Daily News Digest February 12, 2024
Images of the Day:
Biden: Bombing is Peace!: Biden Bombs Syria 
America’s Middle East Alliances are Cracking Policy Rested on five crucial players but these are pulling in different directions 
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:
Malcolm X
The Democrats now have the perfect excuse for Biden betraying nearly every promise he made during his 2020 campaign, unfortunately for them it will prove fatal to his reelction: he doesn’t remember making them. According to the Special Counsel’s report on Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, Biden is “an elderly man with a poor memory.” And the “significant” problems with his memory got “worse” over the course of the investigation to the point where Biden “did not remember when he was vice president” or “even within several years, when his son Beau died.” — Roaming Charges: Comfortably Dumb
Podcasta/Videos of the Day:
Audio: Joe Biden Leads a Western “Coalition of the Killing” in Backing Israel’s Gaza War
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
The The Media Monopoly is Not Independent It is the Propaganda Branch on the 1%/Government!: Systemic Journalistic Malpractice: How Western Journalism Failed in Covering Gaza At the beginning of their classic Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman pondered the proposition that “media are independent and committed to discovering and reporting the truth, and that they do not merely reflect the world as powerful groups wish it to be perceived.” We all know how that story turns out. Media often functions as a propagandistic tool that turns the truth on its head. The best example of this upside-down image can be observed in the dichotomous journalism of Western media on Palestine and Ukraine.
Biden is Dragging the United States Deeper Into the Middle East
- “The United States does not want to see the conflict escalated and will not escalate the conflict.” – Senior State Department official in the wake of four days of U.S. bombing in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, February 5, 2024.
- “We do not see it as an escalation.” – Senior State Department official discussing the bombing, February 5, 2024.
- “I absolutely don’t agree with your description of the larger conflict.” – National Security Council spokesman John Kirby denying any connection between Israel’s war in Gaza and U.S. bombing in the Middle East, January 29, 2024.
The Biden-Schumer Plan to Kill More Ukrainians The $61 billion will make no difference on the battlefield except to prolong the war, the tens of thousands of deaths, and the physical destruction of Ukraine.
‘We Won’t Be Silenced!’ Protesters Decry DeJoy at USPS Meeting “Thousands of postal jobs will be eliminated, and tens of thousands of employees will be faced with relocating to a new job, possibly a couple of hundred miles away, or ending their careers at the Postal Service.”Defenders of the U.S. Postal Service are warning about an austerity plan by the Trump-appointed postmaster general that “will slash jobs and shrink processing centers and post offices.”
Instead of Diplomacy and Peace, US Chooses to Back Genocide and War The horror Americans feel at the plight of people in Gaza and the U.S. role in it is a shocking new low in this disconnect between the humanity of ordinary Americans and the insatiable ambitions of their undemocratic leaders.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
Preventative Medicine Needed: Israel’s Roles in Genocides, Dictatorships, and Repression Around the World My first encounter with Israel’s role in genocide happened while caring for patients, not in Palestine but in California. Compared to traumatization of ordinary people in Israel or deaths and injuries in Gaza now, that experience may seem small. But as possible Israeli genocide causes concerns worldwide, including South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, Israel’s actions outside Palestine, often as an enforcer of U.S. policies, deserve more attention than they have received so far.
The Gaza Genocide is the Work of the Criminal United States /Israel Partnership:The Chris Hedges Report: Let Them Eat Dirt The final stage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an orchestrated mass starvation, has begun. The international community does not intend to stop it. There was never any possibility that the Israeli government would agree to a pause in the fighting proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, much less a ceasefire. Israel is on the verge of delivering the coup de grâce in its war on Palestinians in Gaza – mass starvation. When Israeli leaders use the term “absolute victory,” they mean total decimation, total elimination. The Nazis in 1942 systematically starved the 500,000 men, women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a number Israel intends to exceed. Israel, and its chief patron the United States, by attempting to shut down the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which provides food and aid to Gaza, is not only committing a war crime, but is in flagrant defiance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court found the charges of genocide brought by South Africa, which included statements and facts gathered by UNWRA, plausible. It ordered Israel to abide by six provisional measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe. The fourth provisional measure calls on Israel to secure immediate and effective steps to provide humanitarian assistance and essential services in Gaza.
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’!
