Healthcare Workers’ Struggles Continue Across The US

https://popularresistance.org/health-care-workers-struggles-continue-across-the-us/




By WSWS. July 1, 2022



Nurses and other health care workers across the nation are rising up in a growing wave of strikes and protests against understaffing, lack of crucial supplies, exhausting workloads and the erosion of their living standards by the sharp rise in inflation.

Conditions for health care workers around the world have been greatly worsened by the response of the ruling class to the pandemic. Many are leaving the profession, further deepening the crisis. According to a March 24 report in Healthcare IT News, 90 percent of US nurses are considering leaving the profession.

Not only must nurses handle inhuman levels of stress at work, but they are also facing criminal prosecution as they struggle to perform their duties safely under impossible conditions. The case of RaDonda Vaught, who was arrested after a fatal medication error, was met with a mass mobilization of nurses which was able keep her from having to serve prison time. But nurses continue to be victimized, as can be seen in the case of Michelle Heughins and over 100 nursing home workers in Ohio .

The growing struggles of health care workers is producing a direct collision with the pro-corporate unions, which have done nothing to oppose these conditions and are instead working to suppress and block opposition. Nurses unions are seeking instead to promote inadequate legislation, such as national nurse-to-patient ratios, Bernie Sanders’ dead-in-the-water “Medicare for All” bill and workplace violence legislation will do nothing to address critical issues for health care workers across the nation.

Nurses in the US have taken an important step by forming a national steering committee to build rank-and-file committees in every hospital and health care facility to fight the victimization of medical workers. To learn more and form a rank-and-file committee in your hospital or workplace, please send in your information here and a member of the steering committee will reach out to you.

Below are a selection of the major developments across the United States.
Portland, Oregon

The Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) announced Thursday afternoon a new tentative agreement for 1,600 nurses at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. While the union loudly claimed this a “NURSE VICTORY,” the reality is this is a victory for the ONA, which now has an opportunity to avoid a strike, set for July 11.

As of this writing, the actual contract has yet to be sent to the rank-and-file membership. On social media, ONA Vice-President Jessica Lobell confirmed that the contract signing bonus was removed in the final version of the tentative agreement.

Lobell also signaled that there would not be other major gains for nurses, while simultaneously trying to undercut the need for a strike, stating, “I cannot emphasize enough that we will not get everything we want in this round no matter if we strike or not.”
Northern California

At Seton Medical Center in Daly City, 300 nurses went on a two-day strike on June 22- 23. Seton nurses have been in contract negotiations since December 2021, and nurses told WSWS reporters that they are working without basic supplies, such as fresh linens, bath wipes and diapers. Nurses also stated they are frequently forced to work around broken equipment, such as elevators and CT machines.

Staffing is inadequate, with nurses reporting that they are out of the legally mandated state ratios on a daily basis and are asked in addition to perform duties of other workers such as transporters and janitors to cover shortages. These intolerable conditions have led to roughly 80 nurses leaving the hospital within the last two years.

June 18 also marked two months since a one-day strike by roughly 8,000 nurses at 15 Sutter Health facilities across the region. Nurses were then locked out for an additional five days after the strike by hospital administrators and have now been on the job without a contract for an entire year. The California Nurses Association (CNA) was compelled to call the strike after a nearly unanimous strike authorization vote in March. The hospital’s contract proposal included a pitiful 2 percent annual wage increase and did not address nurses’ concerns over inadequate staffing and personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies.
Newark, New Jersey

More than 300 nurses, respiratory therapists, radiology technicians and other workers have returned to their jobs at Saint Michael’s Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey, after a strike of nearly four and a half weeks. The Jersey Nurses Economic Security Organization (JNESO) used thoroughly undemocratic means to end the strike and impose an austerity contract on the workers.

According to the deal, workers will receive annual raises of only 3 percent, less than half the current rate of inflation. Another cruel aspect of the contract is that these workers have been saddled with a health insurance plan with high co-pays and a $5,700 deductible.

From the beginning, JNESO focused its efforts on isolating the strike as it conducted closed-door negotiations with management under the auspices of a federal mediator. The union never paid a cent in strike pay, never called on workers at other hospitals owned by Prime Healthcare or even workers at other Newark hospitals to support the Saint Michael’s workers.
Twin Cities, Minnesota

One month has passed since contracts expired for 12,500 nurses in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro region. The Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) has only called for informational picketing and is remaining quiet about the status of contract talks.

In addition, contracts for some 2,500 nurses at Essentia and St. Luke’s hospitals expired on June 30. Nurses at two other smaller regional hospitals in Moose Lake and Hastings also have contracts that have recently expired, bringing the total amount of nurses working without a contract in the Twin Cities region to 15,000. The MNA has yet to even call for a strike vote, instead calling only for limited “informational pickets” to let workers blow off steam.

The MNA is also working to keep opposition safely directed behind the Democratic Party. The “Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act,” which is stalled in the state legislature, does not even address staffing ratios but only establishes state-controlled “staffing committees,” which will do nothing to address the conditions nurses face.
San Diego, California

At Palomar Health in San Diego, 3,000 nurses and health care workers—who had voted by 96 percent to strike—had their strike called off at the last minute by the CNA and Caregivers and Healthcare Employees Union (CHEU). They announced a sellout tentative agreement and rushed a vote, leaving workers with little to no time to fully review the contract.

