Daily News Digest May 27, 2024
Images of the Day:
Ted Rall: ‘The Carefully Considered
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 of Capitalism was Under the Banner of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity! Now There is 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:
Keep In Mind
Trotsky warned in 1940 that the attempt to solve the ‘Jewish problem’ in Europe through the dispossession of the Palestinians would be a “bloody trap”. These words ring true to this very day. But the real history of Israel-Palestine has been buried under mountains of falsification. … Over the past one-hundred years, the Middle East has been the chessboard for many decisive games between the imperialist powers. The reason for the relevance of the region, considered of relatively secondary importance until the end of the 19th century, is well known: beneath the lands of the Middle East lie the planet’s main oil reserves. Palestine, for a number of geo-political and historical reasons, has increasingly become the focus of Middle Eastern tensions. — Palestine before 1948: How imperialism created Israel
For weeks leading up to, and following the cancellation of Asna Tabassaum’s valedictory address, students on USC’s campus, and college campuses across the world have continued to protest the administrative failure to talk about Palestine, divest from war profiteering and protect their students and their right to free speech. Due to the failure of top administrators to support the right to free speech and the right to assemble — both enshrined in our Constitution and denied when the LAPD was called to our campus — a contentious nature surrounded the event they did allow us to have, causing me, and many other students, to feel that the whole ceremony was a bit trivial considering the mass atrocities taking place in Palestine and the administration’s refusal to include Palestine in any conversation … but I suppose their designated free speech area would not be big enough to accommodate all those who would wish to participate in such a discussion. — Inside USC Annenberg’s Commencement, Outside the “Free Speech Area”
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
Prof. Steven Thrasher: You Are Being Lied to About Pro-Palestine Protests on Campus
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
Follow the Money: How Israel-Linked Billionaires Silenced US Campus Protests Thousands of students face severe consequences for protesting Gaza violence. Alan Macleod investigates the powerful financial and ideological ties to Israel driving the harsh responses from America’s top universities. America’s universities are on fire. A protest movement against the violence in Gaza and U.S. colleges’ complicity in them has swept the nation, with encampments on college campuses in 45 of America’s 50 states. The crackdown has been swift; thousands of students have been arrested, charged, fined, lost their degrees, or even deported. Amid corporate media demanding a “Kent State 2.0”, riot police, armored vehicles and snipers have been deployed across the country to terrify those campaigning for justice into silence. Why have overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations against a foreign power’s actions been met with such a heavy-handed response? A MintPress News investigation finds that those same elite institutions have deep financial and ideological ties to the state of Israel, are funded by pro-Israel billionaires who have demanded they take action to crush the student movement, are partially funded by the Israeli government, and exist in a climate where Washington has made it clear that the protests should not be tolerated.
Most Bigoted, Genocidal Representative in Congress smears Juan Cole as a Racist The House Committee on Education and the Workplace, headed by the increasingly unhinged Rep. Virginia Palmieri Foxx (R-NC), held another Stalin-style show trial on Thursday, grilling the presidents of Northwestern University, Rutgers University, and the University of California Los Angeles about how they dealt with campus student protests against the Gaza atrocity. The clown car on Capitol Hill even tried to pick up yours truly. (Yes.) Foxx and her MAGA colleagues are much more concerned about cracking the heads of principled undergraduates than about the 15,000 dead children in Gaza.
The Pentagon’s .00035% Problem There are constants in this world — occurrences you can count on. Sunrises and sunsets. The tides. That, day by day, people will be born and others will die. Some of them will die in peace, but others, of course, in violence and agony. For hundreds of years, the U.S. military has been killing people. It’s been a constant of our history. Another constant has been American military personnel killing civilians, whether Native Americans, Filipinos, Nicaraguans, Haitians, Japanese, Korans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, and on and on. And there’s something else that’s gone along with those killings: a lack of accountability for them.
