Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Hikers, Trump, and the Capitalist Conspiracy to Ruin Public Lands

An Interview with Christopher Ketcham about his book “This Land” and the threats to 450 million federal acres.

The post Hikers, Trump, and the Capitalist Conspiracy to Ruin Public Lands appeared first on The Intercept.

Model helps choose wind farm locations, predicts output

The wind is always blowing somewhere, but deciding where to locate a wind farm is a bit more complicated than holding up a wet finger. Now a team of researchers has a model that can locate the best place for the wind farm and even help with 24-hour predictions of energy output.

We Should Integrate Schools Based on Class, Not Race

Sean Reardon has some interesting new research on the black-white achievement gap in primary school today. It’s mostly contained in Table 5 of his report, which is a little hard to read, but here it is: Even after controlling for economic status, attendance at a school with a big racial attendance gap (i.e., heavily black) […]

Happy Trump Maybe Impeachment Day! Here Are the Latest Developments.

The calls to impeach President Donald Trump are growing louder after he admitted to discussing former Vice President and current presidential candidate Joe Biden on a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In the days leading up to the phone call, he withheld $391 million in military funds from the country, suggesting the possibility […]

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Call for Reversal of Puerto Rico Austerity Measures

Thirteen members of Congress signed a letter demanding that the Puerto Rico fiscal oversight board, known as “la junta,” disclose its conflicts of interest.

The post Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Call for Reversal of Puerto Rico Austerity Measures appeared first on The Intercept.

Neurotoxin lead sometimes added to turmeric for brighter color

Some spice processors in Bangladesh use an industrial lead chromate pigment to imbue turmeric with a bright yellow color prized for curries and other traditional dishes, elevating blood lead levels in Bangladeshis.

The “Democratic” in DSA

As the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) met August 2 in Atlanta for its biennial convention, a number of the 1,056 delegates did so with trepidation. They feared the gathering could devolve into factionalism, splintering the organization that, in the last five years, has grown from 6,000 to 55,000-plus members across 150 chapters.

Chris Riddiough was among those worried, a socialist feminist from Washington, D.C., who has been a leading DSA figure since its founding in 1982. For the past two years, Riddiough served on the strife-riven 16-member National Political Committee, the group’s elected governing body.

“Going into the convention, there were aspects that were reminiscent of the whole mischegas with SDS,” Riddiough says, referring to the implosion of Students for a Democratic Society at its 1969 convention. “The Left has a long history of shooting itself in the foot. My concern was that we not repeat that history.”

A few shots were fired in Atlanta, but none likely to cause irreversible damage. “I came out more optimistic than when I went in,” Riddiough says.

Convention delegates affirmed that participation in electoral politics is worthwhile. By passing the “Class-Struggle Elections” resolution, DSA committed itself to using “elections, public offices and legislation as vehicles to encourage working-class organization, promote progressive legislation and build support for democratic socialist ideas.” The resolution included a caveat that says DSA’s ultimate goal is to break with the Democrats “and their capitalist donors,” and “form an independent working-class party,” rather than reform the party from within.

A new party? It’s socialist Dems who are already changing the nation’s political conversation. DSA members Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) were elected to the House as Democrats in 2018. And across the country, DSA members continue to be elected to state and local office, 29 of whom attended the convention. Most of these pols have run as Democrats (without “capitalist donors”) and won by turning out registered Democratic voters.

One such elected official at the convention was Ruth Buffalo, a North Dakota Democratic state representative and member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation who works as a public health professional in Fargo. In 2018, she ousted a Republican incumbent who had led a GOP effort to suppress the Native vote.

Another is Gabriel Acevero, a Maryland Democratic state representative and an Afro-Caribbean LGBTQ activist who organizes for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (wonderfully, he swore his oath of office on a copy of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time).

