Daily News Digest October 22, 2024
Images of the Day:Election 2024: The Winner — Ground Game!
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”There is No Democracy! When Less Than 1% Control the Wealth, Production, and Price of Everything Produced and Consumed in the World! In the present period of unfettered Capitalism, the pretense of democratic rule does not exist, except in the minds of ‘socialists’ like Bernie Sanders and the Labor Bureaucracy! Capitalists view all struggles as struggles against capitalist rule! Transition demands immediately become revolutionary demands! Therefore, any resistence to the attack of capitalists has to be organized by those that understand this! 
Today, the United States Capitalists are Consolidating Themselves as the Supreme Capitalists! Capitalism’s Gluttony is Demonstrated by It’s Quest for More and More Profits at the Expense of Humanity! The Rise of Capitalism was Under the Banner of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity! Now There is Less Liberty, More Inequality, and Less Fraternity of Humanity! Every Day, From Global Warming to Global War There is a New Example of Capitalism in Imperialist Decay!
Capitalism as a Failed System: World Capitalism Has Been Aware of the Comming Catastrophe of Global Warming Over 6 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 Five Horsemen of the the Apocalypse, Spreading Racism, War, Famine, Pestilence, Death, and Misinformation! 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, and 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! Globaly, With the Current Gaza War, The Right of Assembly is Under Attack! Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Still Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World!
The Majority of the World, Despite the Media Monopoly’s Lies, are Opposed to the Palestinian Genocide and Global Warming — The 1% Minority Funds Them! At, this Time in History, Capitalism is Exposing the Fact That it is Opposed to Majority Rule/Democracy!
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:
But I cannot fail to recognize how urgently we need fresh ideas about how to rethink our past, and to chart our way out of the present into a liveable future. I strongly believe that they will come from a younger generation of writers, artists and journalists. I also know that as our polycrisis — inescapable wars, climate disasters and political earthquakes — deepens, our longings for a vivid and fair description of the world will become even more irrepressible; and many of us will feel compelled to fulfill them. There are many writers and journalists who won’t join us in this essential task. These are the writers, academics and journalists killed by the IDF. I cannot get over the fact that the extrajudicial executions of our colleagues, and the destruction of schools, universities and libraries in Gaza, are still largely unacknowledged by literary, academic and journalistic communities in the West. Increasingly, it seems that, as Arundhati Roy pointed out, “the only moral thing Palestinian civilians can do, apparently, is to die. The only legal thing the rest of us can do is to watch them die. And be silent. If not, we risk our scholarships, grants, lecture fees and livelihoods.” Today, I must join those trying to break the inhuman shackles on our minds and souls. I dedicate this prize to the memory of writers murdered in Gaza. I have already given away much of the money that comes with it, and I will give away the rest, to writers and journalists in Palestine. Thank you. — The Last Days of Mankind, Lecture delivered by Pankaj Mishra, winner of the 2024 Weston International Award, at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on Sept. 16.
We Really Are The Bad Guys And This Really Is The Evil EmpireIt can be nice to live in the western world, but the western world is not nice. Ours is the most savage and thuggish civilization on this planet, and it’s not even close.
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 : My own Government, I cannot be Silent. ― Martin Luther King Jr.
To this day, we have a government and state apparatus that is designed to “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.” Democracy for white and wealthy men only! — Roland Sheppard, My Forefathers and The 1%’s Forefathers.
For nearly four decades, Iranians have lived under oppression, tormented by corruption, mismanagement, and the burden of sanctions. — Is Iran Next?
Pity the Nation By Lawrence Ferlinghetti (After Khalil Gibran) 2007 Pity the nation whose people are sheep And whose shepherds mislead them Pity the nation whose leaders are liars Whose sages are silenced And whose bigots haunt the airwaves Pity the nation that raises not its voice Except to praise conquerors And acclaim the bully as hero And aims to rule the world By force and by torture Pity the nation that knows No other language but its own And no other culture but its own Pity the nation whose breath is money And sleeps the sleep of the too well fedPity the nation oh pity the people who allow their rights to erode and their freedoms to be washed away My country, tears of thee Sweet land of Liberty!
For Immediate Release: Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils Still Leaves Evil. Sunday, October 20, 2024 Cornel West for President [email protected] [Victor, California] – Dr. Cornel West may not win the vote in this upcoming Presidential election but the truth is on his side. He has been vilified by the Democrats and attempted to be exploited by the Republicans due to his threat to the current power structure and each party’s personal gain. What is the worth of a govt that exists only to lie to its people for the purpose of securing, exerting, and expanding its own power? As a one time Democrat and later on an Independent, I shared the popular sentiment of voting for the lesser of two evils. In time that feeling became unacceptable to me. Once I was able to differentiate symbolism and identity from a service based upon courage and sacrifice and bathed in love and justice for those to be served, I did some homework and I woke up.
