Daily News Digest November 6, 2023
Images 0f the Day:
Ukraine is a Very Special Kind of Democracy 
Hey, Hey, Genocide Joe, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?! (Vietnam war, 1967: “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” #Gaza, 2023: “Hey, hey Genocide Joe, how many kids did you kill today?”) 
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:
As Noam Chomsky stated in his interview on American History and Democracy:. . . If you go back to the record of the Constitutional Convention, which took place in 1787, almost immediately after the end of the war, you see that they are already moving in another direction. James Madison — who was the main framer, and one of the Founding Fathers who was most libertarian — makes it very clear that the new constitutional system must be designed so as to ensure that the government will, in his words, “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” and bar the way to anything like agrarian reform. The determination was made that America could not allow functioning democracy, since people would use their political power to attack the wealth of the minority of the opulent. Therefore, Madison argues, the country should be placed in the hands of the wealthier set of men, as he put it. . . . 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! . . . If you go back to the record of the Constitutional Convention, which took place in 1787, almost immediately after the end of the war, you see that they are already moving in another direction. James Madison — who was the main framer, and one of the Founding Fathers who was most libertarian — makes it very clear that the new constitutional system must be designed so as to ensure that the government will, in his words, “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” and bar the way to anything like agrarian reform. The determination was made that America could not allow functioning democracy, since people would use their political power to attack the wealth of the minority of the opulent. Therefore, Madison argues, the country should be placed in the hands of the wealthier set of men, as he put it. . . . 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! . . . If you go back to the record of the Constitutional Convention, which took place in 1787, almost immediately after the end of the war, you see that they are already moving in another direction. James Madison — who was the main framer, and one of the Founding Fathers who was most libertarian — makes it very clear that the new constitutional system must be designed so as to ensure that the government will, in his words, “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” and bar the way to anything like agrarian reform. The determination was made that America could not allow functioning democracy, since people would use their political power to attack the wealth of the minority of the opulent. Therefore, Madison argues, the country should be placed in the hands of the wealthier set of men, as he put it. . . . 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! — My Forefathers and The 1%’s Forefathers
Videos of the Day:
Another Nakba? Israeli Intel Ministry Proposes Expelling Every Palestinian in Gaza to Egypt
State Department Official Resigns, Says Israel Is Using U.S. Arms to Massacre Civilians in Gaza
Palestinian Genocide:
Leaked Israeli Intel Ministry Doc Proposes Expelling Gaza Palestinians to Egypt The plans have confirmed Palestinian fears that Israel’s ultimate goal is their ethnic cleansing from Gaza. Aleaked document from Israel’s Intelligence Ministry dated less than one week after the October 7 Hamas attack proposes the permanent transfer of Gaza’s residents to Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the document’s authenticity but dismissed it as a mere “concept paper,” while Egypt and much of the Arab world has publicly opposed the forced displacement of millions of Palestinians. But the exposed plans have confirmed many Palestinians’ fears that Israel’s ultimate goal during its current offensive is their ethnic cleansing from Gaza, a reenactment of the 1948 Nakba that saw about 700,000 Palestinians pushed out of their homes and turned into refugees during the creation of Israel. For more, we hear from Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, a writer for +972 Magazine and Local Call, who says that while the Intelligence Ministry is not particularly powerful, “this is an official state document essentially recommending the government to carry out an ethnic cleansing of Gaza.” Meanwhile, radical settlers in the West Bank are increasingly using the war on Gaza as cover to push Palestinians out of their homes and villages, often under threat of lethal violence. “Death is now everywhere, and things are deteriorating really, really quickly,” says Abraham.
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!
Tricontinental: Capitalism Created the Climate Catastrophe; Socialism Can Avert Disaster. The Thirty-Fifth Newsletter (2022) . . . We must change the system, as Fernandes argues, ‘but the political conditions today are not conducive to this. The right wing is strong in many countries, as is the denial of climate science’. Therefore, rapidly, the people’s movements must put a decarbonisation agenda on the table. Four goals lie before us:
- Degrowth for Western countries. With less than 5% of the world’s population, the United States consumes a third of the world’s paper, a quarter of the world’s oil, nearly a quarter of the world’s coal, and a quarter of its aluminium. The Sierra Club saysthat US per capita consumption ‘of energy, metals, minerals, forest products, fish, grains, meat and even fresh water dwarfs that of people living in the developing world’. Western countries need to cut back on their overall consumption, scaling back, as Jason Hickel notes, the ‘unnecessary and destructive ones’ (such as the fossil fuel and arms industries, the production of McMansions and private jets, the manner of industrial beef production, and the entire business philosophy of planned obsolescence).
- Socialise the key sector of energy generation.End subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and build a public energy sector that is rooted in a decarbonised energy system.
- Fund the Global Climate Action Agenda. Ensure that Western countries fulfil their historic responsibilities in supporting the Green Climate Fund, which will be used to finance the just transition in the Global South in particular.