No DSA resolution will alter the fact that the majority of progressives in America, including the majority of people of color and union members, identify as Democrats. The “Class-Struggle Elections” resolution concedes as much, noting that DSA-endorsed candidates can, for tactical reasons, run on the Democratic Party line “for now,” which means that DSA is not breaking with its decades-long tradition of working within the Democratic Party.

That “for now” could be quite a long time—given that America’s first-past-the-post elections prevent the emergence of new parties.

The future of democratic socialism in America is bright. To wit, DSA resolved to become an organization of 100,000 members by 2021. For an organization that has grown by 800 percent in the last five years, it’s an ambitious but achievable goal. At its Atlanta convention, DSA demonstrated that, despite growing pains, it can accommodate disagreement, unite around common principles and not be torn asunder by sectarian posturing that has so often divided the Left.

How the U.S. Left Should Approach China

While Trump's trade war with China threatens to trigger a global recession, Trump is reacting by continuing his economic attacks as well as blaming supposed internal enemies, such as the “fake news media.” This emerging feedback loop between deepening nationalism and economic dysfunction is reminiscent of dynamics that led to World War II. 

To halt our descent into this abyss, and to defeat Trump, we must reject this false choice between Trump’s anti-China protectionism and the “free trade” status quo that preceded him. The way forward is not mutual attacks on each other’s economies. Instead, in solidarity with labor activists in China, we should demand U.S. politicians commit to ending the trade war and renewing trade negotiations centered on global standards for wages, working conditions and labor rights to improve living conditions and create jobs in the United States, China and beyond.

To get significant concessions from China, a progressive U.S. government must make proposals in our mutual interests. The United States could offer, for example, to collaborate with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive program financing infrastructure around the world—on the conditions that it focus on clean energy and transportation infrastructure, with protections for workers and communities. Another possibility would be to cooperate in the reform of the World Trade Organization and other transnational institutions, correcting the biases that favor the business interests of wealthier countries over those of the Global South. 

But, progressives may ask, how could we seek deescalation and cooperation with a country engaged in human rights abuses? We must also address the China-backed crackdown on anti-government protesters in Hong Kong and the internment of more than 1 million Uighur Muslims in re-education labor camps. Protecting civil rights and political freedoms in Hong Kong is strategically necessary; labor organizations in Hong Kong, such as China Labour Bulletin and Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM), serve as a source of training and support for activists and progressives within mainland China, and also link mainland Chinese activists to international organizers. This link is essential to efforts to build grassroots solidarity and counter nationalism in both the U.S. and China.

One obstacle to this solidarity is that, in the West, concerns about Chinese rights abuses can easily be co-opted for racist right-wing politics. For example, at one Canadian university, after messages posted on a campus bulletin board in support of Hong Kong protesters were vandalized, a popular student Facebook group circulated a meme accusing mainland Chinese students of being spies.

For years, the most prominent Washington ally for Uighur and Hong Kong activists has been Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a right-wing nationalist positioning himself as a top anti-China hawk. Rubio-backed legislation—some of which has won the support of progressive politicians, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders—is shaped by anti-China politics, threatening punishment against the Chinese government and China’s economy in the name of human rights. 

This “all sticks, no carrots” approach will not be effective. Just look to Trump’s trade war: While it’s damaged China’s economy, it has not convinced the Chinese government to concede to U.S. demands. Instead, offering new forms of cooperation around shared goals can increase our leverage to end human rights abuses.

This strategy will also address the root causes of the crackdowns, which get too little attention in Western discourse: the pressure on the Chinese government to maintain economic development and social control in the face of worsening economic conditions, which are only exacerbated by U.S. economic attacks. In cities across China, as in Hong Kong, there is growing discontent with inequality, overwork, the loss of upward mobility and a sense of powerlessness. The Chinese government manages this specter of social unrest through censorship and crack-downs on civil society, which is why China has been so un-compromising with Hong Kong protesters: Conceding to their demands could delegitimize the regime in mainland cities as well.