The union is boasting about “strong” health and safety “language,” the establishment of “committees” where “RNs and caregivers meet with management to address patient care concerns.” The establishment of these committees will do nothing to actually deal with insufficient staff-to-patient ratios, allowing burnout rates to increase and endangering patients. The contract also contained a paltry 10.25 percent minimum wage “raise” over the life of the contract, which comes out to approximately 3.41 percent per year, far below skyrocketing inflation rates.
Los Angeles, California

After a planned strike was called off at the last minute at Long Beach Medical Center/Miller’s Children’s & Women’s Hospital last Wednesday, the CNA managed to push through a concessions contract. As is common practice for the union, workers could not review the full text of the contract until the day of the vote.

While the union has praised the contract for securing staffing increases, there is little beyond the promise of a “professional practice committee,” an advisory body of nurses connected to the union which will hold meetings on the issue of staffing shortages.

On June 23, 1,000 Los Angeles Kaiser nurses also went on a one-day strike. Kaiser LA nurses have been working without a contract since September of last year and report that staffing is so dire they are unable to care for patients safely and rarely take regular lunch breaks
Ann Arbor, Michigan

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, the contract for 6,200 nurses at Michigan Medicine expired on June 30. The management of the hospital affiliated with University of Michigan is determined to impose a concessionary contract with pay increases that do not keep pace with inflation, relentless mandatory overtime and an oppressive on-call system.

After months of negotiations, the Michigan Nurses Association (MNA) and University of Michigan Professional Nurse Council (UMPNC) have done nothing to mobilize the strength of nurses, instead isolating nurses from other workers in the same hospital system as well as nurses at other hospitals across the state who suffer under the same conditions.

The nurses unions have attempted to direct opposition among nurses into dead-end appeals to the millionaires and billionaires on the university’s board of regents. Refusing to mobilize the strength of the nurses, the UMPNC has not called for a strike authorization vote, telling their membership that hospital management will not back down from its demands for concessions. Instead, they have arranged for an informational picket on July 16, over two weeks after the expiration of their contract.

Machinists’ Retirees 751 Resolve To End ACO REACH

https://popularresistance.org/machinists-retirees-751-resolve-to-end-aco-reach/



By Kay Tillow, Popular Resistance. July 1, 2022



On June 13th the International Association of Machinists IAM 751 Retirement Club voted overwhelmingly to end the privatization of Medicare and to send their resolution to their congressional delegation, to President Biden, and to Secretary Xavier Becerra at Health and Human Services.

Machinists’ District 751 represents 27,000 members who work at Boeing and some smaller shops across the state of Washington. It is one of the largest organizations within the IAM.

The privatization scheme the 751 Retirement Club opposes is ACO REACH, formerly called direct contracting entities (DCE). It is a pilot program in which seniors who chose traditional Medicare are placed, without their consent, into plans that are run by insurance companies, private equity, and venture capitalists who can take as high as 40% in overhead and profit from the Medicare program.

These plans can be implemented across all of Medicare without a vote from Congress. Officials in charge of the program have said they intend to have all the traditional Medicare beneficiaries in such for-profit programs by 2030.

Tom Lux, who lives just north of Seattle and is Treasurer of the 751 Retirement Club, brought the resolution before the Club at its regular business meeting. Lux worked at the Everett Plant of Boeing and then on the staff of the union’s training and safety program

Lux explained that he first spoke with the retiree legislative representative who was fully supportive of the resolution against ACO REACH and agreed to present it, but he was unable to attend the meeting so Lux made the presentation.

“I talked about the Medicare direct contracting pilot program that Trump initiated where equity firms and insurance companies could come in and basically buy up clinics and medical facilities and move people over to that private system without having to really notify them or explain to Medicare recipients that they were now in a different system,” Lux told the members.

“I mentioned that there is about $1.6 trillion in the Medicare Trust Fund that these private equity firms and insurance companies are just waiting to get at—to make a profit—and I emphasized that the idea was that they wanted to make a profit off of health care even though people who are in traditional Medicare are there because they don’t want the profit motive in their health system.”

The Biden administration has announced that the direct contracting entities pilot will be replaced at the end of the year by ACO REACH, a new name for a program that has essentially the same characteristics of bringing private equity and profits between seniors and their physicians.

“I feel that the Biden administration is getting bad advice,” Lux told the members. “They basically just tweaked some of the direct contracting language and now call it ACO REACH. I explained that was an acronym and that pilot will begin in January 2023, if we don’t stop it. I mentioned that public health advocates across the country see almost no difference between ACO REACH and Trump’s direct contracting that’s basically privatizing the last public health system that we have.”

Following discussion and some questions which Lux answered, the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution.

Lux was aware of the issue because he is also a member of the Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action (PSARA) which has spearheaded an educational program around ACO REACH. Lux is urging other retiree organizations and unions to pass a resolution and take action to get their congressional delegation to join in opposition to ACO REACH.