- Enhance the public sector.Build more infrastructure for social rather than private consumption, such as more high-speed rail and electric buses, to decrease the use of private cars. Countries of the Global South will have to build their own economies, including by exploiting their resources. The issue here is not entirely whether to exploit these resources but whether they can be extracted for social and national development and not merely for the accumulation of capital. Buen vivir – living well – means to transcend hunger and poverty, illiteracy and ill-health, which will be developed by the public sector.
No climate policy can be universal. Those who devour the world’s resources must reduce their consumption. Two billion people have no access to clean water, while half the world’s population does not have access to adequate health care. Their social development must be guaranteed, but this development must be built on a sustainable, socialist foundation.
Confronting the Reality of Climate Emergency Readers Respond to George Monbiot’s Article About Collapsing Earth Systems George Monbiot’s summary of the planetary science of climate heating, nature destruction and Earth system collapse this century, and the disintegration of civilised society, is excellent (The ‘flickering’ of Earth systems is warning us: act now, or see our already degraded paradise lost, 31 October). My only caveat is his repeated use of the word “could”, which overeggs the possibility of an alternative future where the biospheric tipping points into catastrophe are avoided. Even if human carbon emissions and destructive developments in primary nature miraculously cease tomorrow, the planet will continue to heat because releases from natural sources will not stop. They include carbon and methane from permafrost and gas hydrates in shallow polar waters, collapsing forests and wetlands, increased water vapour, and the loss of reflective albedo from polar and mountain ice melt, meaning further atmospheric and ocean warming etc. That is the “doom loop”.
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 today — my own government. MLK, Beyond Vietnam
Ralph Nader: Do American Taxpayers Really Want to Fund Israel’s Genocide of the Palestinian People? Congress should hold public hearings to get an answer to this question. . . . We believe these questions, among others, should be examined:
- Why should American taxpayers pay for Israeli military spending incurred because of its stupendous intelligence failure and ongoing genocidal war?
- Does Israel need the additional aid since the United States already provides Israel $3-4 billion annually and statutorily guarantees it “a qualitative military advantage” over its neighbors?
3. Can the United States afford the $14.3 billion in additional spending with a national debt soaring past $33 trillion, and annual trillion-dollar budget deficits?
4. Israel is among the top 20 global economies in terms of GDP per capita. Could the $14.3 billion be better spent on assisting the world’s 71 million impoverished internally displaced refugees, many created by undeclared, lawless, U.S. wars?
5. Would the military subsidies make the United States even more of a co-belligerent with Israel in a war against Hamas and, under international law, legally responsible for war crimes or genocide?
6. Should the additional $14.3 billion in deficit or unpaid-for funding be conditioned on Israel’s compliance with the laws of war and the Genocide Convention as certified under oath by the President, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense with an accompanying written explanation? All of these officials have urged the Israeli government to “comply with the laws of war.”
7. How did the Biden Administration come up with the outsized figure of $14.3 billion for a prosperous economic, technological, and military superpower having a greater social safety net for its people than the United States?
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
We Charge Genocide: An Examination of Racism as Black Genocide in America The US Civil Rights Movement and race relations in the US have been met with recent academic popularity, with different historiographies being hotly contested (Hall, 2007) – the result is a complex understanding of African American history (Dwyer, 2000; Lawson, 1991). African Americans were enslaved, segregated, massacred, beaten, raped, and lynched for hundreds of years, leading some academics to believe that African Americans faced a genocide, specifically a ‘Black Genocide’ (Wright, 1969). For the purpose of this essay, the term genocide will follow Lemkin’s orginal conception of the word as well as the United Nation’s definition, where genocide is not necessarily to kill but to destroy a group, in part or in whole, through other means i.e. social, political and economic means (Lemkin and Power, 1944; United States. Department of State. Office of Public et al., 1949). The historical context of slavery, the creation of a race and the treatment of African Americans in America suggests genocidal intentions against black people. The violence that African Americans faced and the continuation of Jim Crow Laws shows dolus specialis, an intent to destroy. Furthermore, the legacy of racism and continuation of violence against African Americans further suggests genocidal intentions.
Labor:
Since June 2009 Americans have lived in the false reality of a recovering economy. Various fake news and manipulated statistics have been used to create this false impression. However, indicators that really count have not supported the false picture and were ignored. For example, it is normal in a recovering or expanding economy for the labor force participation rate to rise as people enter the workforce to take advantage of the job opportunities. During the decade of the long recovery, from June 2009 through Octiber 2023, the labor force participation rate consistently fell from 65.7 to 62.5 percent. —Paul Craig Roberts, The Diminishing American Economy (Updated)
Labor Force Participation Rate is 62.5% 
Economy:
We Suck: First Came the Hype; then Came Adam Neumann’s Self-Dealing; then Came the IPO Scandal; Now Comes the Bankruptcy WeWork, the flexible-office-space company, is the quintessential proof that you can’t put lipstick on a pig forever. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that WeWork “ is planning to file for bankruptcy as early as next week….” On October 5, the credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded WeWork’s long-term debt deeper into junk bond territory after WeWork elected to withhold interest payments on its debt that were due Oct. 2. Year-to-date, the publicly-traded stock of WeWork has lost 98 percent of its value. Its shares were trading for pennies in August on the New York Stock Exchange when the financial wizards at the company came up with the idea to do a 1-for-40 reverse stock split in early September to put a little lip gloss on the pig. Yesterday, the stock closed at $1.11, which would mean that it actually closed at just under 3 cents were it not for the 1-for-40 reverse stock split.
