AnarchoBolshevik

The rally was one of many pro-Cuba events held around the country as the United Nations General Assembly is set to vote Oct. 30 on its annual resolution to end the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

This year will be the 32nd time the UNGA has voted on the resolution, which has consistently been supported by all but two countries, the U.S. and Israel. Last year representatives from 187 countries voted in favor and Ukraine abstained, and once again, the U.S. and Israel opposed it.

The organizing for this yearly action was initiated by the New York/New Jersey Cuba Si Coalition which includes many other organizations and individuals.

Activists in attendance represented the Venceremos Brigade, IFCO/Pastors for Peace, December 12th Movement, Workers World Party, NYC Communist Party, Democratic Socialists of America, United National Anti-War Coalition, Bronx Anti-War Coalition, Struggle La Lucha, Party For Socialism and Liberation, and Partido Libre D19.

While many who attended the Oct. 25 meeting were heartened to hear Biden’s apology, others said that the apology wasn’t nearly enough to reverse the long-lasting physical and psychological harm done to those forced to attend the schools and to the generations that followed.

Rosalie Whirlwind Soldier, a 79-year-old member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who suffered severe mistreatment at a school in South Dakota that left her with a lifelong, painful limp, said, “Sorry is not enough. Nothing is enough when you damage a human being. A whole generation of people and our future was destroyed for us.” She and others are asking what comes next after the apology. (Associated Press, Oct. 25)

Indigenous activists and allies protest in Boston.

United American Indians of New England (UAINE), the main organizer of the annual National Day of Mourning in Plymouth, Massachusetts, stated on its Facebook page in anticipation of the president’s Oct. 25 announcement: “Biden to issue apology, without reparations, for U.S. Indian boarding schools. Nothing pledged to help Native children and families now dealing with intergenerational trauma, disproportionate number of children in care and all the other effects of genocidal U.S. anti-family policies.”

UAINE continued: “No increased support for Indigenous language revitalization. Not to mention the necessity of landback. Nor the fact that this is being done for votes by an administration actively committing genocide. And free Leonard Peltier!”

Any formal apology by a U.S. president to an oppressed people, such as one President Bill Clinton made in 1997 to African Americans regarding slavery and Biden made recently to Indigenous peoples, is certainly a concession. But these apologies for state-sanctioned atrocities are [ineffective], because their white supremacist legacies remain intact.

Workers World is in total solidarity with UAINE and other Indigenous peoples in demanding that reparations be put in place to make any kind of apology real for those who are still fighting for their right to basic human rights, sovereignty and self-determination.

Otherwise, these apologies amount to nothing but grandstanding.

On Tuesday, October 29, Israeli warplanes bombed a five-story house in Beit Lahia belonging to the Abu Nasr family. Immediately after the bombing, the Government Media Office in Gaza announced via Telegram that the bombing killed 93 people, while 40 others remain missing.

Ahmad Abu Nasr, 24, says that the building that was bombed contained most of the Abu Nasr family, who came from different parts of northern Gaza and took refuge in the building.

“Many families and dozens of displaced people were taking refuge in this house. They came from dangerous areas, such as Beit Lahia refugee camp, the Sheikh Zayed area, and many areas in the north. They came to take refuge in their relatives’ homes. Entire families, young, old, women and children — they were all wiped out,” Abu Nasr tells Mondoweiss

“The martyrs were lying in the streets as a result of the intensity of the bombing, dismembered,” Abu Nasr adds. “Parts of their bodies were visible above the rubble, and the rest of their bodies had disappeared.”

An older man, Abdul Qader Abu al-Nasr, 66, sits in front of the rubble of the destroyed building. The sound of women wailing around him is audible in a video interview with him collected for Mondoweiss. Around him are survivors of the massacre, including women carrying their children.

The man recounts the horror of what he witnessed. “What do you want me to tell you? Who should I tell it to? Who will hear our screams or care about us?”

Abu al-Nasr lost 11 members of his family, including his sons, daughters, and grandchildren. “The building was just bombed on top of their heads. All of them were civilians fleeing death.”

“Let the world eat, sleep, and drink. The Israeli army killed my sons. They killed my daughters. They killed my grandchildren. What is the world waiting for?” Abu al-Nasr does not finish his last sentence before he starts crying.

