As approximately 8,000 Marriott workers nationwide enter their second month on strike, protesting poor labor practices, some employees are speaking out about how the Marriott Employees’ Federal Credit Union exploits their hardship.
How Marriott’s Credit Union Swindles Its Low-Wage Workers TruthDig
Of the important global crops, the banana is the most genetically uniform. A single cluster of nearly identical genotypes, the Cavendish subgroup, nearly monopolizes the world’s banana groves and banana trade. In contrast to the riotous rainbow of genetic diversity that lends sustainability to natural plant and animal populations, the world’s banana industry has the stability of an upside-down Egyptian pyramid balanced on its tip.
What’s Wrong with Bananas Nautilus
There has been a fall in the rate of profit in 2017 from 24.4% in 2016 to 23.9% in 2017. Indeed, the US rate of profit on this measure has now fallen for three consecutive years from a post-crash peak in 2014. This suggests that the recovery in profitability since the Great Recession low in 2009 is over. The AK measure confirms Marx’s law in that there has been a secular decline in the US rate of profit since 1946 (25%) and since 1965 (30%).
The US rate of profit in 2017 Michael Roberts
Workers in the berry fields of the United States and Mexico have the same transnational employers. Now, farmworker unions in those two nations have begun to work together.
The cross-border farmworker rebellion David Bacon
The U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon have quietly agreed on the outlines of an offensive cyberattack that the United States would unleash if Russia electronically interferes with the 2018 midterm election on Nov. 6, according to current and former senior U.S. officials who are familiar with the plan.
The Pentagon Has Prepared a Cyberattack Against Russia Center for Public Integrity
A long-awaited plan for the Department of Homeland Security to detain thousands of immigrants at Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base is imminent
“This is just another example of the politicization of DOD [the Department of Defense] and the use of DOD to carry out the kinetic component of an anti-immigrant propaganda campaign,” said Paul Yingling, a retired Army colonel and heralded Iraq veteran who has become increasingly outspoken against anti-immigrant fervor. “There is no legitimate reason to intern these families from a national security perspective. Instead, as with border operations, this internment is a political stunt. It fuels anti-immigrant hatred as part of the administration’s midterm electoral strategy.”
As Caravan Advances, Pentagon Prepares to Use Two Bases for Migrant Detention Daily Beast
The White House will no longer appease “dictators and despots” in Latin America, National Security Adviser John Bolton said in a Miami speech that welcomed new right-leaning leaders and put three leftist governments on notice.
Referring to Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as the “Troika of Tyranny,” Bolton blamed them for causing “immense” human suffering and regional instability in the countries, and fostering communism in the region.
He called the leaders of those countries “clowns” and said the United States “looks forward to watching” their governments fall.
Bolton: U.S. will no longer appease ‘Troika of Tyranny’ in Latin America McClatchy
Reading the horrified reactions to the bloody attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, one has the impression that the assault was carried out by a crazed individual operating from the most deranged fringe of America’s alt-right: a product of the brutal politics of Donald Trump and social media run amok. The fact is that, though America would dearly love to forget it, anti-Semitism has long been deeply embedded in the U.S.
The Long, Ugly History of American Antisemitism Counterpunch
Armed federal agents temporarily shut down an international border crossing on the U.S.-Mexico border this week in preparation for a caravan of poor, unarmed migrants who are 1,500 miles away.
DHS Agents in Riot Gear Close U.S.-Mexico Border for Caravan That’s 1,500 Miles Away Daily Beast
The Old Mole 