Bits and Pieces - 01-11-2023

A New Year: The Same Old Story

Massive supplies of military weapons to Ukraine to “bleed Russia dry”; massive US/NATO naval exercises in the Pacific and an effective end to the One China policy; continued support for the Saudi war in Yemen; the final demise of the nuclear deal with Iran; massive increase in the Pentagon budget at home. And all of this overwhelmingly supported by forces across the political spectrum, with the exception of a few wingnuts on the right and an even smaller number of progressives on the left.

So as the Pentagon is set to receive a mind-boggling $858 billion for missiles, warships, drones, and bombs, we can’t find a measly $12 billion to slash poverty for the nation’s neediest children and their families? And forget money to deal with crises in the Global South, which immediately threaten the lives of millions of our fellow human beings, who have had no role in producing the policrises threatening us all.

Is there a pattern here, or am I just paranoid? Are the US and its allies across the pond resorting to tried-and-true reliance on military force in a desperate attempt to maintain hegemony? Isn’t that how empires in decline react? And isn’t it a very dangerous response at a time when both the declining empire and its rival(s) possess enough weapons to destroy each other and the rest of humanity?

 

From Richard (RJ) Eskow

“Vote, but don’t kid yourself.  Despite what the cliché says, it’s not immoral to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic. You could give a sick person a seat, for example, or move people away from the crashing waves. But the real goal is to save people’s lives, not just make them a little less uncomfortable as the catastrophe unfolds. That means getting them on the lifeboats — or, better yet, steering the boat away from the iceberg before a collision becomes unavoidable. 

We have to save ourselves. That means taking the helm, not just hoping for a smarter captain next time.”

 

And more from Richard

“The pandemic is just one reason why the average American lifespan got shorter again this year. Lifespans were getting shorter even before the pandemic. That doesn’t seem to upset the people in charge much, either. After all, the people in their circles are living as long as ever.

The takeaway? Some people are more expendable than others. It must be that “just in time” management we’ve heard so much about, where you don’t store any more of your raw materials than you think you’ll need.

Don’t think of it as death; think of it as inventory reduction.”

 

Time to get tough on Crime from Inequality.org

“Walmart CEO Doug McMillon wants lawmakers to get tough on crime. McMillon told CNBC last month that lenient sentences have shoplifting theft “higher than what it has historically been.” All this theft, he adds, may force Walmart to raise prices.

But FBI and National Retail Federation data, notes a Popular Information analysis, show no new pilfering tsunami. What is rising: Walmart quarterly revenue, up 9 percent in last year’s third quarter. Also doing quite nicely: CEO McMillon’s annual paycheck. The latest figures put his total pay at $25.7 million, well over 1,000 times the typical Walmart worker take-home.

So is McMillon just blowing pure smoke over a crime wave at Walmart? Not exactly. Walmart is seeing a crime wave. McMillon just has the wrong criminals in mind. Since 2000, Good Jobs First stats  reveal, Walmart has had to shell out $1.55 billion in penalties for cheating employees on the wage-and-hour front.”

While corporate crime is definitely on the rise, new data from the police department in my home town of Wilmington, NC shows that street crime in our neck of the woods is DOWN.

So instead of arming the police with the latest military weapons, let’s arm regulators and the IRS with the tools they need to fight this real crime wave.

And from Bernie Sanders

“The most important economic and political issues facing this country are the extraordinary levels of income and wealth inequality, the rapidly growing concentration of ownership, the long-term decline of the American middle class and the evolution of this country into oligarchy.”

(And, I would add, the control of the media and the political process by that concentrated wealth.)