Daily News Digest December 5, 2024
Images of the Day:
Tax the Rich?
Native Land Dispossession
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:
What Is a Laissez-Faire Economy, and How Does It Work? Laissez-faire is an economic theory dating back to the 18th century that opposes any government intervention in business affairs. The driving principle behind laissez-faire economics is that the less the government is involved in the economy, the better off business, and society as a whole, will be.
Podcasts/Vide0s of the Day:
Either Watch The Footage Of Dead Kids In Gaza Or Stop Supporting Israel If you have not spent the past 14 months watching all the footage of dead and mutilated children coming out of Gaza, then you have no business trying to defend Israel and its actions. If you are avoiding looking at the facts, then you have no business talking about them.
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!)
Migration isn’t the Problem! The Migration of Wealth to the 1% is the Problem! The most significant “migration problem” is not the movement of people across borders, but rather the migration of wealth into the hands of a small elite (1%) which ultimately drives people to migrate in search of better economic opportunities! Addressing wealth inequality is key to tackling the root cause of global migration issues! — Roland Sheppard
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.
‘Unsettling New Milestone’: Top 12 US Billionaires Now Control $2 Trillion in Wealth “The oligarchic dozen is richer than ever, and they are endowed with extreme material power that can be used to pursue narrow political interests at the expense of democratic majorities,” according to the author of a new analysis. Just 12 U.S. billionaires now have a collective net worth of over $2 trillion—a figure that amounts to a little less than a third of total federal spending in 2023—according to an analysis out Tuesday from Inequality.org, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).
A Return to Laissez-faire?: The First Seven Billionaires Trump Has Tapped for Top White House Jobs Out of America’s 800 billionaires, president-elect Trump has so far plucked seven for top spots in his administration. President-elect Donald Trump has selected an unprecedented total of seven reported billionaires for senior positions in his administration. Including himself, that makes eight. This figure could continue to grow as Trump fully staffs up. After all, he has nearly 800 additional U.S. billionaires to choose from. Here’s a quick rundown of the “original seven” members of the nine-figure club on Trump’s employee wish list:
Trump Offers Key Pentagon Job to Billionaire Whose Firm Trained Khashoggi’s Murderers Stephen Feinberg is co-CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, which owns a company that provided training to members of the hit squad that murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly offered the number-two Pentagon job to a secretive billionaire investor with close ties to the military-industrial complex, potentially introducing additional conflicts of interest to an incoming administration that is set to be rife with corporate executives and lobbyists.
Oops! A Rich-People-Friendly Think Tank Confirms Our Richest Pay Under One Percent of Their Wealth Annually in Tax The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation has long functioned as an apologist for America’s deepest pockets. Analysts at the Foundation have spent years assuring us that our wealthiest are paying far more than their fair tax share — in the face of a reality that has our richest aggressively growing their share of the wealth all Americans are creating. This past August, the Biden administration’s Treasury Department commissioned a new study that documented just how little of their wealth America’s richest are actually paying in taxes. Last month, the Tax Foundation responded with a predictable critique. Our super rich, insists this new Tax Foundation analysis, are still today paying “super amounts of taxes.” But tax data, as the study Treasury officials released last summer shows, tell a far
Nuclear Weapons Create and Exacerbate Human Insecurity “The relationship between nuclear weapons and human security is similar to that of the relationship between economic inequalities and social justice: if you have the first, the second is very difficult to obtain.”
Jacqueline Cabasso and Ray Acheson … There are other uses for nuclear weapons. In his book, The Doomsday Machine, Daniel Ellsberg, best known for sharing the secret study of the U.S. Department of Defense on the Vietnam War – the Pentagon Papers – with the media, documents twenty-five instances when U.S. presidents have repeatedly used their nuclear weapons to coerce other governments into acting in ways they do not want to. This, Ellsberg argued, was also use of nuclear weapons in the same way “that a gun is used when you point it at someone’s head … whether or not the trigger is pulled.” Despite countries trying to justify their nuclear weapons by claiming that they are for deterrence, the beneficiaries of any such property are not the people. When the World Court was deliberating on the question of the legality of nuclear weapons in the 1990s, India – before it declared itself to be a nuclear weapon state in 1998 – described the practice of nuclear deterrence as being “abhorrent to human sentiment since it implies that a state if required to defend its own existence will act with pitiless disregard for the consequences to its own and adversary’s people.”
Marjorie Cohn: Trump Is Using “Unitary Executive” Theory in His Bid to Amass Supreme Power Trump is claiming total executive power that would eclipse the legislative “co-equal” branch of government. Trump is claiming total executive power that would eclipse the legislative “co-equal” branch of government. In the weeks since the presidential election, president-elect Donald Trump and his allies have made a series of moves that indicate their intent to dangerously consolidate executive power under the controversial “unitary executive” theory of the Constitution. During the presidential campaign, Trump posted a video on Truth Social that referred to his second administration as a “unified Reich,” invoking Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich in Nazi Germany. As president-elect, Trump’s cabinet selections have corroborated his campaign pledge to be a dictator on day one. With the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s decision granting him absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his core “official” functions, and the 920-page “Project 2025” right-wing blueprint for an autocratic government, Trump is positioning himself to change the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over all aspects of the executive branch — and thereby becoming a “unitary executive.”
