https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtO29j9n-L8
Sunday, August 29, 2021
STRIKE AT PORTLAND NABISCO BAKERY SPREADS TO FIVE OTHER FACILITIES
By Jamie Goldberg,
Oregon Live.
August 27, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/strike-at-ne-portland-nabisco-bakery-spreads-to-5-other-facilities/
Oregon – A strike that began at the Nabisco bakery in Northeast Portland on Aug. 10 has spread to five other facilities across the United States and gained national attention with both politicians and celebrities voicing support for the workers.
Workers at the Nabisco distribution center in Norcross, Georgia, on Monday became the latest group of employees to go on strike. Approximately 1,000 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers union are now on strike across six Nabisco bakeries and distribution centers nationwide.
The strike began in Portland earlier this month when about 200 workers walked off the job after Mondelez International, the parent company of Nabisco, proposed scheduling changes during contract negotiations that workers say would limit overtime pay and proposed providing new hires with a more costly healthcare plan. The new offer comes after the company eliminated its pension plan in 2018.
Mondelez International said in a statement that it was disappointed with the strike and felt it had proposed a competitive offer that would set up the “U.S. bakeries for future investment and long-term success.”
Laurie Guzzinati, a spokesperson for Mondelez, said production is continuing at the facilities where workers are on strike and the company doesn’t anticipate any disruption in the distribution of Oreos, Chips Ahoy and the other cookies and crackers that Nabisco produces.
The growing strike, however, has drawn national attention and support from democratic politicians, and at least one celebrity.
Actor Danny DeVito indicated last week that he would boycott Nabisco products until the demands of workers are met. He tweeted “NO CONTRACTS. NO SNACKS” — a slogan that has now become commonplace at the 24-hour picket line outside the Northeast Portland bakery. In a tweet last week, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called on Mondelez to treat its workers with “dignity and respect.”
Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan spoke at a rally organized by the workers last week and Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, plans to join workers on the picket line this weekend. The Oregon Legislative Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Caucus, as well as Oregon’s U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden and U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer each sent letters this week to Dirk Van de Put, CEO of Mondelez International, voicing support for the striking workers.
“As the pandemic rages on and we continue to ask the most of our essential workforce, we reject race-to-the-bottom employment practices,” Merkley, Wyden and Blumenauer wrote.
Cameron Taylor, a business agent at Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers Local 364 in Portland, said the union met with Modelez this week, but negotiations remain stalled. Still, he said his members have been encouraged by the response they’ve seen.
“It’s gained traction and sparked a response from people that’s kind of surprising,” Taylor said. “It’s our fight, but I think it’s kind of struck a nerve with the public.”
Rep. Wlnsvey Campos, D-Aloha, a member of the BIPOC caucus, said that advocates have to stand in solidarity with frontline workers, like those at the Nabisco factories, who have been asked to work long hours and risk their health during the pandemic, and too often have not received the respect and compensation they deserve.
“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen the sacrifices of frontline workers and particularly with this strike we’ve heard stories of workers who have been working brutal hours, some 12 days in a row,” Campos said. “All the while, Nabisco has been sending their jobs elsewhere, they have been looking for ways to reduce their pay and benefits.”
The strike comes on the heels of Nabisco shutting down factories in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, and Atlanta earlier this summer.
Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International President Anthony Shelton accused Nabisco in a statement earlier this month of closing the bakeries with union jobs and sending them to Mexico. Mondelez said no work was sent to Mexico as a result of the factory closures this summer.
THE ‘WAR ON TERROR’ SCAM CONTINUES
By Caitlin Johnstone,
Caitlin's Newsletter.
August 27, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/the-war-on-terror-scam-continues/
ISIS has reportedly claimed credit for an explosion near Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. As of this writing there are around 90 dead including 13 US military personnel, though to read western mainstream media reports you’d think only US troops died and not scores of Afghans as well.
This was the deadliest attack in a decade on US troops in Afghanistan, which is odd to think about considering how many people the US military has killed during that time; just between January and July of this year the war killed 1,659 civilians. The way the US war machine has shifted to relying more on highly profitable missiles and bombs and unmanned aircraft to avoid the bad PR of flag-draped bodies flying home on jets is making the murder of foreigners a safer profession than working at a convenience store.
