Daily News Digest December 4, 2023
Images of the Day:
Genocide Joe: Actually, That Was Me!
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: Austerity, Scapegoat Blacks, Minorities, and ‘Illegal’ Immigrants for Unemployment, andThe 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:
Agovernment strikes and riots. Right-wing paramilitary groups, such as Patriay Libertad, were used by the CIA to carry out assassinations, terrorism and sabotage. The idea of a coup was promoted in the military, with the promise of U.S. support. Kissinger and his gang, of course, carried out their treacherous program to the bloody end. Herein lies the main lesson of the Allende years: that the U.S. ruling class and their puppets – whether it be in Latin America or here at home will not stop at murder to keep their power and privilege. — Chile: The Lesson of the Overthrow of Salvador Allende
Einstein publicly stated reservations about the proposal to partition the British mandate of Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish countries. In a 1938 speech, “Our Debt to Zionism”, he said: “ I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain—especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state. … If external necessity should after all compel us to assume this burden, let us bear it with tact and patience.[32]” His attitudes were nuanced: In his testimony before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in January 1946, Einstein stated that he was not in favor of the creation of a Jewish state,[33] while in a 1947 letter to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru intended to persuade India to support Zionist aims of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Einstein stated that the Balfour Declaration‘s proposal to establish a national home for Jews in Palestine “redresses the balance” of justice and history,[34] claiming that “at the end of the first world war, the Allies gave the Arabs 99% of the vast, underpopulated territories liberated from the Turks to satisfy their national aspirations and five independent Arab states were established. One percent was reserved for the Jews in the land of their origin”.[35] Einstein remained strongly supportive of unlimited Jewish immigration to Palestine.[36][37] —Einstein, Zionism, Political views of Albert Einstein
Videos of the Day:
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
Preparing fo World War III?:Trilateral Missile Defense System a Step Towards Asian NATO The United States, Japan, and South Korea will fully operationalize a missile warning system “by the end of December.” While justified as a means to counter North Korea’s missile launches, more worrisome, it escalates tensions in the region with China through the “NATOification” of all three countries, agreed upon in the “Spirit of Camp David” agreement.
Can US Threats Prevent a Wider War in the Middle East? While Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has been frantically shuttling around the Middle East trying to stop the Israeli coflict in Gaza from exploding into a regional war, the United States has also sent two aircraft carrier strike groups, a Marine Expeditionary Unit and 1,200 extra troops to the Middle East as a “deterrent.” In plain language, the United States is threatening to attack any forces that come to the defense of the Palestinians from other countries in the region, reassuring Israel that it can keep killing with impunity in Gaza.
The World’s Oppressed Will Shed No Tears For Henry Kissinger On the night of November 29, 2023, the public was informed of the death of Henry A. Kissinger, former National Security Adviser to the President and a former US Secretary of State. The bourgeois media along with various statesmen and politicians are shedding tears for their late loyal servant.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
Israel’s/United State’s Claims of ‘Self Defense’: Condemn Hamas? It’s Time We Flipped the Script Over 15,000 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza.; 5,000 children.; 1 in 200 dead., 1.8 million displaced.; Churches targeted.; Hospitals.; Schools.; Shelters.,No water.; No food.;; No electricity.; No fuel.; Families destroyed.; Cities flattened. Yet, I am supposed to first condemn the Hamas attacks before voicing my opposition to this slaughter. Western media won’t address the asymmetry of the conflict. They won’t give us a historical analysis of 75 years of death on stolen lands, uprooted olive groves, and poisoned wells. But before I mention Israel is an apartheid state, I must voice my objection to Hamas. Two million Gazans have lived under violent occupation and surveillance in an open-air prison for 16 years, in poverty and without dignity or freedom. . . .
‘Nightmarish Situation’ as Israel Resumes Assault on Gaza “Anything other than sustained peace and at-scale emergency aid will mean catastrophe for the children of Gaza,” said a UNICEF spokesperson. Israel resumed its assault on the Gaza Strip Friday morning just minutes after the pause with Hamas officially expired, ending a fragile seven-day truce that created conditions for the release of hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian captives and allowed additional—but still inadequate—humanitarian aid to enter the besieged territory.
