Daily News Digest October 31, 2024
Images of the Day:
Scientists Have Discovered That Earth’s Carbon Sinks are Not Really Carbon Sinking at the Moment
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 golf links lie so near the mill That almost every day The laboring children can look out And see the men at play. — The Golf Links Lie So Near the Mill
The Default of the Labor Bureaucracy has Led to the Rise of the Scepter of Fascism “Fascism comes only when the working class shows complete incapacity to take into its own hands the fate of society.” — Leon Trotsky, Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It
This mirrors the United States settler colonialism mindset that decided to exterminate the bison. You see, that animal made a life with quite a lot of free time and abundance available to the tribes who lived in the same area. As most of you know, at least Americans reading this, by removing the bison, you took the means to live with dignity away from the tribes and made eradication and relocation more easily reached. It’s what they are doing when they stop aid shipments to Gaza when they bomb hospitals when the orthodox settlers burn down ages-old olive trees. Of course, this is nothing but genocide and taking ancient cultures and making their continuation impossible. The very behaviors we were horrified at by ISIS in terms of destroying cultural landmarks is going on as we speak. Then you can claim the people were savages anyway–look they don’t even have any impressive buildings or ways to sustain themselves. If that very predictable, essentially prison break/riot raid last October hadn’t happened, it would have to have been invented to achieve this sort of expansionist wet dream. Individuals like Jared Kushner and his oceanfront development plans need space to grow, like an infection in a Petri dish culture. — Settler Colonial Contagion: A Long Simmering Plague
Yeah, Yeah, UNRWA Is Hamas. Everyone Israel Hates Is Hamas. The Israeli Knesset has banned UNRWA, an absolutely critical agency for getting humanitarian aid into Gaza, with the architect of the bill saying this was happening because “UNRWA equals Hamas”.
Down with the Imperialist Embargo against Cuba!
What a Glacial River Reveals About the Greenland Ice Sheet
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.
Echoes and Parallels from 1939 – Trump’s Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden On February 20, 1939, the German-American Bund held a rally at Madison Square Garden (MSG) called a “Mass Demonstration for True Americanism.” It was fueled by the pall of the Great Depression, which was still fresh in the American consciousness; and boosted by lingering economic struggles in post-Depression America, along with growing isolationist sentiments driven by xenophobia and unvarnished racism. The Bund was an openly pro-Nazi organization that demonized Jews, and conflated all Jews as Communists; organized by Fritz Kuhn, who fashioned himself as an “American Fuhrer.” They set up summer camps in the US, and had their kids wear Hitler Youth uniforms, while indoctrinating them into their sick ideology. On October 27, 2024, Donald Trump held a rally at the same MSG (different building) to promote the same concepts of bigotry, racism, xenophobia and hate of “the other.” The comparisons were unavoidable, despite Republican denialism.
The 1% Have Spoken! ‘This Is Just the Traceable Money’: $2 Billion Pumped Into 2024 Election by Billionaire Families “It’s no secret that political spending is a huge way for billionaires to rig the system to their liking,” said Americans for Tax Fairness. “Enough is enough.” … The new report from Americans for Tax Fairness, published Tuesday, shows how spending by 150 of the richest families in the U.S. has smashed campaign spending records, with $700 million more spent than the $1.2 billion that wealthy donors poured into the 2020 campaign.
United States Armed and Funded Terrorist Middle East War/Palestinan Genocide: When Biden Says ‘He’s a Zionist’ — Believe Him!
Genocide as Colonial Erasure (w/ Francesca Albanese) | The Chris Hedges Report “The crime of all crimes.” That is how the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda declared genocide in the final judgment of Prosecutor v. Akayesu, the case against the mayor of Taba, Rwanda for crimes against humanity. Today, that crime repeats itself as UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese painfully details in her latest report. Albanese joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to break down her report and present the indisputable evidence that Israel is actively committing a genocide of the Palestinian people. “The acts of killing, the mass killing, the infliction of psychological and physical torture, the devastation, the creation of conditions of life that would not allow the people in Gaza to live, from the destruction of hospitals, the mass force displacement and the mass homelessness while people were being bombed daily, and the starvation—how can we read these acts in isolation?” Albanese asks. The UN Special Rapporteur clearly outlines the steps and conditions required to meet the classification of genocide, and in the case of Gaza, it’s undeniable. Albanese tells Hedges, “What is relevant in order to establish that there is genocide is not just the intent behind these crimes, enunciated in Article II of the Genocide Convention; it’s the overall intent, specific intent, to destroy the people—the group as a whole, or in part, as such. And what is the group here? It’s the Palestinians.” Throughout the rest of her report, Albanese details the harrowing death and destruction Palestinians endure on a daily basis in countless forms, alongside the horror suffered by non-Palestinians in Gaza. Albanese documents record-breaking numbers: The highest number of journalists killed, the highest number of UN officials killed, the highest number of hospitals targeted, the destruction of all universities, the fastest rate of population starvation. It’s clear, according to Albanese, the scale of devastation the Israelis are inflicting is one of scorched-earth catastrophe.
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!
