Brazil on Strike: Truckers and Oil Workers Refuse to Cooperate

by Vijay Prashad

The Dawn News | June 01, 2018

The consecutive increases in gas prices caused 1.2 million Brazilians to return to cooking with wood and coal in 2017, according to the IBGE. Rute Pina/Brasil de Fato

Latin America’s largest economy – Brazil – is on the verge of a breakdown. Truck drivers and oil workers are not on the job. The former have been on a ten-day strike, while the latter are on a 72-hour strike. Both are angry with the government of Michel Temer. This government, they say, has mismanaged the economy and begun to privatise the crucial energy sector. High level of political awareness amongst these workers leads them to point their fingers at the Temer government and its cosy attitude towards international finance capital.

People’s movements against the neoliberal policies in Haiti

by Lautaro Rivara 

The Dawn News | May 30, 2018

On the morning of May 25th, a large group of people’s organizations of Haiti mobilized in the capital, Puerto Principe, demanding the fulfillment of an extension agenda of demands from the State and the president Jovenel Moïse.

Ten-Day Farmer Strike Begins; Food, Dairy Supplies May be Hit in North India

The Wire | June 01, 2018

Farmers in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, are demanding farm loan waivers and better prices for their produce. Credit: PTI

New Delhi: Farmers across north India began a ten-day strike on Friday (June 1), demanding higher minimum support price (MSP), assured income and complete loan waiver. As part of their protest, the farmers, will stop supplying vegetables, fruits and dairy products to cities in their region. The strike comes a year after the farmer protests of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra last year where six farmers in Mandsaur died in police firing.

Are You Paying Enough for Your Food?

by Danielle Nierenberg and Emily Payne

Inter Press Service | May 31, 2018

Credit: Bigstock

New Orleans, United States: Many factors contribute to the cost of a tomato. For example, what inputs were used (water, soil, fertiliser, pesticides, as well as machinery and/or labour) to grow it? What kind of energy and materials were used to process and package it? Or how much did transportation cost to get it to the shelf?

Eco-Marxism and deforestation

by Muzomuhle Ntuli

Pambazuka News | May 24, 2018

Mongabay.com

The article uses the Eco Marxist perspective to look at deforestation and the impact it has on Earth in terms of soil erosion, air pollution and the threat it places on plant and animal life.

1. Introduction

The world is changing. Many countries are modernising and adapting to new ways of living in the 21th century. Population growth is on the rise and there is a constant need for industrialisation and urbanisation in order to meet all the social and economic needs that come with modernity. Rapid demographic and technological changes have placed a lot of strain on the environment as a lot of plants and animal species are on the brink of extinction. All these changes, driven mostly by those who seek profit at all cost, have degraded nature’s ecosystems.

ARCHIVES: In honorable remembrance of Patrice Lumumba

The Last Letter of Patrice Lumumba
FIRST PUBLISHED ON 28 APR 2011 • REPUBLISHED 27 MAY 2018

NOTE: Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba’s government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis.^[1] He was subsequently imprisoned and murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States. Lumumba was barely 35 years old. ^[2][3] Source: WIKIFILE 

NOW THAT MILLIONS OF CLUELESS DEMOCRATS ARE HAPPILY COLLABORATING WITH THE CIA —OF ALL ENTITIES—TO FULFILL THEIR OBSESSION TO GET RID OF TRUMP,  IT’S WORTH RECALLING WHAT THE CIA DOES IN THIS WORLD.

Luis Posada Carriles, Hemisphere’s Most Wanted Terrorist, Dies Free in Miami at Age 90

by Brett Wilkins

The Greanville Post | May 28, 2018

Posada Carriles—an unreconstructed criminal reactionary. Why he once opposed Batista will remain a mystery.

Luis Posada Carriles, the most notorious and wanted terrorist in the Western Hemisphere — but one few Americans have ever heard of — has died a free man in Miami at age 90.

The Miami Herald reports Posada Carriles died peacefully in his sleep in a Hollywood, Florida hospital early on May 23 following a lengthy battle with throat cancer.

Journalists and academics expose UK’s criminal actions in the Middle East. BBC also exposed.

by Addison dePitt

The Greanville Post | May 31, 2018

“Government propaganda and the war on terror from 9/11 to Syria”

The current situation is simply a wholesale case of outrageous media malfeasance, created by the media owners in cahoots with the political class and the government, all working together to advance their main systemic goals while legitimating their rule. 

Communists across the world condemn US decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal

Morning Star | May 31, 2018

COMMUNISTS across the world have condemned the US for the “dangerous consequences” of its decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and its “escalation of aggression” in the region.

Marx ratio

by David Ruccio

Occasional Links and Commentary | May 29, 2018

First there was the Great Gatsby curve. Then there was the Proust index. Now, thanks to Neil Irwin, we have the Marx ratio.

Each, in their different way, attempts to capture the ravages of contemporary capitalism. But the Marx ratio is a bit different. It was published in the New York Times. Its aim is to capture one of the underlying determinants of the obscene levels of inequality in the United States today—not class mobility or the number of years of national income growth lost to the global financial crash. And, of course, it takes its name from that ruthless nineteenth-century critic of mainstream economics and capitalism itself.