The Music of Malcolm X
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-music-of-malcolm-x

The Evidence Keeps Pouring In: Capitalism Just Isn’t Working
Published on
Monday, August 24, 2015
by Common Dreams

Paul Buchheit
62 Comments

(Photo: Jonny White/cc/flickr)

To followers of Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan, and to all the business
people who despise government, ‘community’ is a form of ‘communism.’
Even taking the train is too communal for them. Americans have been
led to believe that only individuals matter, that every person should
fend for him/herself, that “winner-take-all” is the ultimate goal,
and that the winners have no responsibility to others.

To the capitalist, everything is a potential market. Education,
health care, even the right to water. But with every market failure
it becomes more clear that basic human rights can’t be bought and
sold like cars and cell phones. The pursuit of profit, when essential
needs are part of the product, means that not everyone will be able
to pay the price. Some will be denied those essential needs.

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Global Failures

Capitalism hasn’t been able to control runaway global inequality. For
every $1.00 owned by the world’s richest 1% in 2011, they now own
$1.27. They own almost half the world’s wealth. Just 70 of them own
as much as 3.5 billion people.

Capitalism has not been able — or willing — to control the “race to
the bottom” caused by “free trade,” as mid-level jobs continue to be
transferred to low-wage countries.

Nor has capitalism been able to control global environmental
degradation, with trillions in subsidies going to polluters that
don’t even pay their taxes, and with corporations ignoring any
semblance of social responsibility as they seek ways to profit from
global warming.

Job Creation Failures I

With or without globalization, middle-class jobs are disappearing,
even higher-end positions in financial analysis, medical diagnosis,
legal assistance, and journalism. Artificial intelligence is making
this happen. Millions of Americans have had a role in the great
American productivity behind this technological takeover, but
capitalism allows only an elite few of us to reap the disproportional
profits.

Reports of job recovery are based on low-income jobs, many of them
part-time. Layoffs are cutting into the military and technology.
Gallup discounted Wall Street’s job-creating ability. As noted by
former Wall Street Journal Associate Editor Paul Craig Roberts, the
US rate of unemployment is 23 percent when long-term discouraged
job-seekers are included. That’s close to the unemployment rate of
the Great Depression.

Job Creation Failures II

Closely related to employment woes is the collapse of corporate
investment in new product R&D, from 40 cents per dollar in the 1970s
to 10 cents now. CEOs are choosing instead to spend almost all of
their profits on buybacks and dividends to enrich investors.

Health Care Failures

The capitalist profit motive allows the cost of a hepatitis pill that
costs $10 in Egypt to sell for $1,000 in the United States, and the
cost of a blood test to range from $10 to $10,000 in two California
hospitals (a 100,000% markup at the second hospital).

Patent abuse is one of the factors making this possible.
Pharmaceutical companies can tweak a drug with a minor change to
create a “brand new” drug with a new patent.

Another health-related scam that affects most of us is bottled water.
According to Food & Water Watch, about half of it is filtered tap
water with fancy names, as evidenced in one case by an actual “tap
water” label on a company’s product. Yet with the demise of community
water fountains, and the barrage of advertising for “safe and pure”
drinking water, unsuspecting Americans pay dearly: for the price we
pay for a bottle of water we would be able to fill up that bottle a
thousand times with tap water.

Housing Failures

Because of the “invisible hand” of the free market, in just 35 years
the investment wealth of the super-rich has gone from 15% of
middle-class housing to almost 200% of middle-class housing.

Education Failures

A remarkable story of privatization failure is told in the story of
charter schools in Florida, where Jeb Bush still holds dear to his
delusions of free-market educational success.

That’s just one example. In general, charters are riddled with fraud
and identified with a lack of transparency that leads to even more
fraud. Since 2001 nearly 2,500 charter schools have been forced to
close their doors, leaving over a quarter-million schoolchildren
between one bad business decision and the next. A report from PR
Watch summarizes the billions of dollars spent on charters without
accountability to the public.

Disposable Americans

Chris Hedges wrote: “Human life is of no concern to corporate
capitalists. The suffering of the Greeks, like the suffering of
ordinary Americans, is very good for the profit margins of financial
institutions such as Goldman Sachs.”

