Images 0f the Day:

A Perfect Plan for GazaU.S. Human Rights Violations

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:

I refer again to the unnamed officials who admit that the Israelis’ Gaza campaign has nothing to do with self-defense. In the same way, American policy toward Israel has nothing to do with protecting Israeli people, “honest brokering,” or any such notion. It has to do with maintaining the imperium’s presence in West Asia—this the objective since at least the 1967 war. In my read we can count this the first, second, third and only priority of the policy cliques in Washington. This is why it is fine that the post–1967 leadership in Tel Aviv has turned Israel into a garrison state just as Harold Lasswell memorably defined this in 1941. The Israelis are “specialists in violence,” precisely as Lasswell used this term. It is what the U.S. wants them to be. And depends on them to be. The rest—please pause, please use smaller bombs and so on—is merely to trifle pointlessly with a monstrous regime that needs to be unplugged altogether. — Patrick Lawrence: Biden’s Frankenstein

Not that America didn’t have its own arms merchants. As the authors of Merchants of Death noted, early on our country demonstrated a “Yankee propensity for extracting novel death-dealing knickknacks from [our] peddler’s pack.” Amazingly, the Nye Committee in the U.S. Senate devoted 93 hearings from 1934 to 1936 to exposing America’s own “greedy munitions interests.” Even in those desperate depression days, a desire for profit and jobs was balanced by a strong sense of unease at this deadly trade, an unease reinforced by the horrors of and hecatombs of dead from the First World War. We are uneasy no more. Today we take great pride (or at least have no shame) in being by far the world’s number one arms-exporting nation. A few statistics bear this out. From 2006 to 2010, the U.S. accounted for nearly one-third of the world’s arms exports, easily surpassing a resurgent Russia in the “Lords of War” race. Despite a decline in global arms sales in 2010 due to recessionary pressures, the U.S. increased its market share, accounting for a whopping 53% of the trade that year. Last year saw the U.S. on pace to deliver more than $46 billion in foreign arms sales. Who says America isn’t number one anymore? — Weapons R US: Confessions of a Recovering Arms Addict

As the arms continue to flow, dozens of C-17 military transport planes likely carrying munitions have criss-crossed the Atlantic traveling between the United States and Israel, open-source flight tracking data show, with most landing at Nevatim Air Base, an IDF base in Israel’s southern Negev desert. President Joe Biden has requested $14.3 billion in aid for Israel in addition to the over $3 billion in military assistance it already provides. Most recently, the Biden administration is planning to send $320 million in precision Spice bombs to Israel, as multiple outlets informed by Congress reported on Monday. — U.S. Weapons Transfers To Israel Shrouded In Secrecy — But Not Ukraine

An example of this fact is the population living “downwind” from the many oil refineries in Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area. People living near these refineries have very high rates of cancer. In EPA terms, this is called a “cancer cluster.” The EPA, in its corporate manner, determined that the high rates of cancer was caused by high rates of smoking in the area and not from the refineries’ carcinogenic pollutions! However, under the rules of Proposition 65 in California and after several years of litigation, the Gasoline Refining Industry had to post this warning in the February 24, 1999, issue of the San Francisco Chronicle: Chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm are found in gasoline, crude oil, and many other petroleum products and their vapors, or result from their use. Read and follow label directions and use care when handling or using all petroleum products. — “Trade Secrets” Cancer and the Environment (What the Bill Moyers Program “Trade Secrets” Revealed)

Video of the Day:

Carcinogenic Cloud: Texas Chemical Plant Explosion: Photos, Videos Show Massive Fire

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

UN Report Details Rampant US Human Rights Violations at Home and Abroad Two-thirds of U.S. breaches of the civil and political rights covenant involve racial discrimination. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) enshrines the rights to life, to vote, and to freedom of expression and assembly; and the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It forbids discrimination in the enjoyment of civil and political rights based on race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status (which includes sexual orientation). In its blistering November 3 report, the UN Human Rights Committee — a group of 18 independent experts that monitors the implementation of the ICCPR — documented how little the U.S. has done to challenge the systemic, wide-ranging racism that continues to infuse every aspect of our society. Racial discrimination permeated two-thirds of the documented U.S. violations of the human rights treaty.

