Friday, September 30, 2022

Stephen Breyer’s dissent in the Supreme Court’s Parents Involved case has proved prophetic about the decision’s consequences for racial integration in public schools.

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

Wall Street Is Funding Chris Rufo’s Culture War ~~ Matthew Cunningham-Cook

https://jacobin.com/2022/09/wall-street-culture-war-chris-rufo-critical-race-theory-public-schools

~~ recommended by dmar3 ~~

SILENCING THE LAMBS. HOW PROPAGANDA WORKS. ~~ John Pilger

http://johnpilger.com/articles/silencing-the-lambs-how-propaganda-works-

~~ recommended by newestbeginning ~~

U.S. launched 251 military interventions since 1991, and 469 since 1798 ~~ Ben Norton (Posted Sep 16, 2022)

https://mronline.org/2022/09/16/u-s-launched-251-military-interventions-since-1991-and-469-since-1798/

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

WRONGFULLY IMPRISONED FOR 26 YEARS, LACINO HAMILTON TELLS HIS STORY ~~ MANSA MUSASEPTEMBER 12, 2022

https://therealnews.com/wrongfully-imprisoned-for-26-years-lacino-hamilton-tells-his-story-now

After being wrongfully incarcerated at the age of 19, Lacino Hamilton fought to free himself through journalism, and by educating himself and his fellow prisoners.

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

No, MAGA Republicans Are Not Anti-War Allies ~~ SAM CARLINER

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/16/no-maga-republicans-are-not-anti-war-allies/

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

Railroad workers’ opposition builds to sellout deal to block national strike ~~ Tom Hall a day ago

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/09/19/rail-s19.html

~~ recommended by newestbeginning ~~

The Supreme Court Is Gutting the Regulatory State. Let's Look at Our Other Options

https://inthesetimes.com/article/supreme-court-regulatory-state-environmental-protection-agency-climate-change

It’s time to talk about public ownership.

~~ recommended by newestbeginning ~~

Students and teachers are staging walkouts and creative protests to fight book bans and teaching restrictions

https://www.nationofchange.org/2022/09/12/students-and-teachers-are-staging-walkouts-and-creative-protests-to-fight-book-bans-and-teaching-restrictions/

As the school year begins, students and teachers are fighting back against an onslaught of attacks on antiracist and LGBTQ education.

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

Economic Freedom Fighters Statement on the Death of Queen Elizabeth ~~ Sinawo Thambo, Leigh-Ann Mathys, Sixolise Gcilishe 14 Sep 2022

https://www.blackagendareport.com/economic-freedom-fighters-statement-death-queen-elizabeth

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

How Indigenous and Asian workers established Seattle as an early hub of labor migration ~~ Megan Asaka

https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/how-indigenous-and-asian-workers-established-seattle-as-an-early-hub-of-labor-migration/?utm_source=marketingcloud&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sunday+Morning+09-18-22_9_18_2022&utm_term=Registered%20Use

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

How plants transformed the Earth’s makeup

https://climateandcapitalism.com/2022/08/31/how-plants-transformed-the-earths-makeup/

The evolution of land plants caused revolutionary changes from the surface to the deep interior

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

Poverty threat unlikely to derail China’s push for common prosperity ~~ Jane Cai in Beijingand Echo Xie

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3192345/poverty-threat-unlikely-derail-chinas-push-common-prosperity

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

The Post-Roe Horror is a Bipartisan Production ~~ PAUL STREET

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/16/the-post-roe-horror-is-a-bipartisan-production/

Considering the 9-11 Events Twenty One Years Later ~~ dmorista

~~ written by dmorista ~~

On the Shambles of the American Health Care System and the Need for Medicare-for-All ~ BERNIE SANDERS

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/16/on-the-shambles-of-the-american-health-care-system-and-the-need-for-medicare-for-all/

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Deal With the Devil | The Nation

https://dir.md/article/society/southern-baptists-roe-gop-dobbs/?ned=us&host=www.thenation.com

The roots of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe go back 50 years, when zealots preaching a gospel of misogyny and homophobia—led by an accused sexual predator—took over America’s largest Protestant denomination.

