Daily News Digest July 26, 2024
Images of the Day:
U.S. Climate Change UN Report Oil Fossil Fuels
Ted Rall: Donald J. Trump’s Magic Bullet
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:
An example of this fact is the population living “downwind” from the many oil refineries in Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area. People living near these refineries have very high rates of cancer. In EPA terms, this is called a “cancer cluster.” The EPA, in its corporate manner, determined that the high rates of cancer was caused by high rates of smoking in the area and not from the refineries’ carcinogenic pollutions! However, under the rules of Proposition 65 in California and after several years of litigation, the Gasoline Refining Industry had to post this warning in the February 24, 1999, issue of the San Francisco Chronicle: Chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm are found in gasoline, crude oil, and many other petroleum products and their vapors, or result from their use. Read and follow label directions and use care when handling or using all petroleum products. Chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm are found in and around gasoline stations, refineries, chemical plants, and other facilities that produce, handle, transport, store, or sell crude oil and petroleum and chemical products. Other facilities covered by this warning include, for example, oil and gas wells, oil and gas treating plants, petroleum and chemical storage tanks, pipeline systems, marine vessels and barges, tank trucks and tank cars loading and unloading facilities, and refueling facilities. — “Trade Secrets” Cancer and the Environment
Vide0s of the Day:
Black Agenda Radio July 19, 2024
Biden’s Weakness, His Debate with Trump, and the Assassination Attempt on Trump
Project 2025, the 2024 Election, and Political Discernment
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.
On June 4, Sanders stated the following on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes”: “I think I speak not just for myself but for a number of other Senators who think that that decision is a very, very bad one. You do not honor a foreign leader by addressing a joint session of Congress who is currently engaged in creating the worst humanitarian disaster in the modern history of this country. Obviously, as we all know, Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas terrorism in the terrible attack of October 7, but what it is doing now is going to war against the entire Palestinian people, and what we are seeing now is starvation and famine impacting thousands and thousands of children. The architect of that policy is not somebody you honor by bringing to the United States Congress, in my view.” — On the Eve of Netanyahu’s Address to Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders Delivers a Breathtaking Assessment of His War Crimes
The Iron Heel: DC Protest: ‘Not in Our Name’: Hundreds Arrested at Jewish-Led Protest Ahead of Netanyahu Speech “The Israeli government is using U.S funding and weapons to slaughter and starve Palestinians in Gaza,” said one peace advocate. “Americans—including Jewish Americans—are disgusted by our own government’s complicity in this genocide.” Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested inside a U.S. House building on Tuesday while protesting the American government’s continued support in this genocide.”
Netanyahu’s Speech Was As American As It Gets Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress was everything you’d expect: packed full of lies and propaganda spin, but simultaneously very illuminating and revealing. Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress was everything you’d expect: packed full of lies and propaganda spin, yet simultaneously very illuminating and revealing. The Israeli prime minister received no fewer than 58 standing ovations while speaking before both houses of Congress and spewing the most despicable lies you could possibly imagine in his conspicuously American accent. Depending on how politically aware you are, this spectacle could be perceived as either deeply un-American, or as American as it gets.
Marjorie Cohn: Netanyahu’s Visit to Congress Underscores US Contempt for International LawNetanyahu is getting cozy with Congress, just days after the ICJ told UN members to stop aiding the Israeli occupation. The U.S. has long ignored many commands of international law, but its casual disregard of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has come into sharp focus this week as the U.S. Congress extends a warm welcome to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just five days after the ICJ notified all UN member states that they have a legal “obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” The World Court’s historic 83-page advisory opinion, which was issued on July 19 and held that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal, was quickly hailed by Middle East political expert Nomi Bar-Yaacov as a “legal earthquake” and the strongest decision that the court had ever issued. Unsurprisingly, however, both the Israeli and U.S. governments denounced the ICJ’s ruling and proceeded with their plans — including Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, D.C. — as if it had never occurred.
As Republicans’ 2024 Strategy is Upended, Poll Shows Nebraska Senate Seat May Be Up for Grabs A recent poll shows Dan Osborn, a UAW-backed Nebraska independent underdog, tied with Republican incumbent Sen. Deb Fischer. With president joe Biden’s departure from the 2024 race, Republicans are scrambling to recalibrate their electoral strategy, which was premised on the idea that Biden’s unpopularity would sink down-ballot candidates, allowing the GOP to flip control of the Senate. A recent poll out of Nebraska, meanwhile, suggests that at least one Senate assumed to be reliably Republican may be up for grabs. In a poll conducted before Biden’s decision not to seek reelection, Dan Osborn, a Nebraska labor leader running as an independent, tied with two-term incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischer.
US Funded Palestinian Genocide:
Human Criris: Patrick Lawrence: Gaza, We Cannot Remain Silent Any Longer Ido not know how it is in your household, but in mine we have developed the practice over the past nine months of reciting to one another the most appalling of the news bulletins from Gaza that come our way from a great variety of sources. It is rather miserable to think life has come to this, reading aloud daily accounts of atrocities, but there is no turning away from the depths to which terrorist Israel has dragged the whole of humanity. The subtext of each of these recitations is, “Can you believe this is happening? Can you believe the U.S. participates in this? Can you believe this is normalized?” It is indeed difficult to believe the things we read of are part of life in the third decade of the 21st century, and may this remain so: When it is no longer difficult to read or watch videos of the Israelis’ merciless barbarities, the Zionist army will have bombed and bulldozed our consciences as thoroughly as it has any Gazan or West Bank village. Over the weekend my partner told me she had read something that was simply too much even for our recitation routines. It was a piece Politico had published Friday, July 19, and it had arrived courtesy of Jonathan Cook, the estimable British journalist. “We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable” was written not by journalists, but by two American surgeons who had volunteered last spring for humanitarian work in Gaza by way of the Palestinian American Medical Association. Mark Perlmutter is an orthopedic surgeon from North Carolina. Feroze Sidhwa is a trauma and critical care surgeon who practices in Northern California. “I haven’t been able to mention this until now,” my partner began, her voice cracking. Then, holding back tears, she told me about the Politico piece. She related the stories of two Palestinians the American surgeons treated during their time at the European Hospital. The European Hospital sits at the southeastern edge of Khan Younis, the city in central Gaza where the Israeli Occupation Forces earlier directed Palestinians to evacuate, then bombed, then left, and now, Khan Younis having been resettled, is now being bombed again.
