Daily News Digest October 27, 2023
Australians Call to End Long Persecution of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange British courts against a US extradition order, Australia has ramped up its advocacy on his behalf. Six Australian MPs held a press conference outside the US Department of Justice on September 20 to urge the Biden administration to halt its pursuit of Assange (Consortium News, 9/20/23). They came representing an impressive national consensus: Almost 80% of Australian citizens, and a cross-party coalition in Australia’s Parliament, support the campaign to free Assange (Sydney Morning Herald, 5/12/23). Opposition leader Peter Dutton joined Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in urging Assange’s release. The day before, an open letter to the Biden administration signed by 64 Australian parliamentarians appeared as a full-page ad in the Washington Post. It called the prosecution of Assange “a political decision” and warned that, if Assange is extradited, “there will be a sharp and sustained outcry” from Australians.
Images of the Day:
Unveiling the Guise Of U.S. Democracy The U.S. has long seen its electoral politics as the essence of democracy. Meanwhile, looking through the facade, the U.S.’s elections are nothing short of political reality shows. No matter who comes to power only serves the interests of the elites. It’s hard for ordinary people to engage in elections fairly, not to mention rule by the people. 
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 media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses. The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he’s a the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. It will make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. ― Malcolm X
The Media Monopoly is making Israel, the crinminal, look like the victim and the Palestinians to look like thecriminals!
Videos of the Day:
Palestinian Lives Matter Too: Jewish Scholar Judith Butler Condemns Israel’s “Genocide” in Gaza
Palestinian GenocideL
Is the One-Sided US Response to the Gaza Crisis a Sign of our Civilizational Decline? We are all witnessing horrors and carnage going on in the tiny landmass called Gaza – a land squeezed between Egypt and Israel where 2.3 million people were living before the beginning of the butchery. As horrific as Hamas’s attack of October 7 on Israel was, nothing justifies the demolition of civilian city quarters from the air. Since 2005 when the Israeli army and settlers withdrew from the interior of Gaza, this is the sixth time that Israel has conducted direct military aggression into the territory. It has led Operation Summer Rains in 2006, Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, Operation Pillar Defense in 2012, Operation Protective Edge in 2014, and Operation Black Belt in 2019: every time declaring the total annihilation of Hamas as the objective. Will Israel succeed this time?
Israel Is Arming Fascist Militias to Suppress Dissent, Knesset Member Warns Leftist Israeli Knesset member Ofer Cassif warns Israel is carrying out an annexation-oriented “subjugation plan.” On October 19, an Israeli Parliament ethics committee suspended Knesset member Ofer Cassif for 45 days after he warned that an “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces is underway. Cassif is an ex-professor in political science and philosophy with a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. He has represented the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash-Ta’al) coalition in the Knesset since 2019.
When Accusations of Anti-Semitism Become a Tool of Repression Despite the headlines designed to make people think far-right and fascist speakers are being prevented from speaking at college campuses while leftist speakers and professors run amok poisoning students’ minds with ideas about diversity and anti-capitalism, the truth is quite different. Faculty members are being censored for advocating for a just peace in Israel/Palestine, questioning the racist history of the United States and honestly discussing issues of gender and sexuality. Furthermore, when it comes to issues around Israel and Palestine, those opposed to Israel’s occupation and siege of Palestinian land are smeared with charges of anti-semitism. Certain groups then use these charges to convince university administrations to cancel events.
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!
The Best Undemocracy That Money can Buy!: Fossil Fuel Firms Spent Millions On US Lawmakers Who Sponsored Anti-Protest Bills About 60% of oil and gas operations protected from protest due to money spent on lobbying, says Greenpeace USA report Fossil fuel companies have spent millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign donations to state lawmakers who sponsored anti-protest laws – which now shield about 60% of US gas and oil operations from protest and civil disobedience, according to a new report from Greenpeace USA.
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
Patrick Lawrence: Full-Dress Irrationality Biden wastes an additional $105 billion. Whenever Joe Biden speaks, you have to make sure your bullshit detector is switched on, to borrow Hemingway’s pungent phrase. As is well-documented, our president has spent his public life making it up as he goes along. No surprise, there was a lot of boilerplate junk in the two much-noted speeches Biden gave last week, one in Tel Aviv after attending a session of Israel’s war cabinet, the other when he dropped it on the American public that they were about to spend a lot more money financing Israeli violence, war in Ukraine and provocation across the Taiwan Strait. We had better listen carefully this time. Biden has sold a lot of snake oil off the back of his buckwagon over the past half-century. What he has on offer now is too consequential simply to dismiss. Biden is diabolically leveraging the obvious urgency of the Israel–Palestine crisis to lock us into confrontation with most of the world—or at the very least a great deal of it. Late-imperium America would darken the 21st century but for the lights others, primarily in the non–West, insist upon to illuminate our way forward from the mess U.S. hegemony has made.
