Daily News Digest May 21, 2024
Images of the Day:
Latuff: Gaza Protest Crackdown
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”
The Rise Capitalism was Under the Banner of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity! Now Ther Their Less Liberty, More Inequality, and Less Fraternity of Humanity! Every Day, From Global Warming to Global War There is a New Example of Capitalism in Imperialist Decay!
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:
Malcolm X’s Birthday was on May 19: Famous Quote:
. . . It’s impossible for a chicken to produce a duck egg… The system of this country cannot produce freedom for an Afro-American. It is impossible for this system, this economic system, this political system, this social system, this system period. It is impossible for it , as it now stands, to produce freedom right now for the Black man in this country — it is impossible. And if ever a chicken did produce a duck egg, I’m certain you would say it was certainly a revolutionary chicken. . . . — Malcolm X, Harlem ‘Hate Gang’ Scare Militant Labor Forum, May 29, 1964
Western officials and the media that clerk for them have done their best, per usual, to dismiss this latest encounter of the Russian and Chinese leaders as of no account, just two authoritarians bound together by nothing more than their shared enmity toward the West. Pay no attention. We ought not miss the significance of what Putin and Xi had to say this week to one another and to the rest of humanity. The world just turned once again. The Kremlin was first to publish a transcript of their “Media Statement Following Russia–China Talks.” The two presidents spoke in turn—Xi, the host, going first and Putin to follow. Here is a snippet drawn from Xi’s remarks: We signed joint statements on enhancing the comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation for a new era…. China and Russia have served as a role model by showing others ways of building state-to-state ties of a new kind and working together as two major neighboring powers … based on the principles of respect and equality. — Patrick Lawrence: Putin and Xi in Beijing: Steps into the 21st Century
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
The Nation’s Conscience, Part I – Read by Eunice Wong The courageous stance of students across the country in defiance of genocide is accompanied by a near total blackout of their voices. Their words are the ones we most need to hear. … The university, as during the COVID pandemic, has retreated into the world of screens, where students are isolated in their rooms. The university buildings are largely vacant. The campus pathway is deserted. Columbia is a Potemkin University, a playground for corporate administrators. The president of the university, a British-Egyptian baroness who built her career at institutions such as the Bank of England, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, called in police in riot gear with guns drawn to clear the school’s encampment, forcibly evict students who occupied a campus hall, and beat and arrest over 100 of them. They were arrested for… criminal trespassing on their own campus. These administrators demand, like all who manage corporate systems of power, total obedience. Dissent, freedom of expression, critical thought, moral outrage. These have no place in our corporate indentured universities. All systems of totalitarianism, including corporate totalitarianism, deform education into vocational training where students are taught what to think, not how to think.
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
Follow the Missiles The US has long been Israel’s largest arms merchant. For the last four years, the US has supplied Israel with 69% of its imported weapons, from F-35s to chemical munitions (white phosphorous), tank shells to precision bombs. Despite this, the Biden administration claims not to know how these weapons are put to use, even when they maim and kil American citizens. Since the start of the latest war on Gaza, the US has had both defense department and CIA officials in Israel helping the Israelis with intelligence, logistics, targeting and bomb damage assessment. Still, the Biden administration claims not to have any hard evidence that the weapons it has transferred to Israel have been used to slaughter civilians, torture detainees or restrict the flow of humanitarian aid to starving, dehydrated and sick Palestinian civilians.
This Is What Education Is, for God’s Sake! It’s not just a matter of attending lectures, taking notes, absorbing data. It means finding your voice – finding your deepest values and expressing them in real life, putting them forward not as abstractions but as principles to live by. There’s something happening here . . . Consider, for instance, the recent announcement by Union Theological Seminary, which is affiliated with Columbia University, that it is divesting from “companies profiting from war in Palestine/Israel” – and, not only that, fully supports the student encampments (at Columbia and all across the country) and condemns the arrests and police violence wreaking havoc on the peaceful, culturally diverse protests.
Thinking Clearly About the Protesters “Do you think ‘sit-ins’ at lunch counters, ‘Freedom Buses’ and other demonstrations by Negroes will hurt or help the Negro’s chances of being integrated in the South?” This question was posed by Gallup, a leading polling organization, back in 1961, during the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement. A majority of Americans at the time, 57%, believed that the sit-ins would “hurt” the movement. They were wrong. Today, we credit the Civil Rights Movement with ending racial segregation in the United States, but we cannot disconnect its success from its tactics. Martin Luther King Jr. was no advocate of passive resistance, but a firm believer in “militant nonviolence”– a consistent torrent of protests in the form of boycotts, mass marches, sit-ins, and strikes. These are similar tactics to those that students across the world are using to spread awareness of the over 30,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza and to push their universities to dissociate from the Israeli State. In the same way that perceptions of the Civil Rights Movement were inaccurate, I am afraid that perceptions of the student encampments are becoming warped. There are strong structural and cognitive forces that can explain why public perceptions are so distant from the reality on the ground today. It is important to consider these forces to think clearly about our country’s national reckoning with the war on Gaza
U.S. Funded Plestinian Genocide:
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?
