Daily News Digest November 21, 2023
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Joe Biden: Were There not an Israel The USA Would Have to Invent an Israel to Protect Her Interest In The Region. Senator Joe Biden speaks during debate over a vote to override Presidential veto of arms sales to Saudi Arabia in 1986.
Israel ‘Protecting U.S. Interests in the Middle East! Through Its Proxy Israel, United States Wants Exclusive Control of Eastern Mediterranean Gas There Will Be More Wars!: When Israel Invaded Golan Heights, Haliburton Got the Oil!
Behind the Current Gaza and Ukraine Wars — 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 Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL) today announced it was awarded an integrated services contract to execute a three to five well drilling and completions campaign for Energean, an independent E&P company focused on developing resources in the Mediterranean and the North Sea. The work follows a successful four well offshore drilling campaign that Halliburton previously executed in the Karish and Karish North gas fields. Halliburton will collaborate with Energean to economically and safely deliver exploration, appraisal, and development wells offshore Israel. The contract is for three firm and two optional wells to deliver all services including project management, directional drilling, drill bits, drilling fluids, cementing, solids control, wireline, slickline, completions, production enhancement, and subsea services.
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:
. . . He cited the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) six findings on the increasing number of high-voltage lithium-ion battery fires. Firefighters are finding that these batteries raise unprecedented fire suppression problems. Included in this category are e-bikes and e-scooters. Firefighters are urging the Consumer Product Safety Commission to come up with mandatory standards to help prevent these deadly fires. Fitzgerald is concerned that motorists are not being told about tires wearing out faster, due to the heavier weight of electric vehicles with tire particles that also add to the toll of unregulated air pollution. The trade publication Rubber News reports that instead of getting 40,000 miles from their original equipment tires, they are “getting just 13,000 miles before needing to purchase a replacement set.” (Source: J.D. Power OE Tire Customer Satisfaction survey results.) (Tire Dust is a Carcinogen—R.S.) —Ralph Nader. Should We Go All-In on Electric Cars?
Video of the Day:
Glenn Greenwald: Big Tech Censors Viral Osama bin Laden Letter
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
Military Industrial Complex Graft/Blank Check?: Pentagon Fails Sixth Audit in a Row, Claiming “Progress Sort of Beneath the Surface” The Defense Department passed the same paltry number of sub-audits as it did last year — and would not say if would ever see a clean audit. The u.s. military appears unfazed in its inability to account for billions of dollars. On Thursday, the Department of Defense failed its sixth consecutive audit — but hailed its “incremental progress.” As the Pentagon budget nears a watershed $1 trillion — the largest of any federal government agency — it has never passed a single one of the annual audits mandated by Congress. In a press briefing, the Department of Defense said it had no timeline for passing an audit.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
‘We Are Too Humane. Burn Gaza Now,’ Says Senior Israeli Lawmaker Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi is one of many Israeli leaders who have made genocidal statements against Palestinians. Nissim Vaturi, the far-right deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament, raised eyebrows and ire Friday after asserting on social media that Israel’s war on Gaza—which has killed and maimed over 40,000 people and displaced around 70% of the population—is “too humane.”
Chris Hedges: Israel is Shutting Down its Human Laboratory in Gaza Israel uses Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza as human guinea pigs for its weapons and technology industries. CAIRO, Egypt: The Palestinians are human laboratory rats to the Israeli military, intelligence services and arms and technology industries. Israel’s drones, surveillance technology — including spyware, facial recognition software and biometric gathering infrastructure — along with smart fences, experimental bombs and AI-controlled machine guns, are tried out on the captive population in Gaza, often with lethal results. These weapons and technologies are then certified as “battle tested” and sold around the world. Israel is the 10th biggest arms dealer on the planet and sells its technology and weapons to an estimated 130 nations, including military dictatorships in Asia and Latin America. Israeli weapons sales totalled $12.5 billion last year. Its close relationship with these military, internal security, surveillance, intelligence-gathering and law enforcement agencies, explains the fulsome support Israel’s allies give to its genocidal campaign in Gaza.
Israel’s Secret Plan of Ethnic Cleansing Jessica Buxbaum breaks down Israel’s official plans to ethnically cleanse Palestine which were revealed by newly leaked documents.
Washington and Israel: A Murderous Relationship Israel is a colonial-settler project. Like the Americas—especially the east coast of the United States which was originally settled by various religious and cultural outcasts—Israel was established as a homeland for the Jews, probably the most outcast of any outcasts in the western world. While it took a war led by wealthy colonists against the throne to establish the American colonies as the United States, Israel was granted independence once it was legally established. It had to fight wars with its neighbors who not only resented its creation for cultural reasons, but because they correctly understood it to be a continuation of western colonialism. The people who lived on the lands that the global north granted to Jewish refugees led by Zionist fighters and zealots were the Palestinians. They were chased from their lands, often at the point of a gun and sometimes after Zionist massacres of those who did not want to leave. There was resistance to what is called the Nakba and the aftermath; an aftermath that saw Palestinians relegated to refugee camps while Jewish refugees were given Palestinian homes and fields. Some of the Arab governments fought wars against Israel, but were not successful in part because of the support the Israelis received from governments across the seas.
