy” Is a Democratic Economy Our economy must center human outcomes rather than rising share prices, says social theorist and author Marjorie Kelly. The extraction of wealth is a pathology of late capitalism and is defined by the cultural and political processes by which the rich establish themselves as the dominant class. Social theorist and organizer Marjorie Kelly labels this phenomenon “wealth supremacy” which is also the title of her latest book. But as she points out in this exclusive interview for Truthout, wealth supremacy, which has institutionalized greed, defines a system that is not only biased but rigged against the great bulk of the population and thus detrimental to the economy, the citizens and the planet. She argues, in turn, that a movement to build a democratic economy is our only way out. Kelly is Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Democracy Collaborative. In addition to Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises (2023), she is the author of The Making of a Democratic Economy: Building Prosperity for the Many, Not Just the Few (coauthored with Ted Howard; 2019). The interview that follows has been lightly edited for clarity.
Labor:
Economy:
A Fed Whistleblower Reveals Efforts to Silence Him 30 Years Ago A Fed Whistleblower Reveals Efforts to Silence Him 30 Years Ago The U.S. Department of Justice needs to immediately appoint an independent Special Counsel to investigate how long and in how many ways the U.S. Central Bank (the Federal Reserve or simply “the Fed”) has been functioning as a protection racket for Wall Street mega banks.
World:
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
Arctic Zombie Viruses in Siberia Could Spark Terrifying New Pandemic, Scientists Warn Threat of outbreak from microbes trapped in permafrost for millennia raised by increased Siberian shipping activity Humanity is facing a bizarre new pandemic threat, scientists have warned. Ancient viruses frozen in the Arctic permafrost could one day be released by Earth’s warming climate and unleash a major disease outbreak, they say. Strains of these Methuselah microbes – or zombie viruses as they are also known – have already been isolated by researchers who have raised fears that a new global medical emergency could be triggered – not by an illness new to science but by a disease from the distant past.