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Al Green stressed that “ethnic cleansing has always been a crime against humanity”. Then, he quoted Martin Luther King, asserting that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

He’s absolutely right. But Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden presided over 15 months of genocide in Gaza. And genocide sits alongside ethnic cleansing as one of the “four mass atrocity crimes“, with some calling it “the most serious war crime“. So the question is, where’s the movement to impeach both Trump and Biden at the same time?

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/25667361

By Liam Stack

Liam Stack, who has reported from the Middle East on and off for two decades, was part of the team that covered the war in Gaza for The Times.

Feb. 5, 2025
https://archive.ph/S2pSi

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It's a weird article. Specifically the bit about housing prisoners in foreign countries.

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from #NewYorkTimes #NYT
[gift article - link can be shared. Expires in 30 days.]

By Erica L. Green
Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent. She reported from Washington.
Feb. 3, 2025

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Excerpt:

Elon Musk’s DOGE team is targeting the Department of Labor, as Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX are under multiple labor investigations by federal agencies.

The scheduled meeting at DOL this afternoon, an initial step in gaining access to the department’s IT systems, has drawn protests from employees arguing that DOGE's incursions at the behest of Musk are unaccountable and threaten workers’ rights. Officials at more than a half-dozen agencies have raised concerns internally that Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)'s actions are illegal, flouting checks on executive branch power.

  • In November, SpaceX argued in federal court that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional, a case joined by Amazon. The NLRB, created in 1935, is an independent agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act and decides labor complaints.

  • Musk’s companies are facing enforcement actions from a slew of federal agencies, as followed by the nonprofit Public Citizen in its Corporate Enforcement Tracker, many of them over labor protections.

  • At the NLRB, Tesla faces seven cases alleging unfair labor practices that would cover more than 140,474 employees. Tesla is also under investigation by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), part of the DOL, regarding a workplace death in an Austin, Texas factory.

  • At the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Tesla is amid a civil investigation regarding workplace retaliation and racial discrimination at a California factory, where Black employees allege they were subjected to racial slurs and other harassment.

  • SpaceX has 10 open cases with the NLRB covering 9,500 employees, and is litigating a complaint that it illegally fired workers who signed letters criticizing Musk.

Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen, says DOGE’s sights on the Labor Department looks like “a billionaire CEO's attempt to seize the means of worker protection.”

“Is Elon Musk so afraid of the cases SpaceX and Tesla face from OSHA, EEOC, and the NLRB that he is willing to corruptly interfere with law enforcement?,” said Claypool. “If so, the reality that the Trump administration is serving the super rich while screwing workers could not be made clearer.”

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Gorbachev Introduced glasnost and perestroika to reform the Soviet system. These policies inadvertently eroded the ideological and institutional foundations of the USSR, accelerating its collapse. His policies of liberalization unleashed an economic chaos that the Soviet system was not able to contain.

Today, Trump is pursuing a similar, if ideologically inverted, disruption of the US institutions. Attacking the deep state, undermining trust in media and elections, and prioritizing loyalty over expertise. He's enacting a purge of the permanent bureaucracy under the guise of draining the swamp, feeding off polarization and institutional distrust. These policies erode the very stability of the system paving the way to an unravelling akin to that of the USSR.

Gorbachev inherited a stagnant economy that he attempted to fix using market reforms with perestroika. These reforms took form of a shock therapy with sudden price liberalization, fiscal austerity, and privatization. An economic collapse followed as a result of hyperinflation, economic instability, and the rise of an oligarchic class. Similarly, Trump is busy slashing regulations and cutting corporate taxes, fuelling short-term growth that deepens wealth inequality and corporate consolidation. Like Gorbachev, he's ushering in a polarized economic landscape where faith in the system is rapidly dwindling among the public.

The economic unravelling of USSR revived nationalist movements, particularly in the Baltics and Ukraine, that undermined the unifying ideology. Similarly, amplified nationalism, in form of MAGA, is deepening cultural and regional divides in the US. Trump's rhetoric is rooted in divisive politics. Just as Soviet republics turned inward post-glasnost, prioritizing local grievances over collective unity, so are states like Texas, Florida, and California are increasingly talking about breaking with the union.

Gorbachev's reforms set the stage for Yeltsin who presided over the chaotic privatization of state assets, enabling a handful of oligarchs to seize control of Russia's oil, gas, and media empires. The shock therapy transition to capitalism led to a rapid rise of the kleptocrats. Similarly, Musk's companies target the remaining public services and industries for privatization. SpaceX aims to replace NASA, Tesla/Boring Co. are going after infrastructure, while X is hijacking public discourse. In this way, his wealth and influence mirror Yeltsin-era oligarchs' grip on strategic sectors. The main difference here is that Musk operates in a globalized capitalist system as opposed to the post-Soviet fire sale. Musk is actively using his platform and wealth to shape politics in his favor, and much like Russian oligarchs, he consistently prioritizes personal whims over systemic stability.

Yeltsin was sold as a democratic reformer but enabled a predatory elite. Many Russians initially saw capitalism as liberation, only to face a decade of despair as the reality of the system set in. Similarly, Musk markets himself as a visionary genius "saving humanity" with his vanity projects like Mars colonization, yet his ventures depend on public subsidies and exploitation of labor. The cult of the techno-oligarch distracts from the consolidation of power in private hands in a Yeltsin-esque bait-and-switch.

The USSR collapsed abruptly, while the US might face a slower erosion of its institutional norms. Yet both Trump and Gorbachev, despite opposing goals, represent disruptive forces that undermine the system through ideological gambles. Much as Gorbachev and Yeltsin did in their time, Trump's norm-breaking and Musk's oligarchic power are entrenching a new era of unaccountable elites.

Marx was right! History repeats, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

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Senate Democrats Must Act With Urgency—Now Is the Time to Be a Real Opposition Party and Block Trump’s Nominees Until His Billionaire Takeover Is Stopped

Grassroots progressives are sounding the alarm: Donald Trump and Elon Musk are engineering a corporate coup, handing the levers of government to unelected billionaires. In one of the most blatant power grabs in U.S. history, Musk has taken control of federal agencies and access to Americans’ private financial and social data under the guise of a so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE)—an entity created by executive order with no oversight, no accountability, and no legal authority.

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According to records only just released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, Organic Certifiers visited Lone Star Organic Dairy on December 6, 2023—weeks after PETA submitted evidence and apparently after notifying farm management that they would be conducting an inspection. Upon arrival, inspectors found a hired company attempting to remove mounds of manure piled over 4 feet high from inside cow pens.

Officials confirmed that a 14-foot-deep pit of liquid waste—which the whistleblower reported multiple cows had fallen into—had previously been left unenclosed and fully accessible to animals.

Horizon Organic—the largest organic milk company in the country—suspended sourcing from Lone Star Organic Dairy following PETA’s exposé.

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