Daily News Digest December 6, 2023
Images of the Day:
Carlos Latuff: With the daily genocide committed by #Israel against Palestinians in #Gaza, the Zionist patrol has never been more active than it’s now!
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:
The Purpose of Governments
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
When Poverty Is a Policy Choice, the Safety Net Must Be Defended Lawmakers and middle-class voters need to understand that poor people work as hard as humanly possible. We have families, we go to school, we access every resource we can find. It takes tremendous mental strength to survive poverty. Lawmakers have allowed life-saving programs collapse and poor families like mine are the ones paying the price. It’s time to fight back.
Divert Military Spending To Fund Climate Aid, Activists Urge Cop28 World’s militaries produce at least 5.5% of emissions, as evidence mounts that climate crisis puts regions at greater risk of war Wealthy nations should divert 5% of their military budgets to climate finance, advocates argue. The call comes as global leaders at Cop28 in Dubai gather for a special-themed day on “relief, recovery, and peace” on Sunday, marking the first time climate-fueled conflict has ever been on an international climate conference agenda. Participants will discuss the need to direct aid to “highly vulnerable, fragile, and conflict-affected communities” as evidence mounts that climate disasters put regions at greater risk of war, and amid ongoing conflict in Palestine as well as Ukraine, Sudan, and other areas.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
Israel Used US-Made Munitions to Massacre Two Gazan Families, Including 19 Kids Amnesty International’s findings “should be an urgent wake-up call to the Biden administration,” said the group’s secretary-general. An AmnestyInternationalinvestigation published Tuesday found that the Israeli military used U.S.-made munitions in two illegal airstrikes on homes in the occupied Gaza Strip in October, killing more than 43 people from two families—including 19 children. Invoking the Genocide Convention Against Israel Sam Husseini suggests ways global outrage can be harnessed to help induce a country to invoke the Genocide Convention against Israel at the International Court of Justice. But what can be done now, Prof. Francis Boyle, who successfully represented the Bosnians before the World Court, argues is to use emergency processes to give more teeth to the World Court. This can be done by invoking the Genocide Convention. This is outlined by Boyle, noted by U.N. whistleblower Craig Mokhiber, backed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire and written about by myself. And most recently by Craig Murray, now a human rights activist who was the British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee.
Doctors Without Borders Tells Key UN Body to Stop ‘Absolute Horror’ in Gaza “Israel has shown a blatant and total disregard for the protection of Gaza’s medical facilities. We are watching as hospitals are turned into morgues and ruins.” The international president of Doctors Without Borders on Monday pleaded with members of the United Nations Security Council to do everything in their power to halt the Israeli military’s expanding assault on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 15,000 people in less than two months and decimated the territory’s healthcare system. In an open letter , Dr. Christos Christou wrote that “words fail us to describe the absolute horror being inflicted on Palestinian civilians by Israel as it carries out incessant and indiscriminate warfare in Gaza for all the world to see.”
This is a War on Children, and “Safe Zones” are Death Traps: UNICEF Gaza was a free-fire zone on Saturday and Sunday, with UN officials saying that no place in the Strip is safe. Hundreds were killed, almost all of them innocent noncombatants, and including a worrisome number of children. Although Israel tried to pull the stunt of issuing a map with supposedly safe zones, almost no one in Gaza has access to the map because of electricity outages and lack of internet access. Moreover, many Palestinians don’t have transport, and there is nothing to eat or drink at those places anyway. Many are refusing to move again, since so many are already internally displaced persons crowded into inadequate United Nations Works and Relief Shelters, which lack sufficient food, water and other necessities for these hundreds of thousands of people made homeless.
Netanyahu Corruption Trial Resumes Amid War in Gaza Following a two month recess issued in the wake of the October 7th attack by Hamas, the Israeli Prime Minister’s corruption trial is set to resume. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expects his trial on corruption charges to be resumed today following a recess of two months since the start of the war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Israel Hayom reported on Sunday.
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’!
Social Murder: Worldwide, 1 in 12 Hospitals Won’t Survive Extreme Weather Risk of damage to hospitals from extreme weather has increased by 41% since 1990 On December 2, XDI Cross Dependency Initiative, an consultancy that specializes in understanding and managing unavoidable climate change, released report that evaluates physical climate risks facing over 200,000 hospitals around the world. Key Findings include:
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Without a phase out of fossil fuels, by 2100, 1 in 12 hospitals worldwide will be at high risk of total or partial shutdown from extreme weather events — a total of 16,245 hospitals.
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Without a phase out of fossil fuels, all of these 16,245 hospitals will require adaptation, where suitable. Even with this enormous investment, for many, relocation will be the only option. . . .
Report Details ‘Toxic’ Fossil Fuel Pollution in COP28 Host UAE “Nobody will ever hold the government to account publicly,” said one climate campaigner. “We do not have the privilege of speaking out against the government.” Despite greenwashing efforts like hosting the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference, the United Arab Emirates—the world’s seventh-biggest oil producer and sixth-largest exporter—is contributing heavily to toxic air pollution, creating a “devastating impact on human health.” That’s according to a Monday report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) report—entitled ‘You Can Smell Petrol in the Air’: UAE Fossil Fuels Feed Toxic Pollution —which “documents alarmingly high air pollution levels in the UAE” and how toxic air caused by oil and gas production creates “major health risks” for the country’s 9.4 million people.
