Daily News Digest November 17, 2023
Images/Quote 0f the Day:
World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, since then, 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!
Quotes of the Day:
Cornel West: We must confront and dismantle ALL forms of iniquitous militarism, foreign and DOMESTIC. Cop City reminds us that from Atlanta to Palestine, freedom is a constant struggle. And we must not forget that the same forces committing genocide in Gaza train and instruct the forces that commit domestic terror against peaceful protests right here in the USA . #StopCopCity
Video of the Day:
Video: Why Does the U.S. Support Israel? “Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region.” Why does the United States so strongly support Israel? Geopolitical Economy Report editor Ben Norton interviewed economist Michael Hudson to explore the reasons why Israel is such an important part of U.S. foreign policy and Washington’s attempt to dominate not only the region of the Middle East, but really the entire world. It is crucial to stress that Israel is an extension of U.S. geopolitical power in one of the most critically important regions of the world. In fact, it was current U.S. President Joe Biden, back in 1986, when he was a senator, who famously said that, if Israel didn’t exist, the United States would have to invent it:
· If we look at the Middle East, I think it’s about time we stop, those of us who support, as most of us do, Israel in this body, for apologizing for our support for Israel. There is no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion investment we make.
- Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region; the United States would have to go out and invent an Israel.
- I am with my colleagues who are on the floor of the Foreign Relations Committee, and we worry at length about NATO; and we worry about the eastern flank of NATO, Greece and Turkey, and how important it is. They pale by comparison…
- They pale by comparison in terms of the benefit that accrues to the United States of America.
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
Poll Shows American Support for Israel Is Cratering Amid Its Violent Siege Less than a third of Americans now say they back Israel in its current genocidal siege of Gaza. Support for Israel is cratering fast among the American public amid Israeli forces’ genocidal siege of Gaza, while a majority of Americans support the growing calls for a ceasefire, new polling reveals. According to polling by Reuters/Ipsos released Wednesday, support for Israel among the U.S. public has dropped by nearly 10 percent in the past month. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken shortly after the current siege began last month, 41 percent said that the U.S. should back Israel in its attack. Now, in a two-day poll that ended Tuesday, less than a third of respondents, or just 32 percent, said the same. This drop was seen among both Democrats and Republicans.
Poll Shows More Than Half of Americans Want More Choices for President in 2024 Nearly 6 in 10 Democrats say they want another option when it comes to 2024 presidential candidates.
Pentagon Won’t Say Where It’s Sending U.S. Troops — To Avoid Embarrassing Host Nations Details about the rapid U.S. military buildup since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza are largely unknown to the public and risk war with Iran, experts say the u.s. military has deployed thousands of troops to the Middle East since Hamas’s surprise October 7 attack on Israel but refuses to disclose the military bases or even host nations of the deployments — not for security reasons, but to spare the host nations embarrassment. One such base, the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, welcomed several new F-15 attack jets last month, the same aircraft used to bomb facilities used by Iranian-backed militias in Syria at least twice since October, following attacks on U.S. troops by groups supported by Iran.
Price of Defending Apartheid’: AIPAC Set to Spend $100 Million Against Squad “And AIPAC will lose,” said the progressive political action group Our Revolution. The powerful lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee is expected to spend nine figures in a bid to unseat over half a dozen progressive U.S. lawmakers who have been critical of Israeli human rights crimes in Palestine, Slatereported Wednesday. Slate politics writer Alex Sammon wrote that “close watchers now expect AIPAC to spend at least $100 million in 2024 Democratic primaries, largely trained on eliminating incumbent Squad members from their seats.”
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
Israeli War Crimes and Propaganda Follow US Blueprint We have both been reporting on and protesting against U.S. war crimes for many years, and against identical crimes committed by U.S. allies and proxies like Israel and Saudi Arabia: illegal uses of military force to try to remove enemy governments or “regimes”; hostile military occupations; disproportionate military violence justified by claims of “terrorism”; the bombing and killing of civilians; and the mass destruction of whole cities.
The Petagon’s ‘Wars of Terror’!: The Pentagon Proclaims Failure in its War on Terror in Africa America’s Global War on Terror has seen its share of stalemates, disasters, and outright defeats. During 20-plus years of armed interventions, the United States has watched its efforts implode in spectacular fashion, from Iraq in 2014 to Afghanistan in 2021. The greatest failure of its “Forever Wars,” however, may not be in the Middle East, but in Africa. “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated,” President George W. Bush told the American people in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, noting specifically that such militants had designs on “vast regions” of Africa.
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’!
