Daily News Digest September 4, 2024
Images of the Day:
The Amazon Now No Longer a Carbon Sink — It Emits More CO2 Than it Absorbs!: The Wildfire Burning in South America
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 fact remains: The fires burning in Brazil’s Amazon, Pantanal, and Cerrado biomes are done so on purpose by livestock farmers to turn dense forest into pasture and soybean crops. These fires put millions of wild animals in harm’s way, and they are directly connected to the growing demand for meat and dairy products. The fires in Brazil are part of a global problem, one which highlights the direct link between deforestation and loss of ecosystems with dietary choices made thousands of miles away. Above all, the blazes reiterate the sheer unsustainability of animal agriculture and tragedy within our current food systems. — How Factory Farms in America Drive Deforestation in Brazil
Podcasts/Vide0s of the Day:
US Politics Are The Whole World’s Business I thought I’d go through the questions and comments on my various platforms today and tap out some answers to the ones that jump out at me.
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.
Scott Ritter: On a Highway to Hell Successive U.S. administrations have eschewed arms control in favor of maintaining American strategic advantage over real and/or imagined adversaries. This is accomplished by embracing nuclear weapons employment strategies that deviate from simple deterrence into war-fighting at every level of conflict, including scenarios that don’t involve a nuclear threat. At a time when the U.S. advocates policies exacerbating already high levels of tension with nuclear-armed adversaries Russia and China, the Biden administration has signed off on a new nuclear employment plan that increases, rather that decreases, the probability of nuclear conflict. Left unchecked, this policy can have only one possible outcome — total nuclear annihilation of humanity and the world we live in.
The General Power of Workers is Demonstrated by the General Strike, For Imperialism, If the Working Class Recognizes its Own Power, it is a Greater Evil of Imperialism to Continue Aid Netaniahu. Liberals Recognize this!: Why Biden must cut Netanyahu off: His Policies are Destroying Gaza, Killing Hostages, and Widening the War to the West Bank With the massive weekend demonstrations in Israel, and Monday’s general strike called for by the Histadrut, the massive collective of trade unions in Israel; the pressure for PM Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu to resign is dramatically escalating. By demanding that Bibi negotiate a deal to release the remaining hostages, they are implicitly demanding his resignation, because he’s made it clear he’ll settle for nothing less than the total destruction of Gaza. That would entail killing the hostages. Bibi has proven willing to sacrifice the lives of Israeli and American hostages to serve his political needs. The Histadrut demands need to be supported by President Joe Biden and all the force the US can muster as Israel’s primary benefactor. Bibi’s hubris and arrogance has him behaving as if Israel is the benefactor and the US is the client state. His address to congress last month was an act of blasphemy, orchestrated by Republicans and AIPAC, which effectively are the “American Likud.”
United States Funded Genocide in Israel:
Expert Says Impunity for Israel UN Must End as ‘Genocidal Violence’ Spreads to West Bank Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement, and territorial expansion,” said United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
Explosion of Anger Against Netanyahu in Israel: “Hostages’ Blood is On His Hands” The recovery of the dead bodies of six hostages, held by Hamas in Gaza, by the IDF over the weekend has led to an explosion of anger, directed against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Hundreds of thousands came onto the streets on Sunday in mass demonstrations across Israel. The country was paralysed by a general strike called by Histadrut (the General Organisation of Workers in Israel) this morning, Monday 2 September. Protesters hold Netanyahu responsible for the death of the hostages, given his blatant and constant sabotage of the negotiations with Hamas. This is a very serious political crisis, which could lead to the removal of the Israeli PM.