World:
NATO Provoked Putin: Stoltenberg Comes Clean on the Ukraine War For years, John J. Mearsheimer, that seemingly ageless, if somewhat chilly presence at the University of Chicago, has been a thorn of irritation to certain establishment ideas. With his pugnacious sense of realist politics, he has little time for the sentimentality that accompanies what he calls the “liberal delusions” of power. It’s all good to feel anguish and worry at the predations of power, but why encourage them when there is no need to? This somewhat crude summation only does some justice to JJM’s thought process. But it does provide an interesting backdrop to the recent revelations regarding the Ukraine conflict, one that is falling into a horrendous, bleeding stalemate. In his Foreign Affairs assessment of 2014 on the Ukraine-Russian conflict, Mearsheimer throws in the usual grenades. “US and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border.” He noted the pernicious, meddling roles played by such characters as US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, who revealed in 2013 how the US had invested more than $5 billion since 1991 to aid Ukraine achieve “the future it deserves.” This involved the spearheading efforts of the National Endowment for Democracy.
British State Clamps Down on Palestine Solidarity – Support the Communist Fightback! Comrades of Socialist Appeal, the British section of the International Marxist Tendency, have been targeted by the police and the rest of the establishment for waging a determined campaign to build solidarity with the Palestinian people. We call on you to help us in this fight. Intifada until victory! As the movement in support of Palestine grows, the ruling class in Britain is becoming increasingly anxious and desperate. Home Secretary Suella Braverman has publicly denounced mass protests against the Israeli war on Gaza – including last weekend’s half-a-million-strong demo in London – as “hate marches”
Britain: Gaza War – A Lightning Rod for Seething Anger Everywhere Events in the Middle East are having a profound impact on consciousness in Britain. While the establishment all sing from the same hypocritical hymn sheet, hundreds of thousands are taking to the streets. Revolutionary explosions impend. Lenin once wrote an article entitled Inflammable Material in World Politics. This headline aptly describes the present international situation. One crisis follows another, in rapid succession, whether it be economic, political, or military. Following on from the pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine, we have the unfolding catastrophe in Palestine, which has a long way to run. At the time of writing, Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza has not properly begun yet. The brutality of the bombing by Israeli armed forces has sent shockwaves across the world. As we go to press, more than 8,000 innocent Palestinians have been killed. This includes several thousand children, hurriedly buried in mass graves. Many more Gazans are missing. Over a million have been displaced from their homes. The imperialists in Washington, London, Tel Aviv, and elsewhere are responsible for this nightmare. They attempt to cover up their crimes by blaming their victims, just as every murderous ruling class has done throughout history.
US and Israel Only ‘No’ Votes as UN Members Demand End to 61-Year Cuba Embargo It was the 31st straight year that the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly condemned the crippling U.S. blockade on the socialist nation. As they have done every year since 1992, United Nations member states voted near-unanimously on Thursday to demand an end to the U.S. economic blockade on Cuba. By a vote of 187-2 with one abstention, the U.N. General Assembly approved a Cuban draft resolution affirming the “necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial, embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.” The U.S. and Israel cast the only votes against the resolution, while Ukraine abstained.
Without Medicine, Diplomat Alex Saab Could Die in a U.S. Jail For years Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab has suffered illegal imprisonment at Washington’s behest. Now he rots in the Miami Federal Detention Center, where, despite numerous serious health issues, he lacks medical care. If he dies there, something President Joe “Throw Away the Key” Biden clearly couldn’t care less about, it will be because U.S. officials flagrantly flouted the law of diplomatic immunity. They did so by having him seized during a flight refueling stop in Cape Verde in June 2020, an illegal, criminal move that endangers diplomats everywhere, including American ones. Washington especially loathes Saab, 51, because he was such a SUCCESSFUL Venezuelan diplomat, one who arranged deals for his country with Iran, deals that evaded the stranglehold of U.S. sanctions on both nations. Evidence suggests Saab was tortured in Cape Verde. Why? There are allegations the U.S. wanted names of expediters of his clever evasions of sanctions, names he was willing to undergo torture not to reveal. But Washington wanted the info, and it’s apparently willing to let him die in prison, if he won’t give it.
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