Daily News Digest July 6, 2016

Daily News Digest Archives

Daily News Digest July 6, 2016

Images of the Day:

Genocide and Slavery The Federal Reserve Quotes of the Day:

“The report details how a steady flow of arms from outside the Middle East supplies all players in multi-part conflicts, such as Syria’s civil war, with an endless supply of high-tech weaponry—thus ensuring that those conflicts endure. “And as these wars create more and more refugees who seek asylum in Europe, the very same corporations are lobbying the EU to ‘securitize’ its borders against them—thus creating additional profit for those in the business of militarization.” — TomDispatch, re: Report Shows How War Profiteers Are Now Refugee Profiteers, Too

Neoliberal capitalism is universal in its domination, if nothing else. From the fast-growing tent cities in Portland, Oregon to the hideaway camps in Burlington, Vermont; from the men living in boxes in Baltimore to the folks living next to garbage dumps in Manila, the results of property speculation motivated by a neoliberal dream of easy wealth are everywhere. One can go to any city in the capitalist world and see some edifice being built where there were once homes or small shops. After a little bit of research, one will usually discover this construction is some kind of so-called public-private venture which in reality will benefit the private investors in the equation considerably more than the public side. Indeed, the likely results for the public will be higher housing costs, less public space and more police (private and public) whose job is to regulate the public’s use of the private space. — Ron Jacobs, Gentrify It All!

. . . The real battle is not over the personality of one man, or even a couple of hundred politicians. If the opposition to Jeremy Corbyn for the past nine months has been so fierce, and so bitter, it is because his existence as head of a major political party is an assault on the very notion that politics should be primarily about the personal qualities of politicians. It’s an attempt to change the rules of the game, and those who object most violently to the Labour leadership are precisely those who would lose the most personal power were it to be successful: sitting politicians and political commentators. If you talk to Corbyn’s most ardent supporters, it’s not the man himself but the project of democratising the party that really sets their eyes alight. The Labour party, they emphasise, was founded not by politicians but by a social movement. Over the past century it has gradually become like all the other political parties — personality (and of course, money) based, but the Corbyn project is first and foremost to make the party a voice for social movements once again, dedicated to popular democracy (as trades unions themselves once were). This is the immediate aim. The ultimate aim is the democratisation not just of the party but of local government, workplaces, society itself. . . . — The elites hate Momentum and the Corbynites – and I’ll tell you why

Video of the Day:

Pledging Allegiance to the Denial of the Racist History of America: Historian Gerald Horne says the resolute insistence upon the Pledge of Allegiance plays into the collective denial that the American Republic was founded on the enslavement of people of African descent along with the expropriation of the land and property of the Native Americans

U.S.

Making Greater Possibilities Inconceivable: Another Thought or Two on the Logic of Lesser Evilism by Alan NasserGentrify It All! by Ron Jacobs The Military Industrial Complex Profiteers: Report Shows How War Profiteers Are Now Refugee Profiteers, Too Arms dealers flood war-torn Middle East with weapons and then lobby EU to militarize borders against refugees—profiting from both ends of conflict by Nika KnightEnvironment:

Genetically Engineered Crops: the Grand and Failed Promise by Jim Goodman Ghostbusters, GMOs and the Feigned Expertise of Nobel Laureates: Last week a controversy erupted just as the Roberts-Stabinow Digital Divide GMO labeling law was being discussed in the Senate. It involves a letter signed by 100+ Nobel laureates attacking Greenpeace for being “anti-scientific” in its stance against the proliferation and continued use of genetically engineered organisms.by Devon G. Peña Ongoing/Big Energy Disasters:

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Voting Rights for 70,000 Louisiana Felons Sought in Constitutional Challenge: Voice of the Ex-Offender (VOTE) and 8 individuals filed a class action voting rights challenge for 70,000 people in Louisiana saying they are illegally prohibited from voting. by Bill Quigley Black Agenda Radio for Week of July 4, 2016Philadelphia Anti-Police Terror Activists Gear Up to Shut Dems Down

The city fathers in Philadelphia have sanctioned Democrat-friendly demonstrations during the party’s national convention, later this month, but have yet to issue parade permits for activists of the People of Color DNC Resistance Against Police Terrorism and State Repression or Shut Down DNC. “We are organizing, not just in the Black community, but in the brown community, as well,” said Erica Mimes, of the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice. “We’re raising the Palestinian issue, the issues in Puerto Rico. We’re going to organize and speak directly to the issues that impact our communities the most, because that’s what’s being forgotten by this entire congregation of activists coming into the city.”

Trump’s Billions, and Sanders’ Small Contributors, Made Political History

Donald Trump’s personal fortune allowed him to spout “a solid dose of racism and sexism,” but also to “talk about a lot of things that nobody had in ages in the Republican Party,” such as “dumping on Wall Street” and pointing out that “you don’t need to cut Social Security or be at endless war with Russia,” said Dr. Thomas Ferguson, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, at Boston. Ferguson is author of Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Politics. “If he loses this general election,” said Ferguson, “Trumpism could disappear as fast as it descended on us. You’ve got to be a real billionaire to thumb your nose” at the GOP establishment. Ferguson noted, however, that Bernie Sanders did succeed in funding a historic Democratic primary campaign with small contributions.

Mass Incarceration in Palestine and the U.S.

“The U.S. government is helping to fund the Israeli occupation of Palestine – that is, the apartheid wall and the apartheid court system, to the tune of about $3 billion a year,” said Nyle Forte, a young Newark, New Jersey, minister and PhD candidate who recently returned from a fact-finding trip to Palestine. Forte and other activists, including political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal, will address “The Politics of Incarceration in Palestine and the U.S.,” July 15, at New York City’s Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz Educational Center. Forte said Israeli imprisonment of Palestinians rivals U.S. levels of Black incarceration. Like Israel, “the U.S. is becoming, more and more, a national surveillance state,” he said.

4^th of July Highlights Litany of U.S. Crimes

“The United States is the only country to use a nuclear weapon, now has a military presence in over 100 countries,” and “kills people at will,” said BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley. “The Congress says nothing, the corporate media says nothing,” and “the two major parties collude” in silencing dissent against U.S. atrocities abroad, said Kimberley. “Everywhere, from Gaza to Somalia to Afghanistan – and I’m leaving many nations out – the U.S. is responsible for terrible crimes.” Click to Hear Black Agenda Radio