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

“Infiltration, Violence, Deportation: How the State Broke Up Socialism in US, w/ Brian Becker”, Interview and discussioin with Rania Kalek and Brian Becker, Rania Kalek Dispatches

“Infiltration, Violence, Deportation: How the State Broke Up Socialism in US, w/ Brian Becker”, Interview and discussioin with Rania Kalek and Brian Becker, Rania Kalek Dispatches, on Break Through News, the discussion lasts for 1:34:33 and is available at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szVbrUxJVso >

~~recommended by dmorista ~~

An Oklahoma Teacher Fought the Book-Banning Right and Lost Her Job ~~ BEN BURGIS

https://jacobin.com/2022/09/norman-oklahoma-teacher-fired-banned-books?mc_cid=dd4873b7c6&mc_eid=2206b60e8c

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

Barbara Ehrenreich Made Socialist Ideas Sound Like Common Sense ~~ PETER DREIER

https://jacobin.com/2022/09/barbara-ehrenreich-activism-writing-socialism?mc_cid=057107941e&mc_eid=2206b60e8c

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

Confronting the Nature of Work September 01, 2022 / Michael D. Yates

The Nature of Work, Worker Control

Book cover shows a picture of hands, open with the palms up, and the title and author. The image of hands is repeated larger behind the book cover.

Labor educator Michael D. Yates' new book is Work Work Work: Labor, Alienation, and Class Struggle. You can watch him discuss his book on YouTube, here.

The word “work” has been associated historically with “compulsion, torment, affliction, and persecution.” Why is this? The answer lies in our economic system.

The driving force of capitalism is capital accumulation. Every business seeks to make maximum profits and then grow as rapidly and as large as possible. The source of this accumulation is our daily labor; without workers, there are no profits and there is no growth.

From the employer’s point of view, our labor power is simply a commodity, no different than the inanimate buildings, machines, tools, and raw materials purchased by businesses. Given our circumstances, we must sell this commodity to survive. But after we do, the employer has no guarantee that our capacity to toil will be converted into actual work effort.

Workers have always resisted their commodity status, finding ways to interfere with the smooth functioning of the labor process, such as riots, strikes, picketing, and boycotts. This has forced managements to devise ways to control us at work, so that we cannot interfere with the making of money. That’s the essence of management: control.

MECHANISMS OF CONTROL

A wide range of “control mechanisms” have been put in place by employers. Beginning in the late 18th century, workers were herded into factories, where they could be disciplined by the factory whistle and observed as they labored.

This watching—which today has reached unprecedented degrees, as in Amazon warehouses—gave rise to the splitting up of craft tasks into discrete and much cheaper details. Those without craft knowledge, initially women and children (often orphans), could be hired cheaply to do repetitive subtasks. This enhanced control by making workers interchangeable parts, greatly raising the number of people who could perform any particular job and making workers fearful of being replaced.

Soon some of the details were mechanized. Then a system of connected machines was invented, the assembly line, which made workers subservient to the relentless speed of the line.

The patron saint of managerial control and of the industrial engineers who discovered ever new methods of it was Frederick Taylor. He systematized what had gone before him in what came to be known as “scientific management.” The conception of work would be the sole duty of management, while workers would do their jobs according to a strict machine-like plan.

Since Taylor, employers have made many refinements and innovations in control. Human Resources departments were created, to sanitize the driven nature of modern work. Toyota brought us “Lean Production,” with its systematic hiring, team production, cross-training, just-in-time inventory, and the insidious kaizen or “continuous improvement.”

No matter what work a person does—white collar, blue collar, gig labor, you name it—control is the key to management success.

WORK COULD BE DIFFERENT

Unions and other forms of struggle have ameliorated managerial control. For example, there are laws and collective bargaining provisions limiting hours and protecting health and safety on the job. But control has not been eliminated, and for many workers, it has widened and deepened.

The result is that work alienates us and damages our bodies and minds. In June a UPS driver collapsed and died from heatstroke on a hot day in an overheated truck. Death, sickness, and emotional distress are all too common. We suffer all this so a few can be rich. And when we are worn out, we are discarded, replaced by others younger and stronger.

SUPPORT LABOR NOTES

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR

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This is true everywhere in the world, as the International Labor Organization’s World Employment and Social Outlook report makes starkly clear. Work is a painful experience. Just ask the 1.5 billion workers worldwide in “vulnerable” employment, eking out a living scavenging garbage dumps, sewing clothes on consignment, selling on the streets, searching for scrap metal on gigantic slag heaps, pulling rickshaws. Or the 160 million child laborers, some younger than 10 working in mines.

On top of that, our jobs are often producing useless or harmful products. If we continue to work as we have been, how will we solve the environmental catastrophes now upon us?

It will not be possible to build a better world unless work is revolutionized—so that it becomes a socially useful part of life, allowing us to fully realize our human potential, as it was for most of human existence. It is time for a direct assault on capitalist control.

A NEW VISION

Labor must begin to think radically about work—beginning with a sound understanding of the nature of work today and a vision of how work could be different. Then we begin with changes such as getting rid of management rights clauses and reinstating a general right to strike. Stewards trained to understand all of the controls management might employ could help their co-workers to prepare, recognize employer propaganda, and develop campaigns to combat them.

Unions and all labor organizations and political formations should engage in a massive educational campaign—aimed first at union members, who then can spread the word to the unorganized.

Such education should emphasize the history and nature of the relationship between the employing and the working class, and how control and conflict are central to this relationship. I taught workers from around the United States, from scores of occupations, and it was a rare student who wasn’t keen to know these things. “You are opening eyes in this class,” a man once told me in a class of autoworkers in Pittsburgh.

Education needs to instill in people that, in concert with others, they have the capacity to control their own work lives. In the past, labor organizations have opened schools for workers, built and run banks, built and operated hospitals, constructed housing developments and recreation facilities, and started restaurants. Workers have organized cooperatives.

In Brazil, the Landless Workers Movement has taken over unused land, struggled to control it, and begun to produce food and other products on it. They say, “Occupy, Resist, Produce.” In Jackson, Mississippi, working people have done something similar, producing food and some industrial goods. Around Detroit, abandoned land has become farms, along with food distribution centers and a program to show people how to cook.

There is no reason why, alongside workplace and political agitation, labor organizations with significant monetary resources could not buy land and property to retrofit buildings in an environmentally sound way—training workers to do the necessary jobs as groups who control their own labors, constructing homes for working-class people. Workers, with community support, could take over closed businesses and do the same thing.

Some of these efforts might seem utopian. Yet today workers are on the rise, organizing, learning, and thoroughly disgusted and angry about their work lives. And we are facing grave crises: the rise of the far right and impending environmental collapse. Something has to change. Why not do what we can immediately and shoot for the moon at the same time?

Thursday, September 15, 2022

Washington cashing in while playing Europe off against Moscow ~~ Wen Sheng

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202209/1275104.shtml

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

Rousing the Power of the Rank and File ~~ RON JACOBS

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/09/rousing-the-power-of-the-rank-and-file/

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

America’s Immigration Death Machine ~~ACOB HORNBERGER

America's Immigration Death Machine

INTERVIEW: To the Point of Production: An Interview with John Watson of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, 1969

https://www.blackagendareport.com/interview-point-production-interview-john-watson-league-revolutionary-black-workers-1969

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

It’s time for a union fightback ~~ Jerome Small

https://redflag.org.au/article/its-time-union-fightback

It’s time for a union fightback

~~recommended by emil karpo ~~

Not so different: Whether barista or miner, workers face the same enemy ~~ Brooklyn Crawford

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/not-so-different-whether-barista-or-miner-workers-face-the-same-enemy/

"I'm not anti-union ... but..." says the anti union Starbucks CEO

Russia and Europe: War of Sanctions and Energy Resources Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on SEPTEMBER 8, 2022 ~~ Yoselina Guevara L.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/09/08/russia-and-europe-war-of-sanctions-and-energy-resources/

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

The Secret Anti-Socialist History of Supermarkets ~~ Ann Larson

https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/the-secret-anti-socialist-history-of-supermarkets

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

The Complicity of Textbooks in America's Racism ~~ Eric Foner

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/183856

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

Monarchs Belong in the Dustbin of History ~~ Chris Hedges

https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/monarchs-belong-in-the-dustbin-of?utm_source=email

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

How Abbott Kept Sick Babies From Becoming a Scandal

https://www.awkolaw.com/how-abbott-kept-sick-babies-from-becoming-a-scandal-2/

Sep 8, 2022
Abbott’s lawyers at Jones Day negotiated secret settlements and used scorched earth tactics with families whose infants fell ill after consuming powdered formula.

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

‘Hell, Yes, We Are Subversive’ Keeanga ~~Yamahtta Taylor

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/09/22/hell-yes-we-are-subversive-angela-davis/

For all her influence as an activist, intellectual, and writer, Angela Davis has not always been taken as seriously as her peers. Why not?

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

AGelbert comments written to Vermont State Government Officials in regard to The State of Vermont's Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP)

~~ written by agelbert ~~

A new way of life’: the Marxist, post-capitalist, green manifesto captivating Japan ~~Justin McCurry

theguardian.com

Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

https://www.nps.gov/elro/learn/historyculture/udhr.htm

~~recommended by emil karpo ~~

Yvonne Swan Wanrow set precedent for self-defense cases ~~ Phebe Eckfeldt posted on August 29, 2022

https://www.workers.org/2022/08/66413/

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

Venezuela’s Road to Economic Recovery

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/23/venezuelas-road-to-economic-recovery/

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

Report: Oath Keepers Include Hundreds of Lawmakers, Police Officers & Military ~~ Chris Walker

https://truthout.org/articles/report-oath-keepers-include-hundreds-of-lawmakers-police-officers-military/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Truthout+Share+Buttons

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

Carbon emissions cost society at least three times more than the government's official estimate ~~ Agelbert

https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-170422173254-804209.png

NB note - apologies to agelbert - I was unable to post the graphics which are integral to his presentation - and invite folks to visit his website above to see the way he intended this article to be viewed.

~~ written by agelbert ~~

The meaning of ‘So-called Primitive Accumulation’ ~~ Ian Angus

https://climateandcapitalism.com/2022/09/05/so-called-primitive-accumulation/

A key concept in Karl Marx’s Capital is widely misunderstood

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

The Housing Market is Class War

https://redflag.org.au/article/housing-market-class-wa

~~recommended by emil karpo ~~

Doubting Thomas and the Fallen Court WILLIAM A. COHN

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/06/doubting-thomas-and-the-fallen-court/

If Bernie Runs in 2024, His Campaign Should Build a Left Political Organization ~~ BENJAMIN Y. FONG

https://jacobin.com/2022/08/bernie-sanders-2024-campaign-left-political-organization?mc_cid=2e5f5c87e6&mc_eid=2206b60e8c

The next Bernie Sanders campaign, if it happens at all, could be used to build an organization that helps transcend the Left’s current impasse. Bernie 2024 — but make it a new beginning instead of a last hurrah.

~~recommended by emil karpo ~~

Nine Ways That Capitalism Is Ruining Sex ~~ Breanne Fahs

https://bostonreview.net/articles/nine-ways-that-capitalism-is-ruining-sex/

~~recommended by collectivist action ~~

Chile Could Become “Plurinational.” What Does That Mean? ~~ NICK BURNS

https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/chile-could-become-plurinational-what-does-that-mean/

AUGUST 29, 2022

AQ demystifies the term and how it’s been applied elsewhere in Latin America, as a vote on Chile’s new constitution approaches.

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

Anne Braden Speaks: Selected Writings and Speeches, 1947-1999 ~~ Ben Wilkins

https://monthlyreview.org/product/anne-braden-speaks/

~~ recommended by collectivist action ~~

The Struggle to Organize Farmworkers Has Been Going On for Decades BY JEFF SCHUHRKE

https://jacobin.com/2022/08/farmworkers-bracero-program-labors-outcasts-hazelton-book-review

Despite high-profile victories in the 1960s and ’70s, farmworkers in the US have been poorly paid and heavily exploited for generations. They deserve the power of a union.

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

The Civil Rights Movement Was Radical to Its Core AN INTERVIEW WITH GLENDA GILMORE

https://jacobin.com/2022/08/long-civil-rights-movement-communist-radical-roots?mc_cid=68c07ecc2f&mc_eid=2206b60e8c

Today is the 59th anniversary of the March on Washington, so get ready for plenty of whitewashed history. Here’s the truth: the Civil Rights Movement was a radical struggle against Jim Crow tyranny whose early foot soldiers were Communists and labor militants.

~~ recommended by emil karpo ~~

https://jacobin.com/2021/04/take-me-to-your-leader-the-rot-of-the-american-ruling-class

And podcast

https://thedigradio.com/podcast/the-ruling-class-with-doug-henwood/

~~ recommended by dmorista ~~

Friday, September 30, 2022

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Monday, September 26, 2022

“Scott Ritter on Ukraine's counter-offensive, Russia's next move”, Sep 16, 2022, Interview of Scott Ritter by Max Blumenthal & Aaron Mate, duration of video 2:01:19, The Grayzone, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_FY87Se1d8 >4

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

It’s time to talk about public ownership.

Monday, September 19, 2022

Sunday, September 18, 2022

The roots of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe go back 50 years, when zealots preaching a gospel of misogyny and homophobia—led by an accused sexual predator—took over America’s largest Protestant denomination.

Saturday, September 17, 2022

Friday, September 16, 2022

MECHANISMS OF CONTROL

WORK COULD BE DIFFERENT

SUPPORT LABOR NOTES

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR

A NEW VISION

Thursday, September 15, 2022

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Monday, September 12, 2022

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Abbott’s lawyers at Jones Day negotiated secret settlements and used scorched earth tactics with families whose infants fell ill after consuming powdered formula.

Saturday, September 10, 2022

Friday, September 9, 2022

Thursday, September 8, 2022

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Monday, September 5, 2022

Sunday, September 4, 2022

Saturday, September 3, 2022

Friday, September 2, 2022

Thursday, September 1, 2022

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