Because US military casualties of this size have become more rare despite their being spread throughout the world in nations whose people don’t want them there, news of those 13 deaths is being met with shock and astonishment instead of being regarded as a very normal part of foreign military occupations. People are acting like these were mall cops in Ohio and not military forces overseeing the tail end of a 20-year war overseas, and pundits and politicians are demanding more bombs and more military interventionism in response to people on the other side of the world attacking them in their own country.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell released a statement calling on the US to “redouble our global efforts” in the war on terror in response to the attack, seizing the opportunity to promote more “we fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here” nonsense.
“Terrible things happen when terrorists are allowed to operate freely. This murderous attack offers the clearest possible reminder that terrorists will not stop fighting the United States just because our politicians grow tired of fighting them,” McConnell said. “I remain concerned that terrorists worldwide will be emboldened by our retreat, by this attack, and by the establishment of a radical Islamic terror state in Afghanistan. We need to redouble our global efforts to confront these barbarian enemies who want to kill Americans and attack our homeland.”
Yep, yeah, that makes sense Mitch. My neighbor attacked me when she caught me in her house at night going through her valuables. This proves she’s always wanted to attack me in my home. I need to go fight her over there so I don’t have to fight her here.
What the US actually needs to do is get the absolute fuck out of the entire region and stop creating more and more violent extremists with insane acts of mass military violence for power and profit. The very last institution on earth who should be trying to do something about ISIS is the institution whose actions created ISIS in the first place.
But of course acting in accordance with that self-evident fact is too much to ask of the US government, and Biden has announced that he has ordered his commanders “to develop operational plans to strike ISIS-K assets, leadership and facilities.”
So the US war machine will continue to rain down highly profitable explosives upon Afghanistan for as long as it likes, using this attack as justification for more military operations instead of taking it as yet another sign that what it has been doing is not working and keeps making things worse.
Step 1: Destroy nations, kill millions and displace tens of millions in military interventions for power and profit.
Step 2: Wait for some of those people to hate you and want to fight back.
Step 3: Use their desire to fight back as justification to repeat Step 1.
The “war on terror” is the greatest scam ever invented.
Afghanistan Vet Worried By Biden's Response To Kabul Blast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOUMVBLd1hw
DECLINE AND FALL OF THE US EMPIRE
By Mnar Adley,
Mintpress News.
August 27, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/decline-and-fall-of-the-us-empire/
Lawrence Wilkerson Discusses Afghanistan Pull-Out.
As The National Conversation On Afghanistan Turns To What The Country’s Future Holds, Adley And Wilkerson Have A Frank Discussion About The U.S. Empire, War Profiteers And The Status Of The War On Terror.
After 20 years of war and occupation that have caused the deaths of almost a quarter of a million people and displaced 5.9 million more, the United States appears to have finally (tacitly) admitted defeat in Afghanistan, pulling its forces and representatives out of the country.
The U.S.-installed government fell within days, with President Ashraf Ghani escaping to the United Arab Emirates, reportedly with $169 million in cash stuffed in his suitcases. Ghani’s departure is illustrative of the extraordinary grift of the entire operation. Overall, the U.S. spent well over $2 trillion on the Afghanistan War, making weapons contractors and construction agencies in the Washington, D.C. suburbs extremely wealthy.
Today, Mintcast host Mnar Adley is joined by an individual with first-hand knowledge of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired U.S. Army colonel who was Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2003 and 2005. In this role, he observed the rapid expansion of the Bush administration’s War on Terror. A military veteran of 31 years, he has since become a vocal critic of American militarism and endless wars.
After leaving the Bush administration, Wilkerson became an academic, teaching on public policy and security issues at the College of William & Mary and at George Washington University. Since 2020, he is also a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute, a Washington-based think tank urging restraint in U.S. foreign policy.
Restraint — both military and economic — would have been a welcome thing in the Afghanistan War, a conflict that laid the groundwork for far more violence in the Middle East. Research from anti-war group CODEPINK shows that the United States and its allies have dropped at least 326,000 bombs on the region since 2001 — an average of 46 per day.
