American Dream = American Nightmare

Ballooning Expenses: Unpacking High Costs Behind ‘American Dream’

Note by Fazal Rahman

So-called American Dream has always been based upon capitalist-imperialist materialism, which has sickened, perverted, and distorted the souls and intellects of its inhabitants.  It has been a nightmare for much of rest of the world and has now also become a nightmare for its own majority, even in strictly materialistic terms.  After invasion of America and most brutal genocide of its natives, the European invaders and their descendants transformed the pristine paradise on Earth into concrete monstrosities of huge crowded  cities, have created an extremist form of capitalist-imperialist civilization, and all types of weapons of mass destruction, as well as pollution of soil, air, water, and food.  They have also exported this civilization to much of rest of the world.  They extracted great wealth from the resource-rich lands of the colonized country, which numerous generations have benefited from.  They also maximally exploited the natural and human resources of rest of the world and transferred these to their imperialist center.  However, after centuries of such parasitic affluence, the balance of economic and military powers has shifted, which has put powerful brakes on the national and international parasitism. The complicity of overwhelming majority of population with their ruling class is now backfiring on it., which has been effectively immunized against understanding the real nature of this crisis and its causes.

End of note

Many Americans Are Unable to Afford Food, Even as Unemployment Remains Low

Mary Manley

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231210/many-americans-are-unable-to-afford-food-even-as-unemployment-remains-low-1115515039.html

Despite being the wealthiest country in the world by net worth (according to 2022 data), the United States continues to struggle with hunger.

A report from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) found more than 44 million Americans facing hunger last year, including 1 in 5 children. Programs which provide food to those in need are crippling under demand, as prices at the grocery store don’t appear to be dropping anytime soon.

UAW boss says Trump works for ‘billionaire class’ ahead of visit

 

Note by Fazal Rahman

United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain spoke the truth, which is very rare in politico-economic affairs in this “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, about Donald Trump being a representative of not only the rich but super-rich capitalists, and against the elementary needs and interests of the working class and other working people.  Both the Democratic and Republican parties are representatives of these, the difference being in the degree, with the Republicans doing that nakedly and to an extreme degree, while the Democrats to a lesser degree and hypocritically.  Biden has been in the pockets of the Military Industrial and other giant corporation throughout his long political career.  His transferring public resources to these and the corrupt elites of Ukraine in the proxy war against Russia has damaged the working class and other working people, and those on fixed incomes enormously through record high inflation and highest prices of food and other basic necessities in decades.  His support of the UAW strikers is a vote-getting ploy, and nothing more.  Working class urgently needs to have its own political party.  It used to have several of these before  these were brutally destroyed by the American capitalist-imperialist class.

End of note

A homeless man living on national forest land was shot by federal police. He’s now suing

 

Note by Fazal Rahman

Housing is one of the most important basic human needs and  homelessness is one of the worst brutalities inflicted upon humans.  There are millions of homeless in the US, a country in which the well off politicians and other wealthy constantly and loudly boast about its being most democratic, advanced, and richest.  This family at least was living in a camper, which they were forced to move constantly on public lands and forests because of restrictions.  Animals, birds, and insects can live on the public lands and forests, but humans cannot, no matter what dire financial situation they may be suffering.  In this case, the law enforcement officials tried to kill a young man, because of that.  Some years ago, I had read a similar story, in which a police officer killed a man because he was sleeping under a rock on a hill in New Mexico.

Most homeless are are condemned to live in tents or tent-like structures made with whatever material can be found. 

In Libya, under Muammar Qaddafi, housing was a human right and there were no homeless there.  Electricity and gas were also free.  US and NATO destroyed those and numerous other enviable rights of Libyans and imposed a version of their own system.  Now the former prosperous nation of Libya is suffering anarchy, constant warfare, impoverishment, and many of the same brutalities that exist in the US and Western “democracies”.

End of note

Iowa Republicans pass law to allow child labour in all-night session

Several Republican-controlled state legislatures have loosened child labour laws this year

Abe Asher

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/iowa-republicans-child-labour-law-b2322286.html

Iowa Republicans worked into Tuesday morning to pass a law loosening the state’s child labour restrictions.

The Iowa Senate ultimately passed the bill, SB 542, by a tally of 32-17. All the chamber’s Democrats voted against the bill, as did two Republicans.

The rest of the GOP caucus voted to support the bill, which allows children as young as 14 to work six-hour night shifts, as young as 15 to work in plants on assembly lines, and as young as 16 to serve alcohol, even though children that young cannot legally drink themselves.