Daily News Digest December 15, 2023
Images of the Day:
Bendib: McCarthyism 2.0
Israel Raids Gaz’s Al Shifa Hospital
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:
In light of this public stance and in the wake of its having disgusted most of mankind with its latest Security Council veto, would the U.S. government really dare to disgust most of mankind again with a second anti-Palestinian veto in rapid succession, one which would simultaneously lay bare the cynical insincerity of its purported support for Palestinian statehood, which is already recognized diplomatically by the UN, by 138 UN member states and by the Holy See/Vatican City? Exceptionally, right now, it might not. If there is anything left of international law and the UN system, the occupation of the entire territory of a UN member state by another UN member state, as in the case of Kuwait for seven months, cannot be permitted to persist indefinitely and without consequences. With global sympathy and support for Palestine and its people at an all-time high, Palestine has nothing to lose — and potentially a great deal to gain — from putting the United States to the test. — What Next After the General Assembly Vote?
The propaganda from the Biden administration has been so extreme at times that even the Israeli military has suggested they tone it down a notch or two. Biden falsely claimed to see images of “terrorists beheading children” and then knowingly relayed that unverified allegation as fact — including over the objections of his advisers — and publicly questioned the death toll of Palestinian civilians. None of this is by accident, nor can it be attributed to the president’s propensity to exaggerate or stumble into gaffes. Everything we know about Biden’s 50-year history of supporting and facilitating Israel’s worst crimes and abuses leads to one conclusion: Biden wants Israel’s destruction of Gaza — with more than 7,000 children dead — to unfold as it has. — This Is Not a War Against Hamas (The notion that the war would end if Hamas was overthrown or surrenders is as ahistorical as it is false.)
Videos of the Day:
Phase Down, Not Phase Out: COP28 Deal on Fossil Fuels Disappoints Activists & Vulnerable States
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
Hollywood Blockbuster ‘Civil War’ Coming to a Theater Near You Amid 2024 Election “What kind of American are you?” The measure now heads to the House, where the Congressional Progressive Caucus leadership is calling for a no vote. In an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed a sprawling $886 billion military policy bill that includes an extension of surveillance authority that the government has used—and heavily abused—to access the communications of activists, journalists, lawmakers, and others without a warrant.
Israeli Knesset Member: Bernie Sanders Ignored Both of My Appeals for Ceasefire Israeli parliament member Ofer Cassif is urging Sanders and other U.S. progressives to pressure Israel toward ceasefire. “In less than two months, Israel has killed more civilians than Russia killed in Ukraine in two years,” Israeli parliament member Ofer Cassif told me recently, expressing horror at Israel’s ongoing onslaught against the Palestinians civilians trapped under Israel’s relentless attacks in Gaza. The Israeli government’s response to the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas “has nothing to do with the well-being of Israelis,” added Cassif, who has represented the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash-Ta’al) coalition in the Israeli Knesset since 2019. Rather, it “has everything to do with revenge … and preserving this fascist government in power,” he said. In this exclusive interview for Truthout, Cassif — who has faced formal backlash since October for decrying what he has described as the Israeli Occupation Forces’ “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians — analyzes the roots of the Israeli government’s seeming disregard for the Israeli prisoners held by Hamas, and discusses his efforts to persuade progressives within the U.S. Democratic Party to pressure the leaders of the Israeli government to agree to a ceasefire.
They Don’t Consider Immigrants and Palestinians as Human Beings!: Biden Reportedly Open to Attacking Immigrant Rights to Secure Israel/Ukraine Aid The Biden administration is “just openly willing to bring back Title 42 in order to get money for their well-funded genocide happening in Gaza?” asked one immigration rights advocate.
Assassinations Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations While applauding itself as an oasis of democracy, the United States, in reality, is a superpower intent on infiltrating foreign governments, obliterating entire cultures, and carrying out murderous military interventions in developing countries the world over. Washington Bullets is about the bullets sent by architects of U.S. imperialism—the nation’s political and economic elites—to crush revolutions, assassinate democratically elected leaders, and to destroy hope. Focusing on the rising national liberation movements in the Third World after the Second World War and continuing up to the present, historian and journalist Vijay Prashad delivers a scathing indictment of U.S. imperialism, from the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup in Iran, to the twenty-first-century ousters of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil and Evo Morales in Bolivia.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
“Mass Assassination Factory”: Israeli Intelligence Personnel Expose IDF Terrorism A chilling report by +972 Magazine and Local Call (‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza’), based on testimony from seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community, exposes the grim reality of Israel’s war on Gaza. It claims the IDF knowingly selects civilian targets, routinely wipes out entire families, and writes off hundreds of innocent lives at a time as “collateral damage”. The sources say these tactics are intended to instil fear in the population. Let us call things by their real names: this is terrorism.
NYT Amplifies Outrage Over Imaginary Calls for Genocide University presidents are under fire from politicians and the media over what is being framed as their waffling over allowing antisemitic speech on their campuses. But it is a concocted outrage that has nothing to do with safeguarding Jewish students, and the New York Times is going along for the ride. The uproar concerns an appearance by the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania before the House Education committee, in which Rep. Elise Stefanik (R–NY) grilled them about antisemitism on campus and whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” violates university codes of conduct.
Israel’s Brutal Assault on Gaza Destroys More Schools, Homes, Hospitals as Death Toll Tops 18,000 In Gaza, witnesses say Israeli soldiers shot displaced people at “point-blank” range after they raided Shadia Abu Ghazala School in the northern al-Faluja area. According to Al Jazeera, newborn babies were reportedly among the victims. Heavy bombardment continues throughout the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah and Khan Younis, where homes, businesses and schools were leveled in Israeli attacks. In Rafah, resident Mohammed Obaid joined rescue efforts Tuesday, searching the rubble of a destroyed building that was attacked by Israeli rocketfire, killing at least four children.
Pogroms, Nazis and Iron Walls: Israelis can Imagine any Frame but Human, Occupied Palestinians Pogrom. This Russian term denotes a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring Jews and destroying their property. One of the deadliest pogroms (50 Jews were killed and nearly 600 wounded) took place in Kishinev a hundred and twenty years ago, in April 1903. But the trauma of Russian Zionists facing the oppression in Tsarist Russia over a century ago continues to inform Israel’s political culture. The Russian word has been widely used by Israelis to characterise the Hamas attack on Southern Israel in October 2023. It had also been used before. For example, an Israeli general employed it a few weeks earlier when armed Zionist settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Huwara on the occupied West Bank. These attacks have intensified since. The term appears appropriate since gun-toting Israeli vigilantes were attacking unarmed civilians.
UN Members Support Gaza Cease-Fire in Overwhelming 153-10 Vote “Humanity has prevailed,” said Egyptian Ambassador Osama Abdel Khalek. “The Israeli aggression on Gaza must end. This bloodshed must stop.” The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution demanding “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire” in Israel’s two-month war on Gaza after the U.S. last week used its permanent member status to veto a similar Security Council measure. The resolution also demands “that all parties comply with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, notably with regard to the protection of civilians,” as well as “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access.”
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’!
George Monbiot: Baked In The structure of the climate summits ensures that the most lethal interests prevail, by design. Here are some better models. Let’s face it: climate summits are broken. The delegates talk and talk, while Earth systems slide towards deadly tipping points. Since the climate negotiations began in 1992 more carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels has been released worldwide than in all preceding human history. This year is likely to set a new emissions record. They are talking us to oblivion. Throughout these Conference of the Parties (Cop) summits, fossil fuel lobbyists have swarmed the corridors and meeting rooms. It’s like allowing weapons manufacturers to dominate a peace conference. This year, the lobbyists outnumber all but one of the national delegations. And they’re not the only ones: Cop28 is also heaving with meat and livestock lobbyists and reps from other planet-trashing industries. What should be the most important summit on Earth is treated like a trade fair.
George Monbiot: Billionaires Are Bad for Us How economic power leads inexorably to environmental destruction. Don’t they have children? Don’t they have grandchildren? Don’t rich and powerful people care about the world they will leave to their descendants? These are questions I’m asked every week, and they are not easy to answer. How can we explain a mindset that would sacrifice the habitable planet for a little more power or a little more wealth, when they have so much already? There are many ways in which extreme wealth impoverishes us. The most obvious is money-spreading across our common ecological space. The recent reporting by Oxfam, the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Guardian gives us a glimpse of how much of the planet the very wealthy now sprawl across. The richest 1% of the world’s people burn more carbon than the poorest 66%, while multibillionaires, running their yachts, private jets and multiple homes, each consume thousands of times the global average. You could see it as another colonial land grab: a powerful elite has captured the resources on which everyone depends.
Michael Roberts Facebook Blog The COP28 final statement talks of “a transition away from all fossil fuels” for the first time. But a ‘transition away’ is mealy mouthed sophistry to avoid ‘phasing down’, let alone ‘phasing out’, fossil fuels that cause over 90% of all carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The ‘transition away’ means that fossil fuel companies can go on producing oil, gas and coal and countries and governments can go on using these energy sources – while supposedly they will gradually be reduced to avoid going above the 1.5C temperature rise limit by 2030 and achieve zero net emissions by 2050. This is not possible. The targets will not be met and the consequences for people and the planet will follow.
Final COP28 Deal Bears the Fingerprints of the Fossil Fuel Industry “This is not the historical deal that the world needed: It has many loopholes and shortcomings,” said one critic. The COP28 climate summit in Dubai ended Wednesday with an agreement that, for the first time, explicitly endorsed a move away from fossil fuels — a weak but historic signal that the oil and gas era may be coming to an end. But the deal, dubbed the UAE Consensus, is also chock full of escape hatches that will allow the fossil fuel industry to persist and thrive in ways that are incompatible with efforts to keep warming below critical targets set out by the Paris climate agreement.
Advocates Demand US Suspend Weed Killing Chemical That May Cause Cancer Coalition alleges glyphosate, the most heavily applied herbicide in history, does not meet required safety standard set by federal law Citing new scientific research, a coalition of farm worker, public health and environmental advocates on Wednesday filed a legal petition with US regulators demanding they immediately suspend authorization for the controversial weed killing chemical called glyphosate. The petition, filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), alleges that the chemical does not meet the required safety standard set by federal law and the EPA has “no valid assessment demonstrating otherwise”.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
- When Genocide Is No Longer Genocide Some of Israel’s defenders want to do away with the concept of genocide in hopes of washing away its war crimes. Any redefinition would allow the U.S. to disappear the many genocides it has committed domestically and internationally.
- POEM: If I Must Die, Refaat Alareer, 2023 Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, a martyr of zionist state genocidal violence, has left us with a tale of resistance and hope.
- Musings from the Margins #4: Black Lackeys, White Social Democrats, Human Rights and Empire’s Decline Black Agenda Report Editor and Columnist Ajamu Baraka has thoughts on Black Misleadership, faux human rights, the decline of the Empire, white Social Democrats, and other issues.
- One State Reality Recognizing the one state reality of Israel-Palestine instead of two-state dreaming would be a huge paradigm shift with huge implications.
- The Mirage of Mia Mottley’s ‘Progressive’ Politics Despite the praise she receives for being the “progressive” leader needed in the Caribbean, Mia Mottley and her policies in Barbados and her work within CARICOM have not veered outside the realm of neoliberal politics in any way.
- Question the Narrative that Villanizes Henry Kissinger: Correcting the memory of the obsequious butler of US empire Kissinger is known as either the epitome of a statesman or the most hated man on the planet due to the atrocities committed under his leadership or advisement. However, the weight of these acts cannot be laid only at the feet of Kissinger – he was merely a team MVP executing tactics in the US Empire’s playbook.
- You Are Entitled to Your Opinion, Not Your Own Facts During the genocide in Palestine, we have seen an extraordinary amount of propaganda in the form of media control and lies from government officials. However, the reality of this atrocity has shifted the public sentiment to support Palestine. Though there is an apparent fear of the calls for a free Palestine or a ceasefire, feelings don’t override reality.
- On this Human Rights Day, Let Us Remember that the U.S. is the Greatest Violator of Human Rights in the World The U.S. routinely violates human rights domestically and internationally.
- Presidents of Guyana and Venezuela to Hold Summit on Essequibo Dispute Scrolling Through Genocide Zionist massacres are livestreamed to the masses in high definition and still nobody can stop them.
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A Word on the Meaning of Political Self-Empowerment for Our Movement Kenya’s decision to join a US led occupation of Haiti is an example of imperialism in Black face. According to a former Chief Justice the act is also a violation of Kenya’s constitution.
Labor:
The War at the Point of Production: The ‘Killing Fields’ of the United States: Endometrial Cancer & Pesticides Endometrial cancer is an increasingly common form of cancer in developed countries. There are both genetic and environmental risk factors associated with the development of endometrial cancer, and changing the environmental risk factors may be the easiest way of reducing the incidence of endometrial cancer. Pesticides – mixtures of chemicals used in agriculture to protect crop growth – are known to cause certain cancers, but it is unclear if they can cause endometrial cancer. A recent study in Spain found that occupational exposure to pesticides is associated with endometrial cancer. . . . Occupational exposure to pesticides was associated with two times greater odds of developing endometrial cancer than not having occupational exposure. Exposures that happened further in the past were associated with cancer, as were exposures that happened before the age of 32. Surprisingly, increased cumulative exposure was not associated with endometrial cancer. Working in agricultural, poultry, and livestock activities was associated with four times greater odds of developing endometrial cancer. Working as cleaning staff was not associated with endometrial cancer, which could be because the intensity and frequency of exposure in these jobs may be lower.
Economy:
FRED: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar
The New York Fed Has Extended Its Half Trillion Dollar Bailout Facility to a Sprawling Japanese Bank You’ve Never Heard Of Quietly, on December 1, the New York Fed published the following statement on its website: “The Norinchukin Bank, New York Branch, has been added to the list of Standing Repo Facility Counterparties, effective December 1, 2023.” The Standing Repo Facility (SRF) is a permanent $500 billion bailout facility created by the Federal Reserve and operated by the New York Fed – the private regional Fed bank where multi-trillion dollar Wall Street bank bailouts have become a regular feature of its operations.
World:
Israel Suffers Heavy Losses in Hamas Ambush, Faces Diplomatic Isolation Over Gaza
- 10 troops were reported dead in the military’s worst 1-day loss since 15 soldiers were killed on October 31
- PM Netanyahu vowed to fight on despite international pressure for a ceasefire and waning global support for the war in Gaza
Israel announced its worst combat losses for more than a month on Wednesday after an ambush in the ruins of Gaza, and faced growing diplomatic isolation as civilian deaths mounted and a humanitarian catastrophe worsened in the Palestinian territory. Intense fighting was under way in both north and south Gaza, a day after the United Nations demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. US President Joe Biden said Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombing of civilians was costing international support. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military would fight on despite international pressure for a ceasefire.
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