“We have to educate our members on what is going on, and we have to let the administration know that we do not want any type of privatization of traditional Medicare, in fact we should be looking to improve it. When they say this is an improvement, we do not agree with that assessment at all,” he concluded.

(Please sign the petition to President Biden asking for an end to ACO REACH, and forward any resolutions passed to nursenpo@aol.com so that your action can inspire others.)

(Text of the IAM 751 Retirement Club Resolution)
RESOLUTION TO STOP PRIVATIZING OUR MEDICARE SYSTEM

Whereas, since 1965 Medicare has been our national health care system for seniors and the disabled in the United States; and

Whereas, traditional Medicare holds sacred the relationship between Medicare beneficiaries and their chosen health care provider; and

Whereas, traditional Medicare, is a public good, and should not be privatized; and

Whereas, the Trump administration opened the door to the complete privatization of Medicare through a Direct Contracting pilot program allowing private equity firms, insurance companies, and corporate health businesses to directly contract to provide Medicare services; and

Whereas, the prospect of Wall Street getting a piece of what is projected to be $ 1.6 trillion of annual Medicare spending by 2028 has led to a rush to buy-up Accountable Care Organizations for managing Medicare services; and

Whereas, the Biden administration ended the Direct Contracting pilot and rebranded it as the ACO REACH (Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health) pilot to begin in January of 2023; and

Whereas, public health advocates across the country see little difference between ACO REACH and the Direct Contracting pilot, since both pilot programs allow third party private entities to wedge themselves between patients and their healthcare providers and to draw down the Medicare Trust Fund by making huge profits in several ways, including weakening services for Medicare beneficiaries; now therefore be it

Resolved, that the 751 Retirement Club goes on record against the privatization of our Medicare system, and for terminating the ACO REACH pilot program, and closing the door on third party entities in our Medicare system; and be it further

Resolved, that the 751 Retirement Club send a copy of this Resolution to our two US Senators and Congressional House members in their jurisdiction, as well as to President Biden and to the Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra.

Studying The Venezuelan Approach To Learning

https://popularresistance.org/studying-the-venezuelan-approach-to-learning/



By Logan Williams, Orinoco Tribune.

July 1, 202


As educators across the globe have begun to examine alternative forms of schooling post-covid, it is time to examine the revolutionary, egalitarian and innovative Bolivarian education system.

The merits of the Bolivarian system are plain to see through the country having one of the highest educational progress rates in Latin America and a truly comprehensive system funded by the Venezuelan government led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

In order to understand the Venezuelan education system, it is necessary to examine both its foundations and the reality of education under the illegal US sanctions.
The foundations of the alternative

In the decades preceding the successful election of Hugo Chavez, education in Venezuela was not prioritized.

Governments effectively abandoned education in the rural and working-class areas for the exploitation of oil in the 1920s and later prioritized a neoliberal economic shift which saw government spending on education fall by 37 per cent between 1990-96 to only $118 dollars per capita.

The ideological shift in the 1990s saw the introduction of school registration fees which reinforced the barriers restricting the ability of working-class and rural students to enter education.

As a result of this neglect, throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the governments led by Chavez prioritized the reintroduction of educating the rural and working classes largely due to the movement’s ideological founder Simon Bolivar, who argued that “a people advance in step with their education.”

The prioritization of education within the Chavista governments is reflected in Chavez’s core belief that the eradication of illiteracy was a key weapon in the fight to eradicate poverty in Venezuela.

As well as Chavez’s ideological motivations it is possible to identify a more personal motivation through his reflections upon his own schooling in the countryside. Chavez stated: “I never wanted to move away from my home, but I had to go … Those who didn’t leave stayed behind and stagnated.”

Despite the material and international difficulties faced by the revolutionary Bolivarian government following the unsuccessful coup attempt and oil strike of 2002, the Bolivarian government would go on to launch 12 missions to tackle and eradicate poverty across Venezuela in 2003.

The first of these missions was Mission Robinson I, named in honor of Simon Bolivar’s teacher and close friend Simon Rodriguez whose own education project was formed “to colonize America with its own inhabitants” to avoid the American peoples becoming enslaved to a foreign power as they once had under the Spanish.

Mission Robinson I sought to address illiteracy as the Chavista government identified it was a key factor in a life of poverty. In order to tackle the issue of illiteracy, the Venezuelan government invited hundreds of Cuban literacy experts to design and deliver a program to teach citizens to read and write utilizing a system of corresponding numbers. By 2004, over 1.3 million citizens had taken part and in late 2005 Unesco declared Venezuela as being illiteracy-free due to Mission Robinson I.

Following the successful completion of Mission Robinson I, Chavez and his education minister Aristobulo Isturiz launched Mission Robinson II which sought to teach citizens everything they required to pass grade six (British Year 6) within a two-year time frame.

Most of Mission Robinson II was taught by Venezuelan volunteers and through government-provided resources such as personal libraries, TV and VCR sets within each home.

