Patriotism, a Menace to Liberty ~~ Emma Goldman

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1911/patriotism.htm

WHAT is patriotism? Is it love of one’s birthplace, the place of childhood’s recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations ? Is it the place where, in childlike naivete, we would watch the fleeting clouds, and wonder why we, too, could not run so swiftly? The place where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest each one “an eye should be,” piercing the very depths of our little souls? Is it the place where we would listen to the music of the birds, and long to have wings to fly, even as they, to distant lands? Or the place where we would sit at mother’s knee, enraptured by wonderful tales of great deeds and conquests ? In short, is it love for the spot, every inch representing dear and precious recollections of a happy, joyous, and playful childhood?

If that were patriotism, few American men of today could be called upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into factory, mill, and mine, while deafening sounds of machinery have replaced the music of the birds. Nor can we longer hear the tales of great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of sorrow, tears, and grief.

Marx on Immigration ~~David L. Wilson

https://monthlyreview.org/2017/02/01/marx-on-immigration/

Renters Are Organizing To Fight Evictions, Just Like They Did in the 1930s ~~ Zacharias Szumer

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/12/australian-renters-evictions-organizing-1930s-covid

In the wake of the pandemic, Australian renters are once again facing the threat of mass evictions. The militant renters’ struggles of the Great Depression are an excellent model for the movement that’s taking shape today.

Intellectual Property Rights ~~ DEAN BAKER, ACHAL PRABHALA AND ARJUN JAYADEV

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/09/want-vaccines-fast-suspend-intellectual-property-rights

Tens of millions of Americans struggle to pay rent as unemployment benefits and eviction moratorium near expiration ~~ Alex Findijs

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/04/pers-d04.html

~~ snip ~~

The September 11 terror attacks, which killed 2,977 people, were used to launch wars costing some $6 trillion and to implement sweeping attacks on democratic rights, all on the basis of a supposed national emergency. Now that the equivalent of a 9/11 is happening every day, death on such a massive scale is effectively treated by the US political establishment as inevitable. And amidst the greatest social crisis since the Great Depression, there is supposedly nothing that can be done to alleviate mass impoverishment.

Amazon workers unite and fight: “Bezos’ obscene fortune only possible because of the work we do”

https://www.liberationnews.org/amazon-workers-unite-and-fight-bezos-obscene-fortune-only-possible-because-of-the-work-we-do/

Workers in more than a dozen countries organized coordinated actions against corporate giant Amazon to coincide with the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Those participating are from a diverse array of countries and lines of work up and down the supply chain, from warehouses of the United States to call centers in the Philippines. The demands are varied and serve as an indictment of the monopoly’s anti-worker operating practices.

The Creation of Scarcity ~~. Michael Perelman

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLPicUXGrfdQIQliNIHeThSUTNIcbXkEVJt0nnpNEhsbpIN8HSphR-vRCh9DgV0hvEUKlIVUTkHFFal-YxY8c7AJavS2Pfh2vlQoDHaSbqY7HFQqRRCNlSIuyECxDtawldvZ7lj5dBFTsl/

This was posted by SageThinker quite some time ago.  It is a PDF so had to be re-typed by hand to post.

The key to avoiding the curse of a comfortable life was to create artificial scarcity for the rural poor.  As Arthur Young observed in 1771, "everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious" (cited in EP Thompson 1963, 317).  Access to common land touched a particularly sensitive nerve among more affluent property owners.  Marx (1977, 881 and EP Thompson, 1963, 217 ) cited by a Dr. Hunter who fretted that "a few acres to the cottage would make the laborers too independent."

Reviving the Gallows, Electric Chair, Gas Chamber, and Firing Squad Recalls a Hideous History ~~Austin Sarat

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/12/05/trumps-plan-revive-gallows-electric-chair-gas-chamber-and-firing-squad-recalls

The way the federal government can kill death row prisoners will soon be expanded to ghoulish methods that include hanging, the electric chair, gas chamber and the firing squad.

Set to take effect on Christmas Eve, the new regulations authorizing an alternative to lethal injections – the method currently used in federal executions – were announced by the Justice Department on Nov. 27.

What is clear is that these new regulations send a message about the lengths the administration will go to kill as many death row inmates as possible before Joe Biden takes office and, as expected, halts the federal death penalty.

If the president and Department of Justice succeed in their plan, the period from July 14, 2020, the date of the first of Trump's federal executions, through January 20, 2021 will be the deadliest in the history of federal capital punishment in nearly a century.