Daily News Digest August 16, 2024
Images of the Day:
Capitalism, Mass Anger and the 2024 Elections
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”There is No Democracy! When Less Than 1% Control the Wealth, Production, and Price of Everything Produced and Consumed in the World! In the present period of unfettered Capitalism, the pretense of democratic rule does not exist, except in the minds of ‘socialists’ like Bernie Sanders and the Labor Bureaucracy! Capitalists view all struggles as struggles against capitalist rule! Transition demands immediately become revolutionary demands! Therefore, any resistence to the attack of capitalists has to be organized by those that understand this! 
Today, the United States Capitalists are Consolidating Themselves as the Supreme Capitalists! 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 largest and oldest association of public health professionals in the world, the American Public Health Association (APHA), has called for a moratorium on factory farming for nearly two decades. Indeed, factory farms are a public health menace. In addition to discontinuing the intensive confinement practices of animal agriculture, we should continue to research, develop, and invest in innovative plant-based and cultivated meat technologies to move away from raising billions of feathered and curly-tailed test tubes for viruses with pandemic potential to mutate within. — The United States National Center for Biotechnology Information of the Institute of Health’@021 Essay Primary Pandemic Prevention: Factory Farms Cause Pandemics!
The APHA’s “Chickens Come Home to Roost” editorial concludes, “Those who consume animals not only harm those animals and endanger themselves, but they also threaten the well-being of [future generations]. . . . It is time for humans to remove their heads from the sand and recognize the risk to themselves that can arise from their maltreatment of other species (p. 1546).” 78 How we treat animals can have global public health implications. As a spokesperson for the WHO has said, “The bottom line is that humans have to think about how they treat their animals, how they farm them, and how they market them—basically the whole relationship between the animal kingdom and the human kingdom is coming under stress.” 94 In this Age of Emerging Diseases, there are now billions of animals overcrowded and intensively confined in filthy factory farms for viruses to incubate and mutate within, giving them billions more spins at pandemic roulette. A 2019 review on emerging human infectious diseases concluded that most new animal-to-human diseases have been a result of how we now raise animals for our food. 95 Along with human culpability, though, comes hope. If changes in human behavior can cause new plagues, changes in human behavior may prevent them in the future. 96 We may be 1 bushmeat meal away from the next HIV, 1 pangolin plate away from the next killer coronavirus, and 1 factory farm away from the next deadly flu. Tragically we do not tend to shore up the levees until after disaster strikes, and it may take a pandemic that wipes out millions before the world realizes the true cost of cheap chicken. — The United States National Center for Biotechnology Information of the Institute of Health’s Essay Primary Pandemic Prevention: Factory Farms Cause Pandemics!
Podcasts/Vide0s of the Day:
Peace Is Not On The Ballot In November Peace is not on the ballot in November. Americans are voting for Red War or Blue War. That’s it. Those are the choices.
The Arab Jew Experience Exposes the Myths of Middle Eastern Antisemitism | The Chris Hedges Report
How Amazon “Lied, Spied, Cheated Its Way to the Top”: WSJ Reporter Dana Mattioli
Practice What You Preach!: Palestinian Reverend Munther Isaac to Faith Leaders in U.S.: If You Are Silent, You Approve of Genocide
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.