I lived the last 7 years of my life away from my family, friends so I could work and get a small sum of money that would help me get married and help my family in life. I was working as a sales representative in a company outside my country.

In fact, I was about to be married to my life partner and lover, Aya, who is 20 years old. [W]e were preparing for our beautiful marriage before the war broke out, exploding our hearts and dreams and ending my professional career.

The […] occupation prevented us from completing our ceremony, which we had dreamed of. We had drawn, planned, and dreamed, but all of this was soon destroyed, and our thoughts and plans instead became: how can we survive this nightmare that has befallen us?

[…]

You will help us flee to a safe place with your help (even by donating $5, $10, ...)

Thank for Leslie Marie. She will help us receive donations through her bank account in America, and then she will transfer them to us through my brother’s bank account.

Finally, thank you so much for contributing to saving the life of me and my family. You will help us escape death, starting with a new temporary hope in Egypt and bringing safety. Please, do kindly share this with your network on social media and those you know. I would be thankful.

(Emphasis original.)

The social media platform formerly known as Twitter is worth almost 80% less than two years ago when Elon Musk bought it, according to estimates from investment giant Fidelity.

X (formerly known as Twitter) no longer trades publicly after Musk shelled out $44 billion to take it private in October 2022.

However, Fidelity discloses what it believes is the value of its shares of X (formerly known as Twitter), and those estimates serve as a closely watched barometer for the overall health of the company.

As of the end of August, those shares were worth just $4.2 million, according to a Sunday filing by Fidelity’s Blue Chip Growth Fund.

That new estimate marks a 24% drop in value from what Fidelity estimated as of the end of July. And it represents a staggering decline of 79% from the $19.66 million that Fidelity estimated the shares were worth in October 2022 when Musk acquired Twitter.

The new valuation from Fidelity implies that it believes X (formerly known as Twitter) is now worth just $9.4 billion — a far cry from the $44 billion that Musk paid. Other investors could value X (formerly known as Twitter) differently.

Analysts say Fidelity’s plunging price tag for X (formerly known as Twitter) likely reflects shrinking ad revenue at the company, which no longer publicly releases quarterly financial metrics.

Fidelity declined to comment on individual companies.

X (formerly known as Twitter) did not respond to a request for comment.

Ad pressure on X (formerly known as Twitter)

“Musk clearly overpaid for this asset,” Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, told CNN in an email.

Ives said that he believes Twitter was really worth around $30 billion when Musk bought it, and today it’s worth closer to $15 billion. He said that while engagement on X (formerly known as Twitter) is “strong,” ad pressure has persisted.

Under Musk’s ownership, some advertisers have expressed concerns about extreme content on the platform that they don’t want their brands linked to.

A recent global survey by Kantar found that a net 26% of marketers plan to decrease their spending on X (formerly known as Twitter) next year, the steepest pullback from any major global ad platform. Just 4% of advertisers said they think X (formerly known as Twitter) ads provide “brand safety” (certainty that their ads won’t appear near extreme content), compared with 39% at Google.

In November, Musk faced a backlash from brands, some of which halted spending on X (formerly known as Twitter), after the billionaire embraced an antisemitic conspiracy theory favored by White supremacists.

Musk later apologized for what he called his “dumbest” ever social media posting. However, during that apology, Musk also told fleeing advertisers: “Go f**k yourself.”

But X (formerly known as Twitter) continues to be a major player in social media under Musk’s ownership.

The company said it had 570 million monthly active users during the second quarter, up 6% from the year before.

However, research firm Similarweb has found some drops in engagement.

X (formerly known as Twitter) had 73.5 million monthly active users on iOS and Android combined in the United States in August, according to Similarweb data shared with CNN. That represents a drop of nearly 11% year over year and a 20% decline from October 2022.

Similarweb also found that US web traffic to X.com in August was lower than it was for Twitter.com before Musk bought it. However, Similarweb said X (formerly known as Twitter)’s traffic numbers have been somewhat stronger outside the United States.

Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said he doesn’t believe the value of X (formerly known as Twitter) has dropped nearly as much as Fidelity’s estimates imply.

“Fidelity was overly aggressive. They are essentially cleaning house on the investment,” Munster told CNN.

Munster said that in the long run, he thinks X (formerly known as Twitter) and the data the company has access to will be worth more than the $44 billion that Musk paid for Twitter.

“If you want a real-time understanding of what people are thinking, Twitter is the best source of that. And that is valuable,” Munster said.

It’s especially valuable because X (formerly known as Twitter) data has helped train Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI, Musk’s increasingly valuable AI startup.

X (formerly known as Twitter) has emerged as the unique angle for Grok, which Munster said has the potential to be Musk’s biggest source of wealth.

“When Musk bought Twitter, investors didn’t realize we’d be taking off on AI as fast as we are,” Munster said. “Musk buying Twitter is a case of better lucky than smart.”

Hilarious!

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6028275

After being extremely annoyed with how Microsoft was trying to force me to use their worthless Outlook programme, and learning that Windows 11 (which they've also been pressuring to try) is polluted with advertising, I decided that it was time to migrate to another operating system. Somebody recommended EndeavourOS to me, and after backing up my valuables and following these instructions, I am finally trying a better operating system.

If I'm being honest, my first impressions are... not good.

One of the first things that I notice is that I can't easily modify the /usr/ directory. I tried to install Java there but the OS would not let me because I lack the permission. How do I get the permission? I don't know. I am guessing that it has something to do with Terminal Emulator, and the fact that I have to use this program so much immediately tells me that this OS was made for programmers in mind, not ordinary users. On Windows, I could click an executable, click a few more buttons and be done with it, but here the OS wants me to mess with a ~~DOS prompt~~ terminal.

Then there is the scaling. I managed to adjust the scaling while keeping the resolution so that everything on my screen didn't look microscopic. The problem is that when I open certain tabs or windows, they stretch out so far that the monitor can only show part of them. Here's a screenshot so that you can see what I mean:

This is just lousy design. I can shrink the window, but not by much.

I want to uninstall a font. How do I do that? Well, I read on the EndeavourOS forum that I need to run 'pacman' (meaning the terminal) to uninstall a font. Nobody elaborated on that. So after entering the terminal, typing 'su', then my password (another annoyance), then entering "pacman -R /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoColorEmoji.ttf", the terminal spits out "error: target not found: /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoColorEmoji.ttf", even though I am 100% certain that it is there. I would just remove it by simply clicking it and deleting it, except that the OS refuses and tells me "Error removing file: Permission denied".

Speaking of which, I actually find this more annoying than Windows' worthless 'administrator' function. At least I could simply click the administrator function and be done with it. The process here looks much less straightforward.

I want a calendar with scheduling, which is part of the reason that I am quitting Windows. I downloaded the Orage application hence, then I clicked on 'orage-4.18.0.tar.bz2' in my downloads folder. My cursor spins like something is loading, and... nothing happens. I don't even get an error message.

There are some other things that I could mention (where's the color filter?), but these are the worst offenders. I'm not calling it quits on EndeavourOS, and I am sure that eventually I'll get the hang of things, but so far this has been unenjoyable.

At the time of Roberson’s trial, shaken baby syndrome — now referred to as abusive head trauma — was a common misdiagnosis.

In 2013 the Texas Legislature passed what is now called the junk science law, or statute 11.073. The law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible.

However, according to a report by the Texas Defender Service, “of the 25 applications filed by people sentenced to death, 64% were dismissed or denied. Applications from death-sentenced people constituted 34% of all applications filed. The deadly consequences of this pattern are clear: People may be executed following convictions that rest on faulty science, because they are unable to obtain relief under 11.073.” (tinyurl.com/4jyw36s3)

When an execution date was ordered this past summer, action went into high gear. A bi-partisan majority of the Texas House of Representatives urged the state to grant clemency. Famed writer and retired attorney John Grisham penned op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Almost all Texas media was reporting on the case as were national press from the New York Times to CNN to Time Magazine.

A group of legislators spent several hours at the prison housing death row visiting Roberson and praying with him. Even the coach of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team urged Texans to contact the governor and ask for the execution to be stopped.

No one knows what will happen after Roberson testifies before the House Committee. Another execution date could be immediately set by either the Anderson County District Attorney or Attorney General Paxton, although it would have to be at least 90 days away. This would then necessitate a new round of appeals and hopefully some court or judge or body would find a way to listen to the facts of the case and either drop the charges or order a new trial.

When Roberson was asked what he wanted, he simply said he wanted to go home.

The agreement was made with the intervention of Secretary of Labor Julie Su, an agent of the Biden administration and the corporations. The strike stems from the workers’ anger at being without a new contract for 16 years due to Boeing’s attacks and concessionary bargaining by the Machinists union leadership. In an era of galloping inflation, IAM members have experienced a lot of erosion in their living standards.

The workers have been told by Boeing that the company will move their jobs elsewhere. Cutbacks, harassment, layoffs and outsourcing have been applied. But the Machinists understand that they’re essential, and Boeing can’t build planes without them.

The union is demanding a pay increase of 40%. The workers have come close to winning this with a pay hike of over 35% in the most recent contract offer. Boeing’s first and second offers of 25% and 30% were rejected by the strikers.

Workers are demanding a return to their defined benefit pension plan, which was stolen from them in 2014. The company has added new contributions to the IAM’s 401(k) plan in the latest offer but refuses to restore traditional, defined benefit pensions, which are better for the workers. For this reason, the IAM leadership is not recommending a “yes” vote.

Many Machinists might hold out for pensions. At a recent rally of several thousand strikers, they chanted, “Pension, Pension!” After the rally, the workers marched from the Machinists Hall to Boeing’s Seattle plant.

In retaliation for the strike, Boeing has imposed extreme attacks on its workers. The company has canceled all of the strikers’ medical plans for the duration of the strike.

Boeing has a debt of $45 billion and in the first half of 2024 had a cash outflow of $8 billion. Before the strike began, the company started furloughing thousands of workers, i.e., making them work only three weeks out of four. Then on week five of the strike, Kelly Ortberg, the new company CEO, announced the layoff of 10% of Boeing’s workforce – 17,000 workers. These are mostly non-union workers or workers from outside of Seattle and Portland. The union Machinists would not be laid off.

These attacks are anti-worker and contradict the company’s supposed need to increase production. This ploy is only an attempt to conserve cash. The IAM responded to this by condemning Boeing’s payment of $68 billion to Wall Street investors in dividends and stock buybacks in the last decade.

Boeing is desperate. Although some strikers are hurting after 40 days, they are still strong on the picket line.

Over a century of imperialist exploitation of Congo’s natural resources and labor has left the people in poverty and experiencing human rights violations, while billionaires have reaped huge profits.

A group of international lawyers, on behalf of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), sent a letter in April to Apple’s CEO, charging that minerals used to make its products are mined illegally in the country under abusive conditions and then smuggled out by armed groups.

The letter includes this charge: “The iPhones, Mac computers and accessories that Apple sells to its customers around the world rely on supply chains that are too opaque and that are tainted by the blood of the Congolese people.” (2024.04.25-AP-DRC-Blood-Minerals.pdf)

Over the past three years, a war of aggression has been waged for economic gain by the March 23 Movement (M23), whose members have killed hundreds of civilians and forced more than 1 million people to abandon their homes. The term “genocost,” meaning genocide for economic gain, has been used to describe what is happening in Congo. Reinforcements from the Rwandan Defense Forces have aided M23, and Rwanda has managed to launder vast quantities of tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold from the DRC.

In a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City in 1964, Malcolm X made the connection between conditions in Congo and those that Black people face in the United States: “As long as we think that we should get Mississippi straightened out before we worry about the Congo, you’ll never get Mississippi straightened out — not until you start realizing your connection with the Congo.” (friendsofthecongo.org)

On the 25th anniversary this year, the often-overlooked impact of capital punishment on families was highlighted, and they were the only speakers at this year’s rally organized by a coalition of groups on Oct. 19.

Before the rally a spirited march took everyone to a nearby overpass of a busy freeway where a banner drop was held. Traffic honked approval, and three large banners and dozens of signs were well-received.

Speaking and chanting on bull horns as they went through the historic Third Ward African American neighborhood, words echoed off the homes and buildings with chants like “Death penalty? Shut it down!” and “Texas says death row! We say hell no!”

The rally at Our Park, adjacent to the S.H.A.P.E. Community Center, was led off by the mother of Erica Sheppard, who was sent to death row in 1993 at age 19, and said she was angry and tired.

Madelyn Johnson has raised Sheppard’s three children and numerous grandchildren and said, “I am ready for Erica to come home.” Johnson talked about the expense, both financial and emotional, of visiting her daughter.

