Daily News Digest November 3, 2023
‘What Does One Do When Both Options Are Catastrophic?’: An Interview With Cornel West Author, academic and public intellectual Dr. Cornel West has long been a fiery fixture of America’s political discourse. Proselytizing and pronouncing in the Biblical prophetic tradition, the Tulsa-born West has written numerous books, notably 2005’s “Democracy Matters,” a bestselling clarion call to revitalize American democracy. He describes himself a number of ways — revolutionary Christian, radical democrat, internationalist, democratic socialist — but his message, philosophy and mode of delivery never wavers. Whether he is addressing a group of university students, national TV audiences or presidential campaign rallies for independent and Democratic candidates — he has stumped for Bill Bradley, Ralph Nader, Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders — West’s forceful advocacy for economic democracy, social justice and restraint in foreign policy has provided sharp counterpoints to the centrism that has defined the Democratic Party since his rise as a national figure in the 1990s. . . . . Discussing the independent presidential candidate’s forceful advocacy for economic democracy, social justice and restraint in foreign policy. . . . It’s important in these dim and grim times to be fundamentally committed to the claim that a human life anywhere in the world has the same value. We have to be very critical of any double standards, of any attempt to downplay one group over another group. A Palestinian baby has the same value as an Israeli baby. A Jewish baby has the same value as a Palestinian baby. When you look at the world through those lenses, I’d say that his statement was too one-sided.
This is not just Biden, it’s U.S. foreign policy for the last 50 years or so. It just doesn’t take seriously the humanity of Palestinians in the same way it takes seriously the humanity of Israelis.
Of course, we want to condemn and denounce the killing of innocent folk in Israel. There’s no doubt about that. But we have to have the same kind of intensity [in response to] any killing of innocent people in Gaza or the West Bank. We have to tell the truth about the history, how we find ourselves in a situation in which, under occupation, these Palestinians are undergoing such suffering — and at the same time critique Hamas. A war crime is a war crime is a war crime. And a war crime is the killing of innocent people.
Images of the Day:Hey Joe!
Military Contractor Stocks 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!
Qu0tes of the Day:
That unconditional support makes Biden and the vast majority of Congress directly complicit with mass murder and genocide, defined as “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” The definition clearly fits the words and deeds of Israel’s leader. — Biden Is a Genocide Denier and the “Enabler in Chief” for Israel’s Ongoing War Crimes
Why did Israel provoke a war with Hamas? Behind the Current Gaza War the U.S. Oil Profiteers!: 2O21 Article: Energean Selects Halliburton for Offshore Israel Drilling Campaign Integrated Services Contract To Deliver Five Wells in Eastern Mediterranean Through Halliburton Consulting And Project Management SLB, Baker Hughes, Halliburton Primed for Middle East Boom A bevy of projects in the Middle East promises a boom in future revenues for SLB, Baker Hughes and Halliburton. The genocide of the Gaza Palestinians makes those oil reserves safer to exploit! Genocide is Profitable! — Israel As the United States Imperialist’s Police Force in the Middle East!
Videos of the Day:
Ta-Nehisi Coates Speaks Out Against Israeli Apartheid After West Bank Visit
“This Is Your Money”: Gaza Father Pleads with Americans to Stop Funding Israeli Assault
Palestinian Genocide:
Reporters Without Borders Files ICC War Crimes Petition Over Israel, Hamas Killing of Journalists “Since 2000, we have not seen a war begin with so much violence against journalists,” said the group. The international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday called on the International Criminal Court to formally investigate the deaths of nine journalists who have been killed in the Israel-Hamas War that began on October 7, noting that at least 34 reporters have been killed so far in the conflict. “No other 21st century war has begun in such a deadly manner for reporters,” said Reporters Without Borders, also known as RSF. “At least 12 of them have been killed in connection with their work, most of them by Israeli strikes in Gaza.”
The British Relationship With Zionism, Israel and Its Consequences for Palestinians It should come as no surprise to anyone that the British government, the leadership of the main opposition party and the media and corporate apparatus are standing in absolute lockstep with Israel’s genocide in Gaza, even as 100s of thousands of Brits take to the streets across the United Kingdom (UK) calling for an immediate ceasefire and justice and peace for the Palestinians. This lockstep support for Israel was highlighted on the world stage once again on Friday 27th October as the UK abstained in the vote on a resolution at the UN General Assembly Special Session. The resolution, put forward by Jordan, called for the bare minimum of an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce”. An abstention from the UK to this resolution at this point, as the killing, maiming, forced transfer and arrest of Palestinian civilians, in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank, reaches a scale previously not seen since the Nakba, was not a neutral act. It was an act of continued diplomatic and political cover for Israel’s government and armed forces to commit abhorrent mass war crimes. Alongside this political support, our navy remains stationed in the Mediterranean Sea to “reinforce regional stability and prevent escalation”.
War, Peace, and Bourgeois Morality To justify its genocidal bombardment of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli state, with the complicity of Western imperialists, tries to present itself as the guardian of superior moral values in the face of Palestinian “barbarism”. There could be no better example of the complete moral bankruptcy of the ruling class. Following the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, the whole of bourgeois society and its representatives on TV sets and in parliaments cried out in outrage. The news was full of unverified reports of all kinds of horrors allegedly committed by Hamas—”40 beheaded babies”, and other atrocities finally proven never to have taken place. Immediately, politicians and public figures across the Western world rushed to denounce these imaginary crimes. In chorus, the Israeli imperialists and their allies seized the opportunity to present themselves as paragons of morality in the face of amoral Palestinian terrorists. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wrote on X (Twitter): “In fighting Hamas, Israel is not only fighting for its own people. It is fighting for every country that stands against barbarism.” On Oct. 9, the heads of state of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States signed a joint declaration condemning “the terrorist actions of Hamas” that “have no justification, no legitimacy and must be universally condemned”.
US Stands Isolated in Backing Gaza Massacre On Friday, October 27, the nations of the world voted in the UN General Assembly, by a vote of 120 to 14, for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian trce leading to a cessation of hostilities” in Gaza. The resolution was sponsored by the government of sometime U.S. ally King Abdullah of Jordan. Israel’s UN Ambassador responded with utter disdain, accusing those who voted in favor of the “ridiculous resolution” of supporting “the defense of Nazi terrorists” over Israel. In Gaza, Israel’s response to the global call for a truce was to escalate its bombing and expand its ground invasion. The U.S. corporate media have not helped Americans understand how isolated our government is in its unconditional support and resupply of weapons for Israel’s genocidal military campaign, which has killed over 8,000 Palestinians, 30% of them women and 40% of them children, while destroying hospitals, apartment buildings, streets and schools, and turning Gaza into nothing short of hell on Earth for the bereaved survivors. According to Save the Children, Israel has killed more children in Gaza in three weeks than have been killed in all global conflicts since 2019.
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!
Global Warming is Self Accelerating As Global Warming Increases, the Rate of Global Warming Increase, As the Rate of Global Waring Increases, Global Warming Increase Etc.f! Most Global Wrming Projection, are Flawed, Because They are Based on the Current Rate of Global Warming, Ignoring Constant Self Acceleration!:
Global Heating is Accelerating, Warns Scientist Who Sounded Climate Alarm in the 80s Study delivers dire warning although rate of increase is debated by some scientists amid a record-breaking year of heat Global heating is accelerating faster than is currently understood and will result in a key temperature threshold being breached as soon as this decade, according to research led by James Hansen, the US scientist who first alerted the world to the greenhouse effect.
Goodbye Acapulco: 205 mph Winds destroy 80% of Infrastructure, do $18 bn of Damage in Climate Change Warning Gaza City is not the only place that has been reduced to rubble in the past week. Dan Stillman at WaPo points out that Hurricane Otis hit Acapulco on October 25 with 205 mph winds, “among the strongest ever measured.” Iván Cabrera at N+ reports that the megastorm destroyed 80% of the city’s infrastructure, leaving the inhabitants without light, electricity, communications or internet. Some 274,000 homes and 600 hotels were affected by the outages in this city of some 800,000 workers in the tourism industry, at an estimated cost of $18 billion. Over 32,000 homes suffered physical damage.
At What Threshold is Greenland Ice Cap’s Melting Irreversible? Melting of the 3km-thick ice cap is one of the biggest contributors to sea level rise but can be halted With bigger storms each winter taking ever larger bites out of British beaches and cliffs, the increasing speed of sea level rise is set to make things worse. One of the biggest contributors to the current rise of 3.4mm (0.13in) a year is the Greenland ice cap, which is 3km thick (just under 2 miles) and has the potential to raise sea levels by 7 metres (23ft) if it all melted. Scientists have been working out at what temperature Greenland’s melting would become irreversible and ensure that large chunks of our islands would disappear beneath the waves. The threshold, according to a paper in the journal Nature, is between 1.7C and 2.3C above pre-industrial levels. Since we have been exceeding 1.5C for some months this year, and on current projections global temperatures are set to rise by up to 3C this century, we are perilously close to the tipping point.
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
Biden’s Conspiracy Theory About Gaza Casualty Numbers Unravels Upon Inspection One Palestinian American lost more than 40 relatives in Gaza. We found them on the Ministry of Health list. President Joe Biden, asked last week what his government planned to do to reduce the number of civilian casualties in Gaza, responded by rejecting the idea that the numbers could be trusted. “I have no notion if Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” Biden said on Wednesday. “I’m sure innocents have been killed and it is the price of waging war,” he added. “But I have no confidence in the number that Palestinians are using.” A new analysis by The Intercept provides evidence refuting that claim. Biden’s effort to delegitimize the numbers coming out of Gaza as fake news has created an opening for defenders of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign to dismiss the crisis; they note that Hamas governs Gaza and therefore runs the Ministry of Health and is inflating the figures. (Biden later clarified he meant to say he didn’t trust Hamas, not all Palestinians, according to the Wall Street Journal.)
The Gaza Manifesto: Why America’s Old Middle East is Crumbling History will not forgive those who have remained silent, exhibited or expressed ‘balanced’ positions – or worse, defended Israel’s ongoing genocide in an already besieged, impoverished and overcrowded Gaza. This is not a cliché declaration, a desperate attempt aimed at jolting the world, especially the Western world, to show a degree of morality as Palestinians are dying in their thousands, as the pulverized bodies of children are scattered in every neighborhood in Gaza. No, this is about history. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, Washington and its Western allies wanted to impose a new history on the Middle East, in fact, the Muslim world, a history in which the West is fighting a civilizational ‘war against terror’. Since then, it has been stated numerous times, directly or otherwise, that the culprits, the ‘bad guys’ in this American scenario, are Muslims – their religion, their languages, their cultures, their very societal make-up.
Sanders, Whp Voted for Military ‘Aid” Supplies to Israel, Crys Crcoodile Tears for the Palestinians Who are Now Faceing Genocide!: Bernie Sanders Says First Priority in Gaza Must Be to ‘Stop the Bombing’ Amid mounting global demands for a cease-fire, the U.S. senator advocated for a “humanitarian pause” and an end to Israel’s indiscriminate air assault. Sanders (I-Vt.) again advocated for a “humanitarian pause,” or a temporary halt to hostilities for delivery of essentials and possible evacuations, rather than calling for a cease-fire, or a long-term suspension of fighting, which a small group of progressive House Democrats—and people worldwide, including hundreds of staffers from his presidential campaigns—have been demanding.
Antiwar Protesters Disrupt Blinken and Austin Senate Hearings to Call for Ceasefire In Washington, D.C., protesters on Tuesday repeatedly disrupted a Senate panel hearing for Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Their testimony was in support of President Biden’s request for $106 billion to fund the militaries of Ukraine, Israel and to militarize the U.S.-Mexico border. This is Ann Wright, former U.S. Army colonel and CodePink member. Ann Wright: “Three thousand five hundred kids dead. Come on. I’m an Army colonel. I’m a former diplomat. I resigned on that War in Iraq that you talked about. That was a terrible thing. And what you’re doing right now in supporting Israel’s genocide of Gaza is a terrible thing, too. Stop the war! Ceasefire now!”
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. MLK, Beyond Vietnam
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
How Black Families are Being Squeezed Out of Homeownership by Corporate Investors In the years since the Great Recession, when housing prices dramatically fell, Wall Street investors have been buying large numbers of single-family homes to use as rentals. As of 2022, big investment firms owned nearly 600,000 such properties nationwide. In the years since the Great Recession, when housing prices dramatically fell, Wall Street investors have been buying large numbers of single-family homes to use as rentals. As of 2022, big investment firms owned nearly 600,000 such properties nationwide. Critics say this practice drives up home prices and worsens the housing shortage, making it harder for families to afford to buy. Industry advocates dismiss such charges, arguing that large investment firms own a tiny fraction of single-family rental housing across the U.S. – less than 4% of the total. Critics say this practice drives up home prices and worsens the housing shortage, making it harder for families to afford to buy. Industry advocates dismiss such charges, arguing that large investment firms own a tiny fraction of single-family rental housing across the U.S. – less than 4% of the total
Labor:
Rail Wotkers United: Norfolk Southern has Spent Record $4.2 Million So Far Urging Voters yo Sell Railway Norfolk Southern Corp. has spent more than $4.2 million so far trying to convince Cincinnati voters to sell it Cincinnati’s city-owned railroad − believed to be the most any group or candidate has ever spent on a city election. The spending through Oct. 18 is detailed in a campaign finance report filed Thursday afternoon by Build Cincinnati’s Future, the campaign created to pass Issue 22 in Cincinnati.
Economy:
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