Daily News Digest September 23, 2024
Images of the Day:d Rall: Civics 2024
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:n
Podcasts/Vide0s of the Day:
Agribusiness is Destroying Humanity’s Future!: Kate Winslet Reveals a Shocking Truth About Our Planet’s Future
World Demands End to Israel’s illegal Occupation of Palestine, in Landslide UN Vote!
Is Israel Preparing for a Ground Invasion of Southern Lebanon Amid New Attacks?
Re: Lebanon Attacks: On War Crimes And Western Hypocrisy It goes without saying that if a government like Russia, China or Iran were even suspected of being responsible for similar attacks, Kirby and his fellow podium people would be not just naming the suspected aggressor but fervently denouncing the attack as an act of terrorism.
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.
The War Profiteers: Witnesses Backed by Defense Companies Urge Confrontation With Iran in Hearing Witnesses proposed deploying more military capabilities to the Middle East and the authorization of the use of force. At a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on Thursday, witnesses proposed confronting Iran directly by deploying more military capabilities to the Middle East and the authorization of the use of force. Yet, they conveniently neglected to mention that their employers — which included one Pentagon contractor and several think tanks funded by weapons manufacturers — stand to rake in profits from selling Congress on a military-first approach to Iran.
US Military Policy Is Stoking the Risk of Nuclear War on Korean Peninsula As Trump and Harris bicker over North Korea, the US military lays plans that could bring nuclear tensions to a brink. U.S. politicians can’t stop talking about Kim Jong Un. The two major party conventions have come and gone, with both presidential candidates mentioning the North Korean leader by name. At the Republican National Convention (RNC), Donald Trump claimed Kim had endorsed him, adding, “He misses me.” Just weeks later at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Kamala Harris alluded to her opponent’s claims, declaring before an enraptured audience that the “tyrant” Kim is “rooting for Trump.” U.S. politicians can’t stop talking about Kim Jong Un. The two major party conventions have come and gone, with both presidential candidates mentioning the North Korean leader by name. At the Republican National Convention (RNC), Donald Trump claimed Kim had endorsed him, adding, “He misses me.” Just weeks later at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Kamala Harris alluded to her opponent’s claims, declaring before an enraptured audience that the “tyrant” Kim is “rooting for Trump.”
United States Armed and Funded Funded Palestinan Genocide:
U.S. Support for Genocide!: House Passes Bill to Label Products From West Bank Settlements “Made in Israel” “Let’s be clear. A vote for this bill would further support the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” said Rashida Tlaib. The House passed a bill on Wednesday to label products from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as originating from “Israel,” essentially recognizing Israel’s annexation and ethnic cleansing of the region in what opponents of the bill say is a “hateful” attempt to erase the very existence of Palestinians in Palestine.
Does Israel’s Weaponizing of Hezbollah Pagers signal the Start of a Regional War? Israel’s massive cyber-attack on Lebanon on 17 and 18 September, with the near-simultaneous explosion of 3,000-4,000 pagers and walkie-talkies, has killed a few dozen Hezbollah members and many civilians, including some children and health workers, has blinded and maimed hundreds of people and wounded many thousands. Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a long speech on 19 September, frankly admitted that the attacks had delivered a severe and unprecedented blow to the radical movement, but he said that the movement would recover from it. From an intelligence and technical point of view, the booby-trapping of the pagers was a sophisticated espionage operation carried out by the Israeli Mossad
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!
Amazon Death Rattle The Amazon rainforest is in deep trouble. Labeling it a “crisis” however seems too hackneyed and not descriptive enough because the devastation is beyond description. The magnificent rainforest is morphing into a tinder box that’s trapped in the worst drought of all time. According to MapBiomas, an all-time record amount of land is charred and smoldering as 180,000 fires this year, over 50,000 current, light up Brazil, potentially threatening major cities Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. … Alas, in the face of raging forests fires around the world, we’re going backwards on environmental protections, for example, the Supreme Court is stripping environmental legislation of the 1960s-70s: “The Supreme Court is effectively axing a major component of the Clean Water Act, rolling back 50 years of wetland protection in a declaration of war against nature by changing a word in the text of the Clean Water Act. Seldom, if ever, will repercussions of a Supreme Court decision be so far-reaching and detrimental to life for the planet. It’s a dagger strike deep into the heart of the world’s most significant life source. Justice Samuel Alito “changing the text of the Clean Water Act” is guaranteed to bring forth much, much worse flooding, especially along coastlines as sea levels rise from global warming; it’ll engender new sources of pollution of streams and lakes and bring on huge losses in biodiversity and crush the beauty of nature displaced by concrete, asphalt and development. Most importantly, aquifers depend upon wetlands for replenishment.” (Source: Supremes Declare War on Wetlands, May 29, 2023). According to the Sierra Club: “The Supreme Court’s decision will open millions of acres of wetlands—all formerly protected by the Clean Water Act—to pollution and destruction.” Even Justice Brett Kavanaugh took exception, “scolding” Samuel Alito for “taking liberties with congressional law,” Ibid.Stop CO2 emissions. Stop Deforestation. We’re methodically killing the planet. The planet cannot count on life support coming to its rescue. Hmm, the planet is life support. But life support is burning.
There Are Now More and More Articles on the Amazon’s Deforestation, But the Key Point is it no longer a Barbon Sink!: Since 2021 The Amazon Rainforest Now Emitting More CO2 Than it Absorbs! Cutting emissions more urgent than ever, say scientists, with forest producing more than a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year The Amazon rainforest is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it is able to absorb, scientists have confirmed for the first time. The emissions amount to a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, according to a study. The giant forest had previously been a carbon sink, absorbing the emissions driving the climate crisis, but is now causing its acceleration, researchers said. Most of the emissions are caused by fires, many deliberately set to clear land for beef and soy production. But even without fires, hotter temperatures and droughts mean the south-eastern Amazon has become a source of CO2, rather than a sink. Most of the emissions are caused by fires, many deliberately set to clear land for beef and soy production. But even without fires, hotter temperatures and droughts mean the south-eastern Amazon has become a source of CO2, rather than a sink.
Black Liberation/Civil Rights:
Arab American Leader Maya Berry Responds After GOP Senator’s Racist Questioning Berry says the experience illustrated the very problem of dehumanization the hearing was meant to address. We speak with Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, after she faced racist and hostile questioning from Republicans at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, including Senator John Kennedy, who told Berry, “You should hide your head in a bag.” The experience illustrated the very problem of dehumanization the hearing was meant to address, Berry says: “That kind of bigotry and hatred is difficult to hear from anyone, but to actually experience it at a hate crime hearing from a sitting member of this institution was pretty extraordinary.” We also speak with Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois, who has introduced a resolution to honor 6-year-old Wadea al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American boy stabbed to death in a Chicago suburb last October in an anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian attack. “His horrible bigotry and hate have real consequences in the Arab community and the Palestinian community, in other communities, and it makes us all less safe,” Ramirez says of Kennedy.
South Carolina AG: Freddie Owens to Be Executed Despite Key Witness’ Bombshell Claim The witness—who claims he falsely identified Owens as the killer because he feared for his life—said that barring a stay, the condemned man “will die for a crime that he did not commit.” Barring an unlikely 11th-hour reprieve from South Carolina’s governor or U.S. Supreme Court, correctional officials are set to carry out the state’s first execution in 13 years after its attorney general brushed off a key prosecution witness’ bombshell claim that the convicted man did not commit the murder for which he is condemned to die.
In this Epoch of Imperialist Decay, Democracy is Viewed as a Threat to Its Rule!: Journalism Professor’s Suspension Shows the Hypocrisy of “Objectivity” Steven Thrasher’s suspension from teaching journalism at Northwestern shows “the Palestine exception” at work. Outcry is spreading against Northwestern University’s decision to cancel the fall classes of professor Steven Thrasher, who was hired as its first ever endowed chair for social justice in reporting. Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism suspended Thrasher months after he took part in a pro-Palestine encampment on campus last spring, in a move that appears to be related both to his defense of students in the encampment and to pro-Palestine statements he made in his speeches and social media posts. This week more than 1,900 journalists, health professionals and academics — including me — published an open letter to the leadership of Northwestern University expressing concern that the school is “targeting Dr. Steven Thrasher for his political speech against Israel’s war in Gaza and for defending those students who also stand against it.”
Labor:
California Professors Fight Back Against Violent Repression of Palestine Protest For the first time in more than 30 years, the Council of UC Faculty Associations filed a formal complaint against the UC system. Faculty from seven University of California campuses took a stand against the repression of protest over Israel’s war on Gaza on Thursday, taking the historic step of filing a joint unfair labor practice charge against their employer. The professors from the top-tier California public university system alleged that their schools targeted them for speaking out on Israel’s war in Gaza and for joining students’ pro-Palestine protests in the spring. The 581-page labor violation charge, filed with California’s Public Employment Relations Board, largely focuses on the universities’ crackdowns on the student-led Palestine solidarity protests and encampments, in which school officials called on police to arrest hundreds of students, faculty, and staff members in May and June.
Economy:
Shadow Government Statistics Commentary 9/20/24
Headlines
- Current FOMC Interest Policies and Rate Patterns Are Reminiscent of
- Those that Helped Trigger the Great Recession of 2007/2008 Current Jump in Gold Prices Tends to Confirm the Significant Understatement of the Heavily Gimmicked Headline CPI Inflation
- Where the Latest Annual CPI Headlined at 2.5%, and the
- ShadowStats Alternate Was at 10.3%, the Recent Gold Price Surge Has Held Consistent with the ShadowStats Number
- (Expanded Details and Graphs Follow in Next Wednesday’s
- Review-Preview Inflation Commentary)
****
Where the FOMC cut the Federal Funds Rate by 50 basis points rates at Wednesday’s meeting, such will not be enough to reverse an already unfolding Recession. At the same time, Systemic Liquidity continues at a 57-year peak, already fueling intensifying upside pressure on prices. Full details will be reviewed in the two pending Commentaries. Meaningful computer and data issues have been resolved but have pushed back the planned Special Commentaries to next Wednesday (September 25th) for the Inflation Review-Preview (2019 to 2025), and into the Following Week for the Economic Review-Preview (2019 to 2025). Those respective Comprehensive Reviews of and Outlooks for (1) Current Inflation Circumstances, and (2) Current Economic Conditions, will show both areas in continuing deterioration, despite the Pre-Election reporting games increasingly in play with both the CPI and with the GDP. Underlying current circumstances still continue to signal an intensifying, inflationary business downturn. ShadowStats Commentaries will be returning to a regular publication schedule, thereafter, subsequent to those Special Inflation and Economic Commentaries. I apologize for the delays but believe you will find the latest material meaningful and of interest.
World:
Lenin’s Struggle Against Imperialist War The world situation today is characterised by the opening up of a whole series of bloody conflicts: in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Congo, in Sudan. In the epoch of imperialism, the capitalist system which has outlived itself would sooner drown humanity in a sea of blood than peacefully go into the dustbin of history. On the other side, the world situation is characterised by revolutionary anger against war and imperialism. This year, we published a brand new selection of Lenin on imperialist war, as a weapon for a new generation of communist fighters. We publish the introduction by Jorge Martín here, and urge our readers to get their copy of Lenin: selected writings on imperialist war now from Wellred Books. Available in paperback, ebook and audiobook formats.
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
Scientists Who First Identified Threat of Microplastics Say World Must Now Act “During the 20 years since our first study, the amount of plastic in our oceans has increased by around 50%, only further emphasizing the pressing need for action,” said one leading researcher
For-Profit US Health Care System Still Ranks Last Among Peers on Key Metrics People in the US “live the shortest lives and have the most avoidable deaths,” a new analysis concludes. Areport out Thursday shows that the United States’ for-profit healthcare system still ranks dead last among peer nations on key metrics, including access to care and health outcomes such as life expectancy at birth. The new analysis from the Commonwealth Fund is the latest indictment of a corporate-dominated system that leaves tens of millions of people uninsured or underinsured and unable to afford life-saving medications without rationing doses or going into debt.