The success of these programs was identified by human rights group Provea which stated “both missions comply with the state’s obligations to guarantee the right to education and within this, to fight illiteracy. The project awakened a popular motivation and participation across society as can be seen following the Cuba Literacy Campaign of 1961.”
Education under the revolution

As well as the launch of revolutionary literacy programs across the country, the Bolivarian government sought to radically reform schooling through the launch of the Bolivarian Schools project.

This project sought to reform existing schools in inner cities and build new ones in communities long neglected by previous neoliberal governments. The project was formed around six key ideals which has since formed the bedrock of Bolivarian schooling. These ideals are as follows:

They seek to transform the children into participatory, critical and integrated individuals who identify with their national identity.

They are participatory and democratic where all members of the school community participate in the decision-making and execution of school activities. They are at the service of the community

They promote social justice and thus seek to ensure that all children complete their schooling.

They are examples of permanent pedagogical renovation, where the school is converted into a space for the dialogue of knowledge and cultural productions.

They fight against educational exclusion.

The six key ideals were formed to ensure that education was harmonized with the world of work and creation of a “new man” for a new Bolivarian society.

This revolution in schooling saw a transition away from an education system based around “encyclopedic knowledge that is based in memorization of details which are removed from the mentality of the adolescents and from their real-life problems,” towards one based on “integration, assuming that science is a means of making sense of the problems of society and never an end of its own.”

These key pedagogical reforms in turn transformed the day-to-day provision of lessons into one formed on the bedrock of practical applications rather than narrow disciplinary fields.

This would see the tuition of humanities and science instead of history and geography and biology, chemistry and physics respectively.

These changes reflect a revolutionary departure from Western educational methods in favor of a system designed explicitly to meet the needs of contemporary Venezuela.

It is logical therefore for British educators, progressives, socialists and trade unionists alike to seek to learn lessons from the Bolivarian education system due to its role in defeating illiteracy and tackling poverty throughout the Venezuelan population.

We must continue to build support for the people of Venezuela and opposition to the cruel and illegal sanctions inflicted by the US government which have caused the deaths of thousands of Venezuelans by building and supporting the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign as well as urging our trade union branches to affiliate and support initiatives launched by progressives in the region.

Alito's Anti Roe V Wade Logic Could End Federal Law

https://www.opednews.com/articles/Alito-s-Anti-Roe-V-Wade-Lo-by-Rob-Kall-Anti-abortion_Supreme-Court-SCOTUS-220704-249.html







Justice Alito argues that Roe V Wade is anti-democratic, because it takes away the right of states to make regulations. This sets an insanely dangerous precedent.



2022.06.24 Roe v Wade Overturned - SCOTUS, Washington, DC USA 175 143227
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If Roe V Wade can be overturned because it hinders states rights, then any and all federal regulations and laws can also be reversed by this grotesque Thomas Supreme Court. These could include; same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, the right to contraception, right to sexual intimacy, even the right to interstate travel.

There is good reason to believe that the malignant Thomas SCOTUS will indeed wreak much further havoc on American Democracy, turning it into a Christian Taliban fascist state-- a Talibanate?

The six Taliban justices are a threat not to US democracy but to the future of human progress. Something must be done and I am fairly certain that the current Democratic leadership-- Biden, Pelosi, Schumer-- are far from capable of doing what must be done to address the problem. Sadly, the American people know it. These must be a radical takeover of the Democratic party for any worthwhile solutions to be accomplished.

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Rob Kall Social Media Pages:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization













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Who's Murdering Immigrants? It's No Mystery.

https://www.opednews.com/articles/Who-s-Murdering-Immigrants-by-Thomas-Knapp-Immigrants_Murder-220704-249.html







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It's a grisly affair: Dozens of immigrants locked in a semi-trailer in San Antonio, Texas, apparently abandoned by those attempting to smuggle them into the United States. After their cries for help were heard and rescuers arrived, 48 were found dead at the scene, four more died shortly thereafter, and 16 were hospitalized.

US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas pronounces himself "heartbroken," but doesn't seem inclined to apologize for the "unprecedented" operation he launched less than three weeks ago in "an all-of-government effort to attack the smuggling organizations." As of that time, DHS bragged, nearly 2,000 smugglers had been arrested in the previous eight weeks.

Texas governor Greg Abbott declares that "these deaths are on [US president Joe] Biden" -- not because Biden is ultimately responsible for the "unprecedented operation" leading directly to outcomes like this, but because (in Abbott's vivid imagination, anyway) Biden pursues "open border" policies.

But if the US government pursued the "open borders" policy mandated in its Constitution, those immigrants wouldn't have been locked in a semi-trailer in the first place, nor would their drivers have abandoned them, presumably after suspecting that they were immediate targets of Mayorkas's "unprecedented operation."

Instead, they'd have arrived in the US alive, in good health, and without fear of abduction by Mayorkas's or Abbott's thugs.

They'd have arrived the way any of us arrive anywhere -- on foot, by bicycle or scooter, motorcycle, car, bus, plane -- and largely, like all of us, without incident.



Why didn't they? Because American politicians know that supporting government lawlessness on immigration gets them votes.

