Ignoring the memory of the over 1,100 factory workers that passed away at the Rana Plaza Factory collapse in Savar, Bangladesh last month, at least 14 major North American retailers have declined to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety , an agreement that would have entailed a five year commitment from all participating retailers to conduct in
As the death toll in the Rana Plaza building collapse outside the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka climbs past 400, the kinship between our purchasing decisions and the loss of life is becoming harder to ignore. This has been the deadliest industrial disaster to hit the beleaguered South Asian nation, resulting in three times the number of fatalities as the devastating Tazreen Fashions fire a...
It's not surprising that many people are uncertain about the dangers of climate change. Much confusion has been created by groups with vested interests, who have successfully utilised sophisticated PR (public relations) techniques to influence public perceptions and opinion. In this article, I consider the link between tobacco industry PR and that of the fossil fuel sector. The story...
SEATTLE, Wash. - March Against Monsanto has announced that on May 25, tens of thousands of activists around the world will “ March Against Monsanto .” Currently, marches are being planned on six continents, in 36 countries, totaling events in over 250 cities, and in the US, events are slated to occur simultaneously at 11 a.m. Pacific in 47 states. Tami Monroe Canal, lead...
Wage theft is fast becoming a top trend of the 21st-century labor market. Imagine you’ve just landed a job with a big-time retailer. Your task is to load and unload boxes from trucks and containers. It’s back-breaking work. You toil 12 to 16 hours a day, often without a lunch break. Sweat drenches your clothes in the 90-degree heat, but you keep going: your kids need their...
The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There's no price the big banks can't fix C onspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic...
There are few ways to make a decent living in Bangladesh, but there are many ways to die trying. The cruel weight of that reality bore down on a Dhaka factory complex on Wednesday as it crashed to the ground and instantly extinguished hundreds of lives and livelihoods. As of this writing, the body count at Rana Plaza is about 300 and rising , with hundreds more workers still unaccounted...
Two acts of terror last week, only one terrorism investigation The way I see it, we had two acts of terrorism in the US last week. The first took place at the end of the historic Boston Marathon, when two bombs went off near the finish line, killing three and seriously injuring dozens of runners and spectators. The second happened a couple days later in the town of West, Texas, where a...
Too many Americans are unaware of the extreme disparities that have been caused by the unregulated profit incentive of capitalism. Our winner-take-all system is flailing away at once-healthy parts of society, leaving them like withered limbs on a trembling body, even as the relative few who benefit promote the illusion of opportunity and prosperity for all. Concerned citizens armed with facts...
Suppose you weren’t worried that we humans are destroying our water supply and eroding our ability to feed ourselves by burning coal and gas and oil and hence changing climate. Suppose you thought that was all liberal hooey. What might worry you about fossil fuels instead? How about a six trillion dollar bet, including a big slug of your own money, on people not doing what they have said...
Elections have become auctions, and nearly every issue is paralyzed by the overwhelming influence of money. But you knew that. The real challenge is how to fix what has become one of our nation's most pressing political challenges. If you're hoping our leaders will prioritize this issue, you'll be disappointed. Look to the website of President Obama's new advocacy group...
The way The Telegraph and some other media houses in Kolkata are manipulating the public opinion on behalf of the big pocketed lobbyists, it's becoming more obvious than ever. When someone speaks of media manipulation, they can mean both manipulation by the media and manipulation OF the media (by business lobbies/politicians/self-serving interest groups etc.) Manipulation of the media does...
The worsening social pains of government austerity programs now intensify the vast social suffering caused by the crisis since 2007. Beyond this especially severe business cycle, longer-term trends show capitalist mega-corporations moving blue and white collar work to lower wage regions far from the former centers of capitalist production (US and western Europe especially). Profit and...
In a brewing scandal that should shock and trouble all of us, Exxon silenced us this week. We put together a nationally crowdfunded PSA , promoted by thousands online who threw in a dollar or a click or both in favor of two simple ideas: we should be able to get the word out about the most pressing issue of our time, climate change, on television primetime; and we should be able to demand...
As of January 26, it’s illegal to unlock your cell phone and switch to a different service plan without the permission of your current provider . This comes as the result not of a new law, but of the opinion of the Librarian of Congress (who apparently has authority to interpret the Digital Millennium Copyright Act). This is just one more example of an old problem. In all areas of...
Seeing gurneys of babies trundled through the chiaroscuro of old black-and-white footage at the start of Scott Noble’s Human Resources, the gurneys in the tunnels of God only knows what kind of institution, the viewer does well to brace herself for the coming onslaught. The piano accompaniment is not so much music as it is the hammering of wires in the industrial mode, a harbinger...
Let me begin with a good quote from a bad economist: This, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable. So wrote Milton Friedman, in his 1982 preface to the twentieth anniversary edition of his famous manifesto, Capitalism and Freedom, first published...
Dr. Richard Wolff, currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University here in New York City is no shy flower when it comes to provoking thought; more "Thorny Rose" than "Sweet William." The New York Times Magazine has named him "America's most prominent Marxist Economist" and he continues to...
A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work (Part 1) Last year in Lansing, Michigan, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union leadership fought a pitched battle with the Lansing City Council to push capitalist real estate developers to use union labor. When discussing the fight, Joe Davis, the union representative, proclaimed, “It’s important to...
Left-libertarians differ from the (current) libertarian mainstream both in terms of what outcomes they regard as desirable , and in terms of what outcomes they think a freed market is
Every once in a while you may hear politicians, union leaders and ordinary citizens demand fair wages or fair pay for work. While this is surely a noble goal, the fact that people still struggle for fair wages clearly shows that they have not yet been realized. Women are still paid less than men, black and Latino workers are statistically paid less than white workers, and corporate executives...
The Federal Communications Commission is pushing a plan to gut its 30-year-old newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership ban . This proposal would allow one company to own a local paper, two TV stations and up to eight radio stations in a single market. Advocates of more media consolidation argue that allowing TV stations and newspapers to merge is critical to cutting costs and saving local...
Information has been leaked about the Trans Pacific Partnership, which is being negotiated in secret by US Trade Representative Ron Kirk. Six hundred corporate “advisors” are in on the know, but not Congress or the media. Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate trade subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the TPP, has not been permitted to see the text or to know the content. The TPP...
It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall – so mystifying at the time – was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI , the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters...
The free flow of news and information, accessible to everyone, is vital to the success of democracy. And today in America, that flow is in doubt. Our newspapers, traditionally the most reliable source of civic information and investigative reporting, are laying off reporters and editors by the hundreds, canceling editions and often shutting down entirely. Broadcasters also are making...
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has defended his company's 'immoral' tax policies, saying of the internet giant's evasions to get out of paying billions of dollars: "It's called capitalism." News reports this week revealed that Google avoided paying at least $2 billion in taxes in 2011 by siphoning off $10 billion in profits to a Bermuda shell company. The figure is almost double...
On October seventeenth (O17), a group of about 10 occupiers gathered outside 15 Central Park West , the address of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein’s multi-million dollar condo. Occupy Goldman Sachs was born . In the model of sleepful protests, they set up camp across from the building’s main gate. They brought sleeping bags, signs, food, cameras...and have not left the area...
Representative-elect Alan Grayson (D-FL) said Monday that he will put mega-retailer Walmart squarely in his sights during the next Congress for the company’s liberal use of public assistance programs to supplement their workers’ wages. Speaking to Current TV host Cenk Uygur on Monday’s episode of “The Young Turks,” Grayson called Walmart “the largest...
The corporate CEOs who have made a high-profile foray into deficit negotiations have themselves been substantially responsible for the size of the deficit they now want closed. The companies represented by executives working with the Campaign To Fix The Debt have received trillions in federal war contracts, subsidies and bailouts, as well as specialized tax breaks and loopholes that...
In a massive blow to multinational agribiz corporations such as Monsanto , Bayer, and Dow, Peru has officially passed a law banning genetically modified ingredients anywhere within the country for a full decade before coming up for another review. Peru’s Plenary Session of the Congress made the decision 3 years after the decree was written despite previous governmental pushes for GM...
It was a dreary late- September morning in the East Texas woods outside of Winnsboro, chill and drizzly. Everything was wet or damp except for the spirits of four young people sitting in a tree stand. They were perched 30 feet above the path of the Keystone XL pipeline, slated to carry very heavy and very toxic Canadian tar sands bitumen from Cushing, Okla., to refineries in Houston. The...
Community, faith and labor organizations mobilized this afternoon for a rally and civil disobedience action in support of thirty-eight workers on strike at a Walmart warehouse in Elwood, Illinois. They marched down to this distribution center, and, at least thirteen clergy and community leaders sat down and blocked an entrance to the center to prevent goods from arriving or leaving the...
You have read Valve’s survival manual for new employees . You have read Michael Abrash’s wonderful account of working at Valve. Now read my political economy analysis of Valve’s management model; one in which there are no bosses, no delegation, no commands, no attempt by anyone to tell someone what to do. Can useful lessons be drawn about not only Valve’s...
It’s a long drive from Florida to Denver, but Leonel Perez and his colleagues at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) don’t mind. In fact, they arrived in the Mile High City three weeks early for Cultivate , a food, beer, and music festival sponsored by Chipotle Mexican Grill . They were not drawn by a love of burritos. In the days leading up to Cultivate, Perez, Jake...
Reboxetine is a drug I have prescribed. Other drugs had done nothing for my patient, so we wanted to try something new. I'd read the trial data before I wrote the prescription, and found only well-designed, fair tests, with overwhelmingly positive results. Reboxetine was better than a placebo, and as good as any other antidepressant in head-to-head comparisons. It's approved for use by the...
HistoryCommons.org has compiled an incredible historic resource that documents the rise and escalation of the climate denial industry over the last 15 years. Without editorializing the content, these articles summarize 178 headlines (often with multiple news article sources for each headline), which covers a range of climate change topics. History Commons lets the stories speak for themselves...
At a protest last year at New York University, students called attention to their mounting debt by wearing T-shirts with the amount they owed scribbled across the front — $90,000, $75,000, $20,000. On the sidelines was a business consultant for the debt collection industry with a different take. "I couldn't believe the accumulated wealth they represent — for our industry," the...
I was talking recently with a new friend who I’m just getting to know. She tends to be somewhat conservative, while I lean more toward the progressive side. When our conversation drifted to politics, somehow the dreaded word “socialism” came up. My friend seemed totally shocked when I said “All socialism isn’t bad”. She became very serious and replied...
The history of America is the one story every kid knows. It's a story of fierce individualism and heroic personal sacrifice in the service of a dream. A story of early settlers, hungry and cold, carving a home out of the wilderness. Of visionary leaders fighting for democracy and justice, and never wavering. Of a populace prepared to defend those ideals to the death. It's the story of a...
By Agence France-PresseWednesday, August 15, 2012 17:38 EDT WASHINGTON - Two US lawmakers probing bribery allegations against Walmart in Mexico say they have documents suggesting the US retail giant may also have engaged in tax evasion and money laundering. The congressmen, Elijah Cummings and Henry Waxman, made their claim in a letter to Walmart Chief Executive Michael Duke dated Tuesday...
Update 8/6, a clarification. The below article's quotes were taken a bit out of context: http://www.rt.com/news/bolivia-coca-cola-ban-770/ In a symbolic rejection of US capitalism, Bolivia announced it [hopes to] expel the Coca-Cola Company from the country at the end of the Mayan calendar. This will mark the end of capitalism and usher in a new era of equality, the Bolivian govt says...
Fraternities, sororities and football, along with other outsized athletic programs, have decimated most major American universities. Scholarship, inquiry, self-criticism, moral autonomy and a search for artistic and esoteric forms of expression—in short, the world of ethics, creativity and ideas—are shouted down by the drunken chants of fans in huge stadiums, the pathetic demands...
Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe - and that make clear who the real enemy is If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the...
Take a look at this info-graphic. And then this one . The disparity is absurd. Though personally I don't think raising the minimum wage is the solution, as it doesn't get anywhere close to solving the root problem.
Studying inequality in America reveals some facts that are truly hard to believe. Amidst all the absurdity a few stand out. A homeless person sits under blankets at a Wall Street subway station in New York City. (Credit: AP/Mark Lennihan) 1. U.S. companies in total pay a smaller percentage of taxes than the lowest-income 20% of Americans. Total corporate profits for 2011 were $1.97...
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) on Thursday introduced an amendment to the farm bill that would give states the power to label genetically modified food. “I personally believe, and I think most Americans believe, that when a mother goes to the store and purchases food for her child, she has the right to know what she is feeding her child,” he said on the...
One of the world's biggest environmental crimes has been more or less forgotten. This is part of our collective guilt as the world's ecosystem continues its accelerated collapse. But the new documentary film The Big Fix takes a detailed, daring look at what happened in the Gulf of Mexico with BP's Macondo offshore oil drilling rig. The story and facts that emerge are more than disturbing...
File-sharers, beware: By July 12, major US Internet service providers (ISPs) will voluntarily begin serving as copyright police for the entertainment industry, according to Cary Sherman, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The so-called “six-strikes” plan is said to be one of the most effective anti-piracy efforts ever established in the US...
Dow pays "strategic intelligence" firm to spy on Yes Men and grassroots activists. Takeaway: movement is on the right track! WikiLeaks begins to publish today over five million e-mails obtained by Anonymous from "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails, which reveal everything from sinister spy tactics to an insider trading scheme with Goldman Sachs (see below), also include...
WikiLeaks has released the first 200 of a cache of 5m emails obtained from the servers of Stratfor, a US-based intelligence firm. The emails originated not from a whistleblower, but instead from a series of hacking attacks against Stratfor in December 2011, carried out by the online activist collective Anonymous . Anonymous apparently passed the emails to WikiLeaks in the weeks...