TBF
TBF's Journal
A Brazilian Street Artist Speaks to the World -
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_spot/2014/05/20/paulo_ito_world_cup_a_brazilian_street_artist_has_created_the_world_cup.html
Rank-and-File Environmentalism
Rank-and-File Environmentalism
6.11.14 - by Trish Kahle (Jacobin)
Labor is often considered hopelessly reactionary on the environment. But democratic unions can fight for both jobs and the planet.
The “jobs versus environment” debate is often seen as a fundamental division between labor and environmentalists, most recently emerging in the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline. Despite dire warnings from scientists about its potentially disastrous environmental impact, the pipeline was endorsed by the AFL-CIO, which justified its decision by citing “job creation.” Estimates range from 5,000-9,000 temporary positions — a drop in the bucket compared to the more than 794,000 unemployed construction workers in the US — and a mere 35 permanent jobs.
Is there any kind of environmental degradation, environmental activists might wonder, unions won’t endorse to secure a small handful of construction jobs?
Jeremy Brecher is right to point in a recent piece to the need for the labor and environmental movements to “evolve toward a common program and a common vision.” To do so, we’ll need to break down the false “jobs versus environment” dichotomy created by capital to obscure the fact that the exploitation of workers and the degradation of the environment go hand in hand ...
More here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/06/rank-and-file-environmentalism/
Asian slave labour producing prawns (global shrimp trade)
A six-month investigation has established that large numbers of men bought and sold like animals and held against their will on fishing boats off Thailand are integral to the production of prawns (commonly called shrimp in the US) sold in leading supermarkets around the world, including the top four global retailers: Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco.
Asian slave labour producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK
Thai 'ghost ships' that enslave, brutalise and even kill workers are linked to global shrimp supply chain, Guardian investigation discovers
Kate Hodal, Chris Kelly in Songkhla and Felicity Lawrence
theguardian.com, Tuesday 10 June 2014 07.05 EDT
Slaves forced to work for no pay for years at a time under threat of extreme violence are being used in Asia in the production of seafood sold by major US, British and other European retailers, the Guardian can reveal.
A six-month investigation has established that large numbers of men bought and sold like animals and held against their will on fishing boats off Thailand are integral to the production of prawns (commonly called shrimp in the US) sold in leading supermarkets around the world, including the top four global retailers: Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco.
The investigation found that the world's largest prawn farmer, the Thailand-based Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods, buys fishmeal, which it feeds to its farmed prawns, from some suppliers that own, operate or buy from fishing boats manned with slaves.
Men who have managed to escape from boats supplying CP Foods and other companies like it told the Guardian of horrific conditions, including 20-hour shifts, regular beatings, torture and execution-style killings. Some were at sea for years; some were regularly offered methamphetamines to keep them going. Some had seen fellow slaves murdered in front of them ...
More here: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/10/supermarket-prawns-thailand-produced-slave-labour
http://static.guim.co.uk/ni/1402416727149/shrimp_slavery_done_web2.svg
The murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
The murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
Workers Power - Monday, June 09, 2014
95 years ago, on the night of January 15 1919, two great socialist revolutionaries died. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were brutally murdered by paramilitaries, acting on the orders of the German Social-Democratic government.
Workers Power commemorates the anniversary of Luxemburg and Liebknecht’s death by analyzing their contribution to the Marxist tradition.
At the time of their deaths, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were leaders of the Spartacus group, the Left wing of the German workers’ movement. They had broken from the Social-Democratic Party (SPD) after its betrayal of the 1918 revolution.
In January 1919, the Social-Democratic government of Friedrich Ebert was trying to rebuild a capitalist Germany in tandem with the ruling class. In contrast, Luxembourg and Liebknecht were fighting for a socialist revolution to rid Germany of the corrupt politicians, the warmongering generals, and profiteering capitalists who had led the country into the terrible carnage of the First World War.
Today, Karl and Rosa are remembered as heroes of the Revolution, an inspiration to workers, to youth, to women fighting injustice everywhere. Their writings and their actions are rich in lessons. Their murderers are remembered as those who were prepared to butcher the workers of Berlin to preserve bourgeois rule. Their betrayal of the Revolution led, ultimately, to decades of inequality, terror, and war under the Nazis ...
Much more here: http://www.workerspower.net/the-murder-of-rosa-luxemburg-and-karl-liebknecht
Obama moves to ease student loan burdens
Well it's a start (I find myself often saying this when I'm dealing with the capitalists) - and of course the action will not take effect until Dec. 2015 ...