She drives over three hours to visit her daughter, paying for overpriced food and drinks from the vending machines. She regularly puts in money in her daughter’s commissary account for essentials like toothpaste, deodorant and extra food, plus she buys minutes so Erica can regularly call home.

The Armenian population of Palestine on the eve of World War I numbered between two and three thousand persons. The majority lived in Jerusalem, with smaller communities in Haifa, Jaffa, Ramla, and Bethlehem. As noted earlier, Palestine’s indigenous Armenian population had been overwhelmed during the war by huge waves of Armenians from Cilicia, the ancient Armenian kingdom in what is now southwestern Turkey.²⁵

Cilicia, in addition to having one of the largest Armenian concentrations in the empire, was also the seat of the Cilician Catholicos, the theological head of the Western half of the Gregorian church.²⁶ Indeed, the first wave of refugees to Palestine, which arrived in Jerusalem in early November 1915, consisted of the Cilician Catholicos himself, Sahag, accompanied by archbishops and priests.²⁷

A few days later, fifteen to twenty Armenian families were sent to Jerusalem from Adana by the Damascus-based commander of the Ottoman Fourth Army, Jamal Pasha.²⁸ Soon the number of the Armenian refugees in Palestine grew to six hundred families. Jamal Pasha, who was on good terms with the Armenian Catholicos, played an important role in saving hundreds of Armenians by sending them to Palestine. In 1916 he even made a visit in person to the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

In a report addressed to the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul, Catholicos Sahag described what he saw on his journey from Cilicia to Jerusalem:

The road from Aleppo to Damascus was lined with thousands of Armenian refugees. Some were living in tents and others in the open air, begging for bread and water and asking for news about their friends. We went through places where one tenekeh [tin can] of water cost six to seven piastres, but still there was no one to give it.

Many refugees—no one knows the exact number—are in the area of Kerek, and in the district of Salt there are about 400 households. Every village has 100 households of refugees and in the sanjak of Serai there are approximately 500 households. These people come to the Monastery [in Jerusalem], where they receive 30 to 40 loaves of bread a day, which [they] eat in the kitchen. About 80 refugees from Adana—with the special favor of Jemal Pasha—have arrived in Jerusalem and are living in the monastery compound.²⁹

By 1920, some two thousand Armenian refugees had arrived in Jerusalem. The military governor of Jerusalem, Sir Ronald Storrs, described the situation in his memoirs as follows:

As if these things were not enough, there were added to our troubles thousands of refugees. Over two thousand desperate Armenians besieged the saintly but incompetent locum tenens of the Armenian Patriarchate.There were the Christian refugees from Salt, a city older than Genesis [...] and OETA [Occupied Enemy Territory Administration] had to face feeding and housing of Saltis³⁰ as well as Armenians. Later I find [...] 7000 refugees—Armenian, Syrian, Latin Orthodox, Protestant and Moslem suddenly flung on my hands this week: a good deal of typhus, but malaria not expected till autumn. No easy matter feeding and looking after them and I have had to detail three members of my staff for the purpose.³¹

Most of the refugees arriving in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Palestine viewed their situation as temporary and were waiting to return to their hometowns in Cilicia. But in 1922, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later Ataturk) launched an offensive in Cilicia, and several shiploads of Armenian refugees arrived in Haifa. By 1925, there were about 15,000 Armenians in Palestine, mainly in Jerusalem, with smaller numbers in Haifa and Jaffa.³²

[...]

Inevitably, the almost-overnight demographic transformation of the community in the early 1920s caused strains. [...] Eventually, however, they were won over by the locals’ kindness and generosity, and a gradual process of integration began.⁴⁰

Only when the Herzlians ethnically cleansed most of Palestine did the Armenian population shrink:

The 1948 war brought to an end an important period of Armenian history in Palestine. Major dislocations followed: The Armenian communities of Jaffa and Haifa and other areas that became Israel were reduced to insignificance.

West Jerusalem—including the wealthy Arab neighborhoods of the New City where several hundred Armenian families had lived—was occupied by [settler] forces and almost the entire non-Jewish population was expelled; losing their homes and businesses, the Armenian residents left the country entirely.⁷⁹

Jerusalem’s Old City, with its Armenian Quarter that for many centuries had been the heart of Palestine’s Armenian community and a vital part of the city, remained in Arab (Jordanian) hands until 1967. But the community had already been dealt a mortal blow, and its dramatic decline was already underway.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)