Did You Know
Did You Know
Europe Reduces Waste by Guaranteeing the Right to Repair
Klaus Sieg: In November, the EU Parliament called on the European Commission to make routine repair of everyday products easier, systematic, and cost-efficient ... March, the first eco-design regulation that will define standards for repair and useful life will come into force. ... Manufacturers of washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, and monitors will have to ensure that components are replaceable with common tools. ... Europe is one of the largest markets in the world, which means that new EU design guidelines and right-to-repair mandates could force manufacturers across the world to make more durable products...
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Feb 26, 2021, 3:51pm
Did You Know
What the vaccine debacle tells us about predatory capitalism
Ognian Kassabov: Myth one: The private sector is the best innovator ... For decades, vaccines have been de-prioritised by the industry as insufficiently profitable. ... pharmaceutical companies secured a cost-reduced development and risk-free launch of a new product. ... Myth two: The invisible hand of the market is effective ... any trade secret is a form of monopoly, and in this sense, pharmaceutical patents enable the supplier to impose a monopoly. ... Myth three: Capitalist globalisation is fair ... Immunity cannot function as the privilege of the few...
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Feb 22, 2021, 2:52pm
Did You Know
Corporate profit, electricity deregulation and the disaster in Texas
Patrick Martin: This social tragedy is the product of a series of decisions made by private corporations and public officials... Texas operates a state-wide power grid that is disconnected from the major national grids ... The state government has chosen this policy in order to evade the authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees power grids that cross state lines. ...Working class and minority Texans live in substandard housing, without insulation against unexpected cold and without adequate heating capacity... Texas’ subordination of government policy to the interests of corporate profit and neglect of planning and infrastructure are not, however, the exception....
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Feb 18, 2021, 1:59pm
Did You Know
President Biden, Tear Down That Wall
Marisa Latzman: In early January, former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf celebrated the completion of 450 miles of border wall, claiming that it made “America safer and more secure.” ... activists want to see the wall come down so that the natural migration of desert fauna can be free and open once more ... “begin healing the cultural, spiritual, and ecological wounds caused by saguaro destruction” ... “the damage to aquifers, streams, and springs by the pumping of water for the wall not only has to stop, but there has to be full participation from communities in immediately returning access to that water and trying to heal those damaged aquifers.”
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Feb 2, 2021, 4:29pm
Did You Know
Doomsday Clock Moves Ever Closer to Midnight
Amidst a deadly global pandemic, rising threat of climate change, and nuclear war, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (The Bulletin) has set its 2021 clock at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to armaggedon. ... what is especially disturbing about our current moment is the “undermining of science and law-based approaches to solving major world problems and discarding of international agreements by influential leaders.” ... The Doomsday Clock was first set up in 1947 as a metaphor for threats to humanity from unchecked scientific and technical advances...
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Jan 28, 2021, 2:33pm
Did You Know
Fixing the Language of Journalism to Reflect Reality
Dave Lindorff: Campaign ‘donations’ are bribes and the ‘Free’ World ain’t so free ... 1. Change Department of Defense to Department of War. (The US has not played “defense” with its military since, in my view, the War of 1812) ... 2. No military action outside of the UN is a “humanitarian operation.” (Statistics show that American military forces kill far more civilians than “enemy combatants” on such missions.) ... 3. There is no such thing as a “moderate Republican.” (as a political organization has as its MO illegally retaining power despite a shrinking political base of white, racist or race-obsessed voters, win-by-vote-supression and gerrymandering policies) ... 4. There are no “conservative” Democrats, either. (So-called “centrists” or “moderates” in the Democratic Party are simply closet Republicans)...
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Jan 26, 2021, 1:54pm
Did You Know
Facebook purges left-wing pages and individuals
Andre Damon: On Friday, Facebook carried out a purge of left-wing, antiwar and progressive pages and accounts, including leading members of the Socialist Equality Party. Facebook gave no explanation why the accounts were disabled or even a public acknowledgement that the deletions had occurred. ... None of the individuals whose accounts were disabled had violated Facebook’s policies. ... Such acts of censorship are a desperate response to the growth of popular opposition to inequality, social misery and the ruling class’s disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has put profits above the protection of human lives....
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Jan 23, 2021, 12:03pm
Did You Know
The “Are You Serious?” Awards: Looking Back on 2020
Conn Hallinan: The Golden Lemon Award goes to Lockheed Martin for its F-35 fifth generation stealth fighter, at $1.5 trillion the most expensive weapons system in history. The plane currently has 883 documented design flaws, including nine “category 1” flaws. ... The latter, the Project on Government Oversight explains, “may cause death, severe injury, or severe occupational illness” to pilots and “major damage” to weapons systems and combat readiness (which sounds like those TV ads for drugs that may or may not treat your disease, but could also kill your first born and turn you into a ferret)...
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Jan 16, 2021, 12:38pm
Did You Know
Deconstructing JFK: A Coup d’État over Foreign Policy?
James DiEugenio: While not averse to foreign meddling or even sanctioning the assassination of foreign leaders, Kennedy’s foreign policy positions drew the ire of a collusion of interests that wanted him gone. DiEugenio argues that Kennedy’s positions on foreign policy leading up to his assassination and the deleterious events that occurred after his death culminate in simply too many dramatic reversals to be chalked up to coincidence...
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Jan 14, 2021, 1:40pm
Did You Know
SF’s New DA, Chesa Boudin, Battles Criminal Injustice System on Two Fronts
Jonah Raskin: San Francisco District Attorney, Chesa Boudin, 40, is battling the criminal injustice system in his own balliwick where cops have literally been getting away with murder, and where they have also aimed to sabotage the orderly workings of law enforcement. ... Boudin is battling much the same system of injustice, thousands of miles from home at Shawangunk Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison about 80 miles south of Albany, New York where his father, David Gilbert, once a member of the Weather Underground is serving a 75-years to life sentence for felony murder and robbery. ... Now 76 years old, Gilbert has been behind bars for 39 years...
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Dec 1, 2020, 11:50am
Did You Know
A Lot More to Afghanistan Than the Current Distractions Would Imply
James O'Neill: What the JFK assassination tells us, however, is that the powers that be do not hesitate to lie, and keep lying, if it suits their wider geopolitical purpose. ... We now have the avowed intention of United States president Donald Trump to remove United States troops from Afghanistan. ... (But) there is no intention of leaving ... The CIA will continue to run the export of the very lucrative drug trade ... Afghanistan also enjoys a relatively unique geography. It shares its borders with seven other nations. None of them are on friendly terms with the United States. ... those countries also form a common border with China is another reason for United States interest...
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Nov 24, 2020, 11:22am
Did You Know
Across the World, Sports Stadiums and Arenas Are a Gigantic Swindle
Abdul Malik: From Calgary to Los Angeles, everyone knows that sports arenas are a bad deal for cities. But the problem isn’t just the use of public subsidies for private profit: the whole multibillion-dollar sports venue industry is built on the backs of poorly treated, underpaid workers. ... The alleged value new venues offer a city often results in net negative spending in other sectors. ... Sports arenas encompass a broad range of service and hospitality work — food service and prep, cashier, cleaning, and so on. These jobs are largely low-paid and part-time. ... In the wake of the pandemic, the outright abandonment of arena staff bears witness to their lack of workplace protections...
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Nov 17, 2020, 12:09pm
Did You Know
The Reactionary Immigration Measures Alabama, Florida and Colorado Just Passed That No One is Talking About
Simon Davis-Cohen: A Trump-aligned group called Citizen Voter, Inc. is spending millions of dollars to push model state constitutional reform to prevent political rights from being extended to non-citizens. ... The reform changes state constitutions to say only citizens can vote. .. Non-citizen voting was once commonplace in the United States (when immigrants were whiter). ... In 1875, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, "citizenship has not in all cases been made a condition precedent to the enjoyment of the right of suffrage." ... On the one had, the Declaration of Independence promises that democracies gain their legitimacy from the "consent of the governed." On the other, millions of people are disenfranchised from voting by immigration laws...
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Nov 11, 2020, 11:27am
Did You Know
Amazon Bans Book Exposing US COVID-19 Chaos
Sara Flounders, Workers.org: A decision by the Amazon company to block a book focused on a scientific and cooperative approach to COVID-19 amounts to corporate information control operating at a new intensity. ... The censored book is “Capitalism on a Ventilator: The Impact of COVID-19 in China & the U.S.” This anthology of 55 articles by a broad range of social justice authors discuss the importance of free health care, social distancing, testing, protective equipment, education and social mobilizations during the pandemic. ... The book also shows the glaring lack of social support infrastructure in the U.S. in contrast to U.S. trillions spent on elaborate military, police and prison infrastructure, both at home and worldwide...
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Nov 4, 2020, 11:32am
Did You Know
Prisoners won the right to stimulus checks. Some prisons are standing in the way.
Keri Blakinger, The Marshall Project and Joseph Neff, The Marshall Project: A federal judge ruled prisoners can get the $1,200 checks many Americans received. Some prison systems are putting up roadblocks, lawyers and prisoners say. ... Advocates in several states have raised concerns that some prisoners do not have access to the forms they need to apply for the stimulus money. ... “When an inmate is in [solitary] they do not have email, electronic bulletin board, or printing access... So inmates nationwide are being denied the ability to file for the stimulus check.” ... To receive the payments, incarcerated people must file a tax return by Nov. 4, even if they earned no income in 2019...
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Oct 24, 2020, 3:11pm
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