Daily News Digest December 5, 2023
Images of the Day:
Matt Wuerker
Rohan Chakravarty #COP28 will kickstart later this month in #Dubai, a little over 2500 km from the site of the worst genocide in recent times. #Israel ‘s Prime Minister #BenjaminNetanyahu happens to among the #UAE‘s esteemed invitees. Would a global climate conference do justice to itself if the issue of dehumanization of an entire population is not addressed?
100,000 Pro-Palestinian Protesters Take To London Streets to Demand Ceasefire
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:
He has made the U.S. a co-belligerent by unconditionally supplying abundant weapons, military intelligence and political cover, including vetoes of United Nations resolutions. Biden has another apprehension—the near total control of Congress by the “Israel’s government can do no wrong” lobby. The indentured rubber-stamping Senators and Representatives have no problem supporting Israel’s violent repression and land dispossession in what is left of the original Palestine and its five million encircled Palestinians. Would these politicians deploy such eagerness in helping poor American children and their families in our country? These callous legislators know little of this history, and little of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s long support for funding of Hamas to break up any two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, they and their predecessors have blocked any Congressional public hearings featuring prominent Israeli and Palestinian peace advocates. Congress is importing censorship of those who wish to wage peace. (For the full list of our letters to Joe Biden, see nader.org). . . . In response to Biden’s repeated urging that Israel comply with the “laws of war” we described how Benjamin Netanyahu and his regime are doing just the opposite with its brutal terror campaign against defenseless Palestinian civilians and their critical public support structures. Biden knows that the Israeli government is implementing what its ministers ordered on October 8th – a total siege with no food, no water, no electricity, no fuel, and no medicine which meets the definition of the crime of genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Israeli videos provide the grisly evidence of over 20,000 bombs and missiles striking homes, apartment buildings, schools, markets, water mains, bread bakeries, hospitals, clinics, ambulances and places of worship. After many days, the terror-stricken civilians, fleeing from one place to another in Gaza while being attacked, are also dying of disease, hunger, thirst, and a lack of critical medicines, such as insulin, with the bodies of infants and children still under the rubble in numbers too many to be counted. — Behind Israel’s Brutal Genocidal Attack on Gaza Stand Joe Biden and Congress
First, there is global warming and climate change. The international Cop28 is meeting in Dubai right now on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – what is needed is a 43% reduction in emissions by the end of this decade if the world is to avoid an average increase in global temperature more than 2C above pre-industrial levels. What are the economic theories and policies that can achieve that reduction? It is worrying to know as the LSE’s own Nicholas Stern, the world’s leading climate economist, has noted: “Economics has contributed disturbingly little to discussions about climate change. As one example, the most prestigious mainstream Quarterly Journal of Economics, currently the most-cited journal in the field of economics, has never published an article on climate change!” Then there is the issue of global poverty and rising inequality of wealth and income between nations around the world and within nations. According to the World Bank, there are around 3.65bn people living on less than $6.85 a day. There are over 700m people facing daily hunger. There are over 3bn people not eating a healthy diet and so getting ill, obese, or even wasted. Is it morally right or even good economics that the top 1% of the world’s adults own nearly 50% of all the personal wealth in the world while the bottom 50% have only 1%? What can we do about this? — Why Real-World Economics Matters
Videos of the Day:
UK: Hundreds of Thousands Rally Across Cities to Support Palestinians
The Chris Hedges Report: With Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi on Zionism’s 100-year war against Palestinians. The Zionist movement from its inception has used deception, violence, ethnic cleansing and discrimination to solidify its apartheid state. The genocide in Gaza is another chapter in this 100-year war. The conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, which has reached a terrifying crescendo with the savage obliteration of Gaza, is the outcome of a 100-year-old colonial occupation by Jewish Zionists in Israel backed by major imperial powers, starting with the British and a century later with the United States. This century-long assault by Israel has one objective – to force an indigenous people from their land. The historian Rashid Khalid breaks what he calls “the hundred years of war on Palestine” into six periods. The first is the British support for Jewish Zionists during the British occupation of Palestine from 1917 and 1939. The second declaration of war is the 1947-1948 Nakbeh, or catastrophe, that saw Zionist militias ethnically cleanse 750,000 Palestinians from historic Palestine and carry out a series of massacres. The third is 1967 war when Israel seized the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza and expelled another 250,000 Palestinians. The fourth declaration of war on Palestine was Ariel Sharon’s invasion of Lebanon and the siege of Beirut, followed by the departure of Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) fighters to Tunisia and the 1982 massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. The fourth war against the Palestinians began with the first intifada, or uprising in 1987, continued with the second intifada and is taking place with the Israeli brutal assault on Gaza. The backdrop to this century of war by Israel on the Palestinians is the failure by Arab leaders to offer meaningful support to the Palestinians, in fact these leaders often colluded with Israel to weaken the Palestinian resistance movement. Joining me in the studio to discuss Israel’s settler colonial project, how it is being played out in Gaza and its consequences, is Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University and the author of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonization and Resistance, 1917-2017.”
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
The Media Monopoly: How Corporate Media Helped Lay the Groundwork for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza Corporate media outlets have treated Palestinian suffering as a nonstory for many decades. Gaza has continued to capture news headlines since the Hamas attacks on October 7 and the beginning of Israel’s increasingly disproportionate military response, which has brought the full might of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to bear on Palestinian civilians and children, prompting serious allegations of war crimes and genocide. “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly,” Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, infamously stated. But, for decades, U.S. corporate media have treated Gaza’s inhabitants as nonpersons, and daily life in Gaza as non-news. News media omissions often function as tacit permission for abuses of power. Corporate media didn’t create the violent, inhumane conditions in Gaza, but their shameful legacy of narrow, pro-Israel coverage indirectly laid the groundwork for the atrocious human suffering taking place there now.
The Supreme Court Could Blow Up the Tax Code With Moore vs US The Moore’s real fight seems to be about progressive tax policies that have not even been enacted, proposals that would finally tax the unrealized capital gains of the extremely wealthy in an adequate way. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments in Moore vs. United States, which could become the most important tax case in a century. A broad ruling could destabilize our tax system, enrich many profitable corporations, and widen existing economic and racial inequalities. The case tests whether the plaintiffs, Charles and Kathleen Moore, must pay taxes on their profits as partial owners of a multinational corporation, as required by 2017’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. A finding for the plaintiffs could lead the courts to strike down many tax laws that have been in place for decades. Their argument was rejected by other courts, but the Supreme Court nonetheless agreed to hear the case.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
Ralph Nader: Biden Will Not Escape History’s Judgement for Failure to Stop Gaza Assault Biden is skilled at shedding tears at memorials of grief in this country. But he runs dry when the recurring catastrophes befalling Palestinians beg for his presidential compassion and actual deeds.
Ralph Nader: Behind Israel’s Brutal Genocidal Attack on Gaza Stand Joe Biden and Congress Biden can get more humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza simply by enveloping them with the American flag and daring Israel to delay, obstruct or destroy these carriers of live-saving food, water, fuel and medicine. But he is too weak and too cowardly to do so.
Video Game Genorcide: Israel’s AI-Aided Bomb Targeting Creates Massacre ‘Factory’ in Gaza “This is the first AI-facilitated genocide in history,” said one observer. As Israel on Friday resumed bombarding Gaza following a weeklong pause, a joint investigation by a pair of progressive Israeli media outlets sheds new light on the Israel Defense Forces’ use of artificial intelligence to select targets, essentially creating what one former Israeli officer called a “mass assassination factory.”
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’!
‘Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter’ Denounced as Greenwashing Scheme by Fossil Fuel Arsonists “Voluntary pledges cannot be a substitute for a formal negotiated outcome at COP28 for countries to address the root cause of the climate crisis: fossil fuels.” Hundreds of civil society groups and frontline voices from around the world on Saturday condemned a voluntary pledge heralded by government leaders and fossil fuel giants, calling the “Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter” unveiled at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai nothing but a cynical industry-backed smokescreen and greenwashing ploy that will allow for the continuation of massive emissions of carbon, methane, and other greenhouse gases. “The Oil and Gas Decarbonization Accelerator is a dangerous distraction from the COP28 process,” warned David Tong, the global industry campaign manager for Oil Change International, in a statement from Dubai. “We need legal agreements, not voluntary pledges. The science is clear: staying under 1.5ºC global warming requires a full, fast, fair, and funded phase-out of fossil fuels, starting now.”
The US Push for GMO Corn is Out to Lunch Glyphosate’s association with cancer grows like a weed. So-called “Free trade” promises lower prices and more supply, but it derails food security. Mexico has been fighting this since the United States began a dispute over genetically modified (GMO) corn. In November, a trade panel made initial filings public. They reveal that the U.S. plays for agribusiness, which includes chemical and biotech companies. Meanwhile, by banning GMO corn, Mexico secures supplies of an important daily staple and limits cancer risks from glyphosate. American positions appear oblivious to this.
Only Some States Are Warning Residents of “Forever Chemicals” in Freshwater Fish Eating a single serving of freshwater fish can be the equivalent of drinking water with high levels of PFAS for a month. Bill Eisenman has always fished. “Growing up, we ate whatever we caught — catfish, carp, freshwater drum,” he said. “That was the only real source of fish in our diet as a family, and we ate a lot of it.” Today, a branch of the Rouge River runs through Eisenman’s property in a suburb north of Detroit. But in recent years, he has been wary about a group of chemicals known as PFAS, also referred to as “forever chemicals,” which don’t break down quickly in the environment and accumulate in soil, water, fish, and our bodies.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Economy:
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