Biden’s Counterterror Director Used Hamas Attack to Justify Mass Surveillance Program Renewal The U.S. intelligence community is facing calls to reform the spying tool known as 702, which is set to expire at the end of the year. DURING A SENATE briefing last week, a federal counterterrorism official cited the October 7 Hamas attack while urging Congress to reauthorize a sprawling and controversial surveillance program repeatedly used to spy on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. “As evidenced by the events of the past month, the terrorist threat landscape is highly dynamic and our country must preserve [counterterrorism] fundamentals to ensure constant vigilance,” said Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Christine Abizaid to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, after making repeat references to Hamas’s attack on Israel.

U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:

100+ Congressional Staffers Stage Walkout Demanding Their Bosses Back Gaza Cease-Fire “We demand our leaders speak up: Call for a cease-fire, a release of all hostages, and an immediate de-escalation now.”

Patrick Lawrence: Biden’s Frankenstein The new wave of violence in Israel and Gaza now enters its second month. More than 10,000 people have been killed, The Associated Press reports, 40 percent of them children. Where is this catastrophe going? What are the limits of Israel’s inhumanity? Does the Biden regime, in its unforgivable support and encouragement of this ethnic-cleansing operation, have another Frankenstein on its hands—a monster it cannot control? There is the Ukraine case, a contrast as we consider this question. Volodymyr Zelensky is pure cartoon creation—the greatest put-up job of our century, posing as a defender of democratic freedom while running a crypto–Nazi regime and, along with his generals and ministers, stealing hundreds of millions of dollars. But Ukraine—weak, broke, and losing the proxy war against Russia—is easily managed. Biden could unplug the electrodes from Zelensky’s temples any time he chose to do so. He won’t, but he could.

The US Must Stop Writing Blank Checks for Clients’ War Crimes, Starting With Israel The message that the Biden administration has sent through its actions is that there will be no consequences for the Israeli government no matter what it does in Gaza. The U.S. has a bad habit of backing its clients to the hilt in their wars. That puts the U.S. in the unenviable position of being implicated in the war crimes that the clients commit while Washington refuses to use the leverage it clearly has to rein its clients in. Just as the U.S. did for years in supporting the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, Washington has reflexively backed Israeli military campaigns over the years, and it has not restricted its military assistance despite repeated attacks on civilian targets. In the current war in Gaza, the Biden administration has not only resisted pressure to call for a cease-fire, but it has also set no red lines that might trigger a reduction or cutoff in aid.

To Aid in a More Precise Genocide!: US Plans to Transfer $320 Million in Precision Bomb Equipment to Israel In Sale Approved Earlier This Year The US is planning to transfer $320 million worth of precision-guided bomb equipment to Israel, according to three people familiar with the matter, amid Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza as part of its war on Hamas. The sale of the Spice Family Gliding Bomb Assemblies – a type of precision bomb kit that can turn unguided bombs into GPS-guided munitions – to Israel was approved by the relevant US congressional committees several months ago, before Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and sparked a war, one of the sources said. But the State Department did not formally notify congressional leaders that the transfer was moving forward until October 31, according to the sources and a formal notification reviewed by CNN.

Gaza, Israel and ‘Genocide Joe’ The slaughter of innocents in Palestine’s Gaza Strip continues unabated. As this is being written the civilian death toll stands at over 9,000. That is more than 9,000 men, women and children, including babies and toddlers, who have been massacred by the brutal, racist apartheid regime of Israel. Yet U.S. President ‘Genocide Joe’ Biden refuses to call for a ceasefire. He and the Israeli government echo each other in repeating a wide variety of lies. Today, this writer will debunk two of the most common.

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’!

CO2 Tracker: The most important number of the climate crisis:420.2 atmospheric CO2 in parts per million, 7 November 2023 Source: NOAA. Chart baseline is 280ppm – the preindustrial average. Safe level a stabilisation scenario set out by IPCC.

From: US Faces Almost Daily Hazardous Chemical Accidents, Research Suggests Report: The majority of the incidents tallied are connected to the fossil fuel industry, including the use, transport, production and disposal of fossil fuels and fossil fuel products, according to the report, which is accompanied by a searchable database of chemical incidents. “Chemical disasters are happening across the entire chemical supply chain, which depends on fossil fuels for feedstock, energy and distribution,” said Maya Nye, federal policy director for Coming Clean. “So not only is the production of these chemicals contributing to chemical disasters, they are contributing to climate change, and endangering worker and community safety throughout their existence.” “Chemical disasters are happening across the entire chemical supply chain, which depends on fossil fuels for feedstock, energy and distribution,” said Maya Nye, federal policy director for Coming Clean. “So not only is the production of these chemicals contributing to chemical disasters, they are contributing to climate change, and endangering worker and community safety throughout their existence.” There has been increased focus on chemical accidents in the aftermath of a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals derailing in the Ohio village of East Palestine in February. Emergency crews released toxic vinyl chloride from five cars and burned it to keep them from exploding; residents have reported health concerns linked to the incident.

Oil and Gas ‘Not the Problem’ For Climate, Says UK’s Net Zero Minister Campaigners call Graham Stuart’s comments ‘laughable’ and say Conservatives are weaponising climate action.

US Chemical Industry Likely Spent $110m Trying to Thwart PFAS Legislation, Study Finds Analysis of federal lobbying documents by Food and Water Watch finds industry targeted dozens of pieces of legislation The US chemical industry likely spent over $110m during the last two election cycles deploying lobbyists to kill dozens of pieces of PFAS legislation and slow administrative regulation around “forever chemicals”, a new analysis of federal lobbying documents has found. The industry’s onslaught was effective: only eight pieces of legislation that targeted PFAS made it through Congress, the paper prepared by the Food and Water Watch (FWW) nonprofit found.

How Global Warming Shakes the Earth: Data Show Storms and Waves Gaining Strength as the Planet Warms As oceans waves rise and fall, they apply forces to the sea floor below and generate seismic waves. These seismic waves are so powerful and widespread that they show up as a steady thrum on seismographs, the same instruments used to monitor and study earthquakes. That wave signal has been getting more intense in recent decades, reflecting increasingly stormy seas and higher ocean swell. In a new study in the journal Nature Communications, colleagues and I tracked that increase around the world over the past four decades. These global data, along with other ocean, satellite and regional seismic studies, show a decadeslong increase in wave energy that coincides with increasing storminess attributed to rising global temperatures.

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Majority of American Citizens Oppose Catholic/Federalist Supreme Court Majority:Victory in Ohio Represents Seventh Straight Electoral Win for Abortion Rights Voters in blue states, swing states and even the reddest of states have made clear they want abortion rights protected.

Protect Students’ First Amendment Rights, Even to Discuss Israel and Palestine It is precisely in times of heightened crisis and fear that university leaders must remain steadfast in their commitment to free speech, open debate, and peaceful dissent on campus. The devastating conflict in Israel and Palestine has roiled campuses here at home. College students across the country are exercising their constitutional right to free speech by organizing, protesting, posting, and debating, sometimes resulting in speech that is intemperate, hateful, and abhorrent. We’re also seeing a rise in antisemitic and anti-Arab and Muslim discrimination, with documented threats against Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim, and Middle Eastern and South Asian origin students and faculty alike. These colliding dynamics have left colleges and universities contending with how to manage increased threats, genuine fears, and anguished tensions on their campuses while trying to keep students and faculty safe. We take the weight and complexity of these challenges seriously, and understand that balancing public safety and public debate can feel insurmountable.

Labor:

The Pauperization of the Working Class: Seeing Through the Economic Bait and Switch Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, recently issued a scathing statement about the shameful state of the United States economy. On October 31, 2023, De Schutter called out several top private employers in the U.S., Amazon, Walmart, and DoorDash, for trapping their workers in a cycle of poverty. He said, “Jobs are supposed to provide a pathway out of poverty, yet in all three companies the business model seems to be to shift operating costs onto the public by relying on government benefits to supplement miserably low wages.” In a related letter to the U.S. government, De Schutter wrote, “Despite being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the United States has a high rate of poverty among workers.”

American Postal Workers Union Becomes Largest US Union to Call for Gaza Cease-Fire “We join the calls for an immediate cease-fire, the release of hostages, and urgently needed massive humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. The cries of humanity demand nothing less.”

Economy:

The Decadense of the 1% in This Epoch of Imperialist Deacay!:

WilmerHale’s Plan to Buy Blanket Immunity for JPMorgan for Banking Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking Ring Has Backfired Badly On October 20 we reported that JPMorgan Chase, a serial recidivist when it comes to crime, had paid $1.085 billion in legal expenses in just the last six months. A nice chunk of that money went to the Big Law firm, WilmerHale, which has been representing JPMorgan Chase this year in multiple lawsuits involving the bank’s dark history of financial dealings with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. (See Related Articles at the bottom of this article.). When the largest bank in the United States pays big bucks to a law firm with a roster of 1,000 attorneys, it doesn’t expect its $290 million class action settlement with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims to blow up in its face just days before the final Fairness Hearing — a legally required court event to determine if the terms of the agreement are “fair, adequate and reasonable.” That Fairness Hearing will be conducted today in Judge Jed Rakoff’s courtroom in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in lower Manhattan at 4 p.m. It’s a big embarrassment for both WilmerHale and JPMorgan Chase that 16 state Attorneys General and the Attorney General for the District of Columbia are objecting to the terms of the settlement, along with two Epstein claimants.

World:

NGOs Call for Attendees of Paris Aid Conference to Back Gaza Cease-Fire “We call on states to live up to their joint and individual responsibility to cooperate in providing humanitarian assistance,” said one group leader. “They cannot sit by and witness this suffering any longer.”

‘The Rain of Bombs Is Inhumane’: Belgian Deputy PM Calls For Sanctions On Israel “While war crimes are being committed in Gaza, Israel is ignoring international demands for a cease-fire,” said Petra De Sutter

Portugal: The Downfall of Costa – A Symptom of the Capitalist Crisis Since the current Socialist Party (PS) government came to power with a majority in January 2022, it has been a government of crisis, plagued with scandals, intrigues, and resignations. Now António Costa, the PM himself, has resigned following an investigation by the Supreme Court, which led to his own official residence being raided by the police, as well as government buildings and private residences. Several businessmen, CEOs, the mayor of Sines, and António Costa’s chief of staff have been arrested. It appears that João Galamba, the Infrastructure Minister, will be indicted, as well as Duarte Cordeiro, the Environment Minister. António Costa himself might be indicted as well.

With all Eyes on Gaza, Extremist Israeli Squatters seek to Ethnically Cleanse the Palestinian West Bank I booked annual leave in early November to travel for a family visit in the occupied West Bank in Palestine. Although initially I thought it might be possible to enter the West Bank despite the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, it turned out that while the world is rightly focused on Gaza, Israel has intensified its restrictions amid a crackdown in the West Bank Palestinians in the West Bank tell me that since the start of the assault on Gaza, Israel hasn’t allowed in most of the Palestinians trying to enter the West Bank via King Hussein bridge. This entryway is the Palestinian West Bank’s only connection to the outside world, and from there they can travel to the international airport in Amman, Jordan.

From Fear to Freedom: A New Vision for Progressive Solidarity in Israel-Palestine An unconditional ceasefire to halt the violence on both sides must be the immediate priority. But while ceasefires are crucial, they are not enough. The extreme violence against civilians in Israel and Gaza has shaken the world. The horrific murder and kidnapping of Israeli civilians by Hamas, and the indiscriminate bombings of Gaza by Israel, which have killed more than 8,000 Palestinians and destroyed basic infrastructure, demand a new politics of peace and justice in the region. What is needed is a progressive vision that can unite ordinary Israelis and Palestinians around shared goals of freedom, equality, and mutual prosperity. The extreme violence against civilians in Israel and Gaza has shaken the world. The horrific murder and kidnapping of Israeli civilians by Hamas, and the indiscriminate bombings of Gaza by Israel, which have killed more than 8,000 Palestinians and destroyed basic infrastructure, demand a new politics of peace and justice in the region. What is needed is a progressive vision that can unite ordinary Israelis and Palestinians around shared goals of freedom, equality, and mutual prosperity.

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