Mois : mai 2015

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin No. 1120, by Mike Treen, May 22, 2015.

Workers in the fast food industry in New Zealand scored a spectacular victory over what has been dubbed “zero hour contracts” during a collective agreement bargaining round over the course of March and April this year. The campaign played out over the national media as well as on picket lines. The victory was seen by many observers as the product of a determined fight by a valiant group of workers and their union, Unite. It was a morale boost for all working people after what has seemed like a period of retreat for working-class struggle in recent years.   Continuer la lecture de « How UNITE Took on the Fast Food Companies Over Zero Hour Contracts and Won »

… the World’s Most Evil Corporation – Published on Global Research.ca (first on Waking Times, 2 June 2014), by E Hanzai, May 20, 2015.

… 1920s: Monsanto expands into industrial chemicals and drugs, becoming the world’s largest maker of aspirin, acetylsalicyclic acid, (toxic of course). This is also the time when things began to go horribly wrong for the planet in a hurry with the introduction of their polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) … // Continuer la lecture de « The Complete History of Monsanto »

Published on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, May 19, 2015.

… Despite the neoliberal obsession with wage suppression, history suggests that such a policy is self-destructive. Periods of high wages are associated with rapid technological change. For example, after the scourge of the Black Death, which eliminated about a third of the population of Europe, the surviving workers were in a better bargaining position in terms of both wages earned and rents paid. Rapid technological change emerged as a means to cope with workers temporary advantage. The historian, Richard C. Allen, makes the case that wars in the late 18th century removed significant portion of the labor force, again creating higher wages. The combination of higher wages and the availability of cheap fossil fueled another burst of rapid technological change, which we now know as the Industrial Revolution.   Continuer la lecture de « The Dysfunctionality of Slavery and Neoliberalism – Michael Perelman »

Published on Counterpunch, by Bo Filter, May 15-17, 2015.

Don’t expect the concept of extinction or omnicide to roll off the lips of nuclear warriors. Their brains focus on the win-ability of nuclear war to the exclusion of all other possibilities. Let’s take a minute to examine the myopic mindset of nuclear strategists and what we should be doing about it … // Continuer la lecture de « Winning a Nuclear War? »

Published on Global Research.ca, by Jim Miles, MAy 17, 2015.

… There are some broad trends that should be obvious. Financially, the ‘western’ world is operating as a debt laden consumer society, competing with the rising strengths of China and Russia as co-leaders in an at best multi-polar world. Militarily, the U.S. and its allied NATO countries remain dominant, but that dominance is reckoned on the threats of a failed “full spectrum dominance” military, backed by an official first strike nuclear capability and policy. Continuer la lecture de « Over Reach of the Financial-Military Complex and the New Multi-Polar World Order »