Wilkerson has been highly critical of the U.S. war machine and has warned that excessive militarism is undermining democracy at home, with a bloated and powerful national security state increasingly calling the shots in Washington. “America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It’s part of who we are. It’s part of what the American Empire is,” he remarked last year.
As the national conversation on Afghanistan turns to what the country’s future holds, now that the Taliban appear to be in an unassailable position, Adley and Wilkerson have a frank discussion about the U.S. empire, war profiteers and the status of the War on Terror. What is in store for the people of Afghanistan? Will this embarrassing defeat dent U.S. imperial ambitions? And what is the next step in the War on Terror?
MintPress has been covering the Afghan disaster closely. Robert Inkalesh warns that sanctions on the Taliban will end up harming the people of Afghanistan, and might prove to be more deadly than the war itself. Alan MacLeod explored the extraordinary costs of the operation, interviewing an ex-State Department and Department of Defense official who told him he had been “living like Scarface” with tens of millions of dollars in his room. Meanwhile, veteran journalist John Pilger recounts Afghanistan’s long history as a victim of empires.
August 27, 2021
https://popularresistance.org/decline-and-fall-of-the-us-empire/
Lawrence Wilkerson Discusses Afghanistan Pull-Out.
As The National Conversation On Afghanistan Turns To What The Country’s Future Holds, Adley And Wilkerson Have A Frank Discussion About The U.S. Empire, War Profiteers And The Status Of The War On Terror.
After 20 years of war and occupation that have caused the deaths of almost a quarter of a million people and displaced 5.9 million more, the United States appears to have finally (tacitly) admitted defeat in Afghanistan, pulling its forces and representatives out of the country.
The U.S.-installed government fell within days, with President Ashraf Ghani escaping to the United Arab Emirates, reportedly with $169 million in cash stuffed in his suitcases. Ghani’s departure is illustrative of the extraordinary grift of the entire operation. Overall, the U.S. spent well over $2 trillion on the Afghanistan War, making weapons contractors and construction agencies in the Washington, D.C. suburbs extremely wealthy.
Today, Mintcast host Mnar Adley is joined by an individual with first-hand knowledge of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired U.S. Army colonel who was Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2003 and 2005. In this role, he observed the rapid expansion of the Bush administration’s War on Terror. A military veteran of 31 years, he has since become a vocal critic of American militarism and endless wars.
After leaving the Bush administration, Wilkerson became an academic, teaching on public policy and security issues at the College of William & Mary and at George Washington University. Since 2020, he is also a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute, a Washington-based think tank urging restraint in U.S. foreign policy.
Restraint — both military and economic — would have been a welcome thing in the Afghanistan War, a conflict that laid the groundwork for far more violence in the Middle East. Research from anti-war group CODEPINK shows that the United States and its allies have dropped at least 326,000 bombs on the region since 2001 — an average of 46 per day.
Wilkerson has been highly critical of the U.S. war machine and has warned that excessive militarism is undermining democracy at home, with a bloated and powerful national security state increasingly calling the shots in Washington. “America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It’s part of who we are. It’s part of what the American Empire is,” he remarked last year.
As the national conversation on Afghanistan turns to what the country’s future holds, now that the Taliban appear to be in an unassailable position, Adley and Wilkerson have a frank discussion about the U.S. empire, war profiteers and the status of the War on Terror. What is in store for the people of Afghanistan? Will this embarrassing defeat dent U.S. imperial ambitions? And what is the next step in the War on Terror?
MintPress has been covering the Afghan disaster closely. Robert Inkalesh warns that sanctions on the Taliban will end up harming the people of Afghanistan, and might prove to be more deadly than the war itself. Alan MacLeod explored the extraordinary costs of the operation, interviewing an ex-State Department and Department of Defense official who told him he had been “living like Scarface” with tens of millions of dollars in his room. Meanwhile, veteran journalist John Pilger recounts Afghanistan’s long history as a victim of empires.
U.S. strikes back at Islamic State in Afghanistan after deadly airport attack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29FUSiaIbw4
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