Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Stand with the California nurses

From WSWS:


Nurses across the state of California have gone on strike or voted to walk out over inadequate pay, exhausting work schedules and unsafe conditions.

On Monday, 5,000 nurses at Stanford Health Care and Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital struck against poor pay and understaffing after more than 90 percent of them voted to strike on April 8. More than 8,000 nurses at Sutter Health Care in Northern California launched a one-day strike against unsafe staffing levels, improper COVID-19 protocols and wages that do not keep up with inflation.

In the Los Angeles area, hundreds of nurses at Cedars-Sinai Hospital held a protest last week after the latter was found guilty of multiple safety violations during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The protest followed an April 11 strike authorization vote in which the majority of nurses voted in favor.

Nurses at the nearby University of California Los Angeles Medical Center are also holding a rally and protest this coming Wednesday for stronger workplace protections against COVID-19, an action that will be mirrored by their colleagues at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center.

In Central and Northern California 19,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses have a contract expiration on August 31, and the agreement for 14,600 University of California nurses ends on October. The movement of nurses in the state comes on top of health care walkouts and and strike votes in Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, Washington D.C., Alabama and across the country. This is part of a global movement, including recent strikes in Australia, Sri Lanka, Germany, Italy and other countries.

The World Socialist Web Site spoke to several nurses throughout the Northern and Southern California regions who described their conditions and expressed a growing sentiment for statewide action by nurses.

One Cedars-Sinai worker told the WSWS: “Two dollars an hour [the proposed increase] is not nearly enough. They want to sell us the same thing they did in 2019. But this isn’t 2019! Inflation today is crazy! I used to spend about $100 whenever I went shopping, now it’s closer to $120. I’m buying cheaper food to make things work. I’m glad nurses are striking in Northern California too, I know it’s no better there. We need to all go out together!

“I’ve also found out that Cedars-Sinai, just like Stanford Health Care, plans to cut health care benefits for workers while they are on strike.”


Joe Biden is a failure as president.  Inflation, substandard wages, still no real plan to address COVID . . . 


He's not up to the job.  And many of us knew that in 2020 which is why we supported someone else.  I'm not a disciple of Bernie Sanders.  But in that race for the nomination, Bernie was clearly a stronger choice.  


Instead, the media helped the crooked leadership at the DNC gift Joe with the nomination.


Now we all suffer.


This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Monday:


 Monday, April 25, 2022.  Joe Biden is no FDR, a  MARVEL film is being banned in some countries, Turkey continues to carry out War Crimes in Iraq and much more.


Joe Biden's disaster presidency continues as he attempts to learn on the job.  As Margaret Kimberley notes in the video below, Joe and his team seem to have no grasp on reality when it comes to the world markets or Russia's role in them.




Joe has no clue.  An inept, bumbling Mr MaGoo on the world state.  As Margaret notes above, Joe just casually tosses off that there are going to be food shortages.


And the whorish corporate press compared that man to FDR?


WWII meant shortages.  FDR didn't just toss off remarks.  He mobilized American farmers, he also encouraged victory gardens.


Joe's the president who is already in the coffin just waiting for his last breath.  He gives up bfore he announces he's given up.  


He is inept adn not up to the job.  


America's farmers should have been mobilized immediately.


Here's how a real leader put it:


January 12, 1943

All over the world, food from our country's farms is helping the United Nations to win this war. From the South Pacific to the winter front in Russia, from North Africa to India, American food is giving strength to the men on the battle lines, and sometimes also to the men and women working behind the lines. Somewhere on every continent the food ships from this country are the life line of the forces that fight for freedom. This afternoon we have heard from some of the military and civilian righters who look to us for food. No words of mine can add to what they have said.

But on this Farm Mobilization Day I want to round out the picture and tell you a little more about the vital place that American farmers hold in the entire war strategy of the United Nations.

Food is a weapon in total war- fully as important in its way as guns or planes or tanks. So are other products of the farm. The long-staple cotton that goes into parachutes, for example, the oils that go into paints for the ships and planes and guns, the grains that go into alcohol to make explosives also are weapons.

