Daily News Digest July 9, 2024
Images of the Day:
America’s Week of Wildfires, Hurricanes, and Flooding
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:
My life has recently intersected, in a most personal way, two of Mark Twain’s famous quips. One I shall defer to the end of this essay. The other (sometimes attributed to Disraeli), identifies three species of mendacity, each worse than the one before – lies, damned lies, and statistics. — Stephen Jay Gould
While it’s sometimes difficult to measure the exact role of climate change in any particular weather event, scientists know that global warming is having an overall effect on the frequency and severity of such events. Studies have shown, for instance, that heat waves and drought are more likely in a warming world. Dry conditions subsequently increase the risk of wildfires. Similarly, warmer-than-usual oceans are a key ingredient for tropical storms and hurricanes to form. A warmer atmosphere can also hold more moisture, making the storms rainier and likelier to cause flooding. —Wildfires, Hurricanes and Heat: The U.S. is Getting Hit by Extreme Weather From All Sides
Vide0s of the Day:
I Want a Free Palestine and a Free Mind, a Free Heart and a Free World!
Glenn Greenwald: Excessive January 6 Prosecutions Overturned
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 : My own Government, I cannot be Silent. ― Martin Luther King Jr.
To this day, we have a government and state apparatus that is designed to “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority” Democracy for white and wealthy men only! — Roland Sheppard, My Forefathers and The 1%’s Forefathers
The Mendacity of the United States!: Who, What is the Biggest Liar, Trump, or Biden, or the Media Monopoly?! Patrick Lawrence: Power for the Sake of Power When I awoke Saturday morning, I found my thoughts wandering back a decade, when my siblings and I plotted to get our father’s car keys out of his frail, unsteady hands. Watching Joe Biden in a television interview will do this to you. “I am running the world,” was one of the more unfathomable remarks our burbling president made when he sat Friday evening for a 22–minute exchange with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. It is a frightening thought, and thank goodness it is delusory. But anyone this out of touch with the world he thinks he runs should not be running anything. If I were Jill Biden—Dr. Jill Biden—I would seize the keys to the ’67 Corvette and hide them at the back of a kitchen drawer. The Stephanopoulos interview was supposed to begin mending the all-but-fatal damage wreaked during Biden’s June 27 “debate” with Donald Trump. It was supposed to make Americans believe him when he said, “It was a bad episode. No indication of any serious condition.” It was supposed to make him credible as the only guy who can beat Trump this November, the only guy who can hold NATO together, who can bring peace to the Middle East, the only guy who can grow the economy, who, can “save democracy,” who can get everyone health care—the only guy, the only guy. I have long thought that Biden’s tragic flaw as a public figure is his assumption that he can lie, misrepresent, and simply bullshit extravagantly and get people to believe him so long as he keeps on lying, misrepresenting and bullshitting. But I never had him down as the Walter Mitty of our time—a man who lives enveloped in the conjured dreams he prefers to reality. Now I do. This man is altogether gone. He now proposes to lie, misrepresent, and bullshit his way through what 50 million people saw during his encounter with Trump—and, on the hustings again last weekend, what they saw when he sat with Stephanopoulos in the library of a Wisconsin middle school.
War and Famine: America’s War on Terror and the Wasting of our Democracy Many war stories end with hunger wreaking havoc on significant portions of a population. In Christian theology, the Biblical “four horses of the apocalypse,” believed by many in early modern Europe to presage the end of the world, symbolized invasion, armed conflict, and famine followed by death. They suggest the degree to which people have long recognized how violence causes starvation. Armed conflict disrupts food supplies as warring factions divert resources to arms production and their militaries while destroying the kinds of infrastructure that enable societies to feed themselves. Governments, too, sometimes use starvation as a weapon of war. (Sound familiar? I’m not going to point fingers here because most of us can undoubtedly recall recent examples.
Saying Democracy is in Jeopardy in America is Like Saying Beaches are in Jeopardy in Wyoming Saying democracy is in jeopardy in America is like saying beach front properties are in jeopardy in Wyoming. Your country is run by a few billionaires and government agencies. You don’t get a real vote, and even if you did you’re all propagandized anyway. It’s not a real thing.
