Daily News Digest June 20, 2024
Images of the Day:
Bendib: Supremes Everywhere 
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 6 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 Five Horsemen of the the Apocalypse, Spreading Racism, War, Famine, Pestilence, Death, and Misinformation! 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:
People who are easily discouraged, whose heart sink when they encounter conflicts and setbacks, shouldn’t go into revolutionary politics. It is hard fighting all the time, there is never any assurance of smooth sailing. How can that be expected? The whole weight of bourgeois society presses down upon a few hundred or a few thousand people. If these people are not united in their own conceptions, if they fall to quarreling among themselves, that is also a sign of the tremendous pressure of the bourgeois world on the vanguard of the proletariat, and even more on the vanguard of the vanguard. The influence of bourgeois society finds an expression at times even in sections of a revolutionary workers party. Therein is the real source of serious factional fights. One ought, if he goes into politics, to try to understand all these things; try to estimate them clearly from the political point of view and find a political solution for them.” ― James P. Cannon, The History of American Trotskyism, 1928-38: Report of a Participant
Podcasts/Videos of the Day:
Ahead of Juneteenth, Maryland Pardons 175K Pot Convictions, Seeking to Remedy Harms of War on Drugs
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 US Is Preparing For WWIII While Expanding Draft Registration So I guess we should probably talk about the way NATO powers are rapidly escalating toward hot war with Russia at the same time the US is expanding its draft policies to make it easier to force more Americans go and fight in a giant war. In an article titled “NATO: 500,000 Troops on High Readiness for War With Russia,” Antiwar’s Kyle Anzalone highlights NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s comments on Friday stating the alliance actually has a far greater number of troops it could deploy than the 300,000 it had previously set as its goal.
U.S. CEOs are Bequeathing Us a Frightfully Unequal Future Some 87 percent of Americans, polling tells us, consider today’s growing gap between U.S. CEO and worker pay a serious cause for national concern. That gap has become a cause for global concern as well. CEO-worker pay gaps in the United States, as data in a new Altrata report make clear, are essentially cementing in place our world’s current “colossal” maldistribution of income and wealth.
The West Is Lighting the Fuse of War The Western media is a lie machine. Western governments live in a make-believe world of their own impunity. Consequently, the Western peoples lack awareness of the dangerous situation that Washington has created with Russia. The so-called “peace conference” in Switzerland was a fraud. Russia was not included, so how was it a peace conference? It was a propaganda event to rally support around Washington’s puppet, Zelensky, whose term has expired and who is ruling illegitimately as a dictator. Many of the attendees refused to sign the statement. Here is a true description of the situation. The West is acting in behalf of the war continuing and expanding. The puppet’s term has expired and Zelensky continues in office despite not being reelected. The Western trained and equipped Ukrainian military has been defeated. At any time, Russia can increase the offensive and clear Ukrainian forces from the Russian populated areas that have been reincorporated into Russia. The West’s response to its lost war consists of two reckless and irresponsible actions. One is to send NATO troops, with the French being the opening wedge, to replace the depleted Ukrainian troops. The other is to further provoke the Kremlin by firing longer range missiles into Russia.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
The Major Obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian Peace Is the United States of America The U.S. government seems determined to share Israel’s self-inflicted isolation from voices calling for peace from all over the world, including large majorities of countries in the UN General Assembly and Security Council.
UN Rights Chief Says, ‘Serious Concerns of Unlawful Killings’ by Israel in West Bank In addition to the “unconscionable death and suffering” in Gaza, the situation for Palestinians in the West Bank is also “dramatically deteriorating,” the U.N. human rights chief said. The United Nations’ top human rights official said Tuesday that the situation in the West Bank was “dramatically deteriorating” and that Israeli security forces and settlers had killed 528 Palestinians in the occupied territory since October, “in many cases raising serious concerns of unlawful killings.”
Holocaust Scholar Loses Job Offer After Calling Out Genocide in Gaza Raz Segal says he was targeted as a “Jew who refuses the narrowing down of Jewish identity to Zionism.” We speak with Israeli American Jewish scholar Raz Segal about the University of Minnesota’s move to rescind a job offer over his comments early in the war on Gaza, when he characterized the Israeli assault as a “textbook case of genocide.” Segal was set to lead the university’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, but after two board members quit in opposition to Segal’s selection and a smear campaign led by the pro-Israel group Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas (JCRC), the school revoked the offer. Segal says he has been “targeted because of my identity as a Jew who refuses the narrowing down of Jewish identity to Zionism” and calls the JCRC-led opposition a “hateful campaign of lies and distortions” and “crude political intervention.” “This was a completely legitimate hiring process,” states Segal. He says rescission of his offer “spells the end of this idea of free inquiry, of academic freedom, of research and teaching — and all in the service, of course, of supporting an extremely violent state.”
Less Than 2 Weeks After Nuseirat Raid, IDF Kills at Least 17 in Refugee Camp Israeli forces attacked two homes in Nuseirat that were accommodating families who had recently evacuated from Rafah.
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 Guardian View on the Climate Crisis and Heatwaves: A Killer We Need to Combat Britain may be chilly, but from Greece to India, people are dying due to record temperatures. The death toll will grow without urgent action While Britons don jumpers and complain about the unseasonable cold, much of the world has been reeling due to excessive temperatures. India has been in the grip of its longest heatwave in recorded history, with thermometers hitting 50C in some places. Greece closed the Acropolis in the afternoon last week as temperatures hit 43C; never has it seen a heatwave so early in the year. Soaring temperatures in the Sahel and western Africa saw mortuaries in Mali reportedly running short of space this spring, while swathes of Asia suffered in May.
A Climate Emergency Declaration Is Long Overdue — as Is a Climate Action Plan The US urgently needs a complete plan with clear, enforceable targets, timelines, and roadmaps for climate protection. While April and May are usually the hottest months in many countries in Southeast Asia, hundreds of millions of people are now suffering in South Asia from an exceptionally intense heat wave that has killed hundreds. One expert has already called it the most extreme heat event in history. Record-breaking temperatures above 122º F were reported in the Indian capital of New Delhi and temperatures sizzled to an unheard of 127º F in parts of India and Pakistan.
FEMA Petitioned to Make Extreme Heat and Wildfire Smoke Major Disasters Center for Biological Diversity signed a joined petition to recognize the increasing number of heat-related crises A coalition of environmental non-profit organizations have called on the the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to add extreme heat and wildfire smoke to its list of major disasters that could qualify for emergency funding. The Center for Biological Diversity signed a joint petition on Monday urging Fema, the federal government’s lead agency in responding to natural disasters, to officially recognize the increasing number of heat-related crises.
What is a Heat Dome and How is tt Contributing to the Heatwave in the US Approximately 80% of country’s population is experiencing temperatures at or above 90F for long periods of time. More than 270 million Americans – about 80% of the country’s population – are experiencing a kind of heatwave not seen in decades, smashing records with temperatures at or above 90F (32.2C) for long periods of time under a weather phenomenon known as a heat dome.
A Baby born in April 2023 has never Experienced a Month that wasn’t the Hottest on Record When a baby born on April 1, 2023 reached 14 months and became a toddler this month, it had never lived through a month that wasn’t the hottest on record. The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Agency has announced that May 2024 was the hottest May on record. But even more worrisome, it was the 14th consecutive hottest month on record. Records began being kept around 1850, when enough people around the world began noting down temperatures using a mercury thermometer. In fact, scientific proxies for temperatures before that date suggest we are now seeing averages that are the hottest in 125,000 years. That is worrisome since all human civilization developed under cooler conditions during which the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere tended to be around 280. By pumping billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually, our industrial civilization has raised that average to 426 ppm.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
United States: Anti-Black racism Lives on in ‘Liberal’ California … Anti-Black Racism Triples: A report published by the Public Policy Institute of California in May revealed that anti-Black hate crimes almost tripled between 2019‒22. This matches California’s Department of Justice’s data, which shows Black people were the most common targets of hate crimes back to the 1990s. As the Chronicle noted, “Hate crimes motivated by racial bias rose by 11.4% from 1,165 in 2021 to 1,298 in 2022, according to state DOJ data. Most victims were Asian, Latino or Black. “After reaching a 20-year high of 247 in 2021, anti-Asian hate crimes fell to 140 in 2022, which is still a higher total than any year between 2001 and 2020. “Anti-Latino hate crimes increased from 197 in 2021 to 210 in 2022. Anti-white hate crimes rose from 83 in 2021 to 103 in 2022. [At 41%, whites are the largest racial/ethnic group in the state.]. “Add together all of the anti-white, Asian and Latino hate crimes in 2022, and the total is far less than the number of anti-Black hate crimes that year — 652, a 27% increase from 513 in 2021.” The mainstream media rarely focuses on these figures. There is more talk in the media today about the rise of antisemitism — a broad label applied to anti-Jewish sentiments and criticism of the Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza. A growing number of hate crimes across the state are perpetrated by white supremacists. They allege there are too many “diversity” and affirmative action programs being carried out by the government, universities and corporations to deal with historic discrimination. California’s image as a bastion of racial diversity and equality is a fraud. The truth is in the treatment of a Black community that government census data shows has been shrinking for decades.
Labor:
Economy:
Chase Bank Customers Are Reporting a Wave of Wire Fraud in their Accounts; the Bank Won’t Make Good on the Looted Funds On January 29, Anne Marie Murphy and two of her colleagues at law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP in Santa Monica, California filed a lawsuit in Superior Court on behalf of a 76-year old widow, Diane Artemis Yaffe. Scammers had tricked Ms. Yaffe into making seven wire transfers out of her Chase Bank account, which tallied up to the astonishing sum of $1.8 million, or the bulk of her funds at the time. There are three things which jump out of the factual details in the case that would appear to be legally problematic for Chase Bank – the federally-insured, retail banking unit of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. First, the six figure wires were completely out-of-character for this elderly client. Second, the huge sums were being wired out of the country. Third, the funds that Chase Bank wired were originally at Bank of America and were only transferred to Chase Bank because Bank of America had the good sense to refuse to make the wire transfers for this elderly widow.
World:
Climate Refugees Are Occupying Abandoned Buildings in Southern Brazil As the climate crisis continues, flood victims in Brazil are building solidarity as they occupy unused buildings. In the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, one building stands apart from the rest. A big homemade banner, made on what looks like a blue bedsheet, is tied up to the metal fence out front. It reads, in Portuguese, Ocupação Desabrigados da Enchente — the Homeless From the Flood Occupation. This is one of the latest housing occupations in Brazil. Families displaced by unprecedented floods, which inundated cities across Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul in early May, took over the building on the evening of Friday, May 24. They’ve been there ever since.
Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir: Down With State Repression! Free the Imprisoned Leaders! … We have just received news from Pakistan-held Kashmir of a government crackdown on the leaders of Awami Action committees, who successfully led the mass movement against electricity and wheat/flour price hikes. During this movement, three protesters were killed by paramilitary forces and around thirty were seriously injured. Some of the leaders of the mass movement have now been arrested and other leaders are being hunted by the authorities.
Education, Health, 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