People become meaningless in a successful capitalist system.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 3.0 License

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut
Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational
websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and
the editor and main author of “American Wars: Illusions and
Realities” (Clarity Press). He can be reached at
paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

Art by Antonio Guerrero, one of the Cuban 5

The leader of the Cuban Revolution insists that we will never stop struggling for peace and the well-being of all human beings, for every inhabitant on the planet regardless of skin color or national origin.

Writing is a way to be useful if you believe that our long-suffering humanity must be better, and more fully educated, given the incredible ignorance in which we are all enveloped, with the exception of researchers who in the sciences seek satisfactory answers. This is a word which implies in a few letters its immense content.

All of us in our youth heard talk at some point about Einstein, in particular after the explosion of the atomic bombs which pulverized Hiroshima and Nagasaki, putting an end to the cruel war between the United States and Japan.

When those bombs were dropped, after the war unleashed by the attack on the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese Empire had already been defeated. The United States, whose territory and industries remained removed from the war, became the country with the greatest wealth and the best weaponry on Earth, in a world torn apart, full of death, the wounded and hungry.

The Soviet Union and China together lost more than 50 million lives, along with enormous material damage. Almost all of the gold in the world landed in the vaults of the United States. Today it is estimated that the entirety of this country’s gold reserves reached 8,133.5 tons of this metal. Despite that, tearing up the Bretton Woods accords they signed, the United States unilaterally declared that it would not fulfill its duty to back the Troy ounce with the value in gold of its paper money.

The measure ordered by Nixon violated the commitments made by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. According to a large number of experts on the subject, the foundation of a crisis was created, which among other disasters threatens to powerfully batter the economy of this model of a country. Meanwhile, Cuba is owed compensation equivalent to damages, which have reached many millions of dollars, as our country has denounced throughout our interventions in the United Nations, with irrefutable arguments and facts.

As has been expressed with clarity by Cuba’s Party and government, to advance good will and peace among all the countries of this hemisphere and the many peoples who are part of the human family, and thus contribute to the survival of our species in the modest place the universe has conceded us, we will never stop struggling for peace and the well-being of all human beings, for every inhabitant on the planet regardless of skin color or national origin, and for the full right of all to hold a religious belief or not.

The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food, security, culture, science, and wellbeing, that is, the same rights we proclaimed when we began our struggle, in addition to those which emerge from our dreams of justice and equality for all inhabitants of our world, is what I wish for all. To those who share all or part of these same ideas, or superior ones along the same lines, I thank you, dear compatriots.

Fidel Castro Ruz

August 13, 2015

1:23 a.m.

AfricaFocus Bulletin
August 3, 2015 (150803)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

Coal is the most damaging of fossil fuels, both for human health and
for the planet. Although it still dominates in some countries,
including South Africa, the case against coal is rapidly gaining
ground around the world. On business grounds as well, coal is losing
its competitive advantage. 2015, many are suggesting, may be the
beginning of the end for coal.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clim1508.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
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President Obama’s just released Clean Power Plan, if implemented,
will accelerate the rate of closure of coal plants in the United
States. Even the world’s largest producer of coal, China, is
reducing its coal imports and has started to curb its
overwhelming dependence on coal for industrial growth.

Yet these efforts, and the sum of commitments on reducing carbon
emissions made by countries before the Paris climate change summit
this December, still fall short of that needed to protect the planet
as well as the health of those affected by air pollution.

Just released on web: “Must-watch” 1/2 hour video from GroundWork
(South Africa) and Friends of the Earth. “The Bliss of Ignorance” –
on damage to health and environment from South Africa’s addiction to
coal. View at https://vimeo.com/111593436

This AfricaFocus contains a roundup of AfricaFocus Bulletins over
the the last year on climate change and the environment, covering a
range of topics related to this issue, including the divestment
movement, progress in renewable energy, the still enormous gap
between international rhetoric and action in both financing and
action to stem climate justice, and the disproportionate effects of
failure to act on Africa in particular.

