Among the political and business elite there are, to my mind, fewer phrases more offensive than “labor shortage.”

For months now employers have been bemoaning such an alleged “labor shortage,” throughout the nation. This shortage of workers, business owners large and small insist, is due to the federal government’s “extravagant,” “overly generous” COVID-19 stimulus checks and unemployment compensation. “Nobody wants to work, anymore,” the business community sneers. It is a smug, right-wing phrase straight out of the Ronald Reagan “welfare-queen”-script. It has led to the proliferation of snarky signs posted at drive-thrus, such as this one.

The situation is so…

Friday marked the conclusion of Israel’s latest round of violent aggression against Palestine. The eleven-day bombardment of Gaza saw Israel destroy 40 schools, four hospitals, an Associated Press and Al-Jazeera newsroom, and at least 19 medical facilities including the city’s only COVID-19 testing site. In the end, 248 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children, compared to 12 Israelis. Yet the narrative we constantly hear from the corporate media is that “both sides” are to blame for the decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict.

Not a Symmetrical War

Let us be perfectly clear: Israel provoked the latest round of violence with its assault on…

The state of Florida has just outlawed peaceful protesting. The state’s “anti-rioting” bill, recently signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron “Who Needs Masks?” DeSantis, essentially criminalizes free speech and the right of citizens to assemble peaceably.

The new law classifies any public group of three or more people as a “riot.” And, most shocking of all, it grants legal immunity to any right-wing driver who intentionally rams their car into a group of peaceful protesters who happen to be blocking traffic. Under the new law, the driver is immune from criminal penalties even he or she kills a protester.

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Don’t be fooled by the latest media propaganda. U.S. troops will not be withdrawing from Afghanistan in September — or anytime soon, for that matter. The longest-running war in U.S. history remains a quagmire with no end in sight. President Joe Biden is unlikely to alter that reality.

Biden is Actually Delaying Troop Withdrawals

First, let’s get the facts straight. Contrary to the corporate media narrative, Biden has not negotiated a new timeline for U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan. Troops are already scheduled to leave the country by May 1, per a deal with the Taliban agreed to by Biden’s…

The retail behemoth Amazon has successfully crushed the unionization effort in Bessemer, Alabama. After a nearly two-week delay, preliminary results reported by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Friday found employees at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer voted 1,798 to 738 against unionization. That is a margin of two to one. The results have yet to be certified and could still be challenged by the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) given the illegal union-busting tactics Amazon employed.

The loss represents a major blow for the labor movement. Amazon is the nation’s second largest employer — right behind…

Spoiler Alert: It’s not. If anything, socialism is more compatible with our shared desires for cooperation, solidarity, and freedom.

One of the most frequent arguments people make against socialism is that it goes against “human nature.” People are “naturally greedy” and “competitive,” these detractors insist. As such, they argue, capitalism is best suited for human society as it “rewards greed.” Socialism, they lecture us, “sounds good in theory,” but would “never work” because of “human nature.”

War…? Humans are “naturally violent,” the right-wing detractors insist. Racism…? It is human nature to fear “outsiders.” Women’s oppression…? Men and women are “naturally different.” Indeed, if we are to accept these rigid, unchanging views of human nature, then any sort of endeavor…

It turns out the “lesser evil” is still, you know … evil.

As Joe Biden’s presidency passes the 50 day mark he has already made good on his central campaign promise: “Nothing will fundamentally change.” Sure, Biden is taking COVID-19 more seriously than his predecessor (which is to say, he is taking the pandemic seriously at all). But beyond that, “Middle Class Joe” has been as underwhelming and uninspiring as his anemic campaign portended.

Let’s briefly review the Biden/Harris administration’s actions (or, really, lack of actions) thus far:

· Migrant children are still being separated from their parents and thrown into concentration camps, err, I mean “family detention facilities.”

· The next…

Capitalist profit — not taxation — is the real theft that occurs every day in the workplace.

A co-worker recently lamented to me how much larger his paycheck would be if it were not for the government’s withdrawal of taxes. This is a common misconception among working-class people about why their wages are so low. The libertarian-right has been particularly influential in spreading this misinformation with its popular credo that “taxation is theft.”

‘Cause I’m the Tax Man

Let’s put aside for the time being the fact that this particular co-worker utilizes taxpayer-funded roads to travel to work every day. …