Daily News Digest December 19, 2023
Images of the Day: The Creeping Iron Heal: Starting with Attacks on the First Amendment and Militarization of the Police, Capitalism is Gradually Applying The Iron Heal! 
Newsweek: Police State, America’s New Way of Life? Is Martial Law Coming to the United States?
Since World War I, ‘the war to end all wars’, 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”
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 executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. — Communist Manifesto, Chapter I. Bourgeois and Proletarians
There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever. — Orwell
Resistance to war is taking place right now in both Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In Israel, thousands of military reservists are refusing to take part in the violence of the occupation, and in protest of the country’s drift toward authoritarianism. Among Palestinians, non-violent resistance also has a very large following, and has had for a number of years. And if anything, the numbers of military refuseniks in Russia and Ukraine are even greater. The BBC has reported that 20,000 young men have fled Ukraine to avoid military service, and those numbers in Russia are likely higher. In fact, resistance to war by young men facing conscription and even active duty soldiers is not new, and has a storied history. For instance, during the First World War on the evening of December 24th in 1914, peace broke out in the most unlikely of places. In the blasted, putrid trenches of Belgium and France, soldiers fighting on the Western Front put aside their arms in what became known as the Christmas Truce. — What the World needs Now is another Winter Truce
Videos of the Day:
Glen Greenwald: The Horrifying War in Gaza Continues
The U.S. State Department Has Failed to Protect U.S. Citizens Escaping From Gaza Palestinian Americans in Gaza have had little support from the U.S. government as they desperately attempt to evacuate.
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
‘Corruption, Plain and Simple’: Gifts Flowed to Clarence Thomas After Salary Complaints “He threatened to quit the court unless he got a pay raise, then billionaires started secretly funding his luxury lifestyle and making payments to Ginni.” “What a coincidence,” Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. wrote in response to ProPublica‘s latest revelations.
A Head in the Polls/ 
In Palestine and Darfur, the US Continues to Have the Blood of Genocide on Its Hands Israel couldn’t have kept its foot on the throat of the Palestinian people for the past half-century without its partners in crime in Washington. Hours after Israeli forces rained 450 missiles on the people of Gaza, the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution calling for a cease-fire. There is no better example of the impunity enjoyed by the co-partners in this decades-long genocide. The Palestinian death toll for the past two months is fast approaching 20,000. The vast majority of those killed were so young that UNICEF currently deems this battered strip of land the most dangerous place on earth to be a child.
Pulling the Masks of the Hideous ‘Terrorists’—Us How can humanity be so blatantly flippant about its own suicide? Why are we so divided from ourselves? There are a number of blatant ways for terrorist organizations—by which I mean national governments—to justify committing mass murder. Once you start killing, it’s hard to stop. But you have to justify what you’re doing—a process humanity has been engaged in since the dawn of civilization. We call it “war,” which turns mass murder into a necessary abstraction and gives us a far simpler way of dealing with conflict than . . . oh my God, understanding counter points of view and creating solutions rather than enemies.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
The Chris Hedges Report: The Death of Israel Settler colonial states have a terminal shelf life. Israel is no exception.Israel will appear triumphant after it finishes its genocidal campaign in Gaza and the West Bank. Backed by the United States, it will achieve its demented goal. Its murderous rampages and genocidal violence will exterminate or ethnically cleanse Palestinians. Its dream of a state exclusively for Jews, with any Palestinians who remain stripped of basic rights, will be realized. It will revel in its blood-soaked victory. It will celebrate its war criminals. Its genocide will be erased from public consciousness and tossed into Israel’s huge black hole of historical amnesia. Those with a conscience in Israel will be silenced and persecuted. But by the time Israel achieves its decimation of Gaza — Israel is talking about months of warfare — it will have signed its own death sentence. Its facade of civility, its supposed vaunted respect for the rule of law and democracy, its mythical story of the courageous Israeli military and miraculous birth of the Jewish nation, will lie in ash heaps. Israel’s social capital will be spent. It will be revealed as an ugly, repressive, hate-filled apartheid regime, alienating younger generations of American Jews. Its patron, the United States, as new generations come into power, will distance itself from Israel the way it is distancing itself from Ukraine. Its popular support, already eroded in the U.S., will come from America’s Christianized fascists who see Israel’s domination of ancient Biblical land as a harbinger of the Second Coming and in its subjugation of Arabs a kindred racism and white supremacy.
Expert: Biden Remark on Israel’s “Indiscriminate Bombing” Could Incriminate Him “Biden is in effect conceding that the Israeli military is committing war crimes,” the international law expert said. President Joe Biden may have put himself at risk of prosecution for aiding the committing of war crimes, an expert has said, with his acknowledgement this week that Israel is “indiscriminate[ly] bombing” Gaza, which is widely considered a violation of international human rights law.
They Stole a Country in Full Bloom Pro-Palestinian Israeli activist Miko Peled explains to an audience in Melbourne, Australia how the Israelis stole Palestinian cities and farmland in 1948 and continued its ethnic cleansing until today’s brutal operation in Gaza.
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’!
The Apocalypse: Climate Change Denial Market Based Solutions! 
However, in recent years, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century. That’s because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall. — The Paris Agreement
Michael Roberts Facebook Blog: Prof Eliot Jacobson calculates the monthly deviation from the 1850-1900 IPCC baseline for the year 2023 of the average global temperature. 
The Brockovich Report Can The EPA Make Good On Its Promise To Finally Remove Lead From Our Drinking Water? On November 30, the agency revealed a proposal to strengthen its Lead and Copper Rule, requiring water systems across the country to replace lead service lines within 10 years. Additionally, the EPA is proposing lowering the lead action level from the current 15 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion and improving sampling protocols utilized by water systems. These actions signify big steps toward the Biden administration’s commitment to remove every lead service line in America to protect children and vulnerable populations from the negative impacts of lead in drinking water, which were first proposed in 2021 as part of the admin’s Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan. Yes, lead is still a major problem in this country. Up to 10 million American households and 400,000 schools and child care centers are served by a lead service line or pipes and other fixtures.
EPA Is Considering Approval of Pesticide Despite Not Meeting Safety Standards Internal emails suggest that political pressure plays a role in eschewing public health concerns. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering a new approval for a pesticide that would be used on Florida oranges and grapefruits despite the fact that agency scientists have repeatedly found the chemical does not meet safety standards designed to protect children’s health, internal agency records show.
Some of Australia’s Strategically Important Coral Islands at Great Risk of Vanishing, Study Finds Fate of more than a dozen islands ‘hangs in the balance’ because of climate crisis, with vexed questions about maritime jurisdiction More than a dozen of Australia’s coral islands that help to extend the country’s maritime jurisdiction are at high risk of disappearing because of climate change, according to a study.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Police Tech Isn’t Designed to Be Accurate — It’s Made to Exert Social Control Policing technologies are inaccurate by design. In the past 15 years, policing has grown its reach, largely through an array of technologies that record and store our personal details and daily activities. Using algorithms and other formulae, authorities are able to repurpose data to meet the emerging demands of the criminal legal and immigration systems. From predictive policing to GPS-enabled ankle monitors to gunshot trackers to massive interlinked databases, police are extending their capacity to track and control. But in recent years, communities, researchers and activists have begun to build a critique of these technologies. Their critique may ultimately take us well beyond liberal notions of privacy to address fundamental questions of political power and freedom.
Israel’s War on Gaza Has Become a ‘Stress Test’ for Academic Freedom Universities must find a way to create brave spaces where difficult questions are encouraged, not silenced. s the daughter of a Syrian political exile, I never took my right to political dissent and free speech for granted. When my father left Damascus, Syria, in 1979, he narrowly escaped death. On the night of his wedding that summer, as Hafez Assad’s ruling Ba’ath Party had begun its violent crackdown on political dissidents, some of my father’s college friends were rounded up, never to be seen again. My parents fled the country the next day, eventually arriving in the U.S., where my father was accepted into a medical residency program. As the Syrian government’s crackdown worsened in the 1980s, my father’s hope of ever seeing his country again slipped into the abyss of impossibility.
The NYT Is Fanning the Flames of a Fake Outrage When covering right-wing claims of antisemitism on campus, reporters for an ostensibly liberal paper should be looking at what is actually being said and what is actually happening. 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–N.Y.) grilled them about antisemitism on campus and whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” violates university codes of conduct. The Times (12/6/23) reported the story under the headline, “College Presidents Under Fire After Dodging Questions About Antisemitism,” with the subhead: “The leaders of Harvard, MIT, and Penn appeared to evade questions about whether students should be disciplined if they call for the genocide of Jews.” Reporters Stephanie Saul and Anemona Hartocollis began:
Labor:
Economy:
World:
Gaza’s Second Front: Houthi Drones Drive Major Shipping Cos. Out of Red Sea in Blow to World Trade On Saturday, Muhammad al-Bakhiti, a member of the Politburo of the the Helpers of God (Houthi ) government of northern Yemen, announced that it had completely closed off shipping to Israel via the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea. Actually, the Helpers of God have more or less closed Red Sea shipping to everyone. He said that the Houthis had managed to idle the Israeli port of Eilat, referring to it by its pre-1948 name of Umm al-Rashrash. He pledged that the Houthis would expand their activities in the Red Sea and continue to strike at Israeli shipping and shipping headed for Israel, as well as at the Israeli navy.
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