Daily News Digest October 23, 2023
Images of the Day:
Isreal’s Messsge to Palestinians
Sent to me By Email:
Dear Roland,
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was asked if the U.S. can afford another war in this economy. She replied that America can “certainly afford” it. Really? How do you explain to the millions of Americans struggling to get by that we have money for not one, but two wars? We all know the truth: The war machine is draining resources that should go to solving our problems at home. More than 34 million in the U.S. struggle with food insecurity. Homelessness is at record highs. Child poverty is soaring. But instead of implementing policies to lift up poor and working class people living at the margins, Joe Biden is seeking Congressional funding from a dysfunctional legislative branch to fuel war machines in both Ukraine and Israel. We need new and principled leadership that will challenge organized greed like everyone’s life depends on it, because it does. Your support helps make this campaign for truth, justice, and love stronger. Can you help us show the war-hungry duopoly that we do not support destructive wars by clicking here?
Support Independent Leadership
We can no longer tolerate politicians who willingly burn money to fuel a war machine while so many people lack the basic necessities of life here in America. Dr. Cornel West is running to end the militaristic grip of the derelict duopoly and to end senseless and brutal wars. Thank you for standing with us.
Solidarity,
Team Cornel West 2024
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”, 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!
Qu0te of te Day:
The British launched settler colonialism in Palestine as carelessly and recklessly as they had in Australia and New Zealand and in Kenya and Rhodesia. Israel’s violence in Gaza is not merely self-defence but part of a longer story of settler colonialism dating from the heyday of European colonialism. Contrary to British myths, settler colonialism was an aggressive process of ethnic cleansing grounded in racism. The US’s support of Israeli encroachment into Palestinian territory is the support of one British-made settler-colonial nation to another. It is no coincidence that that support became especially generous during the Trump administration, which was also unapologetically proud of white supremacy in North America. Reckoning with the history of colonialism is essential to reckoning with colonialism itself. — The Myths of British Imperial Benevolence and Palestine
Videos of the Day:
Israeli Journalist Amira Hass: How Can the World Stand By and Witness Israel’s Slaughter in Gaza?h
What About a One State Solution With an Equal Vote for Every Palestinian and Israeli?
Palestinian Genocide:
Palestinian Knesset Member: World Must Act to Stop Netanyahu’s Rampage in Gaza “Those of us who are Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel are uniquely positioned to see through his bluster and warmongering to the failure he really is—truths that the past several days have laid bare.”
Attorneys Warn Biden’s Support for Israeli Assault on Gaza Could Make Him Complicit in Genocide “The United States—and U.S. citizens, including and up to the president—can be held responsible for their role in furthering genocide,” says a brief by experts at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Two days before President Joe Biden delivered his primetime Oval Office address demanding more military aid for Israel, a group of expert attorneys issued a grave warning. By continuing to arm the Israeli military as it carries out a massive assault on the Gaza Strip, the lawyers argued in an emergency briefing paper published Wednesday, the Biden administration is rendering itself complicit in possible genocide against Palestinians in the occupied territory.
U.N. Chief at Egypt-Gaza Crossing Expresses Frustration at Blocked Aidexpresses Rafah, Egypt — United Nations Secretary General António Guterres visited the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Friday, standing by aid trucks he said were still blocked from reaching Palestinians that have “no food, no medicine, no fuel.” He described the trucks as a “lifeline” for nearly 2 million people in Gaza under siege and Israeli strikes, as restrictions delayed the aid delivery. “We need to make them move,” the U.N. chief said at the crossing. President Biden has said 20 trucks would be permitted to cross the border into Gaza in a deal with Israel, but none have crossed yet. As the administration prepares to submit an urgent budget request to Congress to assist both Israel and Ukraine, President Biden gave an Oval Office speech seeking to convince Congress and the American public that Washington must maintain support for both.
