Daily News Digest December 29, 2023
Images of the Day:
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:
There is “no difference” between what Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu is doing in the months-long attacks on Gaza and what Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did decades ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today. — No Difference Between Netanyahu and Hitler Says Erdogan, Leader of NATO Member Turkey
Videos of the Day:
Meet Aida Touma-Sliman, Palestinian Knesset Member Suspended for Criticizing War on Gaza
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
2023 Was a Bad Year for Joe Biden Voters are still upset about inflation, but it’s the destruction of Gaza that could haunt Biden in 2024. Polls are not a crystal ball that show us the future. Democrats learned this the hard way in 2016, when an underperformance by Hillary Clinton and the anachronisms of the Electoral College helped to deliver a surprise victory for former President Donald Trump. However, the number crunchersat FiveThirtyEight combine data from dozens of polls to create a solid indicator of political trends, and the numbers aren’t looking so good for President Joe Biden as we close out 2023. Biden’s aggregate approval rating has slumped for much of the year and now hovers just below 40 percent, a few points lower than Trump’s approval rating at this point in his presidency. Individual polls put Biden’s approval rating as low as 34 percent, causing panic among Democrats and Never Trumpers alike as the 2024 elections approach.
How Unpopular is Joe Biden? An updating calculation of the president’s approval rating, accounting for each poll’s recency, sample size, methodology and house effects.
Who Funds the Group That Doxxes Students and Professors for Palestine Activism? “Americans Who Fund This Effort Could Be Breaking The Law By Acting as Agents of a Foreign Power.”! Longtime investigative journalist James Bamford’s latest piece for The Nation looks at Canary Mission, a shadowy pro-Israel group that publishes the photos and personal details of students who take part in Palestinian advocacy on U.S. colleges, branding them antisemites and often damaging their career prospects. Bamford explains how this operation has direct links to the Israeli government, and that wealthy Americans who fund this effort could be breaking the law by acting as agents of a foreign power. “The purpose is to blacklist and dox students, professors, and largely anybody who disagrees with Israel or is pro-Palestinian,” Bamford tells Democracy Now!
“Onward Christian Soldiers”:War and “Democracy”: An Appeal to Self-Interest By way of marking the western date for Christendom’s most holy celebration, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced that “at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups in Iraq.” So much for visions of sugar-plums, etc. Instead of surplus socks or the latest video game console beneath the tree and a day spent watching football and avoiding fruitcake, we get war in the “Holy Land,” war in Ukraine, war in Myanmar, war in Sudan … the list goes on, covering quite a lot of territory, costing thousands, and negatively affecting millions, of lives.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
2023: The Year Humanity Died When the dust of the war on Gaza settles, it will sit on our global conscience for generations to come. As a Palestinian who was born two generations apart from the Nakba, I have never imagined that one day I would witness the genocide of my people unfold before my eyes in broad daylight. While I always feared the prospect of a Second Nakba, as many Palestinians do, I have never dreamed, not even in my worst nightmares, that I would live it, witness it, and write about it. In my happy Palestinian innocence, I believed that even if Israel was keen on repeating the Nakba, or attempting to “finish the job of 1948,” as many Israeli officials have threatened over the years, the Free World would not allow it to happen. In my wishful thinking, I believed that the world had learned its lesson since the Nakba. Yes, the world failed the Palestinian people in 1948. Yes, it allowed Israel to carry out its ethnic cleansing and mass expulsion of Palestinians. Yes, it abandoned the Palestinian refugees, and rewarded Israel with a United Nations recognition and membership. But that was 75 years ago, the age of genocides and holocausts. A lot of progress had been made since, I told myself. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. The U.N. evolved. Human rights groups mushroomed. Mandela won the Nobel Peace. True, genocide would occur so often and so uncontested in the decades since, but after the horrific genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia, the leaders of the Free World seemed to have had enough! They seemed adamant not to allow another genocide to happen—Never Again! Not in Palestine, not again!
UN Condemns Israel’s ‘Unlawful Killings’ and Settler Violence in West Bank The U.N. high commissioner for human rights called surging settler attacks on Palestinians “very disturbing”. A United Nations report released Thursday warned that conditions in the occupied West Bank have worsened rapidly since October, with Israeli settlers and soldiers ramping up violent attacks on the Palestinian population and subjecting people across the territory to frequent abuse, movement restrictions, arbitrary detention, and “unlawful killings.” The report by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights found that since October 7, settler attacks—including shootings and the burning of homes—have surged to an average of six per day, up from three per day previously. The report notes that in many cases, the settlers were “accompanied” by Israeli forces, wearing Israeli military uniforms, and carrying weapons supplied by the army.
Israeli Teen Jailed for Refusing to Take Part in Army’s ‘Criminal Attack’ on Gaza “I believe that slaughter cannot solve slaughter,” said 18-year-old Tal Mitnick, who was sentenced to 30 days behind bars for refusing to participate in what a fellow draft resister called a “genocide” in Gaza. A young Israeli man was sentenced Tuesday to 30 days behind bars for refusing to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces as it wages a genocidal assault on Gaza, a war the teen condemned as “a revenge campaign… not only against Hamas, but against all Palestinian people.” Tal Mitnick, an 18-year-old from Tel Aviv, entered the Tel Hashomer enlistment center with other members of the Mesarvot Network—a group of young conscientious objectors—and announced his refusal to enlist in the IDF, citing the war on Gaza and Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine.
Israel Rebuked for ‘Baseless’ Visa Bans for UN Officials Over Gaza “Israel thought they could blackmail everyone, including the U.N., into collaboration with the propaganda cover of their crimes,” said one Palestinian critic. Israel’s foreign ministry said Monday it would deny visas for multiple United Nations employees after officials and agencies within the world body—including a panel on which an Israeli expert accused the country of genocide—continued their sharp
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’!
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Ohio Doctors Urge Prosecutor to Drop Case Against Woman Who Suffered Miscarriage A prosecutor in Trumbull County, Ohio is “under no legal obligation” to prosecute Brittany Watts, said an advocacy group. . . . The case stems from a miscarriage Watts suffered at home in September, after she had experienced pain and passed blood clots at 22 weeks of pregnancy. Doctors at a local hospital told her the pregnancy was not viable despite some cardiac activity, but Watts was forced to wait several days for an ethics panel to determine whether the hospital could induce labor under Ohio law. The state currently permits abortion care until 22 weeks of pregnancy, but the state has claimed it can enforce a six-week ban that has been blocked by preliminary injunction. Watts eventually had the miscarriage in her bathroom, and police got involved in the case after she told a nurse at the hospital that she had taken the tissue, fluid, and blood in her toilet and placed it in a bucket. The authorities investigated and found Watts’ fetus, which weighed less than one pound, in a pipe connected to the toilet.
· Southern Human Rights Organizing and the Amazon Workers’ Struggle Jennifer Bates is an organizer with the BAmazon Union , the effort to organize Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama. BAmazon Union is affiliated with the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union (RWDSU). I spoke to Ms. Bates at the Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference (SHROC) which was recently held in Nashville. SHROC is an opportunity for human rights organizers and defenders to come together to share strategies, learn from each other, and build relationships. It’s a gathering of grassroots organizers and human rights defenders from across the U.S. and Global South. Ms. Bates and I discussed the history of the struggle in Bessemer, working conditions at Amazon, and the challenges of union organizing in the south.
· Ajamu Baraka Report Back from the US Peace Council’s Peace Delegation to the People’s Republic of China I participated in a four-person delegation from the US Peace Council, where I serve on the Executive Committee, to Beijing and Shanghai, China hosted by the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament between November 21 and November 26, 2023. One of my roles was to engage our hosts in a conversation on the interconnected issues of diplomacy and the Global Security Initiative proposed by the Chinese President, Xi Jingping. Below are the salient points raised during those discussions:
· Climate Profiteers Exploit Somali SufferingNGOs and other climate profiteers treat Somalia as a poster child for global warming.
· From Attica to Gaza, Why the Settler Colony Kills its Own The recent killing of three Israeli hostages in Gaza has elevated questions about the policies of the zionist settler state and the occupation forces. The cold callousness with which they have navigated the hostage situation and the vicious brutality they inflicted on the Palestinians draw a parallel to the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971.
· Teaching Hatred and Normalizing Violence Against Palestinians While the education of Palestinian youth is under constant criticism for “promoting violence” against the Zionist settler state, the entire structure of Israel is oriented to generate an environment of violence against Palestinians – including its education system. While resistance to settler colonialism is deemed violent, the violence of the colonizer goes unquestioned.
· Murder Thy Neighbor A Recap of Mass Shootings in 2023: An Anti-Imperialist Perspective The number of mass shootings between Dec. 14, 2012 ( the day of the Sandy Hook massacre) and June 25, 2022 (Gun Violence Archive; map: Eamonn Fitzmaurice/The 74)
· The Great CARICOM Bluff The presence of CARICOM in Haiti to mediate talks is believed to be merely a smokescreen to further deceive the popular masses and continue the ruin of the country. Since the arrival of the CARICOM Group of Eminent Personalities in Haiti on Wednesday, December 6, the country has been in dialogue mode. A dialogue of the deaf to continue the masquerade of negotiations under the pretext of achieving a government of compromise or understanding between the different protagonists of the political class, particularly those in the de facto power of Prime Minister Ariel Henry and those who claim to of the opposition.
· Zionist Joe Joe Biden’s several decades in political office have proved him consistent in his depraved indifference toward the suffering of oppressed people around the globe as he offers full-throated support for colonizing forces. His recent declaration of his political alignment as a zionist comes as no surprise to anyone.
· COP28 Summit Concludes with Contradictory Agreement Although the final document calls for “transitioning” from fossil fuels, many developing states and territories wanted stronger language and economic commitments.
· Africa’s role in Palestinian Liberation–an Interview with Salim Vally The Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bulletin has the latest news from the African continent. AFRICOM Watch Bulletin #49 emphasizes the urgency for Africans and working-class people worldwide to build solidarity with oppressed peoples everywhere in the face of rising global fascism. From Cop City in Georgia to Genocide in Gaza, the rise of fascism touches all colonized people. It is extremely important in this time of sharpened contradictions in the global capitalist system for Africans and working class people all over the world to make these connections and build solidarity with oppressed peoples everywhere.
Labor:
Economy:
A Big Picture Look at Our Major Wall Street Corruption Stories of 2023 The year 2023 will go down in U.S. banking history as the year in which the fastest bank runs in U.S. history occurred, producing the second, third and fourth largest banking failures in U.S. history in the span of seven weeks. Losses of more than $32 billion from these failed banks hit the Federal Deposit Insurance Fund (FDIC). Adding to the regulatory hubris, the largest and riskiest bank in the U.S., JPMorgan Chase, was allowed by its compromised regulators to become even riskier by gobbling up the failed First Republic Bank while JPMorgan Chase got an unexplained $50 billion 5-year loan from the FDIC at an undisclosed interest rate to sweeten its purchase of the failed bank. And, what good is a banking crisis if the Fed can’t pony up yet another bank bailout fund, this time with loans of up to an unprecedented one-year term. (Under Federal Reserve statutory legislation, the Federal Reserve Act, the Fed is supposed to make short-term loans. Ignoring statutory legislation has never been a problem at the Fed, however.)
World:
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
Health Care “Denial by Delay” Can Be a Matter of Life and Death Patients are forced to navigate a prior authorization system marked by roadblocks, red tape and appeals. Marine Corps veteran Ron Winters clearly recalls his doctor’s sobering assessment of his bladder cancer diagnosis in August 2022. “This is bad,” the 66-year-old Durant, Oklahoma, resident remembered his urologist saying. Winters braced for the fight of his life. Little did he anticipate, however, that he wouldn’t be waging war only against cancer. He also was up against the Department of Veterans Affairs, which Winters blames for dragging its feet and setting up obstacles that have delayed his treatments.