U.S. Funded Plestinian Genocide:
The Great Palestinian Revolt of 1936-39 The clashes of 1921 and 1929, although violent and bloody, had only directly affected a small layer of the Arab and Jewish population. In April 1936, however, the Palestinian revolt spread on a mass basis from the cities, where “National Committees” were spontaneously formed on the initiative of radicalised youth, the shababs. The traditional leaders were reluctant to clash head-on with the British authorities. It was not until 25th April that the Arab Higher Committee was formed to lead the revolt under the leadership of the Husayni. The Revolt was characterised by a six-month-long Arab general strike and a permanent semi-insurrectionary struggle and armed guerrilla in the countryside (from mid-May to mid-October). The clashes of 1921 and 1929, although violent and bloody, had only directly affected a small layer of the Arab and Jewish population. In April 1936, however, the Palestinian revolt spread on a mass basis from the cities, where “National Committees” were spontaneously formed on the initiative of radicalised youth, the shababs. The traditional leaders were reluctant to clash head-on with the British authorities. It was not until 25th April that the Arab Higher Committee was formed to lead the revolt under the leadership of the Husayni. The Revolt was characterised by a six-month-long Arab general strike and a permanent semi-insurrectionary struggle and armed guerrilla in the countryside (from mid-May to mid-October). The different scale of this revolt was noted by Ben-Gurion himself, who wrote that the Arabs were “fighting against dispossession… The Arab is fighting a war that cannot be ignored. He goes out on strike, he is killed, he makes great sacrifices.” He also stated on May 19, 1936: [the Arabs] “see… exactly the opposite of what we see. It doesn’t matter whether or not their view is correct… They see immigration on a giant scale… they see the Jews fortifying themselves economically… They see the best lands passing into our hands. They see England identify with Zionism.”
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?
A $6,000 per Person Settlement for Being Exposed to Carcinogenic Vinyl Chloride is Settling for ‘Pennies on the Dollar’!: $600 Million is an Insult to East Palestine Residents!: Erin Brockovich: $600 Million Settlement ‘Not Enough’ for East Palestine
- Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine on Feb. 3, 2023
- Residents have complained of ongoing health problems, sought assitance
- $600M settlement will resolve class action claims within 20-mile radius
Norfolk Southern has agreed to pay $600 million to residents and businesses impacted by the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, but environmental activist Erin Brockovich says the settlement is not enough to truly hold the company accountable. In a Tuesday interview on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports,” Brockovich expressed skepticism about the payout, which works out to approximately $6,000 per person affected by the disaster. “The money … never makes the people whole,” Brockovich said, quoting a line from the film based on her own legal battle. “We’re missing the mark here. And thinking that in a litigation, just giving people money makes it right, because they continue and will continue to suffer.”
NOAA Predicts ‘Extraordinary’ Atlantic Hurricane Season as Ocean Temperatures Soar “The fun-filled summer season has increasingly become a time of dread for the dangers that await,” said one climate scientist. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned Thursday that it expects “above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin this year” due to rising ocean temperatures related to the climate emergency and La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean. “NOAA’s outlook for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which spans from June 1 to November 30, predicts an 85% chance of an above-normal season, a 10% chance of a near-normal season, and a 5% chance of a below-normal season,” the agency—which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce—said in a statement.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Survivors of Prison Staff Abuse Say Transfer to New Facilities Hasn’t Ended Harm When FCI Dublin closed, people were transferred to a dozen prisons where they face ongoing mistreatment and retaliation
Labor:
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics New Weekly Commentary May 24, 2024