A vote for a non-"open borders" politician -- these days, that means pretty much any Republican or Democrat -- is a vote for mass murder.

If you happen to believe in a deity who watches and judges us, remember that the next time you fill out a ballot.





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Christian fascism, Murdoch media lies, & our ever-more-apparent dystopia

https://www.opednews.com/articles/Christian-fascism-Murdoch-by-Rainer-Shea-Christianity_Dystopia_Fascism_Fascism-Has-Happened-Here-220704-694.html





The "United States" fundamentally lacks the characteristics of a nation. Its people have no shared history, culture, or values, because the country they're in came about artificially. It's a project for building up capital, constructed on land that was annexed in wars of aggression. America's Christian nationalists have no actual nation, only a brand. They compensate for this by promoting the myths which maintain the settler state's illusion of not being an occupation, of being something worth defending. Violence and lies, serving to continue the extraction which fascism's petty-bourgeois base depends upon, are the tools for survival from an empire that's imploding in on its contradictions. Christian fascism provides a cultural foundation for this project, so all of its abuses are seen as acceptable by a ruling class that's increasingly empowering this dangerous tendency.

During capital's unprecedented period of weakening throughout the last half century, where the irrecoverable crash of the 1970s has been responded to through severe austerity, the efforts to conceal the system's weaknesses have grown more aggressive. The ruling class has utilized the propaganda arms, repressive policies, and social leverage of Christian nationalism to wage a perpetual war for counterrevolution. Murdoch's media conglomerate has gained an all-reaching presence, and has weaponized the culture wars towards spreading reactionary paranoia. Erik Prince, one of the most powerful Christian nationalists, has created a private army, currently gaining experience by helping Ukraine's far-right regime. Religious extremists have systematically transformed the courts and legislatures in their image, climbing the structure of a state that's in decline and increasingly vulnerable to reactionary takeovers. The extremists are working to suppress every aspect of society that they see as a threat to their vision for a pure America, terrorizing the groups they target and censoring history which exposes the country's nature as an oppressor.

Now that they've successfully reversed fifty years of social progress by overturning Roe v. Wade, they're accelerating the country's regression in all other areas. The Supreme Court has seized the moment to destroy the Clean Air Act, legalize forced prayer in schools, and decide the settler state can prosecute crimes in Indian country, reversing the land rights victory that Oklahoma's tribes made two years ago. Next it could give partisan officials the power to bend electoral results to their preferences, rewarding Trump's cries of 2020 electoral fraud that have been amplified by the Murdoch media network. This is part of a campaign to suppress every aspect of society that the Christian fascists see as a threat, from the LGBT community to racial minority groups to the labor movement. The militarization of police during the last decade or so, made possible by excess equipment from America's recent wars, has equipped law enforcement to brutally wage war against this last month's protests. The abortion surveillance state that the Roe v Wade decision has created will add onto this intensifying repressive violence, serving to further repress social movements and marginalized communities.

This is the conclusion of what the Murdoch family, the right-wing Christian political machine, and the other actors behind this process have been working towards from the start. Their goal is the defeat of nebulous spiritual enemies that can never truly be defeated, and their strategy for waging this endless war is to stoke all-consuming paranoia. "Donald Trump wove them together and brought them out into the open," Robert Jones, chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, has written about this coalition. "Indeed, the MAGA formula "- the stoking of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment while making nativist appeals to the Christian right "- could accurately be described as a white Christian nationalist strategy from the beginning."

These demagogues have tapped into the conspiratorial imagination which American settlers have always been susceptible to, and manufactured a movement obsessed with wiping out a myriad of supposed threats: communism or what they perceive as communism, the LGBT community that they view as a product of cultural disease, the racial justice movement that they view as a product of false atrocity propaganda, religious enemies like Muslims and Jews, feminism and secularism in general. They portray a binary world of sinners and the saved, where the righteous are waging war against an all-encompassing evil. Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, has described this massive cult as "a reactionary, authoritarian ideology that centers its grievances on a narrative of lost national greatness and believes in the indispensability of the 'right' religion in recovering that lost greatness. This mind-set always involves a narrative of unjust persecution at the hands of alien or 'un-American' groups. The specific targets may shift. Some focus their fears on the 'homosexual agenda'; others target Americans of color or nonwhite immigrant groups; still others identify the menace with religious minorities such as Muslims, Jews and secular 'elites' or perceived threats against gender hierarchy and sexual order. And of course, many take an all-of-the-above approach."

The latest phase of their cultural war, where they seek to portray transgender people as a product of sinister left-wing indoctrination, is a way to solidify control over the minds and bodies of children. Like the Nazi-influenced regime in Ukraine, they've been banning books that challenge their extremist agenda, leveraging their domination over red state school districts to censor even the most innocuous material that's seen to represent the wrong lifestyles. They're associating queer people with pedophilia, alluding to the white supremacist slogan of "degeneracy" in describing the LGBT community. Florida governor Ron DeSantis has enforced a "don't say gay" law within schools, which has created a dystopian environment where queer individuals must suppress themselves to keep themselves safe. Gay teachers are being made to get rid of pictures of their spouses, gender non-conforming kids are being systematically monitored and scrutinized, and schools are being required to censor any material referencing gender identity or sexual orientation. The same censorship is being applied to information about the history of systemic racism, or about race in general. There's no limit to what the Christian fascists will go after, no point at which they'll be satisfied. When they've suppressed one aspect of freedom or empirical reality, they'll take it even further.