Meanwhile, the Uighur concentration camps—which the government justifies with Islamophobic “war on terror” rhetoric borrowed from the United States—serve the purpose of securing the territory of Xinjiang for the exploitation and transportation of natural resources, especially oil and gas. U.S. economic cooperation could be an opportunity to reduce this oppression.

This internationalist frame-work is not yet common sense among U.S. progressives. To make it so, we need greater political education within our movements. We must also organize within diaspora communities, of people with roots in both mainland China and Hong Kong, to pressure politicians around these issues. Meanwhile Uighurs and Muslim Americans of any origin can lead other progressives in understanding the need to combat the cultural genocide of Muslims in Xinjiang.

De-escalating U.S.-China tensions while simultaneously addressing human and labor rights abuses is the only path forward to secure global peace, a just global economy and a global response to the climate crisis. There are tensions between these goals, but only by confronting them can we develop a response that rises to meet the present crisis.

Boosting daily nut consumption linked to less weight gain and lower obesity risk

Increasing nut consumption by just half a serving (14 g or ½ oz) a day is linked to less weight gain and a lower risk of obesity, suggests a large, long term observational study.

A Bridge Too Far

Did you hear what Trump did this time? Right out in the open?

Legacy Kid

Joe Kennedy III is taking on Ed Markey in a primary.

Aw, We Can’t Stay Mad at You

We cant stay mad at these little rascals!

Hello fediverse!
We would like to introduce ourselves. We are working on a film about the effects of burnout on our movements, the reasons for it, as well as collective&individual strategies for preventing and/or dealing with it better.

Due to illness, the project has taken longer than planned but the film is nearing completion.

On our website you can learn more about the film. There are also interesting links around sustainable activism. When the film is finished we will post it there, as well as more in depth interviews.

The film will be in documentary format of around 1 hour. Please contact us if you would be interested to organise a screening in your community or want to support the project somehow.

Addressing these issues is key to building movements that grow from strength to strength, that have the stamina needed to be successful, and effect the change needed. Too often, people burn out and are forced to leave their movements, and with them goes their knowledge, their skills, and the relationships and networks they have formed.

Blog: https://radicalresilience.noblogs.org/

Love and Rage!

GOP Racial Gerrymandering Mastermind Participated in Redistricting in More States Than Previously Known, Files Reveal

Thomas Hofeller and GOP strategists experimented with using race as the primary factor in drawing districts in Alabama, Florida, and West Virginia.

The post GOP Racial Gerrymandering Mastermind Participated in Redistricting in More States Than Previously Known, Files Reveal appeared first on The Intercept.

When It Comes to Bereavement Leave, the U.S. Is Unspeakably Cruel

On March 19, 2018, Cindy Christensen took her husband, who had suddenly fallen ill, to the emergency room. Within one or two days, Christensen estimates, her husband was diagnosed with lymphoma. He was promptly transferred to a hospital that could provide more specialized treatment.

It's Kids vs. the World in a Landmark New Climate Lawsuit
https://earther.gizmodo.com/its-kids-vs-the-world-in-a-landmark-new-climate-lawsui-1838343565 #climatechange #climatecrisis

The Swiss Just Held a Funeral for a Dead Glacier
https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-swiss-just-held-a-funeral-for-a-dead-glacier-1838358879 #climatechange #climatecrisis

A CAP Analyst’s Red-Baiting Book Accidentally Makes the Case for Socialism

To experience socialismis akin to being slowly boiled alive—so awful, our protective instincts would kick in to help us escape before its dangers overtook us.

Or so The Public Option: How to Expand Freedom, Increase Opportunity and Promote Equality tells us. Co-authors Ganesh Sitaraman and Anne L. Alstott present this book as an unblinkered analysis of how we might guide public policy toward greater equality in the presumptively Trump-free years ahead. Intended to jumpstart “a national conversation about what we owe each other,” the book defines and defends the concept of the “public option,” explores past and current examples, and proposes new possibilities, from childcare to retirement savings to higher ed and beyond. The book shines an important spotlight on the benefits that government-controlled programs can provide for the general public. And yet, the authors offer a red-baiting dismissal of socialism so outrageous it’s almost funny. Sitaraman and Alstott define a public option as a program that “guarantees access to important services at a controlled price” and “coexists (or could co-exist) with private provision of the same service.” The U.S. Postal Service, for instance, “provides mail service to everyone at a reasonable price, and it covers even remote (and urban) areas that private firms shun.” They emphasize, however, that their goal is not to challenge capitalism but “to improve markets in cases where they aren’t competitive or are founded on toxic inequality.”