- Liberals will often say you are privileged if you don’t care who wins the US election. Actually, you’re privileged if you DO care. You think people in Gaza give a fuck whether Biden or Trump is genociding them? You think the US empire will be any less murderous and tyrannical with a (D) or an (R) over it?
- Saying democracy is in jeopardy in America is like saying beach front properties are in jeopardy in Wyoming. Your country is run by a few billionaires and government agencies. You don’t get a real vote, and even if you did you’re all propagandized anyway. It’s not a real thing.
- It’s actually pretty obnoxious to live in the imperial core and yet spend most of your political energy fixating on a presidential race whose outcome will have no effect on the murderousness and tyranny of the imperial war machine abroad. Focus on opposing the empire itself. “Foreign policy” gets treated as just one of many issues in the politics of the imperial core, but it’s actually almost all of the issues. The overwhelming majority of the empire’s abusiveness happens outside the borders of the US and its pale-complexioned allies.
U.S. Funded Palestinian Genocide:
From: Impact of the Israeli Military Activities On the Environment 
Solid Waste and Air Pollution: Using ordnance with depleted uranium, high impact explosives, and incendiary bombs including white phosphorous leaves significant environmental degradation and impacts soil, air, and water. Israel also targeted and sank dozens of fishing boats in the harbour creating significant underwater solid waste pollution. Further solid waste accumulated over the first two months of the attack with no possibility of removing these from the streets (safety issues and Israel’s embargo on fuel). This accumulation has created a significant environmental hazard. This is compounded by the debris from 46,000 residential buildings and thousands of other buildings (universities, hospitals, schools) bombed by Israeli forces. This huge amount of pulverised concrete, steel, and rock has created a major issue of safe disposal. But the bombing also affected cars, trees, agricultural areas and much more. More than two thirds of the infrastructure, 70%, serving 2.3 million people, was levelled. This debris also includes hazardous waste including unexploded ordnance, depleted uranium containing shrapnel, cluster bomb munitions, flechette shells, fuel-air bombs (which explode twice, including after impact), white phosphorous and Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME bombs). All have either been shown to damage the environment or studies have not been done on their impact. For example, we do know that depleted uranium has toxic effects [71–73]. White phosphorous has been used extensively in Gaza in the last three wars but especially in late 2023 with the US supplying these bombs. The use in civilian areas was condemned by human rights organizations including Amnesty International [74] and Human Rights Watch [75]. In south Lebanon, since 7 October white phosphorus has destroyed over 4.5 million square metres of forest [76]. White phosphorus is highly toxic to the environment in addition to its production of fires and its direct impact on human beings [77,78]. The environmental damage in Gaza from the dropped ordinance was huge and some of it may be irreversible [79]. Conclusions: There is a body of international environmental law, human rights law, laws of armed conflict, and other international legal instruments that show state responsibility to mitigate and even avoid doing environmental damage during conflicts [112–114]. The prolonged occupation does not mitigate state responsibility under international law [115]. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that the segregation wall and settlements violate International law and should be dismantled and remedial actions taken [116]. Militarized colonisation and nature conservation are not compatible [117,118]. Indeed, working to demilitarise becomes part of the environmental justice campaign [119]. The recent war on the Gaza Strip is a case study of illegality [120] and arguably of environmental catastrophe. The limited data reviewed above tell us that:
- there is significant and long-term environmental and biodiversity impact from the numerous conflicts since the creation of Israel in 1948,
- that more studies are needed (difficult but essential to do in situations of conflict and lack of available classified resources), and
- There is a need for environment and human health impacts to be highlighted in public discourse and remedial actions and projects to be undertaken.
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’!
We Must Hold These Monsters to Account!
Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Week beginning on June 30, 2024: 425.61 ppm. Weekly value from 1 year ago: 422.67 ppm Weekly value from 10 years ago: 400.41 ppm. Last updated: July 07, 2024
‘Potentially Historic’ Heatwave Threatens More Than 130 Million People Across US Temperatures could crest 100F (38C) in many regions after breaking records and sparking dozens of wildfires A long-running heatwave that has already broken records, sparked dozens of wildfires and left about 130 million people under a high-temperature threat is about to intensify enough that the National Weather Service has deemed it “potentially historic”. The NWS on Saturday reported some type of extreme heat or advisory for nearly 133 million people across the nation – mostly in western states where the triple-digit heat, with temperatures 15F to 30F higher than average, is expected to last into next week.
Record-Breaking Ocean Heat Wave Foreshadows a Dangerous Hurricane Season An active hurricane season could be in store because of ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic that broke records for more than a year. The world’s oceans — as a whole — are heating up. According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, monthly global sea surface temperatures have been at their warmest on record for 13 months in a row. Last year set a new annual record for global ocean heat. The seething waters, month after month, have gobsmacked scientists all over the world. And they’re not just unexpected — they’re also dangerous. Extreme ocean temperatures are jet fuel for tropical cyclones, driving more active hurricane seasons with bigger, stronger storms. They also can boost heat and humidity over nearby land areas, increasing risks to human health during the warmest parts of the year,
Fast-Moving Wildfire Erupts Near Yosemite Amid Blistering Heatwave French fire grows to more than 900 acres, as millions across US west face sweltering temperatures and dry conditions
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
The Republicracts’ and the 1%’s Media Monopoly’s Silence on Racism is/was Deafening!: Trump Used “Palestinian” as a Slur. Biden and Debate Moderators Didn’t Say a Word. Trump’s racist remarks toward migrants and Palestinians were met with little more than “thank you, President Trump.” MUCH OF Thr attention on Thursday’s presidential debate fell upon President Joe Biden’s faltering performance, which has called into question whether he can even remain the Democratic candidate. In the aftermath, some have focused on former President Donald Trump’s nonstop lies. Left largely overlooked, however, has been the open xenophobia Trump deployed against Palestinians and immigrants, and the silence with which it was met.
Kant’s Ideas Shaped Human Rights Theories. How Do We Contend With His Racism? The anti-Black ideas within Immanuel Kant’s philosophy show how liberalism and racism are closely intertwined. This year, the 300th anniversary of the birth of German philosopher Immanuel Kant was commemorated. Born on April 22, 1724, Kant was a significant philosophical figure of the Enlightenment. Three centuries later, Western formulations of freedom, dignity and equality are still inseparable from his name and work. But on this anniversary, we cannot ignore the legacy of racism that Kant’s liberal humanism engenders. An objective lens on Kant’s racism means looking not just at what is known as his critical philosophy, where he draws the limits of what can and cannot be known, but also at how racism and Enlightenment philosophy remain fundamentally intertwined. What becomes clear are the deeply problematic additional limits drawn by Kant regarding who constitutes the “human.”
Labor:
Economy:
World:
Turkey-Syria Normalization Bid Stirs Violent Unrest in Both Countries Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently said “there is no reason” not to pursue normalization of diplomatic ties with Syria, and he said that he does not rule out a possible meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Erdoğan added that Turkey had no intention of interfering in Syria’s internal affairs. Erdoğan was responding to a question about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s recent comments. In late June, Assad expressed openness to restoring ties between Turkey and Syria.
Contrary to Settler-Colonial Racist Myths: Ancient Arabian “Standing Stone Circles” Show a Complex and Thriving Society. To date, little has been known about people living in north-western Saudi Arabia during the Neolithic – the period traditionally defined by the shift to humans controlling food production and settling into communities with agriculture and domesticated animals. The piecemeal evidence available hinted traditional ideas – of small struggling groups constantly on the move across the barren lands – needed to be revisited. Now, an Australian-led team has released new research on monumental buildings we call “standing stone circles”. The findings are helping to rewrite what we know about the people who lived on this land between 6,500 and 8,000 years ago. Our evidence reveals what they ate, what tools they used and even the jewellery they wore. It leads us to think these people weren’t struggling so much after all, but rather had found complex and strategic ways to thrive on the land for millennia.
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