Environmanet:
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!
As Cancer Alley Leads the Way! — Racing to Ecocide!: The US’s Quiet Rise to the World’s Biggest Fossil Fuel State No country has ever in history produced as much oil and gas as the US does now and Louisiana is ground zero
- ‘Inexcusable’: should climate hypocrites get the petrostates label?
- Revealed: wealthy western countries lead in global oil and gas expansion
To witness how the United States has become the world’s unchallenged oil and gas behemoth is to contemplate the scene from John Allaire’s home, situated on a small spit of coastal land on the fraying, pancake-flat western flank of Louisiana. Allaire’s looming neighbor, barely a mile east across a ship channel that has been pushed into the Gulf of Mexico, is a hulking liquified natural gas (or LNG) plant, served by leviathan ships shuttling its chilled cargo overseas. Another such terminal lies a few miles to the west, yet another to the north. The theme continues even in Allaire’s seaward vista – alongside a boneyard of old oil rigs, a new floating offshore LNG platform is in the works.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
- Nicaraguan Democracy Exposes the U.S. Oligarchy The Republic of Nicaragua recently celebrated 45 years of its revolutionary government. The U.S. labels it and other nations that demand self-determination and sovereignty as “undemocratic.”
- CHAPTER: The Ford Foundation and Black Power, Robert L. Allen, 1968 The late Robert L. Allen broke down the dialectics of Black elite co-option and counter-revolution. Hello, Kamala.
- War, Genocide and Coups: Biden/Harris and The Irreversible Crisis of Neoliberal Fake The Imperialist chickens have come home to roost.
- Chicago Authorities Want a “Conversation” with the Poor People’s Army about the DNC 2024 The Poor People’s Army has a permit to march to the steps of the Democratic National Convention in August, but now Chicago authorities want to have a “conversation” with them.
- Biden Steps Aside in Favor of Harris as the RNC Further Solidifies the Cult of Trump Under pressure since the June 27 disastrous debate, the president exits the campaign creating more uncertainty on the political landscape.
- Why Barack Obama is the More Effective Evil Barack Obama earned the moniker of the “lesser evil” despite his evil deeds that, in many cases, were much more successful than those positioned as the greater threat.
- Bolivarian Diplomacy vs. the Monroe Doctrine: A Conversation with Carlos Ron (Part I) Venezuela’s upcoming presidential election raises the issue of US meddling in Latin America.
- Even the US Propaganda Machine Can’t Whitewash Biden’s Sordid Record
- Sentimental tributes pour in for Biden. But from enabling genocide in Gaza to supporting the US’s rich at the expense of the poor, he leaves a trail of human and economic carnage.
- Why blaming the Israel lobby for western Middle East policies is misguided The claim that the Israel lobby controls US policy in the Middle East amounts to absolving the US of responsibility for its imperialist policies in the Arab world.
Labor:
Economy:
‘Disgusting’: Global 1% Captured $42 Trillion in New Wealth Over Past Decade “The richest 1% of humanity continues to fill their pockets while the rest are left to scrap for crumbs.” The richest sliver of the global population hauled in more than $40 trillion in new wealth over the past decade as countries around the world cut taxes for those at the very top, supercharging inequality that poses a dire threat to democracy and the planet. An Oxfam analysis released Thursday ahead of a meeting of G20 finance ministers estimated that over the past 10 years, the global 1% has accumulated $42 trillion in new wealth. That’s “nearly 34 times more than the entire bottom 50% of the world’s population,” the group observed.
World:.
730 Million People—Including 20% of Africans—Faced Hunger Last Year “Hunger is not something natural. Hunger is something that requires a political decision.” More than 730 million people around the world faced hunger last year, including 1 in 5 Africans, with over half a billion people set to be chronically malnourished by the decade’s end if current trends continue, according to a report published Wednesday by a United Nations agency. One in 11 people globally went hungry in 2023, the latest U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report revealed.
Victims Win Historic Victory Against Chiquita in Colombia Paramilitary Case In what prosecutors called a “landmark ruling in the fight for human rights,” a U.S. jury in Miami has found banana giant Chiquita Brands International liable for the deaths of Colombian civilians due to its financing of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a brutal paramilitary death squad.
Crisis in the Congo: The Imperialist Roots of the Nightmare The war in the Congo has intensified. With millions already at the point of starvation and forced from their homes, this horrifying conflagration now threatens to escalate and drag the whole region into war, with nightmarish implications for the entire continent. “Capitalist society is and has always been horror without end.” – Lenin, 1916 Recent months have seen an intensification of the ongoing conflict in eastern Congo, which has unleashed a wave of death and destruction, forcing more than 1.5 million people from their homes since January.
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