For more on “The End of Coal?,” see the Storify compilation of links
by AfricaFocus Bulletin: https://storify.com/wminter/the-end-of-coal

Other recent articles of interest:

“Fact Sheet: President Obama to Announce Historic Carbon Pollution
Standards for Power Plants,” White House, August 3, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/nzjl5qh

Washington Post, August 2, 2015 – summary preview of Obama Clean
Power Plan, including limits on coal emissions
http://tinyurl.com/nmggmuw

Munyaradzi Makoni, “One Tune, Different Hymns – Tackling Climate
Change in South Africa,” Inter Press Service, August 2, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/o8oxt2a

“Can technology free developing countries from light poverty?,” The
Guardian, July 30, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/oj3ybw7

Kofi Annan on CNN: “Africa does little to pollute our world, but
will pay the highest price,” Augusst 3, 2015
http://tinyurl.com/ng3h8bj

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Announcement

AfricaFocus Bulletin publication break. Publication will resume in
early September. Website, Facebook page (
http://www.facebook.com/AfricaFocus), and other social media will
continue to be updated occasionally during the break.

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

AfricaFocus Bulletin: Climate Change and the Environment

For updated page visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php.

Talking Points

* Global warming and environmental damage from the fossil-fuel
industry already affect all of us, although responsibility lies
primarily with the rich industrialized countries and the newly
industrializing powers. Africa is the most vulnerable continent, but
extreme weather and sea-level rise have hit New Orleans and New
Jersey as well as Lagos.

* When industries make decisions based on short-term profits,
encouraged by government subsidies to established industries, they
systematically discount damages from “externalities.” Visible
results include the devastation of oil-producing areas in the Niger
Delta and of coal-producing areas, whether in South Africa or West
Virginia. The longer-term consequences in rising temperatures and
more extreme weather will be even more devastating.

* Action to combat climate change depends in part on decisions made
in international conferences, where the primary obstacles to action
are the rich countries and the newly industrializing powers. But
efforts at many other levels are also of decisive importance.
Fossil-fuel divestment campaigns, as they grow and multiply, can
affect investment choices. So can technological innovation. Notably,
clean energy can already be more cost-effective than large-scale
fossil fuel plants in supplying distributed energy access to Africa.

Bulletins on climate change and the environment

August 2014 – July 2015

July 6, 2015  Africa/Global: People’s Test on Climate
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clim1507.php

With less than six months before this year’s UN Climate Change
conference in Paris, it is clear that commitments by governments to
action on climate change will fall short of that necessary to keep
global warming under the internationally agreed target of 2 degrees
Celsius, despite recent new pledges by the United States, Brazil,
and China (http://tinyurl.com/qhtfdk9; http://tinyurl.com/q8g3srl).
But, beyond national governments, there are signs of growing
momentum for more rapid “transformational” action. Particularly
notable is the recognition that such action must simultaneously
address economic inequality and development as well as the natural
environment.

May 18, 2015  Africa/Global: Decarbonizing Development?
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/wb1505.php

Decarbonizing Development, a new report from the World Bank, lays
out a target of “zero carbon future” by the end of the century. The
target year goal is the most conservative of the options laid out
for negotiations in the climate summit in Paris in December. Such a
long transition can rightly be criticized by climate activists and
scientists as falling far short, as can the Bank’s own record of
continued support for fossil fuels implicitly faulted in this
report.

May 5, 2015  Africa/Global: Renewables Gaining Ground
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/ren1505.php

“A key feature of 2014 was the continuing spread of renewable energy
to new markets. Investment in developing countries, at $131.3
billion, was up 36% on the previous year and came the closest ever
to overhauling the total for developed economies, at $138.9 billion,
up just 3% on the year. Indonesia, Chile, Mexico, Kenya, South
Africa and Turkey were all in the billion-dollar-plus club in 2014
in terms of investment in renewables.” – UNEP / Bloomberg New Energy
Finance

March 30, 2015  South Africa: Energy Futures Contested
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/sa1503.php

The energy crisis in South Africa, with regular “load-shedding” due
to shortages of power from the monopoly utility Eskom, is now at the
top of the political agenda, featuring in President Jacob Zuma’s
State of the Nation Address in February and in ongoing disputes
about who is responsible and when the situation can be fixed. The
long-term strategy to exit the crisis and begin a transition to a
sustainable energy system is also marked by strong disagreements
between utility and government officials and their critics.