It’s encouraging that public options are being discussed on the Left as a potential solution to economic inequality, especially in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. But, as the healthcare debate highlights, there is fierce tension within the Democratic Party about whether the government should offer a public option within an otherwise privatized market (advocated by centrists such as Joe Biden) or do away with private options altogether in favor of universal programs like Medicare for All (a plan Sen. Bernie Sanders has openly called “democratic socialism”). The fact that the centrist Democratic position is a public option marks a significant shift to the left in the party’s politics—in 2009, a push to include a public option in Obamacare failed—but supporters of Medicare for All argue that private options perpetuate inequality because private corporations will always prioritize profits over the well-being of people.

The liberal Center for American Progress (CAP), a policy institute closely allied with the center-liberal Democratic establishment, has been a flashpoint for intraparty debates, and healthcare is no exception. Rather than supporting Medicare for All, CAP strongly favors a plan called Medicare Extra, which would create a public option while maintaining private insurance. It’s worth noting that Sitaraman is a senior fellow at CAP. He is also a former policy director for (and now “longtime advisor” to) presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who wavered between a public option and single-payer before unequivocally signing on to Sanders’ Medicare for All plan in June. Sitaraman’s role on Warren’s campaign has raised concern among progressives about her commitment to left principles—as has her proclamation that she is a capitalist.

Enter The Public Option, which could be seen as a shot across the bow by centrist Democrats who want to embrace the role of government while swearing off socialism. Sitaraman and Alstott assure readers that, contrary to urban myth,

Frogs, like people, are completely capable of telling the difference between cold, warm and boiling water. And when the water gets too hot, frogs jump out. Public options aren’t designed to be socialism, and if they’re starting to become socialistic—or if someone proposes socialism under the guise of public options—everyone will be able to tell the difference, and then jump out.

It’s particularly galling that The Public Option disregards socialism with this rhetorical sleight-of-hand, given how the book never actually defines the bugaboo of socialism. Arguably, “socialism” is like “democracy”—a term defined by its advocates more as a direction and aspiration than as a simple program. While there’s no soundbite-friendly definition—not in Jacobin’s eloquent but lengthy socialist primer nor the Democratic Socialists of America platform—socialism, as understood by its friends and foes alike, runs counter to capitalism, with the goal of minimizing corporate and elite economic and political power.

As a central part of their argument, Sitaraman and Alstott wax rhapsodic about government-supported programs that have historically promoted public welfare by offering free or low-cost services: libraries, land-grant colleges, 30-year fixed mortgages, Social Security, Medicare. From their book’s first paragraph:

We stop by the local post office to mail a letter, without reflecting on the public support that makes it possible to send that letter anywhere in the country for less than a dollar. We drop our kids at the public school and take the subway, train or highway to work. Many of us have attended state universities, and many more have vacationed at a national park or cooled off at a public swimming pool. And we count on Social Security and Medicare to provide security for us after we retire.

Bernie Sanders calls such government offerings “socialism”; Sitaraman and Alstott call them “public options.” Sanders is correct. Though there may be private options available—e.g., public libraries versus bookstores—these public programs were not designed with that competition in mind. In keeping with socialism, they exist separate from and outside the private market, intended simply to serve the public good.

And yet The Public Option bends over backward to avoid the dastardly taint of socialism. Whether this verbal runaround is intended to win over moderates isn’t clear, but what does become clear is that the authors, almost despite themselves, have faith in the market. They hope their proposed public options will drive the worst players in the private sector out of business.

