Daily News Digest August 26, 2024
Images of the Day:
Colombia: Gaza is Suffering the Same Fate as Hiroshima
Colombian President Gustavo Petro likened the Gaza Strip after the Israeli bombing to the city of Hiroshima after the US dropped an atomic bomb on it during World War II
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:
When the Leaders Speak of Peace, The Common People Know That War is Coming. When the leaders curse war. The mobilization order is already written out. Those At The Top Say: PeaceAnd War
Are of different substance. But their peace and their war
Are like wind and storm. — Berthold Brecht
Podcasts/Vide0s of the Day:
The Democratic Party Exists To Make Sure Good People Do Nothing The empire has weaponized the insight that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing, so spreading awareness of the reality that the Democrats are not good people and are not doing good things helps take away that weapon. The reason I criticize the Democrats so much can be explained in the aphorism “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The Democratic Party exists to ensure that good people will do nothing.
“Tomorrow Will Be Too Late To Do What We Should Have Done A Long Time Ago.” Self-Accelerating Climate Change!: The Tipping Points of Climate Change — and Where We Stand … Accelerating Warming and Its Consequences But what worries us most is this. We are starting to see an acceleration of warming over the past 50 years. 0.18 degrees Celsius per decade from 1970 to 2010. But then from 2014 onwards, it abruptly jumps up to 0.26 per decade. And if we follow this path, we will crash through 2 degrees Celsius within 20 years and hit 3 degrees Celsius by the year 2100, a disastrous outcome caused by us humans. But it’s not only carbon dioxide. Any parameter that matters for human well-being and our economies look the same. Here you have it.
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.
If the US Enforces a Ceasefire in Gaza, It Will Be Only After the Palestinian Genocide is Completed!:
Ted Rall: Welcome Ceasefire Negotiators
Middle East Crisis: Sleepwalking Into the Abyss “When the leaders speak of peace, the common people know that war is coming.” Berthold Brecht Netanyahu’s provocations against Iran and Lebanon are pushing the entire region towards an explosive conflagration, with devastating consequences for the whole world. The imperialist warmongers are responsible for this catastrophe in the making. … The Gathering Storm As I write these lines, the drumbeat of war can be heard ever more plainly, if only you take the trouble to listen for it. It is the distant thunder that initially cannot be heard, but which becomes louder and louder as the storm approaches. The situation in the Middle East is a veritable minefield, just waiting for the initial impulse to explode into something vast and terrifying. And the actors in this drama seem to be playing out their roles with a kind of blind fatalism that is incapable of predicting its next step. They proceed with the deadly inevitability of robots that are programmed to behave in ways over which they have no understanding, and even less control.
A ‘Meaningful’ Election Where Neither Candidate Condemns US-Sponsored Genocide? It is around that time in an election year where the typical platitudes and ultimatums exclaiming it is “do or die,” “now or never” are being thrown around. The overarching narrative from the past two elections remains the same: the Democrats are not great: they bolster the military industrial complex, make empty promises to working people and maintain sometimes identical policies to their right wing counterparts on issues like immigration … but we must choose them or face the wrath of Donald Trump and the Republicans. In this spirited debate on the Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer spars with Jeff Cohen—author, co-founder of RootsAction.org, founder of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and retired journalism professor at Ithaca College. The two butt heads around the issue of lesser evilism, questioning whether this year will bring actual change from the Democrats in their support for Israel’s suppression of the Palestineans alongside a range of other pressing issues. Cohen stresses that while the Biden administration’s actions involving Gaza, Ukraine and its saber-rattling of China and Russia are “inexcusable,” a Trump reelection will prove to be worse on all fronts. “Trump’s second term will be very, very different than the first. He had no plan, it was chaotic. They [now] have a plan,” Cohen tells Scheer. “They’re going to implement ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ which threatens the whole planet. And trust me, they have a plan to suppress progressive dissent.” Scheer fires back, arguing that this is the exact same argument that has been heard not only in recent elections but for most of his long life. “What we do is we center most of our political discussion, knowledge in this country around the character of the president and these periodic elections: who are the virtuous, who are the evil?” Scheer retorts. “Whereas, in fact, we face very profound, systemic problems that the election tends to obscure.”
United States Funded Genocide in Israel:
Scholasticide: Erasing Memory, Silencing Dissent, and Waging War on Education from Gaza to the West “Since the start of the war, and as of the end of November 2023, Israel has reportedly dropped over 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, a force equivalent to two nuclear bombs. This means that the destructive power of the explosives dropped on Gaza in just over two months exceed that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.[4]” State Terrorism in the Age of Killing Zones What sets Israel’s war on Gaza apart is not only its violent military operations, marked by the indiscriminate killing of women and children, but also its relentless assault on dissent, criticism, and even the mildest opposition to its internationally condemned human rights violations and war crimes. Israel’s ongoing and brutal military campaign, coupled with its “policies of extreme inhumanity against the Palestinian people,” is inextricably linked to a state-sanctioned effort to legitimize and normalize its actions in Gaza.[1] This includes waging an ideological war of censorship and defamation against any challenge—no matter its source—to what Kenneth Roth, co-founder of Human Rights Watch, condemns as “Israel’s system of apartheid,” [2] and what Aryeh Neier, Holocaust survivor and co-founder of Human Rights Watch, describes as “genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” [3] The full scope of Israel’s assault on Gaza is revealed through its relentless military actions, characterized by indiscriminate violence against women, children, the elderly, and non-combatants. According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, the scale of destruction imposed on Gaza is not only devastating but ethically unimaginable. Since the start of the war, and as of the end of November 2023, Israel has reportedly dropped over 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, a force equivalent to two nuclear bombs. This means that the destructive power of the explosives dropped on Gaza in just over two months exceed that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.[4] According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the use of such highly destructive bombs in residential areas constitutes a war crime.
Israel Using Ceasefire Talks to Expand Colonization of Palestine, UN Expert Says Israel’s insistence on controlling two key corridors shows its intention to carry out land grabs, the expert said Israeli officials’ ceasefire demands show that they aren’t just using ceasefire negotiations to prolong their genocide of Gaza, but also to secure permission to further deepen their colonization of Palestine, a UN expert has said. In the latest ceasefire talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been insistent that Israel be able to maintain a permanent military occupation of Gaza’s border with Egypt and a corridor built by Israeli forces cutting across the middle of the Gaza Strip, which Israelis respectively call the Philadelphi Corridor and Netzarim Corridor. Israel’s insistence on maintaining control over these corridors is a clear show of their intention to expand their ethnic cleansing and “eat up” more of Palestine, said Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories.
What you Didn’t Hear at DNC: Israeli Expulsion Decrees Disrupt Last Gaza Aid Hub, Jeopardizing Aid Workers, Thousands of Civilians The Norwegian Refugee Council, an aid NGO active in Palestine, reports that new Israeli decrees have forced thousands in Gaza’s Deir al-Balah to flee once more, and have disrupted the Strip’s last aid hub. The former “safe zone” is now under concerted attack by Israeli forces. It and numerous other aid agencies again are calling for an immediate ceasefire, in the light of two International Court of Justice decisions against Israel. They point out that “Civilians who are unable or unwilling to leave their homes remain protected under international humanitarian law.”
It’s Now Clear: The DNC Does Not Care About the Slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza From its refusal to allow a Palestinian-American speaker to hints dropped about Kamala Harris’ foreign policy commitments, the party gave its anti-genocide members little reason to hope.
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!
Low Carbon Circular Economy: China Adopts Guidelines To Speed Green Transition The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council have unveiled a set of guidelines to ramp up green transition in all areas of economic and social development. According to the recently issued guidelines, the main objectives are that by 2030, the country will achieve “remarkable results” in the green transition in all areas of economic and social development; and by 2035, a green, low-carbon, and circular development economic system will be basically established and the goal of Beautiful China will be basically achieved. The guidelines have raised a raft of work tasks such as optimizing the development and protection of territorial space, promoting the green and low-carbon transition in industrial structure and the energy sector, as well as promoting green transition in the transport sector and urban-rural development. The guidelines also put forward quantitative work goals for different fields. By 2030, the scale of the energy conservation and environmental protection industry in the country will reach about 15 trillion yuan (about 2.1 trillion U.S. dollars), the proportion of non-fossil energy will increase to about 25 percent of energy consumption, and the installed capacity of pumped storage hydropower will exceed 120 million kilowatts. By 2030, the carbon emission intensity of commercial transport per unit of turnover will drop by about 9.5 percent compared with 2020, and the annual utilization of bulk solid waste will reach about 4.5 billion tonnes, with the output rate of main resources to increase by about 45 percent compared with 2020, according to the guidelines.
‘Heat Engine’ Fuelled by Climate Crisis Bringing Blast of Summer Weather to Australian Winter August temperature records under threat as Oodnadatta in South Australia braces for 38C and BoM forecasts above 30C in Brisbane next week Australia is on track to face its hottest August on record as a global heating-fuelled “heat engine” brings spring and summer warmth to Australia’s winter, experts forecast.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Economy:
Why Has the Dem Platform Veered Right on the Economy? The changes made in four years don’t just repudiate the left, they defy public opinion on one issue after another, driving the party backward even as U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris runs as the candidate of change. I reviewed the Democratic Party platform for 2024 and found something interesting: When it comes to economic policy, this year’s platform is less progressive and less ambitious than it was four years ago. Democrats have tacked right or retreated on health insurance reform, drug prices, Medicare and Social Security expansion, poverty, labor, taxes, Wall Street, and the minimum wage.
Economic War with China is a Losing Proposition It’s always better to do business with people than to pick fights with them. But this piece of common sense seems to have dropped out of the brains – if they have them – of American congressional and white house leaders. During his presidential tenure, Donald “The Tariff Man” Trump slapped tariffs on washing machines, aluminum, steel, solar panels and other goods, totaling $380 billion worth of trade from China, the U.S.’s third biggest trading partner. That amounted to a tax increase of $80 billion. Not to be outdone in the stupidity sweepstakes, Joe “Copycat” Biden added his tariffs. They affected batteries, steel, aluminum, semiconductors, solar cells, electric vehicles, critical minerals and more.
Crypto Took Down Another Federally-Insured Bank and Just Handed Its CEO a 24-Year Prison Sentence Last year, the staff of a federally-insured bank in Kansas, Heartland Tri-State Bank, wired out more than one-third of the amount the bank held in deposits to a crypto scam. Why did they do that? Because the CEO of the bank, Shan Hanes, told them to do it. Hanes had become one more crypto sucker seduced by the allure of a get-rich-quick scheme. On Monday, Hanes was sentenced in a case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice to 24 years in prison for embezzling $47.1 million (via the wire transfers shown in the graph above) from the bank he was in charge of protecting. The bank failed last July with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) stepping in to make depositors whole while the investors in the bank (shareholders) were wiped out.
World:
Bangladesh: The Workers Begin to Move The revolutionary overthrow of the Hasina regime, sparked by the students and their courageous protests, have opened the floodgates for a fresh wave of class struggle in Bangladesh. The revolution surges forward! Workers have borrowed and adapted the militant methods and slogans of the students in the fight against the bosses. While Hasina has gone, her system remains. Every boss and factory owner is like a ‘Little Hasina’, brutally oppressing and exploiting millions of workers. Now, workers are increasingly using the hard-won democratic victory of 5 August to fight these despots too.
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