March 10, 2015  Africa/Global: Falling Short on Climate Finance
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clim1503.php

Africa, the continent with warming deviating most rapidly from
“normal” conditions, could see climate change adaptation costs rise
to US$50 billion per year by 2050, even assuming international
efforts keep global warming below 2 degrees C this century,
according to a new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
report.

March 3, 2015  East Africa: Water, Wind, and Lake Turkana
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/turk1503.php

Lake Turkana, in the far northwest of Kenya and extending over the
border into Ethiopia, is the world’s largest desert lake, in a
region that is central to archaeological investigation into the
origin of humanity. It is now also central to two different projects
for expanding renewable energy due to come on-line in the next three
years, one based on hydropower and the other on wind. While both
will significantly expand the input to the East African power grid,
critics charge that expansion of hydropower on Ethiopia’s Omo River
also poses serious threats to the livelihood of local people both
around Lake Turkana and upstream along the Omo River.

February 11, 2015  Africa/Global: Archbishop Tutu on Fossil-Fuel
Divestment http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/clim1502.php

“The destruction of the earth’s environment is the human rights
challenge of our time. … The most devastating effects are visited
on the poor, those with no involvement in creating the problem. A
deep injustice. Just as we argued in the 1980s that those who
conducted business with apartheid South Africa were aiding and
abetting an immoral system, today we say nobody should profit from
the rising temperatures, seas and human suffering caused by the
burning of fossil fuels.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu

December 15, 2014  Africa/Global: Postponing Climate Decisions
http://www.africafocus.org/docs14/clim1412.php

“It was not hard for me to make the connection between the tragedy
in Ferguson, Missouri, and the catalyst for my work to stop the
climate crisis. … In the wake of the climate disaster that was
Hurricane Katrina almost ten years ago, I saw the same images of
police, pointing war-zone weapons at unarmed black people with their
hands in the air. … When crisis hits, the underlying racism in our
society comes to the surface in very clear ways.” – Deirdre Smith,
350.org, August 20, 2014

November 11, 2014  Africa/Global: Fossil-Fuel Divestment Growing
http://www.africafocus.org/docs14/cc1411b.php

The latest international scientific statement on the disastrous and
potentially irreversible damage from climate change is unambiguous,
as is the imperative for drastic action to curb greenhouse gas
emissions. But political obstacles to moving from rhetoric to action
are virtually unchanged, despite massive demonstrations coinciding
with the UN climate summit in late September. The dispersed fossil-
fuel divestment movement, however, although still too small to curb
the industry, is growing rapidly.

November 11, 2014  Africa/Global: Climate Change Summary Report
http://www.africafocus.org/docs14/cc1411a.php

“The world’s top scientists and governments have issued their
bluntest plea yet to the world: Slash carbon pollution now (at a
very low cost) or risk ‘severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts
for people and ecosystems.’ Scientists have ‘high confidence’ these
devastating impacts occur ‘even with adaptation’ — if we keep doing
little or nothing.” – Joe Romm, Editor, Climate Progress

September 22, 2014  Africa: Climate Action & Economic Growth
http://www.africafocus.org/docs14/clim1409.php

It is still conventional wisdom to pit action to curb climate change
against economic growth. But the evidence is rapidly accumulating
that this is a false dilemma, buttressed by vested interests in the
fossil fuel industry and a simplistic concept of economic growth.
According to a report just released by the Global Commission on the
Economy and Climate, falling prices for renewable energy and careful
analysis of both costs and benefits of low-carbon vs. high-carbon
investment strategies point to a clear conclusion: saving the planet
and saving the economy go hand in hand.

August 18, 2014  Africa: From Kerosene to Solar
http://www.africafocus.org/docs14/sol1408.php

The largest marketer of solar lamps in Africa, which recently passed
the one million mark in lamps sold, has set an ambitious target for
the industry. “Our mission is to eradicate the kerosene lamp from
Africa by the end of this decade,” proclaims Solar Aid. Although
achieving this goal would require the pico-solar market to emulate
mobile phone industry’s exponential growth path, it may not be as
utopian as it sounds. According to market research company Navigant
Research, “Off-grid solar lighting for base of the pyramid (BOP)
markets, the leading solar PV consumer product segment, is
transitioning from a humanitarian aspiration to big business.”

*****************************************************

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providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
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