The Democratic Party has proven unwilling to do anything substantial to stop them. Americans learn time and again that whether or not Democrats are in office, they'll let the Republicans keep reversing social progress, won't reverse the neoliberal paradigm that's deepening the people's misery, and won't dismantle the police state that's repressing opposition to these policies. The Biden administration, and centrism more broadly, have discredited themselves, leaving the country open to a total fascist takeover. In this political environment, the vile policies of Ron DeSantis have propelled him to national prominence, making it likely that he'll become either the next president or vice-president. Murdoch media is already promoting him for 2024, and his agenda is being endorsed by influential figures like Joe Rogan. His camp's narrative is that he's only trying to protect children from the left's predation, whatever that means. In reality, he and his adjacent media outlets are advancing a conspiratorial worldview that endangers any semblance of freedom or social equality.



This is a worldview that vilifies science and medical knowledge, something which Murdoch media has been doing across the broader imperialist sphere through Fox News clones like Sky News. That treats its targets through a lens of disgust and blind fear, nurturing ignorance about queer people so that they can be justifiably treated as dangerous in the eyes of the law. That brings white nationalist propaganda like the "Great Replacement" into the mainstream, presenting alternative versions of these ideas through vast platforms. That's exposing the disgusting nature of American exceptionalism by leading the U.S. into becoming one of the most actively anti-democratic countries on the planet, at the same time Washington has already been losing international credibility. The Christian nationalists claim to be the ones who can save America, but they'll accelerate its decline, and therefore the liberation of the world from U.S. imperialism's grip. At that point, they'll be firmly in power, and will react to this dire situation they've created for themselves by taking their repression further than ever.

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We Should Be Afraid of Nuclear Power

https://www.opednews.com/articles/We-Should-Be-Afraid-of-Nuc-by-Robert-Leishear-Ukraine-220704-434.html





As a threat to life, government cover-ups of nuclear power plant explosions perpetuate unsafe nuclear reactor operations.

Stand Against the Explosion Cover-up

The government cover-up of explosion detonations at nuclear power plants is extraordinary. Outside of engineering journals and technical publications, OpEd News stands alone as a forum for public dissent with respect to explosion dangers in nuclear power plants. Many pro nuclear advocates thwart new information to improve public safety, and anti-nuclear press dismisses this work as pro nuclear advocacy.

I am dismayed at the widespread lack of concern for a grave danger to our society and our environment. Some days, challenging an effective government cover-up of nuclear safety dangers seems insurmountable, and giving up the fight for nuclear safety seems appropriate. Not today - my confrontational observations below are an ongoing effort to change public opinion to stop the "next imminent nuclear power plant explosion."



Nuclear Industry Regulators Created and Perpetuate a Nuclear Power Plant Explosion Cover-up

As expected, responses from those responsible for nuclear safety did not respond to legitimate safety concerns when they were provided copies of the OpEd News article "Blasting Into Our Lives - The Three Mile Island Explosion Cover-Up: TV, Myth, and Reality", "The Next Nuclear Power Plant Explosion Bangs at Our Doors", or "Water Hammers Exploded the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plants". Such agencies include the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency, the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Energy for the Department of Energy, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Nuclear Energy Agency in Europe, the Tokyo Electric Power Company who operated the exploded Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants, and the Nuclear Regulatory Authority in Japan.



These agencies did not respond to these recent allegations about the Three Mile Island and Fukushima Daiichi cover-ups. These agencies did not respond to many earlier allegations about false statements regarding the overall safety of the nuclear industry, where reports falsely claimed that the nuclear industry is much safer than other industries.

In fact, the reports that these agencies depend on claim that nuclear reactor power plants can only meltdown or explode between once in 5,000 years to once in a million years. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Sl-1, and Fukushima Daiichi stand as explosive proof against the false mathematical proofs that claim such low risks to reactor safety, i.e. multiple explosions detonated in the past 70 years of operations ("Nuclear Power Plants Are Not So Safe: Fluid Transients / Water Hammers, Autoignition, Explosions, Accident Predictions and Ethics").

Also, the nuclear industry falsely claims that nuclear energy is much safer than other industries. Again, distorted data falsely asserts such a claim, where nuclear energy risks equal or exceed the risks of other energy industries. With the exception of nuclear war, the dread risk, or fear, of nuclear power plant explosions exceeds the fear of other disasters and causes of death on our planet. Even so, stopping nuclear plant explosions would certainly improve nuclear energy safety, and ensure nuclear energy as the safest of the energy industries.

The Press is Swept Along with a Well-Executed Explosion Cover-up

For example, a Letter to the Editor that opposed a pro nuclear Washington Post article was turned down by the Post.