70,000+ Healthcare Workers to Biden: Stop ‘Malignant Growth’ of LNG “My medical opinion is that we should not be building nor permitting more LNG export terminals,” one health expert said. A group of public health organizations sent a letter to President Joe Biden Sunday asking him to stop the buildout of liquefied natural gas export infrastructure and, specifically, to rule that the proposed Calcasieu Pass 2, or CP2, export terminal “is not in the public’s interest.” The letter was signed by 30 local and national groups that represent more than 70,000 health professionals. It argued that CP2 and the “malignant growth” of LNG export terminals generally would harm health by contributing both to localized pollution and the climate crisis.
Fossil CO₂ Emissions Hit Record High Yet Again in 2023 Global emissions of fossil carbon dioxide (CO₂), in yet another year of growth, will increase by 1.1% in 2023. These emissions will hit a record 36.8 billion tonnes. That’s the finding of the Global Carbon Project’s 18th annual report card on the state of the global carbon budget, which we released today. Fossil CO₂ includes emissions from the combustion and use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) and cement production. Adding CO₂ emissions and removals from land-use change, such as deforestation and reforestation, human activities are projected to emit 40.9 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2023.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
In New York, Inadequate Treatment Is Turning Drug Arrests Into Death Sentences Deaths related to detoxification at a Syracuse jail show why jail is still not the place to address the opioid crisis.
Only Newspeak in this State!: FL AG’s Legal Brief Claims Libraries Should Only Convey “Government’s Message” “Florida’s public-school libraries are a forum for government, not private, speech,” Florida AG Ashley Moody claimed. The state of Florida has submitted an amicus brief in a federal lawsuit regarding a school district’s library book bans, alleging that libraries exist only to promote local and state governments’ interests — a claim that has been roundly condemned by librarians. This past summer, speech rights group PEN America, publisher Penguin Random House and a group of authors jointly filed a lawsuit against Escambia County School District, alleging that the banning of around 10 books in school libraries violated the civil rights of students, barring their “access to books on a wide range of topics and that express a diversity of viewpoints.” The books, centering on themes of race and/or LGBTQ identity, were banned after complaints from just one parent.
Labor:
Economy:
Michael Roberts Facebook Blog Re: Precarious Finances: 38% Of Europeans No Longer Eat Three Meals a Day “More than half of Europeans say their budget has tightened over the past three years, according to a recent study. Rising prices have pushed almost one-third of Europeans into a “precarious” financial situation, a recent survey has found. The second European Barometer on Poverty and Precariousness examined Europeans’ ability to make purchases and found that it has declined over the past three years, forcing a majority of them skip meals and resort to making difficult financial choices. Of the 10,000 surveyed by Ipsos for French Secours Populaire, 29% said their financial situation was “precarious” and any unexpected expense would make their balance tip. Nearly one in two Europeans think that they face a high risk of falling into a precarious situation in the next few months, succumbing to rising prices and relatively stagnant pay.”
Jamie Dimon to Testify at Senate Banking Hearing; Don’t Expect His Bank’s Financing of Sex Trafficking or 5 Felony Counts to Come Up Tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., the CEOs of the eight mega banks on Wall Street will take their seats at a hearing called by the Senate Banking Committee as part of its annual nod to the pretense that it is providing oversight of these inscrutable Frankenbanks. Among the gang of eight will be Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States with a rap sheet that makes a mockery of U.S. rules for maintaining the safety and soundness of banks.
World:
Dutch Court Hears Case Against Netherlands for Complicity in Israeli War Crimes Government documents revealed the Netherlands has allowed at least one shipment of reserve military supplies to Israel. ADutch court on Monday heard opening arguments in a case brought by four human rights organizations that have accused the government of the Netherlands of being complicit in Israeli war crimes due to its export of military supplies as Israel kills thousands of civilians in Gaza.
COP28 Activists Defy UAE Protest Restrictions to Demand Ceasefire in Gaza Some held banners with watermelons, a symbol of the Palestinian movement, to circumvent a ban on Palestinian flags. Despite strict limits on protest in the United Arab Emirates, as well as United Nations rules at the climate conference known as COP28 now underway in Dubai, over 100 people demonstrated on the sidelines of the summit Sunday in solidarity with Palestine to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Some held banners with watermelons painted on them, a known symbol of the Palestinian movement, to circumvent a ban on Palestinian flags. Protesters were barred from chanting phrases like “from the river to the sea” and “Free Palestine” and were not permitted to say “Gaza,” “Palestine” and “Israel” or name any other nation. Several still did so in defiance. Democracy Now! is broadcasting from COP28 this week, and we feature voices from the protest.
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
Medicare Advantage Plans Disadvantage Many Elderly and Disabled People For-profit Medicare Advantage program restrictions routinely result in delays and the denial of necessary health care. When retired veterinarian Richard Timmins went on a Medicare Advantage plan in 2016, he admits that he knew very little about Traditional Medicare (also called Original Medicare) or the more than 3,800 Medicare Advantage plans that are marketed to seniors and the disabled. “I went to a so-called Medicare Information Session and took the recommendation of the speaker and ran with it,” Timmins told Truthout. “I did not know that he was paid a commission for every person he signed up for a plan. The issue for me was cost.” Like other Medicare beneficiaries, Timmins knew that the standard premium for Medicare coverage — $164 per month in 2023 — would be taken out of his monthly Social Security checks. He also understood that there would be a $226 annual deductible for Part B, which covers doctor’s visits, but after that deductible was met, Traditional Medicare would pick up 80 percent of the cost of his care. What’s more, he knew that dental, optical and audiology were not covered by the plan and that he would be responsible for paying the remainder of his health care costs — 20 percent of the total — out of pocket unless he purchased a separate, costly Medigap insurance plan.