Our enemies know the use of food in war. They employ it cold-bloodedly to strengthen their own fighters and workers and to weaken or exterminate the peoples of the conquered countries. We of the United Nations also are using food as a weapon to keep our fighting men fit and to maintain the health of all our civilian families. We are using food to earn the friendship of people in liberated areas and to serve as a promise and an encouragement to peoples who are not yet free. Already, in North Africa, the food we are sending the inhabitants is saving the energies and the lives of our troops there. In short we are using food, both in this country and in Allied countries, with the single aim of helping to win this war.

Already it is taking a lot of food to fight the war. It is going to take a lot more to win the final victory and win the peace that will follow. In terms of total food supply the United Nations are far stronger than our enemies. But our great food resources are scattered to the ends of the earth—from Australia and New Zealand to South Africa and the Americas- and we no longer have food to waste. Food is precious, just as oil and steel are precious. As part of our global strategy, we must produce all we can of every essential farm product; we must divide our supplies wisely and use them carefully. We cannot afford to waste any of them.

Therefore the United Nations are pooling their food resources and using them where they will do the most good. Canada is sending large shipments of cheese, meats, and other foods on the short North Atlantic run to Britain. Australia and New Zealand are providing a great deal of the food for American soldiers stationed in that part of the world. Food from Latin America is going to Britain.

Every food-producing country among the United Nations is doing its share. Our own share in food strategy, especially at this stage of the war, is large, because we have such great resources for production; and we are on direct ocean lanes to North Africa, to Britain, and to the northern ports of Russia.

American farmers must feed our own growing Army and Navy. They must feed the civilian families of this country and feed them well. They must help feed the fighting men and some of the war workers of Britain and Russia and, to a lesser degree, those of other Allied countries.

So this year, as never before, the entire Nation is looking to its farmers. Many quarters of the free world are looking to them too. American farmers are a small group with a great task. Although 60 percent of the world's population are farm people, only 2 percent of that population are American farmers. But that 2 percent have the skill and the energy to make this country the United Nations' greatest arsenal for food and fiber.

In spite of the handicaps under which American farmers worked last year, the production victory they won was among the major victories of the United Nations in 1942. Free people everywhere can be grateful to the farm families who made that victory possible.

This year the American farmer's task is greater, and the obstacles more formidable. But I know that once more our farmers will rise to their responsibility.

This farm mobilization is the first day ever dedicated by a President to the farm people of the Nation. I know that the whole country joins with me in a tribute to the work farmers already have done, in a pledge of full support in the difficult task which lies ahead for farmers, and in a prayer for good weather to make farmers' efforts more fruitful.

Our fighting men and allies, and our families here at home can rely on farmers for the food and other farm products that will help to bring victory.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, The President's Statement on Farm Mobilization Day. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210025


That's FDR.  How does fumbling bumbling Biden put it?  Keith Good (ILLIONIS FARM POLICY NEWS) noted:


Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove reported yesterday that, “President Joe Biden said that the world will experience food shortages as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and production increases were a subject of discussions at a Group of Seven meeting on Thursday.

“‘It’s going to be real,‘ Biden said at a news conference in Brussels. ‘The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia. It’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well.'”



It's going to be real?  In other words, I don't have a clue what to do.  He doesn't.  He's clueless.  A bumbling fool who is unable to offer leadership. Maybe someone can snap "Leadeership1" in his ear like, at the Easter ceremony, he was told "Wave!"  


He has no clue and it really shows.  The crazy old man who had to be hidden in the basement throughout 2020 -- during the last stretch of the primaries, during the general election -- was not up to being president and a whorish press worked to deliver him to the White House, not to inform the public, not to hold the powerful accountable.


His ineptitude is showing but it also reflects back on to the whores who pimped and pushed him.


In other news, MARVEL'S DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTI-VERSE OF MADNESS is about to be released (May 5th in the US).  MENA notes:


Marvel's parent company, Disney, has always tried to have their films played in theaters all over the world but, due to the laws in some international countries, some films are unable to be screened in certain territories. In the past, when Disney has chosen to leave any reference to the LGBTQ+ community in their movies, it would result in the movie being pulled from theaters and thus a major loss of money for the company.

This most recently occurred with Marvel's The Eternals when the film was pulled from theaters in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar after Disney refused to edit out a homosexual relationship.


First off, there are no hardcore scenes in the film -- meaning this is not a pornographic film.  Second someone's religious sensibilities are also supposed to include tolerance and no one's asking them to be gay because they see the film.  Third, you can't just cobble a movie apart.  When it works, a film is a coherent statement where all parts build to a satisfying experience.  You can't just chop out scenes.