The Same Billionaires Behind the Super Bowl Are Also Behind the Climate Crisis The Kansas City Chiefs’ current owner, Clark Hunt, comes from one of the most powerful oil dynasties in US history. The mass spectacle known as the Super Bowl — far and away the most watched telecast in the United States — is here again. In addition to providing high drama, the game is a monumental display of corporate power, with big brands rushing to pay millions for commercials, tech behemoths pinning their names to halftime shows and telecoms giants waiting in line to showcase the big event. The center of power within the National Football League (NFL) is its cadre of billionaire owners, including some of the richest people in the world. Notably, the league has a close and enduring attachment to the fossil fuel industry, which has long been the core driver of the global climate crisis.
Arctic Sea Ice Loss – A World of Trouble What if Arctic sea ice melts? All of it… during the summer! According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), over the past three decades the oldest, thickest ice (13-20 feet thick) has declined by a stunning 95 percent and 70 percent of Arctic sea ice is now thin “seasonal ice” that quickly melts in the Arctic summer. Based upon scientific analyses, loss of sea ice impacts the planet’s biggest thermostat, i.e., the Arctic sea ice itself, into a wacky climate monster that dims/diminishes one of the biggest reflectors of solar radiation, thereby exposing Earth to excessive solar heat quickly absorbed in dark iceless sea water that would otherwise be reflected back into space, according to NOAA >80%, by a bright icy surface , bringing in its wake unprecedented climate havoc: (1) Northern Hemispheric ultra-powerful storms (2) disrupted agricultural seasons distort crop growth (3) coastal cities at risk of flooding as the Greenland ice sheet crumbles more and more than ever before; a result of the loss of its biggest refrigerator, right next door.
US Court Bans Three Weedkillers and Finds EPA Broke Law in Approval Process Ruling, specific to three dicamba-based weedkillers, is major blow to Bayer, BASF and Syngenta Dealing a blow to three of the world’s biggest agrochemical companies, a US court this week banned three weedkillers widely used in American agriculture, finding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) broke the law in allowing them to be on the market.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Systemic Racism/Classism: ‘It Takes a Toll’: US Low-Income and Communities of Color Endure Longer Power Outages ‘Experts say utility companies should prioritize vulnerable communities in post-storm recovery efforts
The Agonizing Reality Confronting the Post-Civil Rights Generation Reflecting on the systems that maintain racism and separatism in America. The youngest child of Martin Luther King Jr. died last month. Like me, Dexter King was 62, part of what I call the 1.5 generation. Born into a world of legal segregation, the last formal vestige of slavery, we came of age in a world without it. One-point-five is a term usually used to describe first-generation immigrants, but Black people fit the definition of internal immigrants. They spent the last century moving out of the South to seek places more hospitable to their presence; my people moved from Louisiana to Los Angeles for that reason. I always felt more fortunate than my forebears, whose stories about life in the old country fascinated and horrified me. How wonderful, I thought, that I had been spared the South and the racial madness that routinely separated my father and grandmother by skin color on New Orleans streetcars. My parents cautiously expected my generation, equipped with hard-won new freedoms, to continue changing the country for the better. I felt the same. My brave new life would redeem the old. I was wrong. The 1.5 generation now carries the same grievances as previous generations, which remain valid even as they become harder to define amid a shifting new-century context.
Book Review: ‘Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.’ Review by Roger Hollander of the book by Roland Sheppard, just published by ReMarx Publishing The question of who ordered the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. is a vital one, and thousands of pages have been written on the issue. Those who dismiss the notion that the United States government would engage in assassination — by characterizing those who believe this as “conspiracy nuts” — willfully ignore the 1975 Church Committee Report that exposed covert, illegal government activities and the many CIA-orchestrated assassinations and coups d’etat from Africa to Latin America. The CIA’s experience with overseas assassinations has given it more than enough expertise to conduct domestic assassinations, with the added advantage of having control over investigating agencies at the local, state and national levels. Deciding criminal guilt is largely based on proving means, motive and opportunity. When it comes to political assassination, the key question is motive. Powerful government institutions possess, or can easily obtain, the means and the opportunity to conduct an assassination and divert attention to “a lone gunman” or a patsy like Lee Harvey Oswald. The mainstream media conveniently forget this fact as they rush to legitimize wacky theories that take the heat off the CIA, FBI, NSA and police. In “Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Roland Sheppard exposes the U.S. government’s motive for assassinating Malcolm X in New York’s Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, and Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. The fact that Sheppard is one of the few remaining eye witnesses to the assassination of Malcolm X adds a note of immediacy and authenticity to his analysis.