"Letter to the Editor: "Who's Afraid of Nuclear Power" [by the Washington Post, 2022] overlook[ed] the facts that explosion cover-ups concealed detonations at Three Mile Island and Fukushima Daiichi. The 43 year TMI cover-up permitted Fukushima Daiichi explosions. Fifteen peer reviewed research publications prove the Three Mile Island cover-up. (See references below).

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) discarded all facts that did not support their preconceived conclusion that a TMI fire occurred. Explosions are bad press. [Discarded facts are listed below].

1) Detonation pressures were measured and ignored.

2) An explosion thud was heard, not the swoosh of a fire, and a shock was felt by operators.

3) Some hydrogen exploded in the reactor system, and other hydrogen exploded in the building.

4) Water blasted from a tank through a blown rupture disc. Since an empty tank did not support their fire theory, the NRC falsely claimed that instrumentation did not work, and dismissed the explosion in that tank.

5) High explosion temperatures were measured inside the reactor piping, and were ignored.

6) Measured temperatures in the reactor containment building were misinterpreted. NRC falsely claimed that temperatures proved that a fire occurred, where explosions were too fast to measure by installed instruments."



Having served as a troubleshooter and research engineer for complex piping system failures at a U.S. Department of Energy plant, I learned that the first rule of science is that one cannot ignore select facts when troubleshooting failures. The omission of facts in NRC reports constituted false documentation for many others to follow. The NRC ignored many facts in the wake of this explosion cover-up, and the NRC still blatantly ignores facts to defend their cover-up of dangerous explosion conditions in the worldwide fleet of more than 400 nuclear reactor power plants.

"Act now. An approaching nuclear power plant explosion can be stopped."



Engineering Professional Societies Defend a Very Effective Explosion Cover-up

The OpEd News article "Blasting into our lives - The Three Mile Island explosion cover-up: TV, myth, and reality" accused the nuclear industry of dangerous cover-ups at Three Mile Island, where this cover-up could have prevented the Fukushima Daiichi explosions. Along with many newspapers and magazines, the American Nuclear Society (ANS) refused to publish important nuclear safety information.

A Challenge to the Explosion Cover-up

The ANS initially responded to the following letter from this author.

"HBO [Home Box Office] made some [false] claims, the NRC made false claims, and ANS compounded the misrepresentation of facts. [With respect to past explosions], OpEd News published an article, which challenges the fictitious ANS article, the NRC, and the HBO TMI production. Although I did not expect the ANS to provide a forum for an opposing point of view, I thought that my emails would have been answered. Perhaps the ANS is unconcerned about nuclear safety."

A Possible Break in the Explosion Cover-up?

In response to this letter, the ANS agreed to reconsider reprinting this OpEd on condition that

"Unless Dr. Leishear can demonstrate, with some technical basis, that the water hammer theory caused hydrogen explosions at Three Mile Island, Fukushima Daiichi, and Chernobyl, ANS will not pursue this further. This was the consensus of experts that have been consulted regarding Dr. Leishear's request because the information provided was insufficient. If he would like to supplement and explain his logic, ANS would further consider his request."

No. The Explosion Cover-up Remains in Place



Subsequently, the ANS refused to respond to letters that included a version of the Letter to the Editor provided above, along with the following proof to explain my logic and a supporting list of comprehensive technical references. The following letter to ANS was unanswered.

"I certainly understand that ANS may not want to reprint this article since this work contradicts a recent ANS video and publication. If ANS chooses, they can certainly publish only one side of the story, but nuclear safety will be jeopardized. Please consider this email to be a request for further consideration since nuclear safety is critical to the industry.

Within the OpEd ["Blasting into Our Lives - The Three Mile Island explosion cover-up: TV, myth, and reality"], titles for numerous peer reviewed articles are referenced, along with the fact that my research covers the past six years at great personal expense. As discussed in detail in my published research, water dissociates into [hydrogen] and [oxygen] at high temperatures, and the superseded theory that only hydrogen was present does not explain that fact that an explosion occurred inside the reactor system, and this explosion was observed at the time. That is, an explosion certainly occurred inside [the TMI reactor system] as documented by facts.

For Fukushima, TEPCO will not release the data to conclusively prove that explosions occurred in the [reactor system], but the similarities to TMI provide that proof. Since, the investigators dismissed the fact that an explosion occurred and called it a fire, oxygen generation was not understood [until many years later]. [The NRC] made other false claims as well, as detailed in my publications (ASME, ANS, Mensa, and BHR Group). The facts have been buried for so long that experts refuse to consider new information as documented in the references below.

As mentioned in my OpEd article, I have spent much of the past 6 years researching this issue. In fact, I completed all the courses required for a Nuclear Engineering Ph.D., numerous combustion courses at [the Princeton, Combustion Institute Summer School], numerous NACE/AMPP corrosion courses, and numerous courses in nuclear reactor design, international nuclear law, and radiology in the U.S. and abroad. All of this dedicated research provides the technical basis to further prove my conclusions. People do not like new ideas, but dislike is insufficient cause to stifle new ideas.