As friends of capitalism, Sitaraman and Alstott insist they don’t want to kill the beast, just tame it. Yet in their eagerness to win converts across the political spectrum, they mislead. They count Social Security and Medicare as much-beloved public “options”—optional only because the devout, selfemployed Amish can legally opt out. Bizarrely, they also tout Medicare for All as a public option, even though that slogan typically signifies Sanders’ universal single-payer plan without private insurers.

If Social Security and Medicare (and potentially Medicare for All) succeed, it’s because they are not optional; they are essentially mandatory. The privileged cannot simply opt out of paying. These huge programs have correspondingly huge clout and constituency, which allows them to protect the most vulnerable. Importantly, these programs are not run by private corporations, which profit at the expense of others.

Indeed, there is tacit tension between “public” and “option.” Make a program optional, and the public interest is often undermined; the “option” ends up absorbing the more expensive or risky clients rejected by the private sector, raising the public cost while decreasing its quality. Without mandatory universal healthcare coverage to spread the risk among the well and the sick, and to give the government clout to set price controls, the people with chronic health conditions and disabilities get denied coverage because they pose too high a “risk” to private insurers’ profits. This implicit understanding informs the requirement for everyone to be held responsible for paying into Medicare and Medicaid.

Consider charter schools, which raise a host of problems. Even “good” charter schools cause systemic harm: Charters relegate the hardest-to-teach students to the public schools while draining those same schools of resources. The most vulnerable students are made more so. Indeed, though not mentioned in the book, charters actually re-segregated Delaware’s public schools, which had previously achieved remarkable success at desegregation. “Elite” charter school admission prerequisites kept poor Black and Latinx children out.

Private options exacerbate inequality, both by preserving exploitative jobs that could instead be well-paying public jobs, and by drawing consumers away from the public options, thereby draining public resources. Look at the private options competing with public transportation: services like Uber and Lyft. Sitaraman and Alstott cite Uber as exem-plifying the “gig economy”—companies that don’t provide their workers with benefits. Ride-hail drivers are among the many who could benefit from generous government-sponsored public options in healthcare and retirement, the authors note. But ride-hail services also drain fares from the public transit system, leading to less funding and higher overall costs for consumers, who are then driven to use the private services. And since the business model for Uber and Lyft is geared toward an eventual shift to driverless cars, these companies are actively invested in replacing workers with robots. 

To scrutinize the private option is to see the malevolence of capitalism hiding in plain sight. It’s telling that the authors devote a full chapter to fleshing out a “public option” proposal for childcare, and that their proposal is entirely government-operated. Childcare, they assert, is “too important to be left to the high cost and uncertain quality that the private market provides.” Surely, this caution is appropriate to virtually all services basic to a decent life: schooling, healthcare, retirement benefits, eldercare—the list goes on. All of these are vital to our survival. They are all too important to have the private sector screw them up.

It’s human and especially American to want choices. But some choices are scams, dangerous to the public welfare. Private corporations run misleading marketing campaigns, their allegiance not to consumers nor the public, but to their shareholders. Meanwhile, consumers flounder, unable to navigate complex choices in a way that ultimately helps the public good, or even their own good.

Sitaraman and Alstott have opted to promote a “we’re all in this together” vision that emphasizes the power of government to advance the common good. They clearly believe that Western European-style social welfare programs are possible for the United States, just so long as they’re sold as “choices” that will not lead to wrenching upheaval or structural change. Their kumbaya sales pitch has feel-good appeal.

So, yes, let’s re-envision government as an appropriate source of crucial, life-affirming social programs. But maybe we’re not all in this together. Maybe our corporate overlords are perfectly prepared to subvert the public welfare for their own personal gain. And maybe wrenching upheaval looms ahead as climate change roils the planet, bringing even greater power to the rich and misery to the poor. If that’s the future, we’ll want to know all our options. And maybe opt for socialism.