Tag: hypocrisy

Democrats Introduce Legislation To Declare Racism A Public Health Crisis

A bill introduced on Thursday by Democratic lawmakers would classify racism as a nationwide public health crisis – requiring two wings within the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to address it, according to The Hill. 

The bill – Anti-Racism in Public Health Act – was crafted by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and House Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). It is co-sponsored by Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Tina Smith (D-MN).

“It is time we start treating structural racism like we would treat any other public health problem or disease: investing in research into its symptoms and causes and finding ways to mitigate its effects,” said Warren, who masqueraded as a different race for decades – potentially depriving actual Native Americans positions at liberal institutions.

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U.S. govt-linked PR firm ran fake news networks for right-wing Latin American regimes

Another CLS Strategies partner, Juan Cortiñas, boasted on the firm’s website that he has represented top right-wing leaders and major corporations in Latin America, including the Venezuelan opposition.

Since the fake news ring was exposed, however, CLS Strategies has edited its website to scrub some of these compromising materials, removing the bios of associates like Feierstein and Cortiñas.

This controversy underscores how US PR firms, elite Washington insiders, and foreign opposition groups work in tandem to promote right-wing regimes in Latin America while astroturfing opposition to democratically elected left-wing governments.

Given the extensive links CLS has to the Democratic Party, this scheme also highlights the bipartisan consensus around regime change and support for corrupt neoliberal leaders linked to death squads and drug trafficking.

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San Francisco gym owners livid after discovering gyms in government buildings have been opened for months

Gyms within government buildings in San Francisco have been open for months, despite privately owned establishments being ordered to close due to the coronavirus.

“It’s shocking, it’s infuriating,” Daniele Rabkin, of Crossfit Golden Gate, told a local NBC station. “Even though they’re getting exposed, there are no repercussions, no ramifications? It’s shocking.”

The gyms that have been open for government employees include those for police officers, judges, lawyers, bailiffs, and paralegals, according to the report. One such gym, the Hall of Justice gym, has been open since July 1.

“It just demonstrates that there seems to be some kind of a double standard between what city employees are allowed to do and what the residents of San Francisco are allowed to do,” Dave Karraker, owner of MX3 Fitness in the Castro, said.

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It’s Not “Just Property”: How Looting Destroys Lives And Low-Income Neighborhoods

It’s now become fashionable on the Left to defend looting as a means of redistributing wealth from allegedly unworthy business owners to the more-deserving looters themselves.

“It’s just property!” is the refrain, with the implication being that property owners should not defend their property with coercive means – such as calling in the police or using privately-owned weapons against looters.1

This is the philosophy behind a recent declaration from a Black Lives Matter organizer. As the New York Post reported on August 11 :

“I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci’s or a Macy’s or a Nike because that makes sure that that person eats. That makes sure that that person has clothes,” [BLM organizer] Ariel Atkins said at a rally outside the South Loop police station Monday, local outlets reported. …“That’s a reparation,” Atkins said.

A more full apologia for looting now comes in the form of a new book titled In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil, who identifies herself as “a writer, editor, and agitator based in Philadelphia.”

In an interview with National Public Radio, Osterweil states :

When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot …

…It tends to be an attack on a business, a commercial space, maybe a government building—taking those things that would otherwise be commodified and controlled and sharing them for free.

Osterweil then goes on to assert that looting is basically a poverty relief program, and it liberates the looters from having to work for a living:

It gets people what they need for free immediately, which means that they are capable of living and reproducing their lives without having to rely on jobs or a wage…

And most fundamentally of all, looting is an attack on private property itself. If only there were more looting, we could all “have things for free”:

[Looting] attacks the idea of property, and it attacks the idea that in order for someone to have a roof over their head or have a meal ticket, they have to work for a boss, in order to buy things that people just like them somewhere else in the world had to make under the same conditions. It points to the way in which that’s unjust. And the reason that the world is organized that way, obviously, is for the profit of the people who own the stores and the factories. So you get to the heart of that property relation, and demonstrate that without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free…

This sort of thing may seem convincing to those who prefer to live in the realm of pure theory. Big words like “commodify” and “oppression” might strike beginner-level dissidents as impressive. But once we start to look at the real-world details of how looting works, we quickly find that looting your local auto parts store or Nike outlet isn’t going to bring down Wall Street hedge funders any time soon. What it will do is hurt ordinary people who own businesses and work in shops that are targeted by looters. Moreover, once the smoke has cleared, we’ll find that low-income neighborhoods will suffer the most.

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