‘Let them die?’ Life expectancy collapses in the US

Zoltan Zigedy

Morning Star | January 13, 2023

IN the spirit of Jonathan Swift’s satirical tract A Modest Proposal, we might facetiously attribute the recent decline in US life expectancy to a concerted effort to strengthen the social safety net.

Politicians have been maintaining for decades that it would be necessary to reduce social security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits to keep the systems solvent.

Leaders of both political parties have urged cutting benefits, changing eligibility requirements or raising the already high age thresholds to preserve the reserves for future recipients.

Americans Unhappy And Wary With Their Country’s Course, Leaders And Future

 Countercurrents Collective | December 19, 2022

Most of the U.S. citizens are unhappy with the course of their country, their leaders, and the future, finds a new poll.

A report by USA Today (Unhappy new year? Poll finds Americans wary of the nation’s course, its leaders and its future ahead of 2023, Dec 19, 2022, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/12/18/poll-inflation-future-leaders-americans/10903538002/) said:

Americans are braced for an unhappy new year.

Two-thirds of respondents in a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll say the country has gotten off on the wrong track, and they express little confidence in either political party or any branch of government to effectively address the challenges they see ahead.

American Democracy: Buying and Selling Elections

Frank Scott

The Greanville Post | November 25, 2022

THIS was the most important election in American history, as was the previous one, the one before that, and all previous exercises of marketing that pose as democratic rule in our great example of how to fool most of the people most of the time. Of course, this election, as all others, cost more money than the previous marketing fiasco, when more than 14 billion dollars were spent on the 2020 purchase of the white house and Congress which rose to more than 16 billion for this cycle of shopping center lesser evilism that cost even more just to purchase Congress. Clearly, democracy survived its most serious assault in the history of marketing, at least according to our mind managers and consciousness controllers who make pimps and sex workers seem like poets of love. The only thing that is consistent in our one corrupt system with two corrupt parties is the rising profit margin as all manner of advertising, insurance, polling and other marketplace hustlers feast on the profits available in marketing capitalist democracy while claiming to stand for truth, beauty and other forms of mass hallucinations.

Joe Lombardo Interview: An Objective Look at U.S. Foreign Policy

John Rachel

 Peace Dividend | August 10, 2020

Events continue to unfold at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we asked Joe Lombardo for his most current thoughts.

We focus here on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real time, specifically addressing the role of the U.S. in the tensions and its capacity to reduce them. We are looking for paradigm-shift ideas for improving the prospects for peace. His responses below of are exactly as he provided.

Here is what Joe had to say:

Inside the US Supreme Court’s war on science

A new ultraconservative supermajority on the United States’ top court is undermining science’s role in informing public policy. Scholars fear the results could be disastrous for public health, justice and democracy itself.

Jeff Tollefson

Nature | September 14, 2022

Illustration by Sébastien Thibault

In late June, the US Supreme Court issued a trio of landmark decisions that repealed the right to abortion, loosened gun restrictions and curtailed climate regulations. Although the decisions differed in rationale, they share a distinct trait: all three dismissed substantial evidence about how the court’s rulings would affect public health and safety. It is a troubling trend that many scientists fear could undermine the role of scientific evidence in shaping public policy. Now, as the court prepares to consider a landmark case on electoral policies, many worry about the future of American democracy itself.

Interview: Paul Craig Roberts

An objective look at U.S. foreign policy

John Rachel

Dissident Voice | September 01, 2022

Events continue to unfold at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we asked Paul Craig Roberts for his current thoughts.

Paul Craig Roberts is a widely renowned political analyst.  He was Ass. Secretary for Economic Policy under President Ronald Reagan, associate editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal, and columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Ser vice.  His awe-inspiring insights, astute analysis, and developing views can be accessed at his Institute For Political Economy website.

We focus here on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real time, specifically addressing the role of the U.S. in the tensions and its capacity to reduce them. We are looking for paradigm-shift ideas for improving the prospects for peace. His responses below are exactly as he provided.