Patrick Lawrence: Roger Waters and the One-State Solution Breaking the Silence. When the topic is Israel, you have to be very precise if you write for The New York Times opinion page. There is no endorsing the racist grotesques who sit in a coalition with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s also racist Likud Party. That is out. But Michelle Goldberg, Thomas Friedman, and other columnists must parse their views with calculation these days. There is Israel, and there are the freaks who govern Israel. Different. “Biden must realize that Benjamin Netanyahu is unfit to manage this war as a rational player,” Friedman wrote in Monday’s editions. “Israel’s government is not normal,” he asserted a month ago. “The Israel We Know Is Gone,” was the head on a piece he published a year ago next month, when Bibi was forming a government with people who are, among much else, a disgrace to Judaism. “What in the world is happening in Israel?” he wondered a month after that. You get the drift, surely. Israel is O.K. It is the people in charge who are not O.K. This has been the common trope well beyond The Times’s opinion page since Netanyahu, desperate to avoid prison on corruption charges, maneuvered his way back to power in late 2022. Let’s call it the “if only” dodge. If only Israeli politics would shift back to what passes for “the center” all would be well in the Jewish state—the apartheid state, as we must more honestly call it.
Dispatch From Gaza: Biden Visit to Israel a Green Light to Wipe Us Off the Map Massacres are being committed on a daily basis. They are targeting civilians directly in their homes, in schools, and in public streets. Mondoweiss Editor’s note: Due to the wide-ranging power outage in the Gaza Strip the following report by Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent Tareq Hajjaj, filed on October 17, 2023, was conveyed to editors via voice note. The situation in Khan Younis is horrific. Since Israel told the residents of northern Gaza to flee south, people came here thinking it would be a safe haven and that there wouldn’t be anymore more airstrikes, destruction, or targeting of civilians. The opposite has happened. The shellings continue. It was a bloody night in Khan Younis yesterday. Indiscriminate bombing. Terrifying noises that we’ve never heard before, not even in Gaza. Every missile made the ground shake and houses tremble. Up to this moment, people are fleeing to the south from the Zaytoun and Shuja’iyya areas in Gaza City in the north. Entire families carry what belongings they can and even fasten furniture to their cars. They make their way to the city of Khan Younis, to Nuseirat.
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’!
After World War II Rosa Luxenburg Coined the Slogan: ‘S0cialism or Barbaism’! Now the Slogan is Ecoscialism or Ecocide!
We Are the Asteroid Coming At Us Don’t look up… at the collective human madness in the mirror. Let’s admit it: We are indeed mad creatures. This should truly have been the time of our discontent. The northern hemisphere just experienced the hottest summer in recorded history, including month by month the warmest June, July, August, and (by a country mile) September ever. Staggering heat records were set in place after place globally. Fires from Canada to Hawaii to Europe broke all records. (In fact, those Canadian summerfires are now threatening to burn straight into the winter months for the first time — and I fear this phrase is going to be become all-too-boringly repetitive — in history.) The southern hemisphere had a “winter” from — yes! — hell. In Europe, which was burning up, reece experienced unprecedented fires and floods as well. Libya had a significant part of a major city washed away. China, too, experienced unprecedented flooding around its capital, where 1.2 million people had to be evacuated, and in Hong Kong, too. The sea ice in the Antarctic fell to the lowest levels (yes again!) in recorded history, as did sea ice in the Arctic, helping to ensure a future in which rising sea levels could flood coastal cities. And Greenland has been lending a hand to that same future, starting 2023 with temperatures unmatched in at least 1,000 years and still setting new temperature records in July. Worse yet, that’s just to begin down a list that increasingly seems unending.
America’s Dirty Divide: ‘Everything Out the Faucet is Salt’: Louisianans Struggle As Drinking Water Crisis Persists. New Orleans has avoided losing drinking water due to a saltwater ‘wedge’ traveling up the Mississippi River – but in Plaquemines parish, it has already happened New Orleans has avoided losing drinking water due to a saltwater ‘wedge’ traveling up the Mississippi River – but in Plaquemines parish, it has already happened. The first time Leah Chan’s hair fell out, her heart pounded and she wept with fear. It was June this year, and the 55-year-old worried that the thick clumps left in her hands were a sign of cancer. But her doctor suspected another cause: the water running through her pipes. Chan lives in a small trailer home in the community of Buras, Louisiana, a sliver of land that straddles the edge of the Mississippi River on one side and the increasingly eroded Gulf coastline on the other. Earlier this summer, she noticed a funny smell from the tap water. It left her morning coffee tasting salty, like a warm broth. Soon her skin broke out in rashes and officials told residents here that their water was not safe to drink.
