Daily News Digest February 6, 2024
Images of the Day:
Five Things Liberals Say To Avoid Taking A Real Position On Gaza
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:
When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots. — Cornel West
Podcasta/Videos of the Day:
The State of the Middle East Today – Juan Cole
U.S. & Israel vs. Axis of Resistance: Biden Strikes New Targets in Middle East as Gaza War Continues
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
Taxation Policy Exposes !% Rule!: Source Who Revealed How Taxes Steal for the Rich Rewarded With Five Years in Prison Steal for the Rich Rewarded With Five Years in Prison Because of Charles Littlejohn, we know that former President Donald Trump and a whole bunch of other rich people pay next to nothing in taxes, while the rest of us frantically file tax returns and see our wages sucked away to fund the military, aid for Israel and corporate subsidies. Littlejohn, a former consultant at the Internal Revenue Service, leaked these tax returns, which resulted in major investigative findings for the New York Times (9/27/20) and ProPublica (6/8/21). federal prison, the maximum jail term (CNN, 1/29/24). Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri said in a statement (1/29/24):
Never Before Has the Empire Been So Exposed I’ve been railing against the US war machine for around seven years now, and never during that time have I had more westerners on my side than right now. The Iraqi government says 16 people were killed in the latest round of US airstrikes in Iraq, including civilians. You might think 16 deaths as payback for three Americans killed by Iraqi militants would be more than enough, but you would be wrong. There will be many more.
The Political Costs of Biden’s Support for Israel’s War Are Mounting The president’s Gaza policy is isolating the United States internationally and threatening his reelection prospects. It would not be an exaggeration to say that President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s ongoing carnage in Gaza puts him in the same position as George W. Bush with the invasion of Iraq, Ronald Reagan with his support for death squads in Central America and Richard Nixon with his bombing of Vietnam. Like the other conflicts, the civilian death toll is extraordinarily high, the United States is largely isolated in the international community and the majority of Americans — particularly Democrats — oppose the policies. In similar parallels, the administration is marginalizing the United Nations, attacking the international legal system and dismissing reports by reputable human rights organizations.
The Logic of Granting Fascism: More Power to the Exective Branch is Facism!: Congress Is Poised to Cede Even More of Its Oversight of Foreign Weapons Sales A new bill would speed up delivery of deadly arms while scaling back Congress’s ability to monitor the implications. At a time of record U.S. weapons sales and many wars, the House Foreign Affairs Committee has decided that Congress should provide less, rather than more oversight of the booming business.
Nuclear War? Climate Collapse? No Worries. WEF Says Disinformation is Humanity’s Most Immediate Threat The assorted billionaire geniuses and official intellectual luminaries who gathered in Davos Switzerland January 15-19 proved, for those who doubted, that neither singly nor as a group could these nincompoops find their way out of a paper bag. Weighing the world’s fate in their well-manicured fingers, did they seem concerned about the Ukraine War morphing into nuclear catastrophe, or ditto for a wider Middle East war? They did not. Did they tear their beautifully coiffed hair and rend their designer ensembles over the prospect of the earth heating up like a pancake on a griddle due to uncontrolled climate change? A disaster caused by rich countries gobbling up and belching out burnt fossil fuels? Or did they mouth vague platitudes about extreme weather? Yes, bromides were their plat du jour. The most immediate threat to humanity, according to this assemblage of well-groomed nitwits (who paid $52,000 apiece to join the World Economic Forum and then $19,000 each for a ticket to the Davos shindig), is misinformation or disinformation – you pick. After all, these bigwigs can take to their pate de foie gras-stocked bunkers if the planet succumbs either to nuclear winter or high temperatures inhospitable to human life. So of course, they regard speech, that is, free speech, as the main threat to their luxurious creature comforts. After all, someone might say something bad about these oligarchs! That surely bodes far worse for our species than radioactivity or a global, climate-change-induced sauna. So the Davos set has grabbed the bull by the horns. Disinformation purveyors beware! As for the rest of the world’s people, well, God help us, as we are led to oblivion by bubbleheads.
Biden Isolated as 85% of Americans Fear Wider Mideast War, and 50% say Israel has Gone Too Far In a new NORC/ AP opinion poll, 50% of Americans say that they believe Israel has gone too far in its war on Gaza. That is up from 40% in November. Even though the US television news networks steadfastly decline to cover the Israeli war on Gaza in a concerted way or to show many videos of the carnage, the American public is well enough informed of the vast destruction of lives and civilian infrastructure to condemn Israel’s tactics.
Neck-Deep Again in the Big Muddy, But Any Reason for Hope? Perhaps staring into the abyss created by the horrors and suffering of war will help us turn away from our violent path. Read the news, hup, two, three, four! “Top United States officials prodded Israel on Monday to do more to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip . . .” Thus began a recent, and oh so typical, piece of war reportage. It was purveyed by the New York Times but it’s something you find in almost any mainstream source. The essence of the news is that the U.S. will continue to support Israel’s right to “defend itself” by bombing the crap out of Gaza and will keep feeding it the military equipment necessary to do so, but it sternly urges Israel to try not to kill too many babies or other civilians. Get it? War must be — and is, when we wage it — a moral undertaking.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
New York Times’ Friedman Hits New Low With Animalization of Arabs and Iranians The Nazi dehumanization of Jews is notorious. They called them rats, lice, cockroaches, foxes, vultures. Such language proliferates in times of tension and war. The impulse to it should be resisted by ethical persons, and even just by normal non-psychopathic human beings. Prominent New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, alas, fell victim to the seductions of such language in his Friday column. He openly said that he approaches the Middle East at times from the perspective of the Warner Brothers’ Animal Planet channel.
Amnesty Condemns Israeli Military’s ‘Shocking’ Violence Against West Bank Civilians “These unlawful killings are in blatant violation of international human rights law,” said the rights group. While Israeli officials continue to claim, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the Israel Defense Forces are targeting Hamas in their bombardment of occupied Palestine, a new report from Amnesty International on Monday details the extent to which the military has frequently used lethal force against civilians across the West Bank in addition to the more than 27,000 people it has killed 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’!
Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa
- · Week beginning on January 28, 2024: 422.28 ppm
- · Weekly value from 1 year ago: 419.72 ppm
- · Weekly value from 10 years ago: \398.08 ppm
- · Last updated: February 05, 2024
Global Warming is Profitable: Exxon and Chevron Announce Record Shareholder Returns in Hottest Year on Record CEO Mike Wirth boasted that in 2023 Chevron “produced more oil and natural gas than any year in the company’s history.”
Ancient Sea Sponges at Centre Of Controversial Claim World Has Already Warmed by 1.7C Findings in leading scientific journal that globe has breached key warming milestone challenged by climate science experts
California Faces ‘Life-Threatening Landslides’ As Atmospheric River Batters State – Live California governor Gavin Newsom declares state of emergency for eight counties, including Los Angeles and Santa Barbara; one man killed by falling treeInsurance Premiums Rise Faster Than Australia’s Inflation, Spurred by Frequent Extreme Weather Insurance prices are up 16.2% over 12 months, as experts warn of ‘fundamental change’ in market
A Toxic Anniversary At the one-year mark of the East Palestine derailment It’s been one year since a freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. The Feb. 3, 2023, accident triggered chemical spills, 100-foot flames, mass evacuations, and a national reckoning over safety conditions on the country’s rail lines. And since then, not much has changed. Despite the removal of millions of gallons of wastewater and 350 million pounds of contaminated soils from the crash area, nearby streams still glimmer with a chemical sheen. Some residents are still displaced from their homes and unsure of when it will be safe to return, even though the temporary assistance program designed to help them ends on Feb. 9. Rail workers are still fighting to reverse railroads’ cost-cutting efforts and require larger crews on freight trains. And the CEO of Norfolk Southern, the rail conglomerate that owned and operated the derailed train, remains ensconced in his well-paying job.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Shadow Government Weekly Commenter January 7. 2024
- December 2023 Payrolls Annual Growth Notched Higher to 1.86%, After November Revised Lower to 1.77%, from an Initial 1.81%, Still the Weakest of the Post-Pandemic Era, followed by the New December Reading Such Was in the Context of Minimal Annual Seasonal-Adjustment Revisions; All Updated in the ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment Data File
- December 2023 U.3, U.6 and ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment Rates Rose to 3.7%, 7.1% and 25.6%, Up by 0.3%, 0.5% and 1.0%, in the Last Six Months, Respectively, Due to a Surge in “Discouraged” Workers The December 2023
- ShadowStats-Alternate Hit a 30-Month of 25.6%
- Effectively Flat, December 2023 Headline Unemployment (U.3) Came in at 3.74%, Up from a Downwardly Revised 3.72% in November
- The Broader December 2023 U.6 Unemployment, Using an Arbitrarily Timed, Constrained Definition of “Discouraged Workers,” Increased to 7.1% from an Unrevised 7.0% in November
- The Still-Broader ShadowStats Alternate Unemployment, Using an Unconstrained Definition of Discouraged Workers, Came in at a 30-Month High of 25.6%, up from 25.4% in December Came in at a 30-Month High of 25.6%, up from 25.4% in November
- With Systemic Liquidity at a New 53-Year Peak, the Latest Money Supply (Nov) and Monetary Base (Dec) Numbers Continued in Year-to-Year Expansion, Consistent with Ongoing Inflation
Economy:
Inflation = Decline in Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar in U.S. City Average
ShadowStats New Weekly Commentary January 16, 2024
- Pandemic Aftermath Continues to Ravage Monthly Headline U.S. Inflation and Economic Reporting
- In Context of, and Aside from Pandemic-Era Annual Inflation of 8.01% in 2022 and 4.70% in 2021, Annual Average 2023 CPI-U of 4.13% Still Was the Highest Since 1991, Up from the 2019 Pre-Pandemic Annual Average of 1.8%
- 2023 Annual Average ShadowStats-Alternate CPI-U Was Up 12.0%, Versus 16.2% in 2022 and 12.7% in 2021, Otherwise Still at Its Highest Level Since 13.6% in 1980, When It Also Was Identical to Headline CPI-U
- Headline U.3 and the ShadowStats Alternate CPI Annual Inflation Rates Respectively Averaged 1.8% and 9.5% in Pre-Pandemic 2019 That Said, the Headline December 2023 the Post-Pandemic Headline CPI Gained 3.35% Year-to-Year, Up from 3.14% in November
- The December 2023 ShadowStats-Alternate Consumer Price Index Gained 11.2% Year-to-Year, Up from 11.0% in November
- Neither the Headline Inflation nor Headline Real Economic Activity Are Close to Recovering Pre-Pandemic Levels of Stability
Jamie Dimon Has Spent $117 Billion Propping Up JPMorgan’s Share Price with Buybacks in 10 Years; He’s Counting on Trump’s MAGA Crowd to Rescue Him On January 19, Jamie Dimon stunned CNBC viewers when he launched into what sounded like a TV commercial for Republican Presidential candidate and 91-count indictee Donald Trump. Dimon stated: “Take a step back, be honest. He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right about immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China
World:
Powerful Protest Against Racism Sweeps Germany “All together against racism,” the crowd in Berlin shouts. Some held posters that said “Heart instead of hate” or “Racism is not an alternative.” Up to 300,000 people took to the rainy streets of Berlin, Germany on Saturday as nationwide protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Protests were also taking place in dozens of other cities such as Freiburg, Dresden, Hannover, and Mainz, a sign of growing alarm at growing support for the AFD. Under the slogan “We are the Firewall” — a reference to the longstanding taboo against collaborating with the far right in German politics — protesters turned the space next to the Bundestag, or national parliament, into a sea of signs, flags, and umbrellas.
Iran says It’s ‘Not Looking for a War,’ But is Ready for One Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has said during a trip to an impoverished southern region that Tehran is not looking for military conflict but would respond forcefully to any country that threatens the Islamic republic. “We will not start any war, but if anyone wants to bully us, they will receive a strong response,” Raisi said in a televised speech on February 2 in Hormozgan Province, located along the Gulf of Oman.
British and Irish Governments Play Down Sinn Féin’s Calls for United Ireland Rishi Sunak urges Stormont executive to focus on bread-and-butter issues in Northern Ireland The British and Irish governments have played down Sinn Féin’s calls for Irish unity and said Northern Ireland’s new devolved government can restore stability and faith in the region.
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