The IDF is Coming Up Almost Empty in Search for Underground Hamas ‘Pentagon’ The US is backpedaling its support for Israel’s brutal invasion of Gaza; destruction of the entire northern half (or third) of the walled-off and blockaded territory that is home and prison for 2.3 million trapped Palestinians is occurring now that the IDF has achieved its objective of gaining control of the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The reason is that Israel has not been able to convincingly display the “underground command center” that it has been for weeks claiming justified its siege and eventual attack on that hospital. The pointed declarations that Israeli and US “intelligence” had made both governments, in Jerusalem and Washington, “confident” that there was a Hamas “command and control center” operating in a Hamas-constructed bunker under the hospital connected to a network of reinforced tunnels leading into and out of the hospital, have not been borne out. Instead, what the so-called Israel Defense Force (IDF) has offered up is a cellar constructed 40 years ago under Israeli supervision in a “Building 2” addition, according to a Newsweek report and a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. This basement, put in place well before the founding of Hamas, was long known as it was included in the hospital addition plan and meant to serve as a laundry room.
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’!
‘Hell de Janeiro’: Scorching Heat Highlights Brazil’s Glaring Inequality It felt like 58.5C in Rio on Tuesday – and the soaring, indeed dangerous, temperatures are hitting the poorest hardest The start of summer in the southern hemisphere is still a month away, but Brazil has already experienced its eighth heatwave of the year so far, as temperatures soar to dangerously high levels. Large swathes of the country were put under red alert this week by Inmet, the national meteorological institute, which warned of risks to health “and even life” as temperatures stayed at least five degrees Celsius above average for more than five days.
Don’t Look UP (Ignore Global Warming!):Texas Officials Reject Textbooks Over Climate Science “The same bad actors who are calling for racist, homophobic, and transphobic book bans are also calling for climate denial in science textbooks,” said one critic. Seven of 12 proposed science textbooks for Texas 8th graders were rejected Friday by the Republican-controlled state Board of Education because they propose solutions to the climate emergency or were published by a company with an environmental, social, and governance policy.
Fossil Fuel Air Pollution Causes 20% of All Deaths Fossil fuel pollution kills more people each year than HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined If the consequences of burning fossil fuels—like melting glaciers, rising seas, and increasing global temperature averages—feel too far-flung or abstract, consider the fundamental act of taking a breath of air. A new study has found that air pollution from fossil fuels is responsible for nearly one in every five deaths worldwide. Scientists have known for years about the deadly impacts of fossil fuel combustion, but a peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Research puts the global death toll at more than twice that of previous estimates. According to the research, exposure to fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, from burning fossil fuels was responsible for about 8.7 million deaths globally in 2018. That’s roughly the same number of people living in New York City or London. Or, to put this health crisis into further perspective, fossil fuel pollution is not only fueling the climate crisis but it also kills more people each year than HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined.
US Industry Disposed of at Least 60m Pounds of PFAS Waste in Last Five Years Estimate in new EPA analysis is probably ‘dramatic’ undercount because ‘forever chemical’ waste is unregulated in US Still, the findings “depict a vast, unregulated, spreading web of PFAS waste disposal in the United States”, Peer said. “These data show that we are steadily poisoning ourselves, our waters, and our food chain with extremely persistent toxic chemicals,” said Tim Whitehouse, Peer’s executive director and a former EPA attorney. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 15,000 compounds most frequently used to make products water-, stain- and grease-resistant. They have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease and a range of other serious health problems. They are dubbed “forever chemicals” because most do not degrade in the environment.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Public Defenders Get Restraining Order to Block Their Own Union From Voting on Gaza Statement! In a leaked tape of an all-staff meeting, the head of New York’s Legal Aid Society also said four law firms had threatened to pull funding over the statement. Five groups providing public defender services in New York City are cracking down on speech about Palestine. Leadership at the groups are pushing back on statements or internal communications that reference the siege on Gaza, and at least one staffer has been forced to resign.
Labor:
Economy:
Michael Roberts: HM 2023: Value, Profit, Technology and Value Again It’s been a week since the end of Historical Materialism conference in London and I have finally got round to doing my regular review of the proceedings. For those who don’t know, the HM conference brings together academics and students to present papers and discuss not just economics but all aspects of capitalist society – from a broadly Marxist viewpoint. This year, apparently up to 800 attended, with many papers presented and several plenaries. Obviously, I cannot cover all the papers presented and even more obviously that means I shall concentrate on the papers and discussions around Marxist economics. So let’s start with my own presentation. This was a session on the themes and arguments presented in our latest book by myself and Guglielmo Carchedi, entitled Capitalism in the 21st century – through the prism of value. The main approach of the book is to use Marx’s value theory to try and explain the main developments in global capitalism in the 23 years so far of this century. The chapters of the book follow some key themes: the degradation of nature, global warming and the impact of pandemics; changes in the role of money and credit, the return of inflation and a critique of new theories; what causes regular and recurring crises in capitalist accumulation – already two of the greatest slumps in capitalist history: 2008-9 and 2020; the economics of modern imperialism; the rise of mental labour, robots and AI; and last but not least, the features of transitional economies going from capitalism to socialism.
Gutting Big Bank Capital Rules? What’s Really Behind Republicans’ Feigned Outrage Over Sexual Harassment at FDIC Last Tuesday the U.S. Senate Banking Committee convened for a hearing to take testimony from the key federal banking regulators – ostensibly to get more clarity on why the second, third and fourth largest bank failures in U.S. history had occurred this past Spring and to learn what regulators were doing to restore public confidence in the banking sector. But instead of dealing with critical banking issues like the safety and soundness of the U.S. banking system, one Republican Senator after another used big chunks of their allotted time to talk about a Wall Street Journal article that had conveniently appeared just the day prior with the clickbait headline: (Paywall) “Strip Clubs, Lewd Photos and a Boozy Hotel: The Toxic Atmosphere at Bank Regulator FDIC.”
World:
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