Here is what Paul Craig Roberts had to say.

Biden’s Student Loan Scam

The Dems would be unable to pull these foul tricks off without the full collaboration of black misleaders.

Margaret Kimberley

The Greanville Post | August 31, 2022

The Biden administration announcement of so-called student loan debt relief does little to alleviate the problem it claims to solve. Forgiving $20,000 for Pell grant holders and $10,000 for all who earn less than $125,000 is questionable for a variety of reasons. It is a midterm election bait and switch that pleases gullible democrats, helps only a minority of borrowers, and is nothing like what candidate Biden proposed during the 2020 campaign.

The United States has many political prisoners. Here’s a list

The US government holds many political prisoners, including journalists; national security state whistleblowers; Black, Indigenous, and Latino revolutionaries; foreign diplomats; Muslims detained without trial; women who defended themselves from attacks; and environmental activists.

Stansfield Smith

Multipolarista | August 9, 2022

Just a few of the political prisoners in the United States (from top-left to bottom-right): Mumia Abu-Jamal, Julian Assange, Alex Saab, Leonard Peltier, Joy Powell, Veronza Bowers

The United States constantly accuses its adversaries of holding political prisoners, while insisting it has none of its own. But for its entire history, the US government has used incarceration of its political opponents as a tool to crush dissent and advance the interests of economic elites.

Well-known cases are those entrapped or framed in US national security state sting operations, or imprisoned with extreme sentences for a minor offense because of their political activism, such as Black revolutionary George Jackson.

Each period of struggle by the working class and oppressed peoples against ruling-class control results in some activists locked up for their revolutionary work. “Political prisoner” has often meant those revolutionaries jailed for fighting their national oppression, as is the case with a great number of Black Panthers.

U.S.: ‘Whether You’re on the Supreme Court Shouldn’t Depend on How Many People You Give Your Phone Number to’

CounterSpin interview with Adele Stan and Elliot Mincberg on John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court

Janine Jackson revisited CounterSpin‘s July 2005 interview with Adele Stan and Elliot Mincberg about John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court for the July 8, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Janine Jackson

FAIR | July 14, 2022

Janine Jackson: “The Lonely Chief: How John Roberts Lost Control of the Court.” That was the plaintive headline of Politico’s June 25 report explaining that Roberts, along with his “middle of the road” approach on abortion, would likely be a casualty of the court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling.

In July of 2005, on the occasion of Roberts’ nomination to the court, CounterSpin host Steve Rendall and I spoke with journalist Adele Stan and with People for the American Way’s Elliot Mincberg about what was known then about Roberts’ record and what he might mean for the court. We’re going to start with my introduction.

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JJ: Many in the news media seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at the news that George Bush was nominating conservative Washington insider John Roberts to the Supreme Court. And not just the folks you’d expect, like Brit Hume at Fox News, who shared a chuckle with congressional correspondent Brian Wilson and White House reporter Carl Cameron when he noted that Bush had named a white male “just like all of us.”

Well, even while admitting that Roberts’ record is sketchy on some issues, many mainstream reporters seem to emphasize the reassurance that he is not a right wing trench dweller like some others who were thought to be on Bush’s short list of prospective nominees.

Gun Violence in U.S.: We know what the problem is

H. Holden Thorp

Science | May 26, 2022

America is reeling from yet another devastating spate of mass shootings. In the last 10 days, shooters have targeted a Taiwanese church in California, a grocery store in a Black neighborhood in New York, and an elementary school in Texas. Although opponents of sensible gun control—the kind that prevails throughout most of the civilized world—continue to put the spotlight on the shooters’ motivations or unstable mental states, these are cynical diversions from the one obvious truth: The common thread in all of the country’s revolting mass shootings is the absurdly easy access to guns. The science is clear: Restrictions work, and it’s likely that even more limitations would save thousands of lives. So why not take the laws much further, as other countries have done? The alternative is painfully obvious—living with more and more senseless carnage, courtesy of the National Rifle Association and their well-funded political lackeys.