The Overlooked Contributors to Climate and Biodiversity Crises: Military Operations and Wars Abstract: The military-industrial complex, military operations, and wars are major contributors to exacerbating both climate change and biodiversity crises. However, their environmental impacts are often shadowed due to national security reasons. The current paper aims to go through the devastating impacts of military operations and wars on climate change and biodiversity loss and challenges that hinder the inclusion of military-related activities into environmental crisis mitigation efforts. The information blind spot induced by concerns about national security reasons jeopardizes the efforts to involve the military industrial complex and military operations in the global climate and biodiversity agendas. Besides that, many military related challenges, such as specificity of operational requirements and lifecycles, dependence on fossil fuels, complex supply change, inadequate civilian technologies and innovations, and requirements of structural changes, can hinder emission reduction. Meanwhile, wars and conflicts not only threaten to drain all human and material resources available to tackle environmental problems but also inflict long-lasting destructions, pains, and trauma that can lead to hatred and distrust among nations and parties. With the rising hatred and distrust, global agreement and commitment to address climate change and biodiversity will hardly be achieved. Thus, promoting peace is the humanistic and planetary conscience.
1,3-Dichloropropene Hazard Summary 1,3-Dichloropropene is used as a component in formulations for soil fumigants. Acute (short-term) inhalation exposure of humans following a spill caused mucous membrane irritation, chest pain, and breathing difficulties. Effects on the lung have been observed in rats acutely exposed to 1,3- dichloropropene by inhalation. Chronic (long-term) dermal exposure may result in skin sensitization in humans. Damage to the nasal mucosa and urinary bladder are the primary health effects of rodents chronically exposed to 1,3-dichloropropene by inhalation. Information on the carcinogenic effects of 1,3- dichloropropene in humans is limited; two cases of histiocytic lymphomas and one case of leukemia have been reported in humans accidentally exposed by inhalation to concentrated vapors during cleanup of a tank truck spill. An increased incidence of bronchioalveolar adenomas has been reported in male mice exposed by inhalation but not in rats or female mice. EPA has classified 1,3-dichloropropene as a Group B2, probable human carcinogen. — 1,3-Dichloropropene – Environmental Protection Agency
California regulators were stunned by their air monitor results in April 1990. Concentrations of a cancer-causing pesticide at schools in Merced County were so high that regulators immediately stopped any use of that pesticide in California. It’s a chemical with an unwieldy name, 1,3-dichloropropene, that you may have never heard about. But there are many reasons why you should be concerned about its use. The pesticide, also referred to as 1,3-D, is still a problem three decades after I first wrote about it in 1992, when the detection of high levels of 1,3-D in the air of a junior high school led to serious concerns. The use of 1,3-D in California was suspended from 1990 to 1995 but continued in the rest of the country. Since then, its use has come back with a vengeance. About 34 million pounds are used annually in the United States; about one-third is used in California. The use of 1,3-D is concentrated in the southeastern U.S., central California, and the potato-growing areas of Washington and Idaho. It is mainly used to kill nematodes, symphylans, and wireworms and control some plant diseases. — 1,3-Dichloropropene: The Dangerous, Sweet-Smelling Pesticide You’ve Never Heard Of
Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ Ubiquitous in Great Lakes Basin, Study Finds PFAS chemicals present in air, rain, atmosphere and water in basin, which holds nearly 95% of US freshwater Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” are ubiquitous in the Great Lakes basin’s air, rain, atmosphere and water, new peer-reviewed research shows. The first-of-its-kind, comprehensive picture of PFAS levels for the basin, which holds nearly 95% of the nation’s freshwater, also reveals that precipitation is probably a major contributor to the lakes’ contamination.
Permafrost Showdown “Deep below the glistening surface of a frozen Arctic lake, something is bubbling—something that could cause global warming to accelerate beyond all previous projections… Now the freezer door is opening, releasing the carbon into Arctic lake bottoms. Microbes digest it, convert it to methane, and the lakes essentially burp out methane.’ Scientists estimate that permafrost holds up to 950 billion tons of carbon. As it thaws, 50 billion tons of methane could enter the atmosphere from Siberian lakes alone. That’s ten times more methane than the atmosphere holds right now,” (Katey Walter Anthony, biogeochemist, National Geographic Explorer Since 2011)
What Is Actually Being Done to Phase Out Fossil Fuels? The Yasuní referendum in Ecuador and the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty are two rare examples of people taking action to end the production of oil, gas, and coal. Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. This quip by the American essayist Charles Dudley Warner applies to fossil fuels as well. Everyone talks about ending fossil fuel production, but almost no one is doing anything about it. Take the example of the Biden administration. It has launched the most ambitious effort by the United States to leave fossil fuels behind and enter the new era of renewable energy. And yet, in 2023, the United States produced more crude oil than ever before: 12.9 million barrels per day compared to the previous record from 2019 of 12.3 million barrels a day.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Capitalism’s Systemic Environmental Racism: Insurers are Pulling Out of Climate Risk Zones, Leaving Communities Even More Vulnerable n an era of climate disasters, Americans in vulnerable regions will need to rely more than ever on their home insurance. But as floods, wildfires, and severe storms become more common, a troubling practice known as “bluelining” threatens to leave many communities unable to afford insurance — or obtain it at any price. Bluelining is an insidious practice with similarities to redlining — the notorious government-sanctioned practice of financial institutions denying mortgages and credit to Black and brown communities, which were often marked by red lines on map. These days, financial institutions are now drawing “blue lines” around many of these same communities, restricting services like insurance based on environmental risks. Even worse, many of those same institutions are bankrolling those risks by funding and insuring the fossil fuel industry. Originally, bluelining referred to blue-water flood risks, but it now includes other climate-related disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and severe thunderstorms, all of which are driving private-sector decisions. (Severe thunderstorms, in fact, were responsible for about 61 percent of insured natural catastrophe losses in 2023.
Formerly Incarcerated People Face “Forever Punishment” in Collateral Sanctions Collateral sanctions enable the power structure to penalize those it deems “unworthy” and “undesirable.
Labor:
Economy:
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