"The next nuclear power plant explosion bangs at our doors" (Leishear, 2022) provides a brief summary of conclusions, and "The autoignition of nuclear power plant explosions" [Leishear, 2020] provides a more detailed summary - however - the series of papers below includes many details that are not included in these two papers. [These two OpEds] that the ANS turned down are the briefest summaries of this extraordinarily complicated problem, where OpEd length precludes much detail. Through extensive research and publications, this theory evolved over many years to prove that the next nuclear power plant explosion is on the way, and that such an explosion can be stopped to improve nuclear safety."

The Explosion Cover-up Goes On

Also, the ANS did not respond to the following letter, which closed this ANS discussion for the moment.

"In view of no response from ANS, the obvious conclusion is that opposing opinions will not be reprinted through the ANS Newswire or elsewhere, regardless of public safety import. The cover-up of this nuclear safety concern expands in scope."

What's Next?

Perhaps the next nuclear reactor meltdown cannot be stopped, but the companion explosions that cause explosive radioactive clouds, radioactive fallout, mass evacuations, some deaths, and cancer for many people can be stopped. As long as this explosion cover-up pervades the nuclear industry, we should be afraid of nuclear power, but the ability to make nuclear power much safer is within our grasp. Stop the cover-up; stop the next explosions.



"References Provided to the ANS:

1. "Blasting Into Our Lives - The Three Mile Island Explosion Cover-up: TV, Myths, and Reality", R. A. Leishear, 2022, OpEd News.

2. "The Next Nuclear Power Plant Explosion Bangs at Our Doors", R. Leishear, 2022, Academia.edu and ResearchGate.com.

3. "Expert View: Water Hammers Exploded the Nuclear Power Plants at Fukushima Daiichi", 2022, R. A. Leishear, ASME Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, pp. 1-29, peer reviewed.

4. "Potential Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant Explosions Can be Stopped", 2022, OpEd News.

5. [Preventable Disasters, Never Give an Inch", R. Leishear, OpEd News, 2022.]

6. "Explosion Differentiation Using Light Emissions: Steam, Water Hammer, Hydrogen, And Hydro-Volcanic Explosions", 2022 ASME, pp. 1-16, in review.

7. "Nuclear Power Plants Are Not So Safe: Fluid Transients / Water Hammers, Autoignition, Explosions, Accident Predictions and Ethics", 2021, R. A. Leishear, Science Publishing Group, pp 1-42, (Click Here ), peer reviewed. "-

8. "The TMI-2 Explosion", ANS Nuclear News Magazine 2019, R. A. Leishear, editor reviewed.

9. "The Autoignition of Nuclear Power Plant Explosions", 2020, R. A. Leishear, ASME Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, peer reviewed.

10. "Pump Start-ups Ignite Nuclear Power Plants, History, Law, and Risk", 2018, R. A. Leishear, Pressures Surge Conference, BHR Group, peer reviewed.

11. "Nuclear Power Plant Fires, and Explosions, Accident Overviews", 2017, R. A. Leishear, American Nuclear Society Winter Conference, peer reviewed.

12. "Nuclear Power Plant Fires, and Explosions, I, Plant Designs and Hydrogen Properties", 2017, R. A. Leishear, ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference, peer reviewed.

13. "Nuclear Power Plant Fires, and Explosions, II, Hydrogen Ignition Overview", 2017, R. A. Leishear, ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference, peer reviewed.

14. "Nuclear Power Plant Fires, and Explosions, III, Hamaoka Explosion", 2017, R. A. Leishear, ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference, peer reviewed.



15. "Nuclear Power Plant Fires, and Explosions, IV, Water Hammer Ignition Mechanisms", 2017, R. A. Leishear, ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference, peer reviewed.

16. "From Water Hammer to Ignition, The Spark That Ignited Three Mile Island Burst From a Safety Valve", 2014, R. A. Leishear, ASME, Mechanical Engineering Magazine, Revised, 2022, Academia.com and ResearchGate.com, peer reviewed.

17. "Explosions: A Fresh Look at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the Gulf Oil Spill, and Fukushima Daiichi", R. A. Leishear, December, 2013, Mensa World Journal, Caythorpe, United Kingdom.

18. "Pipeline Explosions, A New Theory", 2013, R. A. Leishear, ASME, Mechanical Engineering Magazine, peer reviewed.

19. "A Hydrogen Ignition Mechanism for Explosions in Nuclear Facility Pipe Systems", R. A. Leishear, 2013, Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology, ASME, peer reviewed.

20. ["Fluid Mechanics, Water Ahmmer, Dynamic Stressesm and PipinG Design, R. A. Leishear, 2013, ASME Press, pp. 1-443, peer reviewed].

21. "Hydrogen Ignition Mechanism for Explosions in Nuclear Facility Pipe Systems", Leishear, R. A., 2010, ASME, Pressure Vessel and Piping Conference, peer reviewed."

(Article changed on Jul 04, 2022 at 8:31 AM EDT)

(Article changed on Jul 04, 2022 at 9:06 AM EDT)

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By Robert Leishear (Page 1 of 5 pages) 1 comment