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’!
Meat Lobbyists Attend COP28 to Contradict Climate Research “If we are going to abate climate catastrophe, we must significantly curtail meat production,” one advocate said. Powerful meat corporations are planning to push false claims that meat is “sustainable nutrition” at COP28, an international environmental conference that meets yearly to establish a global response to the climate crisis. The meat lobbyists’ pro-meat communications strategy is contradicted by research showing that 57 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions attributed to food production are generated by meat, aquaculture, dairy and eggs.
Agribusiness/Factory Farms — Environmental Hazards! Over 90% of the food we eat are Factory Farmed! What are the Costs?
- By their very size, they enhance the global warming of the Earth
- Lately, Facory Farms are Responsible for all of the plague oPandemics:US Capitalism Ignores Its’ Own Science for Two Decades!
From: The United States National Center for Biotechnology Information of the Institue of Health’s Essay Primary Pandemic Prevention:
COP28: A Billion Lives Will be Lost by 2100 without These Top Seven Climate Policies In a recent review of more than 180 peer-reviewed articles — which I conducted with fellow researcher Richard Parncutt — we found that a scientific consensus has formed around the so-called 1,000-ton rule. The 1,000-ton rule states that a person is killed every time humanity burns 1,000 tons of fossil carbon. Shockingly, we found that a 2 C temperature rise equates to a billion prematurely dead people over the next century, killed as a result of a wide range of global warming related climate breakdowns.
Global Warming is Self-Acclerating Unless Burning Fossil Fuel Stops Now!: Not Reduce. Not Abate’: UN Chief Calls for Total Fossil Fuel Phaseout at COP28 “Humanity’s fate hangs in the balance,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres at second day of global climate conference. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres repeated the call for a global phaseout of fossil fuels during his remarks at the opening of the World Climate Action Summit as the U.N. Climate Change Conference entered its second day on Friday. Guterres delivered a dire warning to the 260 world leaders gathered for the two-day summit taking place within the two week COP28 conference in Dubaias heurged them to ramp up their climate ambitions in the name of the future of human civilization.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Newsguard: Ex-CIA Agent Calls Out Deep State for Censoring Media In early November, the leadership and board of Consortium News, the independent news site, filed a major lawsuit against the federal government and NewsGuard Technologies, Inc. NewsGuard at first glance looks like a media watchdog organization, a group that seeks to keep misinformation and disinformation out of the mainstream. That notion is quickly dispelled, however, as soon as one takes a look under the hood. But first a little background: Consortium News is one of the country’s most highly-respected independent news sources. It was founded in 1995 by journalist Robert Parry, who gained fame at the Associated Press, and later at Newsweek, for his role in uncovering the Iran-Contra affair and for breaking the story of CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking. Parry was a winner of the prestigious George Polk Award for National Reporting and of the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence, bestowed by Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation.
Marjorie Cohn: The Supreme Court May Be Poised to Kill the Voting Rights Act Once and for All A federal court said only the government, not civil rights groups or individuals, can enforce the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act, which Congress passed to enforce the 15th Amendment, has been targeted by the right wing since it was enacted in 1965. In the last few years, the Supreme Court has weakened the Voting Rights Act but has never ruled that civil rights organizations and aggrieved individuals could not sue to enforce its provisions. On November 20, 2023, a panel of the Eighth United States Circuit Court of Appeals ruled two-to-one in a racial gerrymandering case that only the Department of Justice (DOJ) can file lawsuits to vindicate voting rights under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. In Arkansas NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment, the appellate panel dismissed a lawsuit filed by Black Arkansas voters who claimed that the state’s congressional map would illegally “undermine the voting strength of Black Arkansans.”
Labor:
Economy:
Michael Roberts Facebook Blog: Further signs that the Chinese economy’s recovery from the pandemic slump is faltering. The latest economic activity index for November (PMI) saw the manufacturing index drop further below 50 (50 is the threshold for growth) at 49.1, while the services sector came in at 50.2, the lowest reading since the pandemic lockdowns ended last December. There are two reasons for the slowdown. The first is domestic, because of the property crash as real estate development has been a significant part of economic expansion. The second is that the rest of the world is slowing down, reducing China’s export growth and manufacturing sales.
