Daily News Digest April 3o, 2024
Images of the Day:
Ted Rall: From the Whiners to the Twee, Right-Wingers Will Be Free
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, and The 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! Globaly, With the Current Gaza War, The Right of Assembly is Under Attack! Due to Years of Austerity, Cuts to Public Health Care, And An Anti-Science and Profiteering President, The United States Still Leads the World In Coronavirus Cases and Deaths in the World!
The Majority of the World, Despite the Media Monopoly’s Lies, are Opposed to the Palestinian Genocide and Global Warming — The 1% Minority Funds Them! At, this Time in History, Capitalism is Exposing the Fact That it is Opposed to Majority Rule/Democracy!
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:
Bring into being a better world — whether we choose to call that better world socialism or economic democracy — means putting an end to the capitalist economic system before capitalism puts an end to Earth’s ability to remain a fully habitable biosphere and completes the job of immiserating the world’s working people, the overwhelming majority of humanity. That will never be done in a voting booth. History could not be clearer on this. The hard work of organizing and building movements is the only thing that has ever made the world better and is the only thing that ever will make the world better. It will be a happy day when we can vote as we wish by voting for what we want. For now, voting for a greater evil or a somewhat lesser evil is what we are presented with, and although not voting for a lesser evil is understandable, sometimes a lesser evil means a difference between life and death; the women who will die because they can’t get an abortion and their families would surely see a difference. We ought to be able to tell the difference between a bourgeois formal democracy and the threat of outright fascism. Even with possessing that basic knowledge, better we oppose such a miserable choice with whatever means we have at our disposal rather than offering “more revolutionary than thou” platitudes. — The Sad Spectacle of Lesser-Evil Elections
This is our Tony. As the record makes pitifully clear, there’s no mileage in predicting success when Blinken boards a plane for the great “out there.” This is unequivocally so in his dealings with the western end of the Pacific. There is a long list of the topics Blinken was set to raise with Chinese officials, notable among these Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Taiwan and the South China Sea, military-to-military contacts, artificial intelligence applications, illicit drug traffic, human rights, trade: These are standards on the American menu when a U.S. official addresses Chinese counterparts. The last is especially contentious just now, given the Biden regime’s disgraceful determination to subvert those Chinese industries with which the U.S. cannot compete. With plans to block imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles already afoot, last week President Biden announced new tariffs on imports of Chinese steel. And it is now “investigating” China’s shipping and shipbuilding industries, which sounds to me like prelude to yet more measures to undermine China’s admirable economic advances. — Patrick Lawrence: The Impotence of Antony Blinken
Pocasts/Videos of the Day:
Gaza Freedom Flotilla: Activists Blocked from Sailing to Gaza But Vow to Keep Trying to Break Siege
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
Money for War to Feed the Oil Profitseer, But No Money Feed the Poor!: Mayday! Mayday! The Ship of State Is Sinking! While the Senate and House had no trouble spitting up some $95 billion for war, they couldn’t spare $1 billion to fully fund the Women’s, Infants, and Children food program’
USC: 17 History Department Faculty Demand Resignation of President, Others, for use of Violence against Campus Community We, the undersigned members of the Department of History [at the University of Southern California], unequivocally condemn the university administration for its decision to invite riot police to campus and employ violence against our students and colleagues. On April 24, a diverse coalition of students assembled at Alumni Park to protest several things. Chief among them were:
- The administration’s unprecedented decision to deny the valedictorian of the graduating class, this year a Muslim woman of South Asian heritage, the opportunity to make an address at commencement and
- The ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel. Students protesting accordingly made several demands of the USC administration, which included calls for divestment and steps to improve campus climate. Students’ plans for the day included yoga sessions, a series of teach-ins about Palestine, and inter-faith activities, all leading to a vigil for the dead at sunset. Protesting students were joined by faculty and other members of the university community. This included several people from our own department, including numerous undergraduate and graduate students. At least four faculty members also joined.
Leaked State Department Memo: Israeli Assurances ‘Neither Credible Nor Reliable’ “Today’s leak should mark a final end to this impunity. President Biden has no choice but to fully enforce the law and halt aid to Israel.” A newly leaked internal memo shows that officials at four U.S. State Department bureaus don’t believe the Israeli government’s assurances that it is using American weaponry in Gaza in compliance with international law, rejecting them as “neither credible nor reliable.” The memo, first reported by Reuters on Saturday, is a joint submission from the State Department’s bureaus of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Population, Refugees, and Migration; Global Criminal Justice; and International Organization Affairs.
U.S. Funded Plestinian Genocide:
US Reportedly Working to Stop ICC From Issuing Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu “There is absolutely no reason for Biden to be involved in this,” said one analyst. “But once again, Biden steps in to protect Netanyahu from the consequences of the war crimes he commits.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly growing increasingly concerned that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for him and other top government officials for committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip.The Times of Israelreported Sunday that the Israeli government, in partnership with the U.S., is “making a concerted effort to head off” possible arrest warrants from the ICC, which first launched its war crimes investigation in the occupied Palestinian territories in 2021.
