Daily News Digest December 26, 2023
Images of the Day:
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
Mike Luckovich: Clarence Cookie Monster
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:
“Children in Gaza close their eyes and see nothing but devastation. They open their eyes to the same,” writes Dina Elmuti, a trauma clinician living in Chicago, of a land where childhood is perennially disrupted and “horror stories rest beneath every square inch of debris.” “They distinguish between the sounds of Israel’s weaponized aerial drones and warplanes,” she writes. “Children write their names on their limbs to be identified should they be dismembered or separated from their family following bombardments. These are the soul-shattering lessons that no child should ever have to learn, but children in Gaza learn them alongside the alphabet.” “In Gaza, children grow up fluent in a language of grief and trauma,” she says. “The images of mutilated corpses, the odor of decaying bodies, will stay with them….This is what it means to be unspeakable.” One weeps. ‑They Deem Us Weeds: This Is What It Means To Be Unspeakable
Seventy-five years of Israel military violence against defenseless Palestinians and fifty-six years of violently and illegally occupying their remaining slice of the original Palestine provides some background for Israel’s Founder, David Ben-Gurion’s candid statement: “We have taken their country.” (See, his full statement here.) The overwhelming military superiority of Israel – a nuclear armed nation – in the Middle East has produced a more aggressive Israeli government. Being more secure than ever before doesn’t seem to temper the expansionist missions of right-wing Israeli colonies in the West Bank. Presently, the narrow Netanyahu majority in the Parliament believes that “nothing can stop us.” Presently, they are right. Joe Biden and Congress are vigorously enabling the annihilations. The UN is frozen by the Joe Biden administration’s vetoes in the Security Council against ending the carnage in Gaza. The Arab nations either lay in ruins – Syria, Iraq – or are too weak to cause Israeli generals any worry. The rich Arab nations in the Gulf want to do business with prosperous Israel and, other than Qatar, care little about their Palestinian brethren. — Ralph Nader: “Nothing Will Stop Us”
Videos of the Day:
Scott Ritter & Larry Johnson: Yemen Exposes US, NATO Military WEAKNESS in Red Sea
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
We? What You Mean We? Not ‘We” The Capitalists Belong in Prison at the Hague! Merry Christmas! We All Belong in Prison at The Hague. Because human joy is anathema to us, we direct your holiday attention to your complicity in the violence in Israel and Palestine. We hope that all The Intercept’s readers are enjoying peace and contentment with their families this holiday season. That’s because human joy is anathema to us, and it is our institutional policy to locate such emotions and destroy them. We’ve previously tried to obliterate your Christmas happiness by bringing up the children living in fear of our killer drones and how capitalism is killing us all. This year we’d like to point out that in any just universe, everyone from the U.S. to the European Union would currently be imprisoned in the international prison at The Hague in the Netherlands. We’ve (The Capitalists) all committed many crimes, but the most salient today is our (their) complicity in the ultraviolence of the past several months in Israel and Palestine. This includes complicity in the October 7 attacks by Hamas, in the same way that white Americans (Founding Fathers) who failed to uproot slavery were complicit in the deaths of the five dozen men, women, and children killed by Nat Turner and his followers in 1831.
US Abstains From UN Gaza Resolution After Lobbying to Weaken It “Biden is effectively running war crimes management for Israel,” said one foreign policy expert. The United States on Friday abstained from voting on a U.N. Security Council resolution that it repeatedly stonewalled and lobbied to weaken in the face of intense international opposition as Israeli forces continue to kill hundreds of Palestinians daily. The newly passed resolution — which was introduced by the United Arab Emirates — calls for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access.”
From Guernica to Gaza Standing in front of Picasso’s 11.5 ft. x 25.5 ft. celebrated painting Guernicais one of the most sobering encounters I’ve had the displeasure of experiencing. Displeasure because the massive composition’s theme is revoltingly gruesome. Since that dastardly first-of-its-kind-waging-of-wars, nations have not learned to abide by and practice peaceful and harmonious existence. WWII was followed by wars in Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the Near East/Palestine (8 wars), Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Yemen, and Gaza, to name but a few. And in each of these wars massive bombings and aerial bombardment have been the weapon of choice, resulting in the death of millions of human beings.
Christmas Wishes for “Peace on Earth” Are Empty Without Ceasefire in Gaza How can so many US Christians sing “peace on Earth” without opposing US support for the genocide unfolding in Gaza? The message of Christmas has traditionally involved prayers for goodwill toward all and “peace on Earth,” but through their opposition to ceasefire in Gaza, most Western Christians are affirming the opposite values: that violence, weapons and destruction are the only response to real and perceived enemies.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
The Chris Hedges Report: The Cost of Bearing Witness There are scores of Palestinian writers and photographers, many of whom have been killed, who are determined to make us see the horror of this genocide. They will vanquish the lies of the killers. Writing and photographing in wartime are acts of resistance, acts of faith. They affirm the belief that one day – a day the writers, journalists and photographers may never see – the words and images will evoke empathy, understanding, outrage and provide wisdom. They chronicle not only the facts, although facts are important, but the texture, sacredness and grief of lives and communities lost. They tell the world what war is like, how those caught in its maw of death endure, how there are those who sacrifice for others and those who do not, what fear and hunger are like, what death is like. They transmit the cries of children, the wails of grief of the mothers, the daily struggle in the face of savage industrial violence, the triumph of their humanity through filth, sickness, humiliation and fear. This is why writers, photographers and journalists are targeted by aggressors in war — including the Israelis — for obliteration. They stand as witnesses to evil, an evil the aggressors want buried and forgotten. They expose the lies. They condemn, even from the grave, their killers. Israel has killed at least 13 Palestinian poets and writers along with at least 67 journalists and media workers in Gaza, and three in Lebanon since Oct. 7.
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’!
Weekly Average CO2 at Mauna Loa Last updated: December 24, 2023
- Week beginning on December 17, 2023: 422.24 ppm
- Weekly value from 1 year ago: 419.05 ppm
- Weekly value from 10 years ago: 397.72 ppm
Unchecked Human Activity Is Pushing Ecosystems Toward the Brink The planet is facing multiple severe challenges that require our immediate attention. Putting an end to the dirty and suffocating fossil fuel emissions may be the most significant global priority, but limiting the misuse of water and restoring degraded land are also essential projects. These two actions could help put the brakes on extreme weather events and slow down mounting losses in biodiversity, biocapacity, and the economy.
Countdown to 2030: the State of the Planet in 2023 The latest COP was proof of just how dysfunctional our response to these threats is. So, what can be done? . . . This year’s transition from La Niña into the warming El Niño phase gave us a glimpse of our future as we experienced record-breaking temperatures all over our planet. In 2023, around one-third of days exceeded 2.7°F (1.5°C) of global average warming compared to the 1850-1900 period. Avoiding global average warming of 2.7°F (1.5°C) was the aspirational 2050 goal of the Paris agreement, yet we have passed this threshold for much of 2023, admittedly due to the temporary El Niño period. As if this wasn’t terrifying enough, just a month after this news broke, global average temperatures exceeded historical levels by over 3.62°F (2°C), while the main Paris agreement goal was to limit global average temperature rise to 3.62°F (2°C). All this adds up to 2023 becoming the hottest year on record. Global temperature records only began in 1880, but the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service is “virtually certain” that 2023 will be the hottest year in 125,000 years, more than half the history of modern humans.
Biodiversity in Focus: United States Edition A new analysis addresses five essential questions about biodiversity — the variety of life on Earth — that need to be answered if we are going to effectively conserve nature. The United States has an incredible diversity of living natural resources. From California’s redwood forests to Maine’s bogs, and from the Alaskan tundra to the Florida Everglades, biodiversity is a source of national pride. But too much of our biodiversity is at risk: 34% of plant species and 40% of animal species are threatened with extinction, and 41% of ecosystems are at risk of collapse. A significant portion of land area—42% in the contiguous United States—has already been converted to nonnative landscapes through development and other land conversion. 1 There are countless opportunities for ecological restoration that can provide significant benefits to native species and habitats. However, restoration efforts are often costly, difficult, and not always successful. Therefore, it is critically important to conserve the biodiversity that remains before it is lost.
Big Oil Is Expanding Production. It’s Up to All of Us to Act to Stop Them. As fossil fuel mega-corporations merge, grassroots activists are fighting back Top scientists and many global leaders have agreed: to address the intensifying climate catastrophe, we must immediately address the supplyside of fossil fuels by retiring oil and gas production, quickly and drastically. It’s alarming, then, that current trends are continuing in the other direction. The recent COP28 climate summit dashed immediate hopes of agreeing on a phaseout of fossil fuel production. The Global Carbon Project projects a 1.1 percent increase in global fossil carbon dioxide emissions for
‘Narratives of Delay’: How the Animal Pharma Industry Resists Moves to Curb the Overuse of Antibiotics on Farms A DeSmog review of hundreds of documents identifies eight arguments fielded by the industrial farming lobby to allay concerns over livestock drugs. . . . As the focus turns towards implementation in the EU’s 27 member states, campaigners fear multi-national veterinary medicine companies will use the eight narratives identified by DeSmog across social media, government consultations, company reports, and other communications in an attempt to preserve annual sales of farm antibiotics, estimated to be worth $950 million in 2021, according to Grand View Research. The narratives DeSmog identified after reviewing hundreds of industry communications are:
- Restricting antibiotics will endanger animal welfare
- Restricting antibiotics will put your pets at risk
- Restricting antibiotics would endanger food security
- There is insufficient evidence that antibiotic use in animals risks causing AMR in people
- The real issue is human use of antibiotics
- Restricting antibiotics would increase the risk of spreading zoonotic diseases/AMR
- The EU and/or animal pharma industry has taken sufficient voluntary action
- We should trust vets
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
The Reality of What It Is to Have an Abortion Has to Be Brought Into Every Story Melissa Gira Grant discusses how abortion access is covered within the broader context of politics in the US. Janine Jackson: The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade has generated well-grounded fear and confusion: states ginning up their own specific laws and attempting to extend them to other states, politicians and pundits attempting to shift opinion through rhetoric — it’s not a “ban,” it’s a “standard.” And what about “abortion tourism”? Combined with horrific emerging stories of women being forced to labor through dangerous complications, it adds up to an unclear but clearly disturbing situation — and to a crying need for reporting with an overt fealty to human rights, rather than a lazy and cowardly both-sidesing of a shifting terrain.
Labor:
Economy:
The Quest for More and More Profits = Capitalism’s Gross Inequality”:
Michael Roberts Facebook Blog: The top 10% own nearly ¾ of the world’s wealth, while half the world’s population is almost entirely deprived of wealth. That’s according to the latest data from World Inequality Database. The wealth owned by the 0.01% rose from less than 8% of total wealth in 1995 to nearly 12% today. The entry threshold of this group rose from €7,8 million (PPP) in 1995 to €21,9 million today. The gap between the top 0,01% and the bottom 50% has kept going up in 2022 and is now about 50% higher than what it was in 2008.
World:
Africa’s Refugee Crisis Deepens: UN Budget Shortfalls Amplify Hunger Deteriorating conditions for refugees in Africa, exacerbated by budget shortfalls lead to severe food ration cuts. For refugees living in settlements across Africa, life got more difficult in 2023. Shortfalls in the operating budget of the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, and the World Food Program have brought increased precarity into the daily lives of millions of displaced people across the continent. Having fled violence, famine and insecurity in search of survival, many African refugees now find themselves faced with similar circumstances in the very spaces designed to protect them. Most notably, over the past year, refugees in Central and East Africa have watched as their food rations and living stipends — already meager — have been cut to unsustainably low levels.
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