Bosses’ mouthpiece sends warning to elites
New York Times, 1/15–The secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte, has said that the West is not prepared for the challenges that will come over the next five years and that it’s time to “shift to a wartime mind-set”… while World War III has not begun, “a world war is approaching”...closer cooperation among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea make a coordinated attack more likely, meaning we may have to fight three or four regional wars simultaneously…China’s shipbuilding industry has a capacity more than 230 times that of the United States.
Capitalism leads to dying societies
CNN, 1/18–The rooms are filled with elderly residents, their hands wrinkled and backs bent. They shuffle slowly down the corridors, some using walkers. Workers help them bathe, eat, walk and take their medication. But this isn’t a nursing home – it’s Japan’s largest women’s prison. The population here reflects the aging society outside, and the pervasive problem of loneliness that guards say is so acute for some elderly prisoners that they’d prefer to stay incarcerated…With little family support, Akiyo had stopped caring about the future, or what would happen to her. Her 43-year-old son, who lived with her before she was imprisoned, often told her: “I wish you’d just go away.”
A fighter reminds us to forget the fairytale of progress on racism
New York Times, 1/24–[From obituary of Thomas Gaither PhD, one of the founders of the militant civil rights movement of the early 1960’s] “No question, the South has changed tremendously,” he said in 2011. “But the fundamental infrastructure of racism and segregation that called the shots in the South in 1960 are still in place. They have slightly different labels, they accomplish their goals by slightly different means, but there has been no real fundamental shift in who really calls the signals.”
One-third of U.S. workers are tapped out
Financial Times, 12/24/24–U.S. credit card defaults have surged to their highest level since 2008, reflecting mounting financial pressure on low-income households amid persistent inflation and high interest rates, with analysts warning of further economic strain in 2025...Due to years of high inflation and high interest rates, low-income consumers have been hit the hardest, and "the credit card debt bubble is popping"...Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, also noted…"High-income households are fine, but the bottom third of U.S. consumers are tapped out," he told the Financial Times. "Their savings rate right now is zero."
Racists get ready to rejoin the fight
BBC, 1/23–Leaders of the far-right organisations at the forefront of the Capitol riot who were released on Donald Trump's orders say they are planning to regroup. In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes defended his actions during the 6 January 2021 riot and said he was "very grateful" to President Trump for commuting his sentence. Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison on a number of charges including seditious conspiracy, or plotting to overthrow the government. Meanwhile, Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, former head of the Proud Boys, indicated to reporters that he had rejoined the all-male group.
Mass incarceration is a tool of Israeli fascists
Al Jazeera, 1/24–When the Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was announced on January 15, Ghassan Alyeean says his first feeling was relief that the mass killing of his countrymen might finally end…But the next day…Israeli soldiers raided Alyeean’s home in Bethlehem and abducted his 22-year-old son, Adam, who was supposed to sit university exams in the coming days. “They took him for no reason”...Since Israel captured and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israel has imprisoned some 800,000 Palestinians across the occupied territory, according to the UN and B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organisation. “[Mass incarceration] is part of the apartheid regime”...