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 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
Biden Demands Military Aid Boost for Israel Amid Growing Revolt Inside State Department “Biden’s unconditional support for Israel as Israeli officials threaten a genocide in Gaza is reckless and unconscionable.”
Thousands of Jews nnd Allies Shut Down Capitol Hill We made history yesterday. On Wednesday afternoon, thousands of American Jews and allies showed up to Capitol Hill to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israeli genocide of Palestinians. It was the biggest Jewish protest in solidarity with Palestinians in U.S. history, according to writer and activist Naomi Klein, who spoke at the action. She was joined by U.S. representatives Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush. As huge crowds protested outside, hundreds of Jews — including two dozen rabbis — held a sit-in inside one of the Capitol buildings, chanting “Not in our name” and “Ceasefire now.” We sang, we yelled, and we made our voices heard. At least 300 were arrested. When asked why she had come, Rabbi Linda Holtzman, member of JVP’s Rabbinical Council, said simply: “Where there is no justice, I have to be a voice for justice.”
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Capitalism’s Global Ban on Freedom of Assembly!: France: Meeting for the Release of Palestine Activist Banned, Trade Unionist Arrested! On 17 October, the Paris prefecture banned a meeting, which was to be held at the Bourse du Travail the next day, to demand the release of pro-Palestinian activist Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, detained in France for nearly 40 years. On the evening of 18 October, at the time of the meeting, the Paris Labour Exchange was closed under the surveillance of the CRS (riot control police).
Labor:
Economy:
JPMorgan Chase Paid $1.085 Billion in Legal Expenses in Last Six Months; It’s Still Battling Hundreds of Charges and Legal Proceedings on Three Continents At some point, federal regulators, the Senate Banking Committee and the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice are going to reach the same conclusion that Wall Street On Parade reached quite some time ago: JPMorgan Chase is a criminal enterprise in drag as a federally-insured bank. JPMorgan Chase is the largest U.S. bank, with $3.9 trillion in assets and 4,863 Chase Bank branches sucking in mom and pop deposits across the United States. According to its regulators, it is also the riskiest bank in the United States. And, two trial lawyers have written a fact-intensive book describing how the bank resembles the Gambino crime family. The bank’s admission to five criminal felony counts since 2015 and spiraling rap sheet would seem to back up that theory.
World:
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
The Media Monopoly, Governmental, and Industrial Complex: The Westminster Declaration:
“Open discourse is the central pillar of a free society We write as journalists, artists, authors, activists, technologists, and academics to warn of increasing international censorship that threatens to erode centuries-old democratic norms.”
Coming from the left, right, and centre, we are united by our commitment to universal human rights and freedom of speech, and we are all deeply concerned about attempts to label protected speech as ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and other ill-defined terms. This abuse of these terms has resulted in the censorship of ordinary people, journalists, and dissidents in countries all over the world.
Such interference with the right to free speech suppresses valid discussion about matters of urgent public interest, and undermines the foundational principles of representative democracy.
Across the globe, government actors, social media companies, universities, and NGOs are increasingly working to monitor citizens and rob them of their voices. These large-scale coordinated efforts are sometimes referred to as the ‘Censorship-Industrial Complex.’ This complex often operates through direct government policies. Authorities in India[1] and Turkey[2] have seized the power to remove political content from social media. The legislature in Germany[3] and the Supreme Court in Brazil[4] are criminalising political speech.
In other countries, measures such as Ireland’s ‘Hate Speech’ Bill[5], Scotland’s Hate Crime Act[6], the UK’s Online Safety Bill[7], and Australia’s ‘Misinformation’ Bill[8] threaten to severely restrict expression and create a chilling effect. But the Censorship Industrial Complex operates through more subtle methods. These include visibility filtering, labelling, and manipulation of search engine results. Through deplatforming and flagging, social media censors have already silenced lawful opinions on topics of national and geopolitical importance. They have done so with the full support of ‘disinformation experts’ and ‘fact-checkers’ in the mainstream media, who have abandoned the journalistic values of debate and intellectual inquiry.