World:
Did Israeli PM Netanyahu start Bombing Gaza Again to Stay out of Jail and Appease Fascists in his Cabinet? The propaganda put out by the Biden administration would have us believe that the Israeli government, shocked by the horrid October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, is turning Gaza into rubble in a quest to destroy Hamas and prevent the recurrence of such an assault. On December 1, the United Nations conveyed a report that at least 178 Palestinians were killed and 589 wounded in Israeli bombing strikes. All aid trucks were barred entry. Palestinians in Gaza have been under economic siege since 2007 and need 500 trucks a day of aid to avoid starvation.
The History of Gaza: On Conquerors, Resurgence and Rebirth Those unfamiliar with Gaza and its history are likely to always associate Gaza with destruction, rubble and Israeli genocide. And they can hardly be blamed. On 3 November, the UN Development Programme and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) announced that 45 per cent of Gaza’s housing units have been destroyed or damaged since the beginning of the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza. But the history of Gaza is also a history of great civilisations, as well as a history of revival, rebirth. Shortly before the war, specifically 23 September, archaeologists in Gaza announced that four Roman-era tombs had been unearthed in Gaza City. They include “two lead coffins, one delicately carved with harvest motifs and the other with dolphins gliding through water,” ARTNews reported.
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
The Eugene V. Debs Museum: What It Spoke to Bill Walton, Larry Bird, and Me Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926), thrown in jail by Grover Cleveland for leading the Pullman Strike in 1894, would become the Socialist candidate for U.S. president five times, receiving 6% of the vote in 1912, and running his final campaign in 1920 from a federal prison cell, incarcerated by Woodrow Wilson for speaking out against World War I. A little more than a century ago, Debs—along with enough other Americans to scare the hell out of the U.S. ruling class—believed that with the defeat of chattel slavery, the next great victory would certainly be the defeat of wage slavery. . . . When I’ve read about Debs, what sticks out is his integrity, intelligence, generosity, tenacity, and courage, but hanging out in his former home for a few hours offered something more. It brought to life how Gene’s combination of personal traits was so formidable that he could create receptivity, at least in open-minded Americans, for an antidote to capitalism and its adverse effects of insecurity, self-absorption, anxiety, and depression—“symptoms” of an “economic injustice disorder” that plagued millions of Americans in his day and continues to do so today. More later on Gene and my experience of the Debs Museum, but first: What the hell do Bill Walton and Larry Bird have to do with Gene and the museum? The Debs Museum director Allison Duerk is full of fun facts, and during my visit, she mentioned that Bill Walton got Larry Bird to accompany him on a tour of the museum. Walton, as a UCLA student-athlete, was arrested in 1972 for protesting the Vietnam War, and in the mid-1980s he was a Boston Celtic teammate of Larry Bird. “Larry the Legend”—also known as “the Hick from French Lick”—grew up in French Lick, Indiana, and then became the greatest basketball player, by far, in the history of Terre Haute’s Indiana State University. . . . The Debs Museum director Allison Duerk is full of fun facts, and during my visit, she mentioned that Bill Walton got Larry Bird to accompany him on a tour of the museum. Walton, as a UCLA student-athlete, was arrested in 1972 for protesting the Vietnam War, and in the mid-1980s he was a Boston Celtic teammate of Larry Bird. “Larry the Legend”—also known as “the Hick from French Lick”—grew up in French Lick, Indiana, and then became the greatest basketball player, by far, in the history of Terre Haute’s Indiana State University. The Bird-Walton visit to the Debs Museum in Terre Haute occurred in 2013, following the dedication of a Larry Bird statue (close to the Debs museum) that was attended by Walton. This visit “was not a step in, step out visit,” according to Terre Haute’s Tribune-Star (“Bill Walton, Larry Bird Visit Eugene V. Debs Museum”), in which Gary Daily reported they spent a full hour and a half visiting the museum. Daily noted, “Walton spent some time looking over the list of distinguished recipients of the Debs Award, an honor bestowed on a person whose life work has been in concert with the ideals of Eugene V. Debs,” as Bill pointed out the names of Debs Award winners Pete Seeger, Coretta Scott King, and Howard Zinn.