U.S. Proxy War In Ukraine: Zelensky Acknowledges Ukraine’s Offensive In Russia’s Kursk Oblast. On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged for the first time Ukraine’s US-backed ground incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, which began on August 6. Zelensky said in his nightly address that the Ukrainian military was working “to push the war out into the aggressor’s territory.” He added that Ukraine was “proving that it really knows how to restore justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor.” Fighting has been raging in Kursk since Ukraine launched its invasion, and the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces prevented a “breakthrough deep into Russian territory.” The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that since August 6, Ukrainian forces have lost 1,350 soldiers in Kursk, but the number isn’t confirmed, and neither side has released information about its own casualties throughout the war. The ministry also claimed that its forces destroyed “29 tanks, 23 armored personnel carriers, nine infantry fighting vehicles, 116 armored combat vehicles, 20 cars, three self-propelled launchers of the Buk M1 anti-aircraft missile system, three launchers and an AN/MPQ-65 radar station of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system, a launcher of the Grad multiple launch rocket system and 10 field artillery guns.” Local officials said 15 civilians were wounded when debris from a Ukrainian missile hit by Russian air defenses fell on a residential building. “Due to the fall of missile debris on an apartment building in the regional center, 15 people were injured, all of whom are receiving necessary medical care,” Acting Kursk Governor Alexei Smirnov wrote on Telegram. The US is supporting Ukraine’s attack on Kursk and has said Ukrainian forces are allowed to use US-provided weapons in the ground incursion into Russia. For the first two years of the war, the US prohibited Ukraine from striking Russian territory with US-provided missiles but recently lifted that restriction in the wake of Russia’s offensive in Kharkiv. Russia’s Defense Ministry has reported that its forces have destroyed US-made Bradley fighting vehicles and US-made Stryker armored vehicles. The sanctioned use of US-provided weapons in a Ukrainian ground incursion into Russia marks a significant escalation of the proxy war and risks a major response from Moscow.
US Resumes Offensive Weapons Sales to Major Human Rights Abuser: Saudi Arabia Such a move will only strengthen this repressive regime and increase regional conflicts. One issue that has slipped beneath the radar in terms of news coverage is the recent decision by the Biden administration to resume the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. For starters, the U.S. will be sending a shipment of bombs worth $750 million in the coming months.
Will Iran Strike Israel? Iran may be about to launch a proper missile strike on Israel for the first time ever – in retaliation for the attack on Tehran last month which killed Ismail Haniyeh. Israeli intelligence says an attack is likely to come within days. The Jerusalem Post on 11 August quoted Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security Commission, as saying, “Iran’s aerial operations against Israel could last three to four days.”
United States Funded Genocide in Israel:
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!
US Oil Company Ran 1977 Article Predicting Climate Crisis Could Cause Starvation Marathon Petroleum predecessor warned of potential for ‘social and economic calamities’ in decades-old publication
‘Major Power Milestone’: US Green Groups Cheer Wind, Solar Overtaking Coal “This historic milestone marks a significant win for clean energy advocates, for ratepayers, and for people and communities across the country,” said one climate leader. U.S. climate advocates this week are celebrating new federal data that show wind and solar have generated more power than coal during the first seven months of 2024 and are on track to do so for the entire calendar year.
Half a Billion Children Live in Areas With Twice ss Many Very Hot Days as in 1960s UNICEF analysis also finds children in eight countries spend more than half the year in temperatures above 35C Almost half a billion children are growing up in parts of the world where there are at least twice the number of extremely hot days every year compared with six decades ago, analysis by Unicef has found. The analysis by the UN’s children’s agency examined for the first time data on changes in children’s exposure to extreme heat over the past 60 years.
Rat Poison is Threatening Carnivores Around the World Rats thrive around humans, for good reason: They feed off crops and garbage and readily adapt to many settings, from farms to the world’s largest cities. To control them, people often resort to poisons. But chemicals that kill rats can also harm other animals. The most commonly used poisons are called anticoagulant rodenticides. They work by interfering with blood clotting in animals that consume them. These enticingly flavored bait blocks are placed outside of buildings, in small black boxes that only rats and mice can enter. But the poison remains in the rodents’ bodies, threatening larger animals that prey on them. My colleagues and I recently reviewed studies from around the world that sought to document wild mammal carnivores’ exposure to anticoagulant rodenticides. Many animals tested in these studies were already dead; others were alive and a part of other studies.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Death by Incarceration Walter Bourque, Jr., has been incarcerated in New Hampshire for 68 years for the murder of a 4-year-old girl in December 1955. Kenneth Nicely has been incarcerated in Arkansas for 65 years for killing a police officer. And Francis “Frank” Smith served 72 years in a Connecticut facility for his part in the killing of a night watchman until 2022 when, at 97 years of age, was released under “supervised parole” to a nursing home. In the early ’70s, the number of individuals in prison in the U.S. was less than 200,000; as of December 31, 2022, there were 1,230,100 in prison. The “modern” era of prison executions dates from the execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad in January 1977; as of November 30, 2023, 1,582 people have been executed.