United States Armed and Funded Middle East War/Palestinan Genocide: When Biden Says ‘He’s a Zionist’ — Believe Him!
This Mass Atrocity Is Made Possible By The Systematic Dehumanization Of Palestinians It’s gotten to the point where the only advantage to sharing your coordinates with the IDF as an aid worker in Gaza is that it will allow the historical records to show that they knew exactly what they were doing when they used those coordinates to kill you.
Leaked US Intelligence Documents Outline Israeli Preparations to Strike Iran Reportedly, the leak comes courtesy of a US intelligence source Leaked top secret documents from the Pentagon and the National Security Agency (NSA) outline Israeli preparations for a major attack against Iran, CNN reported on Saturday. The documents were published Friday on a Telegram channel, said to be affiliated with Iran, named “Middle East Spectator” that claims it received the information from a source within a US intelligence agency. Besides the US, these documents, dated October 15 and 16, were only meant to be viewed by officials in Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, Washington’s “Five Eyes” allies. CNN cites “three people familiar with the matter,” including one that confirmed the documents’ authenticity. The documents can be viewed here and here.
Ralph Nader: “Goodbye Lebanon” – High Israeli Official. Biden Says OK, So Far Biden’s bombs and missiles, dropped daily on Lebanon, a U.S. ally, by his puppet master Netanyahu, is wreaking havoc in this small defenseless country. The Israeli genocidal machine is waging an incinerating assault on fleeing civilians and critical facilities. The scorched-earth Israeli strategy is the same as what we have seen in Gaza. Attack in Lebanon anyone who moves or anything that stands – whether a hospital, a dense residential area, a café, a municipal building, a market, a school, or a Mosque – and allege there was a Hezbollah commander or a Hezbollah site here or there. Two recent New York Times headlines express some of the impact of this latest Israeli war: “In Just a Week, a Million People in Lebanon Have Been Displaced” and “Lebanon’s Hospitals Buckle Amid an Onslaught: ‘Indiscriminate’ Strikes Overwhelm Health System, U.N. Says.” Historical note: Hezbollah, also a political Party and social service organization, was created to defend impoverished Shiite Muslims in southern Lebanon in 1982 right after the Israeli army once again invaded Lebanon and badly mistreated the residents during an 18-year-long military occupation. No matter what or who the Israeli Air Force’s American F-16 fighter aircraft bomb, no matter the deaths and injuries to thousands of Lebanese families, many of them children and women, Biden keeps unconditionally and savagely shipping weapons of mass destruction. He is violating six federal laws requiring conditions be met – such as not violating human rights or not obstructing U.S. humanitarian aid. Netanyahu is violating these and other conditions and mocking his major benefactor, the United States government.
Environment:
Fund Climate! — Not Genocide! 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’!
Capitalism’s Constant Carbon Production Rise: Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa Week beginning on October 13, 2024: 422.45 ppm. Weekly value from 1 year ago: 419.56 ppm. Weekly value from 10 years ago: 395.86 ppm. Last updated: October 20, 2024.
Overwhelming Majority of Young Americans Worry About Climate Crisis Overwhelming majority of young Americans worry about climate crisis Survey of young people aged 16-25 from all US states shows concerns across political spectrum The overwhelming majority of young Americans worry about the climate crisis, and more than half say their concerns about the environment will affect where they decide to live and whether to have children, new research finds.
Government’s Warped Priorities Exacerbate Climate Disasters, Impede Recovery By funding wars and fossil fuel subsidies instead of disaster recovery, the US punishes those who can least afford it. This year’s hurricane season has been devastating. Hurricane Helene left a trail of wreckage across the Southeast and Appalachia, where over 230 people have died so far. Barely two weeks later, Milton slammed into Florida, killing dozens more, destroying homes, and leaving over a million people without power. Insurers are predicting that losses from Milton could reach $60 billion. Everyone suffers in a disaster, but the most vulnerable suffer the most. And our government’s warped priorities can often make that worse.
New York Officials Call for Big Oil to Be Prosecuted for Fueling Climate Disasters Oil majors’ conduct can constitute reckless endangerment due to fossil fuels’ effect on global heating, advocates claim New York state prosecutors could press criminal charges against big oil for its role in fueling hurricanes and other climate disasters, lawyers wrote in a new prosecution memorandum that has been endorsed by elected officials across the state. The 50-page document, published by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and the progressive prosecutors network Fair and Just Prosecution on Thursday, comes as the US south-east struggles to recover from the deadly hurricanes Helene and Milton, both of which scientists have found were exacerbated by the climate crisis. It details the havoc wrought on New York by 2021’s Hurricane Ida and 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, and other deadly climate events such as extreme heatwaves across the US this past summer.