Legal/Extra-legal Terrorism Has Been a Tool of the United States 1% to Subjugate Black People Legal/Extra-legal Terrorism Has Been a Tool of the United States 1% to Subjugate Black People After the civil rights movement of the 50s, 60s, and 70s defeated Jim Crown, What the press termed, the white backlash, the United States again resorted to terrorism of Black People. Police Brutality was the main terrorist tool! Aware of the probability of a revolt against this brutality, extreme racist cops have been groomed for years, but Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Clinton, Bush, Carter, Bush, Obama, and Trump did nothing and said nothing (Silent Encouragement) about white supremist infiltrating law enforcement agencies of the United States. See: FBI Warned of White Supremacists in Law Enforcement 10 Years Ago. Has Anything Changed? In the 2006 bulletin, the FBI detailed the threat of white nationalists and skinheads infiltrating police in order to disrupt investigations against fellow members and recruit other supremacists. The bulletin was released during a period of scandal for many law enforcement agencies throughout the country, including a neo-Nazi gang formed by members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who harassed black and Latino communities. Similar investigations revealed officers and entire agencies with hate group ties in Illinois, Ohio and Texas.
Labor:
My Faculty Union Leadership Claims a Win, But Their Compromise Eroded Our Wages The rank and file of the labor movement must resolve to confront the predatory capitalism plaguing our workplaces. For eight months, the California Faculty Association (CFA) was embroiled in a bitter impasse with the California State University (CSU) system over wages and benefits. CFA, which represents 29,000 educators, finally broke the impasse by launching a strike on all CSU campuses for the week of January 22-26, 2024. Surprisingly, it ended the strike on the evening of day one and boasted of the settlement as “a win in our battle for a just CSU.” A careful examination reveals that the leadership capitulated, a common experience of the rank and file in the labor movement which reflects the need for internal democracy, tolerance of dissent and robust employment of sustained strikes to extract meaningful concessions from management.
Economy:
Casino Capitalism: SEC’s Approval of Bitcoin Markets May Set the Stage for Financial Disaster Irresponsible banking and deregulation are putting the world economy at risk. Over the past several decades, there have been rapid and fundamental changes in the finance and banking sectors. The banking reforms of the New Deal, which endured up until about 1980 and provided a relative degree of banking and financial stability, were reversed by the neoliberal counterrevolution with an eye toward increasing profits and shredding social responsibility. A new book by world-renowned progressive economist Gerald Epstein, Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance for the Rest of Us, shows us the result: a financial system dominated by megabanks and shadow financial institutions prone to instability and crises that at the same time rely on government bailouts.
World:
As ExxonMobil Moves In, Venezuela Boosts Forces Along Disputed Border With Guyana As increased U.S. military aid to Guyana and ExxonMobil’s oil exploration in contested waters exacerbate a territorial row between Venezuela and Guyana, satellite images made public on Friday purportedly showed increased Venezuelan military activity near the two countries’ disputed border.”The current border impasse between Guyana and Venezuela is yet another example of United States imperialism’s design to expand and usurp countries’ natural resources around the world,” said one observer. As increased U.S. military aid to Guyana and ExxonMobil’s oil exploration in contested waters exacerbate a territorial row between Venezuela and Guyana, satellite images made public on Friday purportedly showed increased Venezuelan military activity near the two countries’ disputed border.
‘Head-Spinning Upset’ as Imran Khan’s PTI Wins Most Seats in Pakistani Election Independent candidates affiliated with the jailed former prime minister’s party staged a shock upset despite allegations of widespread electoral fraud led by Pakistan’s military.
Historic Turnout in Pakistan is Swamping the Military’s Effort to Rig The Election In a turbulent 24 hours following Pakistan’s elections, the U.S.-backed military has proved unable to suppress the populist movement interrogating its authority. LAST YEAR IN Pakistan, a bystander happened to catch, on camera, police raiding the Sialkot home of Usman Dar. At the time, Dar was an opposition candidate representing former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party — which the military and its civilian allies were busy suppressing with abductions, raids, blackmail, and threats. Khan, a populist prime minister, was forced from office in 2022 under military pressure with the encouragement of the U.S. . . . Then came one more wrinkle — one that many in Pakistan expected, but which was still shocking. When the full results were announced, Dar’s total had been reduced by 31,434 votes, while Asif gained votes, and he was declared the winner. Across the country, similar reversals Opens in a new tab are flowing out from Pakistan’s election commission. As polling ended Thursday evening, early results shocked the establishment and even some dispirited supporters of Khan who had worried that Pakistani authorities had successfully done everything they could to manipulate the outcome. Those results suggested a landslide victory for ousted former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party even as Khan himself sits in prison, ineligible to run.
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