Woke America News

2022-08-27 18:14:19 The Origin of Student Debt: Reagan Adviser Warned Free College Would Create a Dangerous “Educated Proletariat”
https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/ Open / Comment

2022-08-27 17:52:47 Open / Comment

2022-08-27 04:23:26 https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/no-help-for-the-homeless-indianapolis-to-criminalize-mutual-aid-distribution/ Open / Comment

2022-08-26 13:01:25 Nothing to see here, just far-right pedophiles calling queer people groomers to then promote policies consisting of inspecting children's genitals at any occasion and making sure that children's bulges are always visible. Completely normal. Open / Comment

2022-08-26 12:20:32 As Biden grabs headlines for debt forgiveness, it's a great time to read David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/special/statesofdamage/syllabus201516/graeber-debt_the_first_5000_years.pdf

Graeber argues that capitalism is founded on "the sacred principle that we must all pay our debts"—a principle that is enforced chiefly on the poor.

Debt itself is a social construct that enables the wealthy to accrue more and more social power at the expense of poor, while forcing all of us to put ourselves constantly at the disposal of an economy that is wrecking our lives and the biosphere itself. Open / Comment

2022-08-26 12:19:53 Well, critical support does mean that we are also critical, and we shall be so.

It seems that very recently Ukraine has signed into law a significant restriction on workers' rights in the form of the so-called Law 5371. While the bill itself has been in the making for the past year or so, last week Ukrainian government seems to have found sufficient excuse in the form of "war measures" to pass this bill. The bill gives businesses with less than 250 employees the ability to forfeit a large portion of labor protections previously enforced, which affects more than 70% of the workforce of Ukraine. It also negates protections from trade unions, in that they no longer are able to veto dismissals by businesses.

Proponents in UA government have said that this will reduce government red tape, inline with "Ukraine's free market ideals". On the other hand, this has been obviously opposed by unions in Ukraine who had previously urged Zelenskyy to veto the law — which he didn't. To a critical observer, this is just UA's more sinister and corrupt side showing. Ukraine didn't have a reputation of being a champion of democracy or workers' rights before the war, so this is very much inline with government's regular procedure. Obviously, this isn't a statement in support of Russia's invasion and warmongering, not at all. It is merely a statement of the reality of the situation; something that some more optimistic people might need a reminder of.

Source: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraine-draft-law-5371-workers-rights-war-russia/

http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb2/webproc4_1?pf3511=71653 Open / Comment

2022-08-26 12:18:50 Open / Comment

2022-08-26 00:03:26 Though this appeared on a list of "weird laws", it actually was created specifically because the state of Oregon has a higher Romani population compared to most states, and they wanted a way to fix their "problem" in a way that did not immediately seem racist. But, racism and anti-esotericism often go hand in hand, and this law is still used for that purpose.

The more you know. Open / Comment

2022-08-23 22:55:41 https://fxtwitter.com/Emmamae143/status/1562082142179540992 Open / Comment

2022-08-23 22:55:41 Reminder: the first books the Nazis burned were about LGBT folks. Open / Comment