- Today’s “Final” Reading for the May 2024 University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Confirmed The Statistically Meaningful, Sharp Month-to-Month Deterioration, Down by 10.5% (-10.5%), Still Shy by 31.6% (-31.6%) of Ever Recovering Its February 2020 Pre-Pandemic Peak, Albeit up by 17.1% Year-to-Year from May 2023
- In Parallel, Net of Various BLS Headline CPI Inflation-Muting Methodological Changes Since 1982, the April 2024 ShadowStats-Alternate CPI Annual Inflation Estimate Notched Lower to 11.2% from 11.3% in March 2024
- Where the Administration Heavily Depleted the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Depress Gasoline Prices and CPI Inflation Coming into the 2022 Mid-Term Elections, It Now Is Depleting Gasoline Reserves Before the 2024 Presidential Election
- In the Four-Plus Years Since the February 2020 Pre-Pandemic Trough, The Headline April 2024 CPI-U Inflation Has Gained an Aggregate 21.2%, While the Corrected ShadowStats Alternate CPI Gained 63.3% Over the Same Period
- The Inflation Problem: Since Before the Pandemic Hit, There Has Been No “Overheating Economy” Driving U.S. Inflation
- That Assessment Was a Federal Reserve Canard Used as an Excuse to Raise Interest Rates
- Both Federal Reserve Extreme Money Supply Creation and Unfettered Fiscal Stimulus (Federal Deficit Spending and Debt Growth) Generated by the White House and U.S. Congress Have Been Driving the Inflation; There Has Been No Overheating Economy
- Sensitive to the Mounting Inflation Pressures, the Price of Gold in U.S. Dollars Also Has Been on the Rise
Overview of Last Week’s Headline Reporting of the April 2024 Consumer Price Index
- Updated April 2024 CPI and Inflation Calculator Gold Prices Increasingly Are Catching Up With the Headline ShadowStats Alternate CPI Inflation Year-to-Year Consumer Price Index (CPI) Inflation Increased by 3.4% in April 2024, Easing From 3.5% in March, But Otherwise at a Five-Month-High, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
- The Rising Price of Gold Has Moved Increasingly Close to Reflecting the Higher Underlying Inflation Reality and Systemic Instability, Which Should Continue to Surface in Headline CPI and ShadowStats Alternate CPI Details in the Months Ahead
- Corrected for the BLS’s Inflation-Muting Gimmicks Since 1982, and Consistent With Prior Historical CPI Reporting, the April 2024 ShadowStats-Alternate CPI Annual Inflation Backed Off to 11.2% after Notching to a Six-Month High 11,3% in March
- In the Four-Plus Years Since the February 2020 Pre-Pandemic Trough, Headline April 2024 CPI-U Inflation Has Gained 21.2%, While the Corrected ShadowStats Alternate CPI Has Gained 63.3% Over the Same Period (See the Manual Inflation Calculator on Page
World:
Stop the Political Frame-Up of Ukrainian Socialist BogdanSyrotiuk! Bogdan Syrotiuk, the 25-year-old leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (the YGBL), a socialist-Trotskyist organization active in Ukraine, Russia and throughout the former USSR, was arrested by the notorious state security service of the fascistic Zelensky regime, the SBU. Bogdan is being held in atrocious conditions in a high security prison in the city of Nikolaev (Mykolaiv), which is located in southern Ukraine. The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the world Trotskyist movement with which the YGBL is politically affiliated, has finally obtained the actual documents in which the SBU presents its charges against Bogdan Syrotiuk. These documents, which form the basis of his detention, make absolutely clear that Bogdan is the victim of a monstrous state frame-up. The allegations concocted by the SBU are a crude combination of lies, obvious fabrications, and political absurdities.
Revealed: How Church of England’s Ties to Chattel Slavery Went Top of Hierarchy Lambeth Palace documents show purchase of enslaved people in 18th century approved by Anglican archbishop Related:Life on plantations owned by Church of England missionary arm
An archbishop of Canterbury in the 18th century approved payments for the purchase of enslaved people for two sugar plantations in Barbados, documents seen by the Observer have revealed. Thomas Secker agreed to reimburse a payment for £1,093 for the purchase of enslaved people on the Codrington Plantations, as well as hiring enslaved people from a third party. It was stated the measures were “calculated for the future lasting advantages of the estates”.
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
Student Debtors and Activists Demand Biden “Fund Education, Not Genocide” Organizers say their recent DC action was inspired by the students who’ve been arrested at Gaza solidarity encampments.