Obama moves to ease student loan burdens, urges Congress to act
WASHINGTON—
President Barack Obama on Monday signed an executive order making it easier for up to 5 million people to pay off college tuition debt, and scolded congressional Republicans for opposing legislation that would lower student-loan borrowing costs.
Obama signed an executive order allowing more people to limit repayments of federal student loans to 10 percent of their monthly incomes. The action will not take effect until December 2015.
The administration will also try to lower student costs by renegotiating government contracts with companies like Sallie Mae that service student loans, he said ...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-student-loan-debt-20140609,0,5733943.story
The drive to privatize US veterans’ health care
The drive to privatize US veterans’ health care
2 June 2014
There is a largely hidden and deeply reactionary political agenda behind the current furor over the crisis in the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ health care system. On Friday, President Barack Obama responded to mounting demands from Democratic as well as Republican lawmakers and announced the resignation of VA Director Gen. Eric Shinseki (retired), promising “reform” of the system.
The so-called “reform” being prepared, however, represents a further attack on veterans and a precedent for laying siege to other government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The scandal at the VA over long wait times for appointments, falsified records and related deaths of veterans has not prompted calls for any substantial increase in funding for the beleaguered department, but renewed calls for its privatization.
The hypocritical claims of the president and members of Congress that their proposals to deal with the crisis at the VA are motivated by genuine concern for veterans merit only contempt. The same politicians who bemoan the poor treatment of veterans are responsible for the human and social disaster that is reflected in the explosive growth of the patient load at VA health facilities. They are seeking to exploit the current scandal to allow for-profit insurance companies and health care firms to gain access to a lucrative market at the expense of veterans’ health care ...
More here - http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/06/02/pers-j02.html
Latest GOP scheme to kill Saturday mail delivery killed in Congress
WASHINGTON (PAI) - Dismissal and some derision, from everyone from postal and construction union leaders to congressional Democrats to even the Radical Right Heritage Foundation, greeted House GOP leaders' latest scheme to pay for fixing the nation's highways, by killing Saturday postal service and diverting the "saved" dollars to roads.
The idea, floated May 31 by Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., would send $10 billion to the Highway Trust Fund over a decade. The three, catering to their Tea Party caucus, oppose other ways to shore up the trust fund, which may run out of money as soon as the end of July.
Their solution is to scrap Saturday pickups and delivery, which they claim would also help lessen the Postal Service's red ink. In his budget for the year starting Oct. 1, President Obama also wants to scrap Saturday service. He says that would save $2 billion yearly. But Obama would pay for highways by closing business tax loopholes. Unions, led by the Laborers, want to raise the gas tax for the first time since 1991 ...
More here - http://peoplesworld.org/latest-gop-scheme-to-kill-saturday-mail-delivery-killed-in-congress/
Seattle approves $15 minimum wage
Seattle approves $15 minimum wage in 'historic victory' for workers
Move will benefit around 100,000 working people in city and is expected to give momentum to campaigns across the US
Chris McGreal in Seattle - theguardian.com, Monday 2 June 2014 18.50 EDT
Seattle minimum wage Seattle's new law will be closely watched for the threat of lawsuits by local franchises of fast-food corporations. Photograph: Elaine Thompson/AP
Seattle city council has unanimously voted to impose the highest minimum wage in the US at $15 an hour in a “historic victory” for the widening movement to lift low paid workers out of poverty.
The incremental increase over several years will benefit about one quarter of Seattle’s workforce, particularly women and minorities, as it raises the lowest pay to more than double the federal minimum wage. The vote is expected to give momentum to campaigns across the US, from San Francisco and Chicago to New York state, to raise the incomes of minimum wage workers after Republicans in Congress blocked President Obama’s proposal for a national increase.
But Seattle’s law will be closely watched for its economic impact and for threatened legal action by local franchises of fast food corporations, such as McDonald’s and Subway, some of the largest employers of low paid workers in the city, which are seeking to be classified as small businesses in order to win more years to implement the increases ...
More here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/02/seattle-plan-minimum-wage-hike-workers
#TBT Elizabeth Warren -
Elizabeth Warren
Thursday, May 29 at 5:59pm ·
I started working when I was nine. The family across the street had a new baby, the new baby had colic, and I was in business. For 35 cents an hour, I would've rocked that baby all night long
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Gender: FemaleHometown: Wisconsin
Current location: Tejas
Member since: Thu Jan 17, 2008, 01:44 PM
Number of posts: 32,047