The Addiction Behind Fossil Fuels According to National Geographic, “Fossil fuels are made from decomposing plants and animals. These fuels are found in the Earth’s crust and contain carbon and hydrogen, which can be burned for energy. Coal, oil, and natural gas are examples of fossil fuels.” It is a nonrenewable source of energy, meaning once they are used it can not be replaced. The term fossil fuels are fitting; it is referring to plants and animals that have been on the earth for millions of years. There are many different techniques that can be used in order to extract fossil fuels; one of the most commonly used methods is fracking. Fracking is the process in which machines crack open the Earth’s surface and widen underground by injecting water, chemicals, and sand at a high pressure causing the gas to flow through the machine and back into the tanks where they would store their extracted fossil fuel. Fracking can be extremely dangerous when safety regulations are being mistreated or ignored. The oils and gas are used in our everyday world, from our kitchen to our cars, to factories and simple machines. They release carbon emissions that create the greenhouse effect, which causes climate change. To extract our everyday need for fossil fuels we know that Fracking is a big help but it can fall into one of two main categories we use; Mining and drilling. The main difference is that mining is more of a direct digging underground to extract coal and other fossil fuels and drilling is when that can be done from above ground. An article from wilderness.org explains how fracking can poison groundwater, pollute surface water, impair wild landscapes, and threaten wildlife. Why are Fossil Fuels So Deadly to the Earth and our Ecosystems?
According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute Fact Sheet for 2021 Fossil fuels can impact
- Ocean acidification
- Extreme Weather
- Sea Level Rise
- Plastic Pollution
- Air Pollution
- Water Pollution
- Oil Spills
- Health Issues
Over 1,000 Oil and Gas Companies Around the World Plan to Expand Infrastructure “The magnitude of the industry’s expansion plans is truly frightening,” said Nils Bartsch, Urgewald’s head of oil and gas research. “To keep 1.5°C alive, a speedy, managed decline in both oil and gas production is vital. Instead, oil and gas companies are building a bridge to climate chaos.”Fueling the climate crisis, companies are planning to expand global liquefied natural gas capacity by 162 percent.
Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Hit Record High. Again. The last time the Earth experienced CO2 levels this high was 3-5 million years ago The abundance of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere once again reached a new record last year and there is no end in sight to the rising trend, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
As Oil /Gas Production Expands:US and China’s Joint Climate Plan Leaves Key Questions Unanswered The breakthrough has been welcomed by experts – but it lacks specific emissions cuts or a commitment to phase out fossil fuels
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Democrats Oppose Freedon of Assemby!: Police Assault Protesters Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire at DNC HQ “With every passing minute that President Biden and the Democratic Party refuse to heed the calls of their voters and demand a cease-fire, more Palestinians in Gaza are being killed by Israeli airstrikes.” U.S. Capitol Police used pellet guns and pepper spray late Wednesday to break up an interfaith protest calling for a cease-fire in Gaza as top Democratic lawmakers gathered for a candidate event inside the headquarters of the party’s national committee.
Labor:
Economy:
Michael Roberts Facebook Blog: Us manufacturing output plunges more in October.
The Bilionaires’s Senate:Last Year 12,000 Lobbyists Were Whispering in the Ear of Congress with a Bankroll of $4.1 Billion; Five Senators Are Demanding Transparency Yesterday, five U.S. Senators who are members of the Senate Banking Committee issued a letter to Gary Gensler, the Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), demanding that he issue a rule that would force publicly-traded companies to disclose the dollar amount of their lobbying expenditures as well as the issues they are lobbying for or against.
A Federal Report Shows “Climate-Sensitive” Diseases Are Spreading Through the US The newly released National Climate Assessment warns climate change is pushing carriers of disease into new regions. . . . “Health risks from a changing climate,” the report says, include “increases in the geographic range of some infectious diseases.” West Nile virus, dengue fever, Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, rabies, and Valley fever, carried by mosquitoes, ticks, mammals, and soil, are among the infectious diseases the report has identified as “climate sensitive.” Climate change isn’t the only reason more people are being affected by these illnesses — urban sprawl, deforestation, cyclical environmental changes, and other influences are also at play — but it’s a clear contributing factor. . . . “Health risks from a changing climate,” the report says, include “increases in the geographic range of some infectious diseases.” West Nile virus, dengue fever, Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, rabies, and Valley fever, carried by mosquitoes, ticks, mammals, and soil, are among the infectious diseases the report has identified as “climate sensitive.” Climate change isn’t the only reason more people are being affected by these illnesses — urban sprawl, deforestation, cyclical environmental changes, and other influences are also at play — but it’s a clear contributing factor.
World:
Austria: Communists the Focus of Political Attacks ss Gaza War Accelerates Crisis Bourgeois democracy in Austria is in a senile crisis. Like in other countries in Europe, the Hamas attacks of 7 October have been used to whip up a reactionary mood. Muslim migrants and the communists of Der Funke (the IMT in Austria) are at the centre of these political attacks, with reformist leaders of Social Democracy and Communist Party actively persecuting party members who stand in solidarity with the Palestinians. “Across party lines and political views, we are united in our solidarity with the Israeli people and the State of Israel.” With this declaration for national unity on the part of all the parliamentary parties, the ruling class has sought to recover political stability in a situation where everything points in the opposite direction: towards economic and political chaos, class struggle and growing polarisation.
Health, Education, 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