Watchdogs Say World’s Richest Man Elon Musk Has ‘Declared War on Social Security’ “Elon Musk’s commission is a plot to destroy our Social Security by giving it to Wall Street executives—so that you get nothing and they get everything,” warned one advocate. A lengthy series of X posts attacking Social Security as a “nightmare” caught the attention of the platform’s mega-billionaire owner, Elon Musk, who could soon take aim at the beloved New Deal program as co-chair of an advisory commission tasked with identifying federal spending to slash. “Interesting thread,” Musk, the world’s richest man, wrote late Monday in response to the posts by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who once said he hopes to pull Social Security “up by the roots and get rid of it,” along with Medicare and Medicaid. In his new thread, Lee characterized Social Security—which lifts more Americans above the poverty line than any other federal program—as a “tax plan” insidiously disguised as a retirement plan and condemned the Social Security Act of 1935 as one of many “deceptive sales techniques the U.S. government has used on the American people.” Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), replied Tuesday that Lee’s posts amount to “a misrepresentation of Social Security’s history and how the program works.” “There is nothing deceptive about Social Security. The social insurance program has been working just fine for nearly 90 years and has never missed a payment,” said Richtman. “The kind of propaganda Sen. Lee posted undermines public support for Social Security, making it easier to cut or privatize the program. It is perhaps no coincidence that Sen. Lee’s second-biggest campaign contributor by industry is the securities and investment sector.”
United States Armed and Funded Terrorist Middle East War/Palestinan Genocide: When Biden Says ‘He’s a Zionist’ —Believe Him!
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!
Handful of Countries Responsible For Climate Crisis, Top Court Told Vanuatu envoy makes claim as hearing gets under way at international court of justice in The Hague Handful of countries responsible for climate crisis, top court told Vanuatu envoy makes claim as hearing gets under way at international court of justice in The Hague A handful of countries should be held legally responsible for the ongoing impacts of climate change, representatives of vulnerable states have told judges at the international court of justice
Contrary to What the Washington Post Tells Readers, China is Doing a Huge Amount to Combat Global Warming The Washington Post had a bizarre article last week in which it questioned whether China was doing much to combat global warming. While the piece noted China’s efforts to portray itself as a world leader in this effort, it commented: “But China’s global climate leadership bid is complicated by its own enormous emissions. The country has been the world’s largest producer of atmosphere-warming greenhouse gases for nearly two decades, although the United States has released more in total since industrialization. “China continues to rely heavily on coal power, a leading source of carbon dioxide. In the early years of climate talks, Chinese officials were often accused of spoiling deals with concerns that stronger commitments would undermine Chinese economic growth. “Beijing also resisted pressure from Western nations before the talks this month to make an early announcement of targets to reduce emissions by 2035 and to join developed nations in contributing cash to help poor countries address the catastrophic impacts of climate change and to transition away from reliance on fossil fuels.” “But Beijing has done little so far to back up its statements with action. ‘To play a leadership role requires more than just saying they are committed to the Paris agreement,’ she [Belinda Schäpe, China policy analyst with the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a Finland-based research group] said.” China is the world’s leading emitter primarily because, until last year, it was the most populous country in the world. Presumably the Post’s climate reporters are aware of this fact. On a per capita basis it still emits about half as much as the United States. Also, China’s emissions figures are misleading since it has an enormous surplus in trade of manufactured goods. This means that many of the emissions that are attributed to China support living standards in Europe, the United States, and other countries with whom it runs a trade surplus. If its trade surplus were smaller, its emissions would be lower and emissions in other countries would be higher. Also, China has made enormous progress in controlling its emissions even though it is a rapidly growing developing country catching up to Western living standards. It has invested a huge amount of money in its solar and wind industry and now has close to half the entire world’s capacity in both. It is now projected to be at or near its peak emissions level, with declines in the future. This is well ahead of its targets in the Paris agreements. Also, contrary to what is claimed in this piece, China is offering massive support to developing countries in their transitions to green economies. It is selling EVs, solar panels, batteries and other clean technologies at hugely subsidized prices. To get an idea of the size of this aid, suppose that China exports 10 million EVs a year (not far above its current level of car exports) at an average subsidy of $10,000 each. This would be equivalent to $100 billion in aid for the green transition. If it had comparable subsidies on solar panels, batteries and other green technologies, that would come to $200 billion a year. This is far more than is being put on the table by the United States and other wealthy countries. It would be useful if the Post could try to do a more serious analysis in its pieces on global warming.
‘Straight in Harm’s Way’: Can Trump Open Up Alaska’s 19m-Acre Refuge for Drilling? Native leaders ready for a fight as Trump calls ANWR, one of the last truly wild places on Earth, the US’s ‘biggest oil farm’ The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is one of the earth’s last intact ecosystems. Vast and little-known, this 19m-acre expanse along Alaska’s north slope is home to some of the region’s last remaining polar bears, as well as musk oxen, wolves and wolverines. Millions of birds from around the world migrate to or through the region each year, and it serves as the calving grounds for the porcupine caribou.
Exposure to Air Pollution Increases Infertility Risk, US Study Finds Research shows common air pollutants can be detrimental to egg, sperm and embryo development Maternal and paternal exposure to common air pollutants may increase the risk of infertility because it can be detrimental to egg, sperm and embryo development, new research in the US finds.
Black Liberation Civil Rights:
Labor:
Economy:
World:
South Korea: Yoon Suk-Yeol’s Desperate Martial Law Defeated Within Hours With the military deployed to seize control of the National Assembly building and news of some MPs even having been arrested, over 190 MPs still managed to enter the parliament and vote to lift the emergency martial law. However, it is very likely the MPs would never have been able to get into the building had there not been any crowd present. The US, a key player in South Korea and de facto top commander of South Korea’s military, was completely against the move on the part of Yoon. Hours after the declaration of martial law, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell tacitly expressed his opposition, explaining that the United States was watching events in South Korea with “grave concern” and that he hoped “any political disputes would be resolved peacefully and in accordance with the rule of law”, according to Reuters.
Health, Education, and Welfare: