Daily News Digest September 25, 2024

Daily News Digest Archives

Images of the Day:

Ted Rall: Where Is All This Violence Coming From?

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 Iron Heel

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 Supreme Court Chevron Decision is a Decision for Ecocide!     If You Can’t Regulate Industrial Polluters,      Then Global Warming Cannot be Stopped! To Stop Global Warming, We Need a New System Based Upon the Needs of Humanity Not the Corporate Few!

Podcasts/Vide0s of the Day:

Going From “The Civilian Buildings Are Hamas” To “The Civilian Buildings Are Hezbollah” Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): I have no patience for people who this late in the game still say they don’t know enough about the Palestine situation to have an opinion. It’s like, okay, well, that’s a character flaw, and…

IPCC Chair Jim Skea at the opening of the Copenhagen Climate Ministerial on 21 March 2024

Black Agenda Radio September 20, 2024Dr. Butch Ware on his Green Party Vice Presidential Campaign

Landlord and Right Wing Media Create Story of Aurora, Colorado Gangs D. Musa Springer is a cultural worker, community organizer, and independent journalist. They are a member of the Walter Rodney Foundation, host of the Groundings podcast , and a member of the Black Alliance for Peace Atlanta. Musa joins us from Atlanta to discuss reports that Venezuelan gangs have taken over apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado, and the reality, that a landlord used right-wing media falsehoods to cover up housing violations in his buildings.

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. 

Pax Americana

Paz Americana: The Biggest Military Base Empire on Earth The permanent stationing of more than 220,000 U.S. troops, weapons arsenals, and thousands of aircraft, tanks, and ships in every corner of the globe makes the logistics for U.S. aggression, and that of its allies, quicker and more efficient. Bases also facilitate the proliferation of nuclear weapons, with the United States keeping nuclear bombs in five NATO member countries, and nuclear-capable planes, ships, and missile launchers in many others. Because the U.S. is continually creating plans for military actions around the world, and because the U.S. military always has some troops “on the ready,” the initiation of combat operations is simpler.     U.S. foreign military bases provoke war, pollute communities, and steal land from Indigenous peoples!     The United States of America, unlike any other nation on Earth, maintains a massive network of foreign military bases around the world, more than 900 bases in more than 90 countries and territories. If the peace movement is serious about ending the United States’ and its allies’ warmaking, then this global constellation of bases must be curtailed. 

Corporate ‘Democracy’: Meet the 7 Corporations Doing the Most to Undermine Democracy Worldwide “Unless we’re organized and demanding responsive governments that actually meet the needs of people, it’s corporate power that’s going to set the agenda,” one organizer said. Big Tech, Big Oil, and private equity firms are among the leading companies that profit from controlling media and technology, accelerating the climate crisis, privatizing public goods and services, and violating human and workers’ rights, the International Trade Union Confederation revealed on Monday.     The ITUC has labeled seven major companies as “corporate underminers of democracy” that lobby against government attempts to hold them accountable and are headed by super-rich individuals who fund right-wing political movements and leaders.     “This is about power, who has it, and who sets the agenda,” Todd Brogan, director of campaigns and organizing at the ITUC, toldThe Guardian. “We know as trade unionists that unless we’re organized, the boss sets the agenda in the workplace, and we know as citizens in our countries that unless we’re organized and demanding responsive governments that actually meet the needs of people, it’s corporate power that’s going to set the agenda.” The “corporate underminers of democracy” are:

  1. com, Inc.
  2. Blackstone Group
  3. ExxonMobil
  4. Glencore
  5. Meta
  6. Tesla
  7. The Vanguard Group

801 U.S. Billionaires Hold a Combined $6.22 Trillion in Wealth There are now 801 billionaires based in the United States with a combined wealth totaling $6.22 trillion, according to an Institute for Policy Studies analysis of the Forbes Real Time Billionaire List.     The total number of billionaires is down 11 people as of September 13, 2024 from April when Forbes published their 38th annual World’s Billionaire List. Despite that decline in the number of billionaires, the total wealth of the exclusive nine-figure-club grew by $500 billion over the last five months. 

The Coming Electoral Storm So here is some of the latest evidence that the United States now for the third quadrennial bourgeois electoral extravaganza in a row given put up a fascist maniac representing a fascist party atop its presidential ticket.    There’s a not-so-subtle departure in Donald “They’re Eating the Cats and Dogs” Trump and his fascist running mate JD “Cat Lady” Vance’s targeting of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio – a targeting that has led to the closing of schools and public buildings because of bombing and shooting threats and to the fascist Proud Boys marching on the town.      The departure here is the targeting not just of “illegal” immigrants but now fully legal immigrants – “legals” who, by the way, are well understood by locals across the red-blue spectrum to be contributing to an America town’s economy and community.    (I think here of all the hard-working and fully “legal” Sudanese and Congolese people families I’ve worked and gardened alongside in Iowa City over the last decade.) 

United States Armed and Funded Palestinan Genocide:

‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 353: Israel Launches Bombing Campaign on Lebanon as Hezbollah Retaliates Casualties

  • At least 274 killed in Lebanon in Israeli airstrikes, according to Lebanese Ministry of Health.
  • 41,455 + killed* and at least 95,878 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 32,280 of the slain have been identified, including 10,627 children and 5,956 women, representing 60% of the casualties, and 2,770 elderly as of August 6, 2024. Some 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble*
  • 716+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes 146 children.**
  • Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
  • The Israeli army recognizes the death of 714 Israeli soldiers and the injury of at least 4,100 others since October 7.***
  • * Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on September 23, 2024. Rights groups and public health experts estimate the death toll to be much higher.
  • ** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. This is the latest figure according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health as of September 20, 2024.
  • *** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported on August 4, 2024, that some 10,000 Israeli soldiers and officers have been either killed or wounded since October 7. The head of the Israeli army’s wounded association told Israel’s Channel 12 that the number of wounded Israeli soldiers exceeds 20,000, including at least 8,000 who have been permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7 and as of June 18.

UN General Assembly to Open Amid Fears of All-Out War in Middle East Diplomats trying to prevent escalation in Israel-Hezbollah conflict amid bombing campaign in Lebanon The 79th United Nations general assembly is to open on Tuesday morning amid a massive bombing campaign in southern Lebanon that has brought Israel and the Shia militant group Hezbollah closer than ever to all-out war, despite fevered diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the conflict.     On Monday, diplomats huddled behind the scenes at the United Nations headquarters and midtown Manhattan hotels for bilateral and ministerial meetings on issues from Atlantic Ocean ecology to Ukraine’s energy supply, before what the UN bills as its own “Super Bowl of global diplomacy

Israeli Strikes Kill 492 in Heaviest Daily Toll in Lebanon Since 1975-90 Civil War Israel says it has hit 1,300 targets in escalating conflict with Hezbollah, as tens of thousands flee their homes At least 492 people have been killed and 1,645 injured, Lebanon’s health ministry has said, after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on alleged Hezbollah targets that left the country with its highest daily death toll since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.

Marjorie Cohn: Israel’s Tally of War Crimes in Lebanon Increases in Wake of Exploding Pagers The Israeli bombing of a residential neighborhood in Beirut is also a war crime. Israel escalated attacks on Lebanon on September 23, marking the deadliest day of conflict between the two countries since 2006. Israel’s strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as the capital city of Beirut, left a death toll of at least 274, including women, children and paramedics. The Israeli military targeted “medical centres, ambulances and cars of people trying to flee,” according to Al Jazeera, which cited Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad as the source for the information. Israel also targeted civilian homes, which it claimed were housing Hezbollah weapons.

Environment:

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!

Under Capitalism the Rise of CO2 : Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)  Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa Week beginning on September 15, 2024: 421.98 ppm.     Weekly value from 1 year ago:  418.33 ppmWeekly value from 10 years ago:395.24 ppm.     Last updated: September 23, 2024

Earth May Have Breached Seven of Nine Planetary Boundaries, Health Check Shows Ocean acidification close to critical threshold, say scientists, posing threat to marine ecosystems and global liveability Industrial civilisation is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary, and may already have crossed it, according to scientists who have compiled the latest report on the state of the world’s life-support systems.    “Ocean acidification is approaching a critical threshold”, particularly in higher-latitude regions, says the latest report on planetary boundaries. “The growing acidification poses an increasing threat to marine ecosystems.”    The report, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), builds on years of research showing there are nine systems and processes – the planetary boundaries – that contribute to the stability of the planet’s life-support functions.   Thresholds beyond which they can no longer properly function have already been breached in six. Climate change, the introduction of novel entities, change in biosphere integrity and modification of biogeochemical flows are judged to be in high-risk zones, while planetary boundaries are also transgressed in land system change and freshwater change but to a lesser extent. All have worsened, according to the data.

Effects of SCOTUS Ruling Undermining Regulatory Authority Are Already Emerging The ruling against the “Chevron” doctrine has been used to challenge a broad range of regulations in the last 3 months. For headline-grabbing drama, few Supreme Court decisions could equal the justices’ July ruling that former presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for virtually all of their official acts.      But a decision in the seemingly humdrum realm of administrative law could end up having far broader consequences, affecting vast areas of American life by slashing the power of federal regulatory agencies that police pollution, food safety, health care and countless other aspects of modern society.    Lower court judges have already cited the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision, in a case known as Loper Bright, to halt implementation of Biden administration rules on overtime pay and health care discrimination. In the past three months, Loper Bright also has been invoked to challenge regulations on everything from hidden airline fees to gun sales to abortion referrals.

Black Liberation/Civil Rights:

Labor:

Economy:

Wall Street Has Moved Vast Sums of Its Trading to Its Federally-Insured Banks Taxpayer-backstopped federal deposit insurance at commercial banks in the U.S. was never meant to be a get-rich scheme for the wild and voracious appetites of traders on Wall Street. But a quarterly report produced by the federal regulator of national banks – those operating across state lines – shows that vast amounts of trading on Wall Street is now taking place inside the federally-insured commercial banks that are owned by the trading powerhouses on Wall Street: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America. (Wall Street trading houses have been allowed to own federally-insured banks since the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 under the Wall Street friendly Bill Clinton administration.)

World:

George Monbiot: More Floods are Coming to Britain, But You Ought to Know This: The System That Should Protect Us is a Scandal! A network of public bodies are supposed to safeguard us from flooding. But, like old boys’ clubs, they are bastions of self-interest.

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  

School Surveillance Earns Tech Companies Billions. Students Pay the Price. Tech firms have outfitted classrooms with data-gathering surveillance technologies that undermine education and privacy. Students in the United States are being watched. With dubious promises of greater security and enhanced learning, tech companies have outfitted classrooms across the U.S. with devices and technologies that allow for constant surveillance and data gathering. Firms such as Gaggle, Securly and Bark (to name a few) now collect data from tens of thousands of K-12 students. Despite their reach, they are not required to disclose how they use that data, or guarantee its safety from hackers and other bad actors. If that sounds like the stuff of science fiction, it’s because for a long time it was.