Planet-Heating Pollutants in Atmosphere Hite; Record Levels in 2023 Carbon dioxide concentration has increased by more than 10% in just two decades, reports World Meteorological Organization The concentration of planet-heating pollutants clogging the atmosphere hit record levels in 2023, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has said. It found carbon dioxide is accumulating faster than at any time in human history, with concentrations having risen by more than 10% in just two decades. “Another year, another record,” said Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the WMO. “This should set alarm bells ringing among decision makers.” The increase was driven by humanity’s “stubbornly high” burning of fossil fuels, the WMO found, and made worse by big wildfires and a possible drop in the ability of trees to absorb carbon. The concentration of CO2 reached 420 parts per million (ppm) in 2023, the scientists observed. The level of pollution is 51% greater than before the Industrial Revolution, when people began to burn large amounts of coal, oil and fossil gas.
140 Groups Urge Biodiversity Summit Attendees to Halt New Oil and Gas “The industry’s operations and the use of its products disrupt fragile ecosystems, destroy habitats, and pollute air, water, and soil, pushing countless species to human-induced extinction.”
As Antartica Approaches Summer: Another Meager Winter Around Antarctica Sea ice in the southern polar regions of the planet was also low in 2024. Around Antarctica, scientists are tracking near record-low sea ice at a time when it should have been growing extensively during the Southern Hemisphere’s darkest and coldest months. Ice around the continent is on track to be just over 6.6 million square miles (16.96 million square kilometers). The average maximum extent between 1981 and 2010 was 7.22 illion square miles (18.71 million square kilometers). The meager growth so far in 2024 prolongs a recent downward trend. Prior to 2014, sea ice in the Antarctic was increasing slightly by about 1% per decade. Following a spike in 2014, ice growth has fallen dramatically. Scientists are working to understand the cause of this reversal. The recurring loss hints at a long-term shift in conditions in the Southern Ocean, likely resulting from global climate change. “While changes in sea ice have been dramatic in the Arctic over several decades, Antarctic sea ice was relatively stable. But that has changed,” said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NSIDC. “It appears that global warming has come to the Southern Ocean.”
Firefighters Were Elated After a Federal Bill Provided Them Support For Cancer. Then Came ‘A Slap in the Face’ A 2022 law gave wildland firefighters with ‘presumptive cancer coverage’, but the list of ailments left out a range of cancers affecting women
Black Liberation Civil Rights:
Labor:
Project 2025 Uses Parental Rights to Justify Repealing Child Labor Protections The far right blueprint for the next Republican president seeks to make a major change to federal child labor law. Buried among the 922 pages of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, the far right blueprint for the next Republican president, is a proposal to make a major change to federal child labor law. Since the 1930s, the federal government has banned children under 18 from working in occupations deemed “particularly hazardous” for youth. The Labor Department identifies specific off-limits roles, including operating power saws and compactors, or working in mines or near explosives. According to Project 2025, this labor ban “results in worker shortages in dangerous fields.” “Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs,” assert the authors of the document, which was published by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. They propose a change: “With parental consent and proper training, certain young adults should be allowed to learn and work in more dangerous occupations.”
Economy:
BRICS Grows, Adding 13 New ‘Partner Countries’ at Historic Summit in Kazan, Russia The Global South-led organization BRICS is growing. More and more countries support the group’s mission: to build a multipolar world, with alternative economic institutions that are more representative and democratic, not dominated by the Western powers. BRICS held a summit in Kazan, Russia in October 2024, where 13 new “partner nations” were accepted. At this historic meeting, China’s President Xi Jinping referred to BRICS as “a vanguard for advancing global governance reform” and “reform of the international financial architecture”. Bolivia’s left-wing President Luis Arce argued that “the shield of BRICS and multipolarity” can protect formerly colonized nations, helping them resist “Western unipolarity and the tyranny of the dollar”. The organization was first formed as BRIC in 2009, by Brazil, Russia, India, and China. South Africa subsequently joined in 2010, turning the group into BRICS. At the 2023 BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, several more members were invited to join. As of October 2024, BRICS has nine members and 13 partner countries:
World:
Four in 10 Deaths in War Zones Last Year Were Women, UN Report Finds UN Women says figure doubled in 2023 amid ‘blatant disregard’ of laws that left women and children unprotected
Capitalism in Germany: Rotten to the Root German industry has been in crisis since 2018. Since then, the policies pursued during the pandemic, the energy crisis brought about by western governments’ support for the Ukraine war, and global trade wars have turned this crisis into a rapid decline of German capitalism. Of the G20, Germany is one of the countries with the worst forecasts for economic growth this year and next – stagnation is the best case scenario. But this alone does not show the true depth of the process of decay. Cars, machinery and chemicals are the backbone of the German economy. Industry generates one fifth of Germany’s gross value added (GVA) and employs around 16 percent of the labour force. If services used by industry, such as trade or logistics, are included, they account for almost a third of GVA. However, industrial production has collapsed. Compared to the peak in 2017/18, production in energy-intensive industries has fallen by more than 15 percent, in energy generation it has fallen by more than 20 percent, and in the manufacturing sector as a whole it is down by around 15 percent. Incoming orders, both from Germany and abroad, have also fallen by the same amount.
Health, Education, and Welfare: