World Bank exists to serve American interest?

by Jonathan Mensah

Pambazuka News | October 12, 2017

Daily News

It is hard to make a case for continued support of the World Bank. Serving America’s national security and diplomatic interest is not persuasive for the remaining 189 member countries of the Bank. It is not even persuasive for Americans.

The World Bank, which receives tens of billions of dollars from the US in hard cash and guarantees, has been facing strong criticism in the US challenging its existence. In the August 10, 2017 issue of The Hill (a conservative American newspaper), Shermichael Singleton (a conservative political analyst) wrote a damaging piece titled, “Is liberalism the key to fighting global poverty? Or does it cause it?”

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USA Today: “20,000 DACA Teachers at Risk — and Your Kids Could Feel the Fallout, Too”

America’s Voice | October 13, 2017

WASHINGTON – A USA Today story, “20,000 DACA teachers at risk — and your kids could feel the fallout, too,” highlights the fact that DACA recipients work in many different jobs that help Americans – including teaching children in our nation’s classrooms. This is yet another reason why Congress must act with urgency to resolve Dreamers’ status.  Excerpts below: 

US: Rigged democracy: Supreme Court tackles gerrymandering

by MARK GRUENBERG

People’s World | October 05, 2017

Shirley Connuck, right, of Falls Church, Va., holds up a sign representing a district in Texas, as the Supreme Court hears a case on possible partisan gerrymandering by state legislatures on October 3. | Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call via AP

WASHINGTON—Ever since the early 1800s, U.S. politicians have practiced gerrymandering, the long and dishonorable practice of lawmakers drawing legislative districts to entrench themselves and their party in power. And ever since the mid-1900s, the Supreme Court has ducked the issue of throwing out such crazy puzzles, unless the gerrymander was racially motivated.

Fluoride: Unprecedented Lawsuit Set to End Water Fluoridation in the US

Alternative News Network | October 02, 2017

A coalition of environmental, medical, and health groups have joined forces in a huge, unprecedented lawsuit that is suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban artificial water fluoridation.

The groups behind the breakthrough case have served the EPA with a petition that includes more than 2,500 pages of scientific documentation on the dangers of fluoride in the water supply, detailing the risks to human health.

Among the research presented in the study, is new evidence that quantifies fluoride’s potential to lower IQ in children. With over 100 animal studies and over 50 human studies now documented proving fluoride’s neurotoxicity, the U.S. government has been prompted to fund a series of new studies.

This Labor Day the Struggle Continues

by Bernie Sanders

Commondreams.org | September 04, 2017

(Photo: sanders.senate.gov)

Labor Day was established in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, as a concession to the labor movement days after he used federal troops to crush a strike by railroad workers which resulted in 30 deaths and some $80 million in property damages. Workers then, and workers now, were fighting for decent wages and working conditions and the end of human exploitation.

US: The Healthcare Sector is Growing, But Workers Aren’t Sharing in the Gains

 Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) | September 06, 2017

WASHINGTON – The healthcare sector is one of the most important sources of jobs in the economy. Healthcare spending reached $3.2 trillion in 2015, or 17.8 percent of GDP, and accounted for 12.8 percent of private sector jobs. It was also the only industry that consistently added jobs during the Great Recession, and grew 20 percent between 2005 and 2015. Despite this growth, wages have either declined or been stagnant over the past decade for healthcare workers in hospitals and outpatient centers.

US: The Coastal Elite Is Real. I’m Part of It.

by Linda Tirado

There’s a thing that happens in any social movement where the people who are negatively impacted by something attempt to articulate the unquantifiable, and people with privilege pretend there’s no problem at all. That’s what privilege is: The state of being comfortable enough to not notice.

We are running into this problem with the word “elitism.” Editors who normally love my pitches won’t publish an article about it. If I use the word online, I will immediately be deluged with people arguing that there is no such thing at all, or that it’s a figment of the GOP’s imagination. Elitism is hard to prove, because it’s not an event. It’s a mood and a tone. It is an undercurrent, oft-mentioned and never examined. It is a thing that I know because I am myself elite these days, though I never was before.

As Arkema plant burns, six things we know about petrochemical risks in the wake of Harvey

by GRETCHEN GOLDMAN

 Union of Concerned Scientists by Gretchen Goldman | August 31, 2017

As Harvey continues to wreak havoc in the Southeast, one issue is starting to emerge as a growing threat to public health and safety: Houston’s vast oil, gas, and chemical production landscape. We’ve already seen accidental releases of chemicals at facilities owned by ExxonMobil, Chevron, and others. Now we are seeing explosions at Arkema’s Crosby facility 20 miles northeast of Houston, due to power failures and flooding. And there remains a threat of additional explosions.

I Didn’t Know I Was Poor Until I Applied to College

by  Christine Tran

As a kid, I divided rich and poor into two categories: Rich people have big houses and fancy cars, and poor folks have nothing. Measuring myself against those extremes, I felt like I didn’t fit in either.

Growing up, I didn’t have video games or cable TV, but I had a yard where I could make mud pies. To my parents’ dismay, I once tried to dig a hole in that yard that went all the way to China. To my parents’ joy, I used that same yard to pick white daisies to demonstrate capillary action of water in plants. My project—adding color to the white flowers by sticking them in empty spaghetti sauce jars of food dye and water—won a blue ribbon in my fifth-grade science fair.

Venezuela to Donate $5m to Hurricane Harvey Relief

by RYAN MALLETT-OUTTRIM

VENEZUELANALYSIS.COM | August 31, 2017

(Adrees Latif/Reuters)

Puebla, Mexico, August 31, 2017 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela announced Wednesday it will donate US$5 million to aid recovery efforts in the US states of Texas and Louisiana, which have been battered by the country’s worst hurricane in decades.

“Let’s not allow war or threats to be imposed, but instead let’s impose solidarity. We will always be with the people of the United States and the peoples of the world in difficult times,” Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said.