Biden’s Historically Illiterate and Hypocritical Speech on Ukraine and Gaza Biden’s Historically Illiterate and Hypocritical Speech on Ukraine and Gaza Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Biden administration’s foreign policy is a mess and lacks any real consistency. This messiness was on full display in the president’s brief address on Thursday evening, a plea for Congressional funding of both the US struggle to get Russia back out of Ukraine and of support for the extremist Netanyahu government’s combination of targeting Hamas and its genocidal campaign against the civilians of Gaza. Biden linked Ukraine’s struggle against Russia and Israel’s struggle against Hamas by depicting the conflict as one of authoritarianism versus democracy. Biden denounced Russian dictator Vladimir Putin for depicting Ukraine as an artificial country, granted an identity by the Soviet Union, which the Russian Federation could now withdraw at will. He made an analogy to Hamas’s determination to destroy Israel. Everything is wrong with Biden’s equivalencies and analogies. It is not clear how “democratic” the government of Binyamin Netanyahu was before this crisis.
“These are not the Droids You’re Looking For:” Biden and Blinken Try to Make the Israeli Genocide Against Gaza’s Palestinians Disappear Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Barak Ravid at Axios reports that when Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani a couple of weeks ago, he asked the government to have al-Jazeera Arabic “tone down” its coverage of Israel and Gaza. Blinken, addressing a Jewish group in New York on Monday, said that he “asked the Qataris to ‘turn down the volume on Al Jazeera’s coverage because it is full of anti-Israel incitement.’” Then yesterday, President Biden cast doubts on the death toll of Palestinians being killed by Israeli air strikes being reported by Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Deploying Kenyan Police in Haiti is Unconstitutional By Dr. Willy Mutunga , Former Chief Justice In Kenya. Kenya’s decision to join a US led occupation of Haiti is an example of imperialism in Black face. According to a former Chief Justice the act is also a violation of Kenya’s constitution. In Summary:
- It is also in the public domain that the US government has praised Kenya for the action it is about to undertake
- Our Constitution is also aware that our executive and the entire political leadership of our country has since independence acted as agents of neocolonialism and imperialism.
The matter of Kenya sending 1000 police women and men to Haiti is but one of the many decisions our government is taking without our participation and consent. The Constitution is very clear that our foreign policy has to comply with the decrees of the Constitution. Foreign policy decisions by the government are unconstitutional when they violate any of the provisions of the Constitution. Article 1 of our Constitution decrees that all sovereign power belongs to us, the Kenyan people. Indeed, sovereign power is delegated to the national executive and can be exercised directly by the Kenyan people themselves. In exercising that power directly we demand that our sovereignty must never be used to subvert the sovereignty of another country without our participation and ultimate consent. Article 10 of our Constitution provides for our national values and principles of governance. The values and principles implicated in the issue of Haiti are the following: patriotism, rule of law, participation of the people, inclusiveness, transparency and accountability. The government by unilaterally sending a pre-mission of 10 people to Haiti to prepare the ground to send 1000 police women and men to Haiti before involving the Kenyan people, or their representatives in Parliament and Senate violated our sovereign power and the constitutional values and principles of governance. The issue of Haiti is now with the UN Security Council awaiting its Resolution. There is no doubt that Kenya will deploy these troops if the Security Council approves the resolution.
Labor:
‘Poverty in America Has Strong Structural Roots That Some People Profit From’ CounterSpin interview with Christopher Bosso on food assistance CounterSpin spoke with scientist Ricardo Salvador, who explained that it wasn’t perversity so much as a result of the structure of our systems of food production and distribution, that don’t work exactly the way we might think. While more complex than it first appears, that imagery still reflects a difficult reality: the paradox of want amidst plenty that is at the core of our next guest’s new book.
From UAW Announces Sellout Deal, Orders Ford Strikers Back to Work: Fain and Browning claimed the deal included more raises than the last 22 years combined and was worth four times more than the UAW agreement in 2019, which both Fain and Browning endorsed. But the fact is the deal does not come near what the UAW bureaucracy has handed back to the corporations for decades. Since 2003, real hourly wages of production workers have fallen by 30 percent—and even more if temporary workers are included. By the end of the proposed agreement, the top-paid Ford workers would receive $40 an hour, below what an average autoworker was making in 1976 when adjusted for inflation. Starting wages for full-time workers by the end of the contract would only be $28 an hour. In addition, it is already clear that the deal does nothing to address the other central demands of workers:
- It would retain the hated two-tier system the UAW agreed to in 2007 and expanded to all new hires in 2009. Second-tier workers will still have to wait three years, if they are not laid off, to reach full pay.
- It excludes fully paid pensions or retiree health care benefits, major demands of workers.
- While it raises wages for lower-paid workers at Sterling Axle and Rawsonville components plants in Michigan, the UAW has already signaled it is willing to accept a new tier of low-paid workers in the EV battery plants, as long as it collects dues from the workers.
