Daily News Digest July 17, 2024
Images of the Day:
Ted Rall: Take the Big Pill
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’s Gluttony is Demonstrated by It’s Quest for More and More Profits at the Expense of Humanity! 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:
The United States of Assassinations: From The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights Movement By Roland Sheppard: To combat the rise of the Civil Right Movement, the “war on poverty” was first launched in 1964 along with the concept of “Black Politicians”. Malcolm X described this process in his Jan. 7, 1965 speech The Prospects for Freedom, at the Militant Labor Forum, in New York City (For complete an audio of the speech go here.):
They have a new gimmick every year. They’re going to take one of their boys, black boys, and put him in the cabinet so he can walk around Washington with a cigar. Fire on one end and fool on the other end. And because his immediate personal problem will have been solved he will be the one to tell our people: ‘Look how much progress we’re making. I’m in Washington, D.C., I can have tea in the White House. I’m your spokesman, I’m your leader.’ While our people are still living in Harlem in the slums. Still receiving the worst form of education. But how many sitting here right now feel that they could [laughs] truly identify with a struggle that was designed to eliminate the basic causes that create the conditions that exist? Not very many. They can jive, but when it comes to identifying yourself with a struggle that is not endorsed by the power structure, that is not acceptable, that the ground rules are not laid down by the society in which you live, in which you are struggling against, you can’t identify with that, you step back. It’s easy to become a satellite today without even realizing it. This country can seduce God. Yes, it has that seductive power of economic dollarism. You can cut out colonialism, imperialism and all other kind of ism, but it’s hard for you to cut that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, you’ll fold though. After the assassination of Martin Luther King and the subsequent rebellions in the inner cities protesting his assassination, the Democratic Party’s “war on poverty” started laying dollars on any potential Black leaders and grooming Black Candidates. John Lewis, formally of SNCC, became enlightened, he ignored the Black Panthers and saw the Democratic Party, symbolized by a jackass, as his party. Most of what W.E. B. Dubois described as the “talented tenth” were bought off by this process. The more radical concepts that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had developed at the time of their deaths disappeared from the scene. No one took up where they left off. The governmental policy, directed towards the ‘leaders’ of the civil rights movement, of the carrot (dollarism) and the stick (assassinations) had proven to be successful.
Vide0s of the Day:
Documentaries: Who Killed Martin Luther King? by Michel Perbot
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.
‘Violence Has No Place in American Life.’ Except, Like, Everywhere You Look A few thoughts on how the assassination attempt on Trump unleashed an orgy of Democratic platitudes. The U.S. political system runs on the fuel of euphemism—the ability to conceal nefarious aspirations beneath the facade of idealistic slogans. Consider the U.S. Department of Corporate Violence (USDOCV) which, oddly, we have renamed the U.S. Department of Defense (USDOD). I use the word, renamed rather loosely, for The Department of Corporate Violence always required a pseudonym.
The United States of Assassinations!: Why the U.S. Government Assassinated Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. It has been half a century since Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated. In the case of Malcolm X, several members of the Nation of Islam were convicted. In the case of Martin Luther King, Jr., one assassin, James Earl Ray, was convicted. Despite these convictions and ongoing efforts by government and police agencies, and various writers and pundits to put the assassinations to rest, many questions remain unanswered. In the 1970s, the public was made aware of the U.S. Government’s secret COINTELPRO program to employ informers, agents, and provocateurs to disrupt the Civil Rights Movement, the antiVietnam-War Movement, and radical and socialist organizations. One of the goals of this program was to ‘neutralize’ Black leaders like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Elijah Muhammad in order to prevent the emergence, to use the government’s term, of a Black Messiah who would unite and lead Black Americans in their struggle for equality and freedom. In other words, the United States Government had the same motive to assassinate Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. On December 8, 1999, almost 32 years after King’s murder, a Memphis court extended the responsibility for the assassination beyond James Earl Ray to the United States Government. In “The Martin Luther King Conspiracy Exposed in Memphis,” Jim Douglass writes “To say that U.S. government agencies killed Martin Luther King on the verge of the Poor People’s Campaign is a way into the deeper truth that the economic powers that be (which dictate the policies of those agencies) killed him. In the Memphis prelude to the Washington campaign, King posed a threat to those powers of a nonviolent revolutionary force. Just how determined they were to stop him before he reached Washington was revealed in the trial by the size and complexity of the plot to kill him.” Murdering Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. was not sufficient for the U.S. Government. It was also necessary to distort what they stood for. Lenin describes this process in State and Revolution: “During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, 50 to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the consolation of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.”
US Funded Palestinian 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’!
We Must Hold These Monsters to Account!
Climate Crisis is Making Days Longer, Study Finds Melting of ice is slowing planet’s rotation and could disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions and GPS The climate crisis is causing the length of each day to get longer, analysis shows, as the mass melting of polar ice reshapes the planet. The phenomenon is a striking demonstration of how humanity’s actions are transforming the Earth, scientists said, rivalling natural processes that have existed for billions of years. The change in the length of the day is on the scale of milliseconds but this is enough to potentially disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions and GPS navigation, all of which rely on precise timekeeping.
The EPA Does not Protect Lives — It Protects Profits!
The Result of Decades of Inaction!: 7/23.22: PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Everywhere. Here’s What You Should Know About Them Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] put out a new advisory warning that even tiny amounts of some of PFAS chemicals found in drinking water may pose risks. Scientists are finding PFAS everywhere. When products like this end up in landfills, these pollutants seep into our soil, air, and drinking water. That’s how PFAS are ending up in food, wildlife, and even our bloodstream.
EPA Lacks a PFAS Containment Strategy The environmental and public health challenges posed by PFAS are immense. EPA needs to do much more than it is doing. Every day there is a new headline about discoveries of dangerous amounts of toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS in groundwater, municipal wastewater systems, in soil outside military bases and on farms, in freshwater fish, in human blood, and even in mothers’ milk. It seems like the PFAS pollution crisis is out of control. This April, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally set a maximum drinking water contamination limit for two of the oldest and most widespread PFAS. That limit was set at 4 parts per trillion, but EPA also acknowledged that there is no safe amount of PFAS for human consumption.
‘Forever Chemicals’ Used In Lithium Ion Batteries Threaten Environment, Research Finds A subclass of PFAS has been found near manufacturing plants and landfills, and in remote regions of the world Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” used in lithium ion batteries essential to the clean energy transition present a dangerous source of chemical pollution that new research finds threatens the environment and human health as the nascent industry scales up. The multipronged, peer-reviewed study zeroed in on a little-researched and unregulated subclass of PFAS called bis-FASI that are used in lithium ion batteries.
Thousands in Houston Still Without Power Amid Brutal Heatwave After Beryl Nearly 300,000 residents without electricity as governor gives company until end of month to address outages Power outages persist in Houston, Texas, after Hurricane Beryl tore through the area last week leavings hundreds of thousands of residents without electricity in the middle of a brutal heatwave. Nearly 300,000 customers have now gone almost a week without electricity and air conditioning during excessive heat where temperatures are reaching 94F (34C).
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Big Brother In ―1984‖ & The Modern Era Surveillance AKM Bahalul Haque Abstract: Mass surveillance is blessing and curse for our life. Modern Day surveillance has made our life risk free and at the same time our privacy is compromised. In the Book, 1984, the writer assumed a surveillance state where each and every aspect of human emotion is controlled by the ruling state. The key factors of our life like language, emotions are controlled and monitored by the state. People doesn‘t have anything to say anything as they are being manipulated psychologically to abide by the rules and regulations. In recent days people are also being watched and our movement is checked. The reason is our safety by eliminating the human threat, assessing the crime scene after checking the cctv footage, apprehend a crime in progress, monitor unlawful activities by the law enforcement agencies. On the other hand, we are being watched everywhere, we cannot express our opinions independently as for the controversy issues, our track record is kept for analysis, out personal data is being collected and checked which is really a matter of concern as we all have something to keep private. In this paper, the varying dimensions of surveillance are discussed and analysed in an empirical manner.
Slavery Once Split Up Black Families. Today, Prisons Do the Same Thing. Let’s call the prison system’s use of family separation what it is—torture. The modern prison system’s origins in slavery can be seen in telltale signs throughout the system. The system of chattel slavery had no incentive to keep Black families together—in fact, separation was deliberately used to punish the enslaved. Today, the prison system mirrors this in its treatment of families of the incarcerated. Prisoners are denied the opportunity to be fully present parents by the nature of their condition, and further separation from family through visitation denial, relocation, and other means are used as a way to punish and torture inmates. Ernest Boykin, a father of seven, speaks on his personal experience as a formerly incarcerated parent—and everything he did to ensure that he would remain in his children’s lives despite the system’s efforts to deny him that right.
Labor:
Economy:
World:.
Stop Green Genocide in Cameroon Fortress conservation has pushed the Baka people from the rainforests of the Congo Basin into villages bordering the national parks of southern Cameroon, while the logging that truly threatens the forest continues.
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