Environment:
Fund Climate! — Not Genocide! 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’!
Capitalism’s Wars for Oil: When Bodies Start Stacking Up From Climate Change-Related Disasters, Will These Monsters be Held to Account?
Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa Week beginning on April 21, 024.427.94 ppm. Weekly value from 1 year ago: 423.96 ppm. Weekly value from 10 years ago: 401.62 ppm Last updated: April 28, 2024
Big Oil’s Dangerous Radioactive Secret DeSmog writer Justin Nobel’s new book explores how workers bear the brunt of the oil and gas industry’s hidden contaminated waste. In Paris, France, there are fine cafés and famous landmarks. But what nobody really knows is at the other end of a building known as Le V, on the northeast side of the city, is a portal that leads to a secret pile of fracking waste from the woods of West Virginia. A lot more comes to the surface at an oil and gas well than just the oil and gas, including billions of pounds of waste every day across the U.S., much of it toxic and radioactive. My journey into this topic started when an Ohio community organizer told me someone made a liquid deicer out of radioactive oilfield waste for home driveways and patios, which was supposedly “Safe for Pets” and had been selling at Lowe’s. As you will see, this indeed was the case. Unraveling how that came to be turned into a 20-month Rolling Stone magazine investigation, which won an award with the National Association of Science Writers, and an entire set of shocking DeSmog investigations. And, eventually, it all beca— available here on Amazon, here on Bookshop, or it can be ordered at any local bookstore. me this book, Petroleum 238: Big Oil’s Dangerous Secret and the Grassroots Fight to Stop It — available here on Amazon, here on Bookshop, or it can be ordered at any local bookstore.
George Monbiot; How the Overseas Owners of the UK’s Water Companies Clean Up By Polluting Our Rivers So that’s how they do it. I’d been wondering how, when more sewage has been entering our rivers than ever before, some of the water companies have managed to improve the ratio of the sewage they treat v the sewage that pours untreated from their storm overflows into our rivers and the sea. Now we know. It’s called “flow trimming”. Sounds innocuous, doesn’t it? What it means is that sewage is diverted into rivers and ditches upstream of the water treatment works. By reducing the amount of sewage entering the works, the companies can claim to be dealing responsibly with a higher proportion of it.
US can get the lead for war, but not for environmental health at home! 10 Years Later, Flint Residents Are Still Waiting for Lead Pipes to Be Replaced Biden pledged to replace all of the US’s lead pipes, but he’d need billions of dollars more from Congress to do it. Ten years after government mistakes and cost-cutting measures caused a drinking water disaster that afflicted daily life in Flint, Michigan, and exposed thousands of schoolchildren to harmful levels of lead, residents are still waiting for a resolution as environmentalists warn that the U.S. faces a spiraling water safety and affordability crisis. In March, a federal judge held city and state officials in contempt of court for failing to reach certain milestones in their ongoing effort replace the lead pipes that brought disaster to Flint’s majority-Black community. The ruling was only the latest legal intervention following a 2017 settlement requiring Flint to finish replacing lead pipes and restore residents’ homes by January 2020, a deadline that was extended during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Economy:
Michael Roberts: Wealth or Income? Most discussions on inequality, whether between nations globally or within nations, take place around income. Data and papers on inequality of income are profuse, particularly on the rise in most major economies since the 1980s and the cause of it. I have covered many of these papers; the conclusions and causes; in many posts. Related to the debate around inequality of income is also the issue of ‘poverty’: how to define and measure it and whether poverty globally and within economies has risen or fallen. A recent report by the World Economic Forum, found that income inequality has risen or remained stagnant in 20 of the 29 advanced economies while poverty has increased in 17. Income inequality has increased more rapidly in North America, China, India and Russia than anywhere else, notes the World Inequality Report 2018 produced by the World Inequality Lab, a research center based at the Paris School of Economics. The difference between Western Europe and the United States is particularly striking: “While the top 1% income share was close to 10% in both regions in 1980, it rose only slightly to 12% in 2016 in Western Europe while it shot up to 20% in the United States. Meanwhile, in the United States, the bottom 50% income share decreased from more than 20% in 1980 to 13% in 2016.” But discussion and analysis of inequality of wealth (personal wealth) does not get so much attention. And yet, I would argue that anybody with huge amounts of wealth (defined as ownership of property, means of production and financial assets) correspondingly obtains high levels of income – and, it seems, relatively lower levels of taxation.
World:
Yankee Go Home!: African Governments Are Increasingly Turning Against US Military PresenceIn just the last week, the US announced withdrawals of military personnel from both Niger and Chad. The U.S. military presence in Central and West Africa is proving increasingly unwelcome. On Wednesday, the State Department announced that the U.S. would soon begin “an orderly and responsible withdrawal” of its more than 1,000 U.S. service members currently deployed in Niger.” A mere 24 hours later, came reports that the Pentagon will withdraw its 75 Army Special Forces personnel as early as next week from neighboring Chad amid uncertainty about whether Washington’s status of forces agreement with that sprawling country can continue or be renegotiated.
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