It's happened in the paast.


And it never needs to happen again.


Lena Horne is the best example of that past mistake.  A tremendously talented artist, she saw her scenes removed when people couldn't accept -- or someone thought that they couldn't -- a Black woman in a movie.  Black women existed then and it served no good to remove Lena from films.  LGBTQ people exist and they need to present on the screen.  


Lena suffered to protect 'delicate sensibilities.'  She was a movie queen who was kept in waiting.  Holding her back harmed her, harmed art, harmed our notions of the world around us.  


For the film industry to have supported this was shameful.


They should not support it again.


As for ETERNALS, I don't care if some markets didn't show it.  Their loss.  The film still pulled in more at the box office than DUNE did.  


If governments deny a wanted film in their country, they can face the pressure of the people in those countries who wanted to see the movie.  And maybe it will further underscore just how outrageous and outdated some government are.


In other news, ASHARQ AL-AWSAT reports:

Iraq's First Deputy Speaker of Parliament Hakim al-Zamili accused on Sunday Iran and Turkey of exploiting his country's weakness to launch military attacks and operations on its territories.

Zamili, who is a leading member of the Sadr movement of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, noted that the violations by Ankara and Tehran had increased in recent weeks.


He made his remarks at a meeting at parliament aimed at addressing the repeated Turkish and Iranian attacks. The meeting was attended by Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and head of the Sadrist parliamentary bloc Hassan al-Athari.


Athari said the violations pose a threat to Iraq and undermine its diplomacy.


Addressing Hussein, he asked what Iraq was doing to address the violations.


He also wondered whether there was any credibility to reports that spoke of an agreement between Iraq and Turkey that allows Turkish forces to enter 30 kilometers deep into Iraqi territory.


George Szamuely Tweets:

Hmmm, this is odd. Turkey, a NATO member-state, has launched an invasion of Iraq. Not one word yet from NATO and EU representatives, voices still hoarse from two months of screaming at Russia.


Iraqi politicians are calling out Turkey for its latest assault on Iraq.  Turkey is dropping bombs on the Kurdistan and has sent ground troops in as well.  Though western outlets like to pretend they're fair, they tend to ignore the number of civilians the Turkish military is killing, wounding and terrorizing.  RUDAW reports:



A Christian family from a Duhok village has decided to migrate to Australia due to ongoing clashes between Turkish army and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) at home. 

Amirnisan Gorgis is from the Christian village of Sharansh in Duhok’s Zakho city. He and his family have fled their village due to Turkish bombardment four years ago. They live in a rental house in the Bersiv region in the same province. He told Rudaw’s Yusuf Musa on Tuesday that he plans to migrate to Australia in July when the current academic year ends. 

“I have turned 62 and I have built several houses but have been displaced five times. I have spent most of my age in displacement,” he said, adding that he wants to join his son in Australia. 

Turkey has intensified its military activities in Zakho in the last few years, leading to the displacement of a large number of people. 

Out of 20 Christian villages in Zakho, nine have been evacuated, according to local authorities. 



Iraqi politicians such as Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's president Barham Saleh and others have called out Turkey's actions.  More voices are joining the condemnation of Turkey.  ANHA reports:


​​​​​​​Today, the presidency of the Iraqi parliament condemned the Turkish occupation military attacks in Başûr Kurdistan, stressing that they constitute a "clear violation of Iraq's security and stability."

The office of Shakhwan Abdullah, the second parliamentarian, stated that "the latter attended the meeting of the Presidency of the House of Representatives with Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein and the advanced cadre of the ministry, which was held today in the Constitutional Hall and in the presence of heads of blocs and parliamentary committees and a number of deputies."


IRAN INTERNATIONAL explains, "Last Monday, Turkey carried out air and land operations -- dubbed Operation Claw Lock – against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq that targeted camps and ammunition stores."  And MEHR NEWS AGENCY notes, "News sources reported that at least six rockets were fired at 'Zelika' base, east of Mosul.  Turkey has long been violating the territorial integrity of northern Iraq by claiming to oppose the PKK."  The Nineveh Province base isn't the only Turkish military base in Iraq.  This base and the others are illegal and should be closed by the Turkish government immediately.  They are in violation of Iraq's national sovereignty and their established upon non-Turkish land can be seen as an act of war.  


New content at THIRD:



The following sites updated: