Daily News Digest February 13, 2024
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:
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe. — Frederick Douglass
Of course, the all-American penchant for banning books didn’t begin in the Trump era. Just ask almost anyone who lived through the Red Scare days of the 1950s (not to speak of the first Red Scare of 1917-1920). But the last few years have seen a remarkable acceleration of attempts to keep certain books off the shelves of public and school libraries. The American Library Association reports an almost four-fold increase in the number of banning attempts between 2003 (458) and 2022 (1,269), most of that increase coming between 2020 and 2022. That this new passion for book banning coincides with the rise of Donald J. Trump, MAGA Republicanism, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s failed “anti-woke” presidential campaign is no accident. — Public Libraries under MAGA Threat: Banning what Matters
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
Economic Update: The US Economy As An Apartheid System
Economic Solutions: How to Go From Financialized Neoliberalism to a Productive, Sustainable Economy
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
How the CIA Destabilizes the World If only the CIA’s rogue operations had been consigned to history as a result of the crimes exposed by the Church Committee, or at the least had brought the CIA under the rule of law and public accountability. But that was not to be. There are three basic problems with the CIA: its objectives, methods, and unaccountability. Its operational objectives are whatever the CIA or the President of the United States defines to be in the U.S. interest at a given time, irrespective of international law or U.S. law. Its methods are secretive and duplicitous. Its unaccountability means that the CIA and president run foreign policy without any public scrutiny. Congress is a doormat, a sideshow.
Patrick Lawrence: The Crisis at The New York Times From Israeli Propaganda to Page One. It has been evident to many of us since the genocide in Gaza began Oct. 7 that Israel risked asking too much of those inclined to take its side. The Zionist state would ask what many people cannot give: It would ask them to surrender their consciences, their idea of moral order, altogether their native decency as it murders, starves and disperses a population of 2.3 million while making their land uninhabitable. The Israelis took this risk and they have lost. We are now able to watch videos of Israeli soldiers celebrating as they murder Palestinian mothers and children, as they dance and sing while detonating entire neighborhoods, as they mock Palestinians in a carnival of racist depravity one would have thought beyond what is worst in humanity—and certainly beyond what any Jew would do to another human being. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports, as American media do not, that the Israel Defense Forces covertly sponsor a social media channel disseminating this degenerate material in the cause of maintaining maximum hatred.
“Logistics” Outpost in Jordan Where 3 U.S. Troops Died IS Secretly a Drone Base The Pentagon is covering up the real purpose of Tower 22: targeting the very Iran-backed militant groups that attacked last month. TOWER 22, the U.S. base in Jordan where three American service members were killed last month, is not simply a “logistics support base,” as the Pentagon has it. What the Pentagon hasn’t mentioned is that Tower 22 is also a drone base conducting long-range reconnaissance on militants in neighboring Syria and Iraq for airstrikes, according to two U.S. military sources. The base also serves as a staging facility for special operations forces and a medevac helicopter home base.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
Egypt Threatens Netanyahu With End of Camp David Peace Accords If He Invades Rafah It is being widely reported based on press leaks that the Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has privately threatened Israel. Cairo is said to have warned that the 1978 Camp David Peace Treaty will be suspended “with immediate effect” if the government of Binyamin Netanyahu tries to take over the Philadelphi Corridor at the Gaza-Egypt Border and if it expels the Palestinians of Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula at the Rafah border crossing as a result of an invasion of Rafah City. Israel attempted to convince an Egyptian delegation to Tel Aviv on Friday that Cairo should cooperate with the Israeli war plan, but allegedly was rebuffed
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’!
Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa
- Week beginning on February 04, 2024: 425.83 ppm
- Weekly value from 1 year ago: 420.08 ppm
- Weekly value from 10 years ago: 398.18 ppm
- Last updated: February 11, 2024
Climate Change snd Health Effects In Northwest Alaska Conclusion In Northwestern Alaska, climate change is increasing vulnerability to injury, disease, mental stress, food insecurity, and water insecurity. Northwest communities are applying adaptation approaches that are specific and appropriate. Satellite technology is helping to reduce risk of injury by quickly locating hunters in distress. Improved shore revetment walls not only prevent erosion and protect infrastructure but also help reduce mental stress. In communities concerned with changes to source water quality, improved monitoring is helping engineers to design more resilient and condition appropriate water systems. Community-scale health impact assessment is an approach that is helping communities in Northwestern Alaska identify and address their local climate challenges. Understanding the connections between climate change and human health is the first step toward effective adaptation planning.