Labor:
Teachers Union Demands Probe of Predatory Big Banks Loans That Made Chicago Schools ‘Broke on Purpose’ “it is not that Chicago Public Schools does not have the funds. It’s that Rahm Emanuel sold the school district to Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase, and other bankers and left it broke on purpose.” The Chicago Teachers Union on Wednesday demanded a state investigation into a series of loan deals made with “predatory” Wall Street banks under ex-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner that left the city’s school system “broke on purpose.”
Economy:
New Study Says the Fed Is Captured by Congress and White House — Not the Megabanks that Own the Fed Banks and Get Trillions in Bailouts A fascinating new academic paper has been released. Its title is “The Myth of Fed Political Independence.” Its premise is this: “The much-vaunted independence of the Federal Reserve is a myth. The Fed is not the bastion of sound monetary policy. Rather, it is just another politically coopted agency of the federal government.” The study asserts further that “Something like the Stockholm syndrome seems to describe the institutional relationship hat exists between the U.S. Congress and the White House (the captors), and the Federal Reserve (the captives).
World:
Bangladesh: the ‘Global South’ Debt Crisis Intensifies The overthrow of the Sheikh Hasina’s dictatorial government in Bangladesh by students and the populace last week is a startling outcome of the economic nightmare that many so-called developing economies are experiencing now: stagnant trade, rising debt interest costs and severe austerity being imposed by the IMF and private capital in return for ‘financial aid’.
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
Like Birds Before a Storm, Agribusiness Industry is Eerily Quiet About Bird Flu If we want to protect ourselves from future pandemics, we need to end factory farming, lighten our ecological footprint, and treat other animals and the environment with more respect. Birds can sense changes in the weather and often become eerily quiet before a storm. But with a new study published in Nature Communications revealing that bird flu is highly contagious and spreads at an alarming rate, it’s agribusiness that has fallen strangely silent. It doesn’t want consumers thinking about the prevalence of diseases in animals as a sign of things to come — and of how these pathogens can spread to people. Nine out of 10 pre-exposed birds entering Asian live markets became infected with H9N2 in one day and were contagious within six hours, according to the new study. Meanwhile, scientists are growing increasingly concerned that if and when bird flu spreads to pigs as it has done in cattle, people may be more at risk of catching this disease, which has a human mortality rate of over 50%.
Ecologists Warn Deadly H5N1 Bird Flu Could Arrive in Australia via Antarctica as Preparations Ramp Up Influx of highly path ogenic strain a case of ‘not if, but when’ and could devastate native wildlife, experts say The Australian government is ramping up preparations for a highly pathogenic and contagious strain of bird flu potentially reaching Australia via its Antarctic territory and Macquarie Island, warning it could devastate wildlife and be passed to people. Government agencies led by the Australian Antarctic Division at a planning exercise in Hobart on Wednesday were told an influx of the virulent H5N1 Avian flu strain that has killed millions of seabirds, wild birds and poultry overseas was a case of “not if, but when”.
Capitalism, Mass Anger and the 2024 Elections In the wake of his huge defeat on June 30, 2024, when 80 percent of voters rejected French “centrist” President Emmanuel Macron, he said he understood the French people’s anger. In the UK, Conservative loser Rishi Sunak said the same about the British people’s anger, as Labor leader Starmer now says as the anger explodes. Of course, such phrases from such politicians usually mean little or nothing and accomplish less. Such leaders and their parties just keep calculating how best to regain power when they lose it. In that, they are like the U.S. Democrats after Biden’s performance in his debate with Trump and like the U.S. Republicans after Trump’s loss in 2020. In both parties, a small group of top leaders and top donors made all the key decisions and then organized the political theater to ratify those decisions. Even surprises like Harris replacing Biden are temporary departures from resuming politics as usual.