- UAW officials said temporary workers would get 150 percent raises but said nothing about workers’ demands to abolish this system of indentured servitude and convert all temps to full-time positions. According to Ford’s last offer, current temps with 90 days of service will be converted to full-time employees, with a raise to $21 per hour for remaining and future temps. The UAW has not said how long future temps will have to wait before being converted to full-time status.
- Above all, the deal will pave the way for the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs as the auto industry converts to electric vehicle production. The “right” the UAW bureaucrats claim they won to strike over plant closures is meaningless. It is not aimed not at securing workers’ jobs but rather at ensuring that the UAW will be the cheap labor supplier of “displaced” workers into new, low-paying EV plants.
From: The Condition of the United States Working Class — Where Do We Go From Here? . . . Due the Labor Bureaucracy’s collaboration with the Boss, Real Wages Have Been Cut Over 100% Since1974! — Wages Have Not Kept Up With Inflation! Since the Neoliberal Labor Bureaucracy declared itself to be in a ‘Partnership (Domestic) With the Boss’ (‘Bedding the Boss!’)! This was fully institutionalized starting in the mid-1980s, this ‘partnership’ gave birth to the one, two, three, etc. .. wage tier system! Selling out the futures of future young workers entering the labor force. And, since the lowest union wage is immediately the highest non-union wage, this wage tier system cut the wages of the entire working class! When I was a union official, I called this system labors’ rush to the bottom! The Graph Below is a Graphic Example of the Decline in Standard of Living of the Working Class, Since the Trade Union Bureaucracy Declared Itself to Be ‘In a (Domestic) Partnership With the Boss’(Class Cooperation)! Through the 1980s and 1990s they even included this ‘partnership’ into their work agreements and the partnership was fully established! Starting in the mid-1980s, This ‘partnership’ gave birth to the one, two, three, three, ect. wage tier system! Selling out the futures of future young workers entering the labor force. And, since the lowest union wage is immediately the highest non-union wage, this wage tier system cut the wages of the entire working class! When I was a union official, I called this system labors rush to the bottom! As in graphically shown in this: Shadow Government Statistics Graph. At the same time, Real Wages have Fallen Since the Wage Price Freeze of 1972 (Shadow Government Statistics): Graph 3 plots the seasonally-adjusted earnings as officially deflated by the BLS (red-line), and as adjusted for the ShadowStats-Alternate CPI Measure, 1990-Base (blue-line). When inflation-depressing methodologies of the 1990s began to kick-in, the artificially-weakened CPI-W (also used in calculating Social Security cost-of-living adjustments) helped to prop up the reported real earnings. Official real earnings today still have not recovered their inflation-adjusted levels of the early-1970s, and, at best, have been in a minimal uptrend for the last two decades (albeit spiked recently by negative headline inflation). Deflated by the ShadowStats (1990-Based) measure, real earnings have been in fairly-regular decline for the last four decades, which is much closer to common experience than the pattern suggested by the CPI-W. See the Public Commentary on Inflation Measurement for further detail. This process has led to a greater productivity and windfall profits for the capitalist, without more value being added to society.
How Two-Tier Wage Systems Cheat and Divide Workers A single mother, determined to provide the best for her family, poured her heart and soul into her job at the Cooper Tire plant in Texarkana, Arkansas. Yet, the United Steelworkers’s (USW) Kerry Halter recalled, the woman made thousands of dollars less every year than co-workers performing the very same job. Even worse, under the plant’s two-tier wage system—paying lower rates to more recently hired workers—she’d never catch up. Fortunately, Halter and other members of USW Local 752L drew a line in the sand during contract negotiations in 2019 and forced the company to eliminate the capricious pay system, ensuring all workers at the plant began receiving equal pay for equal work. Those USW members represented the leading edge of a movement now sweeping the country. In one industry after another, fed-up workers are fighting back against the two-tier systems that employers use to cheat and divide them.
Economy:
The Polycrisis of Capitalism in the 21st Century Global poverty is still with us • A staggering 2.7 billion people could only cover their basic needs for a month or less without income, and of that number, 946 million could survive for a week at most. Even including China, there are still 3.65bn people on the planet below the $6.85/day poverty line, according to the World Bank.
World:
U.S. is Like Trump — They get Upset, When Elections Don’t Go Their Way!”: US Intervenes as Indigenous Guatemalans Back President-elect Arévalo Bernardo Arévalo’s victory in first round of presidential voting on June 25 surprised Guatemalans, as did the emergence of his Seed (Semilla) political party. Roadblocks engineered by established political forces threatened his candidacy in the second round of voting, on August 20, and now may keep him from taking office, on January 14, 2024. Arévalo and the Seed Party seek to remove corruption from Guatemalan politics. They and others oppose “the Pact of the Corrupt,” individuals with criminal associations that for decades, they say, have occupied all levels of government, national and local. They are, “former military people …sophisticated businessmen, judicial functionaries, legislators, mayors, communications people, bankers, and liberal professionals, the facilitators of business deals worth millions.”
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