Revealed: A U.S. President Was First Informed of CO2’s Impact 59 Years Ago This Month A 1965 memo to Lyndon Baines Johnson discloses the link between CO2 emissions and climate change — showing federal climate action could have started decades sooner. A “Memorandum for the President” lists “the effects of carbon dioxide on climate” among the most pressing environmental problems of the day. It sounds like a message meant for U.S. President Joe Biden. But the memo is dated January 13, 1965, and the president is the 36th of the United States of America, Lyndon B. Johnson. This newly discovered document pinpoints the earliest-known moment that carbon-dioxide-induced climate change was brought to the attention of the highest levels of U.S. government — the President. It also adds to a growing body of evidence that decision-makers of the 1960s were concerned about potential climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels, much earlier than previously thought.
Atlantic Ocean Circulation Nearing ‘Devastating’ Tipping Point, Study Finds Collapse in system of currents that helps regulate global climate would be at such speed that adaptation would be impossible They found Amoc is already on track towards an abrupt shift, which has not happened for more than 10,000 years and would have dire implications for large parts of the world. Amoc, which encompasses part of the Gulf Stream and other powerful currents, is a marine conveyer belt that carries heat, carbon and nutrients from the tropics towards the Arctic Circle, where it cools and sinks into the deep ocean. This churning helps to distribute energy around the Earth and modulates the impact of human-caused global heating. 
LNG Carries 2.7x the Climate Impact of Coal, Howarth Warns, as U.S. Pauses Approvals Liquefied natural gas (LNG) carries up to 2.7 times the global warming impact of burning coal, according to a draft science paper released on the heels of U.S. President Joe Biden’s landmark decision to apply a climate test to a massive, new LNG export terminal in Louisiana. The preprint manuscript [pdf] by Cornell University biogeochemist and environmental scientist Robert Howarth acknowledges that coal releases almost twice as much carbon dioxide as LNG when the fuels are actually burned. But LNG’s methane emissions are “substantially higher”, the equivalent of 70.9 to 154 grams of CO2 per megajoule of energy, compared to just 17.3 grams per coal, based on methane’s climate impact over a 20-year span.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Charges Dropped Against US Students for Pro-Palestine Parody School Paper Two students at Northwestern University faced misdemeanour charges for a pro-Palestine parody of their school paper. Prosecutors on Wednesday dropped a criminal case against two Northwestern University students who created a parody version of the school’s student newspaper attacking Northwestern’s stance on the war on Gaza. Northwestern Daily, a parody of the campus Daily Northwestern, included a front-page article accusing the university’s administration of being complicit in the genocide of Palestinians, including fake quotes from school officials, accusations of Israeli war crimes, and a fake ad for Birthright Israel.
Michael Mann Wins $1 Million Verdict In Defamation Trial Victory over climate deniers sends a strong message in defense of climate science and scientists. In a victory for climate scientists, jurors in Michael Mann’s defamation case against Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn awarded Mann $1 million in punitive damages for defamatory comments made in 2012. In a unanimous decision, jurors agreed that both Simberg and Steyn defamed Mann in blog posts that compared Mann to convicted sex offender Jerry Sandusky, former assistant football coach at Penn State University. They announced that Simberg will pay $1,000 in punitive damages and Steyn will pay the larger $1 million.
Labor:
AFL-CIO’s Ceasefire Call Shows Power of the Movement for Palestine The AFL-CIO has called for a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. The labor movement must go further for Palestinian liberation and break with the bipartisan regime On Thursday, the AFL-CIO called for a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. The statement came after months of silence, during which the largest union federation in the United States had gone as far as to force a Washington-based labor council to remove its ceasefire resolution. The AFL-CIO’s call shows that the movement for Palestine and rank-and-file ceasefire organizing has forced labor to shift its position on the assault — and this movement must go further.
Economy:
SEC’s Approval of Bitcoin Markets May Set the Stage for Financial Disaster Irresponsible banking and deregulation are putting the world economy at risk Over the past several decades, there have been rapid and fundamental changes in the finance and banking sectors. The banking reforms of the New Deal, which endured up until about 1980 and provided a relative degree of banking and financial stability, were reversed by the neoliberal counterrevolution with an eye toward increasing profits and shredding social responsibility. A new book by world-renowned progressive economist Gerald Epstein, Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance for the Rest of Us, shows us the result: a financial system dominated by megabanks and shadow financial institutions prone to instability and crises that at the same time rely on government bailouts. The neoliberal financial system, controlled by what Epstein calls “The Bankers’ Club,” benefits exclusively powerful people and institutions, is linked to the growing inequality of wealth and income, and is a net drain to the U.S. economy. Nonetheless, bankers not only see themselves as “essential workers,” a view that Epstein shreds into pieces, but as former Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein claimed, many think they do “God’s work.”
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