Hurricanes Accelerate: Basic Physics Explains Why Storms are Getting Stronger After the last three weeks, it should be clear to everyone that hurricanes and storms in a climate-altered world are different and much more dangerous threats than what humanity has dealt with historically. The Smoky Mountain region is still counting up damages from massive Hurricane Helene, that drove from the Gulf of Mexico, deep into the heartland, delivering 42 trillion gallons of water to mountain terrain already saturated from previous storms, hydraulically pulverizing billions of dollars of infrastructure, businesses, and homes. For comparison, the previous flood of record in the area was in 1916, when, according to Accuweather, “The Swannanoa River at Biltmore rose to 21.70 feet, a record that stood for more than 100 years, until Helene sent it to 26.10 feet, breaking that record by 5 feet.”
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
‘Housing Discrimination Is Collective, Cumulative, Continuing’: CounterSpin Interview with George Lipsitz on the Impacts of Housing Discrimination “A lot of housing discrimination is enacted through things that don’t overtly appear to be about race, and may not even directly appear to be about housing.” Janine Jackson: Some 10 years ago, food delivery service FreshDirect got more than $100 million of incentives to place a warehouse in a populated, poor, largely people of color community in the South Bronx, to bring heavy diesel truck traffic to asthma-inflicted neighborhoods already affected by waste treatment plants and high-traffic highways. Groups like South Bronx Unite, like Good Jobs for NY, opposed these further health harms to the community, as well as the notion that a handful of insecure, poorly waged jobs could serve as compensation. South Bronx Unites’ Mychal Johnson said: “Of course we want jobs, but we should not have to choose between having a job and having clean air. If you can’t breathe, you can’t work.”
Labor:
Economy:
IMF and BRICS: No Return to Bretton Woods This week the IMF-World Bank semi-annual meeting takes place in Washington, US. At the same time, the BRICS+ group meets in Kazan, Russia. The coincidence of these two meetings sums up how the world economy is going in 2024. After WW2, the IMF and the World Bank became the leading agencies for international cooperation and action on the world economy. They were institutions that sprang out of the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, that set the future world economic order to be established at the end of WW2. At the time, the then US president Franklin Roosevelt offered these prophetic words: “The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and of danger. The world will either move toward unity and widely shared prosperity or it will move apart into necessarily competing economic blocs.” Roosevelt was referring to the division between the US and its allies and the Soviet Union. That ‘cold war’ came to an end with the collapse of the latter in 1990. But now 35 years later, Roosevelt’s words have a new context: between the US and its allies and an emerging bloc of ‘Global South’ nations.
Jerome Powell’s Fed Notches an Historic Record of $204 Billion in Cumulative Operating Losses – Losing Over $1 Billion a Week for More than Two Years According to its own FRED data, the last time the central bank of the United States – the Federal Reserve – operated in the green was September 14, 2022, more than two years ago. Since then, it has been consistently losing over $1 billion a week with its cumulative operating losses now topping $204 billion as of the last reporting by the Fed on October 16, 2024.
World:
Cuba Under Intensified US Sanctions Confronts Its Greatest Challenge: the Continuity of Obama-Trump-Biden Policy “The majority of Cubans support Castro…every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba…to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” – Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, 1960. Despite draconian coercive measures by the US – overwhelmingly condemned every year by the UN General Assembly, with the next vote slated for October 29-30 – the Cuban Revolution has had extraordinary successes. This small, impoverished, formerly colonized island nation has achieved levels of education, medical services, and performance in many other fields, including sports, that rival the first world, through the application of socialist principles. Cuba has rightly become a model of internationalism and an exemplar of socialism. As a consequence, every US administration for over six decades has targeted this “threat of a good example.” Back in its early days, the Cuban Revolution was bolstered by socialist solidarity, particularly from the Soviet Union. The contemporary geopolitical situation is very different. Most notably the socialist bloc is defunct. Meanwhile, Cuba continues to be confronted by a still hegemonic US. In turn, the Yankee empire is now challenged by the hope of an emergent multipolar order. Cuba has xpressed interest in joining the BRICS trade alliance of emerging economies and will attend their meeting in Russia, October 22-24.
Education, Health, 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
Medicare Advantage Insurers Are Dropping Plans and Slashing Benefits Medicare Advantage plan beneficiaries are essentially being penalized for using the health care that they pay for.