An Arms Embargo on Israel is Not a Radical Idea — It’s the Law Halting military aid to Israel is the bare minimum the U.S. can do to stop the Gaza genocide. An arms embargo is not only supported by 80% of Democratic Party…As Israel launches its largest military assault in the West Bank in twenty years, I cannot stop thinking about the people I met in the occupied territory. I think of the mother in Jenin who was on the phone with her two sons seconds before their house was burned in an Israeli raid. I think of the wife of a man who was being held in an Israeli prison without charge or trial asking me, “Is there anything you can do? My husband is dying.” I think of the farmer who gifted me a melon even though he could barely put food on his own table and I was there only for a short period of time, traveling and volunteering with Faz3a, an international protective presence organization. While all eyes have been on Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are undergoing what many call a “slow genocide”. Every day, Israeli settlers attack Palestinian families to push them off their private land. They destroy water wells, burn houses, and assault families. Palestinians who remain on their land risk arrest. In the last 10 months, 9,000 Palestinians from the West Bank have been arrested and detained without charge or trial, many experiencing torture.
Beyond Bombs and Bullets: The Full Tally of Gaza’s Dead Israel’s assault on Gaza has now officially surpassed the gruesome milestone of 40,000 Palestinians dead, but in counting only those killed in direct acts of violence that number captures just a fraction of the human loss. “Most civilian casualties in war are not the result of direct exposure to bombs and bullets,” noted a 2017 studypublished by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, “they are due to the destruction of the essentials of daily living, including food, water, shelter, and health care.” This broader understanding of conflict casualties was applied to Gaza in a July study published in The Lancet, one of the world’s premier medical journals. The study found that at that time, it was plausible to assume that Israel’s military campaign would be responsible for the deaths of some 186,000 people.
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!
The Amazon is no Longer a Carbon Sink. It’s a ‘Carbon Source’ The rainforests of the Amazon have long been known as “the lungs of the planet,” yet that may no longer be the case. The region’s forests produce more than a billion tons of CO2 a year, which means that they now emit more carbon than they absorb, according to new research. The rainforests of the Amazon have long been known as “the lungs of the planet,” yet that may no longer be the case. The region’s forests produce more than a billion tons of CO2 a year, which means that they now emit more carbon than they absorb, according to new research. The main reasons for the reversal in the Amazon’s role as a major carbon sink include continued deforestation and unrelenting climate change, according to the scientists who conducted nearly 600 vertical profiling measurements by help of small airplanes some 4,500 meters above the forest to monitor concentrations of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide at four sites between 2010 and 2018.
On Our Climate-Challenged Planet, Only Some Deaths Seem to Matter Over 3,000 migrants fleeing from poverty and conflict, the Council on Foreign Relations recently noted, died last year trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe. Those deaths made barely a ripple in most of the world’s major news media. But this summer one single tragedy on the Mediterranean has been making globs of global headlines. On Monday, August 19, amid a fearsome sudden storm, a boat deemed “unsinkable” sank off the coast of Sicily’s Palermo. Seven of the 22 people on board perished. What made this sinking so newsworthy? The ship that sank just happened to be a luxury sailing yacht that sported the world’s tallest aluminum mast. And the casualties from that superyacht’s sinking just happened to include the high-tech CEO once hailed as the “British Bill Gates.
2024 Marks the Worst Year for Amazon Fires in Two Decades In a troubling trend, the Brazilian Amazon registered a 76% increase in fire hotspots from 2023 during the same seven month period (January – July). According to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), there were nearly 25,000 fire hotspots through July 2024, the highest number for this period since 2005. Of these hotspots, 11,434 were recorded in July alone, an increase of 98% compared to the same month last year, which recorded 5,772 fire hotspots. The highest number of fires in the month was recorded on July 30, with 1,348 records in a single day. Other areas of the Amazon also experienced a record number of fires in the first seven months of the year, including Bolivia. According to data from INPE, the country registered roughly 17,700 fire points from January through July, the most ever seen in that period. Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname also saw a huge surge in fires in the first seven months of the year. The Brazilian Amazon already experienced a significant increase in fires in 2023, with at least 26.4 million acres burned, representing a 35.4% increase from 2022. The majority of this destruction occurred in the final months of the year. The current data indicates a critical and escalating situation for Amazon fires in 2024, underscoring the urgent need for immediate and effective action to mitigate further damage.
Capitalism is Wiping Out Coral Reefs Acidification of the oceans is killing coral reefs and threatening global food supply. The only way to stop this deadly trend is to remove the profit motive from the fossil fuel industry. Chemicals on our planet move constantly between the Earth’s crust, the atmosphere, and bodies of water. The oceans and the atmosphere are the main reservoirs, and if a chemical increases in quantity in one of them, it will seep into the other, and vice versa. This is true for all atmospheric chemicals: the oxygen we need to live, the carbon dioxide we excrete, and the nitrogen, argon, and other inert gasses that simply exist in the system. Due to the enormity of the reservoirs, the levels of the many chemicals remain relatively constant and in balance over time. However, human industry, driven by the unplanned anarchism of the capitalist market, has changed that. As the capitalists have burned fossil fuels and increased the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, the ocean has experienced a commensurate change in its CO2 levels as well. Is this a problem for humanity or simply a fun fact about nature? Well, you may have heard of coral reefs dying. Acidification of the oceans is a direct cause. Because when CO2 dissolves in water, carbonic acid is formed, lowering pH levels and increasing acidity.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Labor:
Economy:
The Low-Wage Corporations That Blew Half a Trillion Dollars to Inflate CEO Pay The Lowe’s home improvement store spent $43 billion on stock buybacks over the past five years. With that sum, the big box chain could’ve given each of its 285,000 employees a $30,000 bonus every year between 2019 and 2023. The extra cash would’ve meant a lot to Lowe’s workers — half of whom make less than $33,000 per year. Meanwhile, the retailer’s CEO, Marvin Ellison, raked in $18 million in 2023. Another sign of Lowe’s skewed priorities? The company plowed nearly five times as much cash into buybacks as it invested in long-term capital expenditures like store improvements and technology upgrades over the past five years. Lowe’s ranks as an extreme example of a corporate model focused on pumping up CEO pay at the expense of workers and long-term investment. But such skewed priorities are actually the norm among America’s leading low-wage corporations.
Three Megabanks Had Loans Outstanding of $1.832 Trillion to Giant Hedge Funds on March 31 The Office of Financial Research (OFR), the federal agency created after the 2008 financial collapse on Wall Street to defog the lenses of federal regulators to prevent a replay of that disaster, has posted frightening graphs on its website as part of its “Hedge Fund Monitor.” Particularly alarming is the overall takeaway that the U.S. megabanks that are receiving federal deposit insurance that is backstopped by hardworking and law-abiding U.S. taxpayers, are using their lending ability to make massive loans to dodgy, giant hedge funds that are regularly found to be on the wrong side of the law and/or engaging in wildly risky behavior. Equally concerning is whether megabank lending to giant hedge funds is sapping their ability to make loans to worthy U.S. businesses that are engaged in the real economy rather than the financial casino economy of hedge funds.
World:
The Imperialist Scramble for Control of the South China Sea Conflict has sharpened this summer between China and the US-backed regime in the Philippines over their conflicting claims in the South China Sea. With the world’s attention focused on US-sponsored slaughters in Gaza and Ukraine, it’s easy to miss the intensifying struggle between American and Chinese imperialism in the Pacific. Conflict has sharpened this summer between China and the US-backed regime in the Philippines over their conflicting claims in the South China Sea. In recent weeks, the Chinese Coast Guard has clashed with Filipino forces near the hulk of a Filipino Navy ship, the Sierra Madre. In 1999, the Philippines intentionally ran the Sierra Madre aground at a reef called the Second Thomas Shoal to assert sovereignty over this collection of mostly-submerged rocks and sandbars. Filipino Marines have maintained a small but permanent presence there ever since. These troops require regular resupply, which China now seeks to disrupt. What’s the significance of this? These shoals are part of a smattering of tiny islands and prominent reefs in the South China Sea called the Spratly Islands. China claims all of the Spratlys and the surrounding seas as part of its own territory. However, five other countries—the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam, and Malaysia—all maintain claims of their own over parts of the Spratlys. These are the only “islands” in the center of the South China Sea, a vital shipping lane through which more than $5 trillion in goods pass every year. There are also at least 11 billion barrels worth of oil undersea, and three countries maintain drilling operations nearby.
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