Best of the Left 6/3/2023: Putting Our Kids to Work for Corporate Profits
Jay! curates clips from various sources, investigating the rise of child labor in this country and the conservative activism that is behind it. The movement is hiding under the auspices of parental freedom and labor shortages.
BOTL: #1563 Putting Our Kids to Work for Corporate Profits
Anti-Transgender Legislative Push
“So far this year, legislators in nearly every state have introduced over 550 anti-transgender bills—more than in the past eight years combined. Nearly 30 such bills have been introduced in Congress. The onslaught includes limits on healthcare access, removing LGBTQ+ materials from schools, and banning trans athletes from sports teams. Seventy-two measures are now law.”
Mother Jones: Legislatures Passed 550 Anti-Trans Bills So Far This Year
Trotsky—Since we’re talking Socialism
This is from an article on the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), promoting the upcoming book by David North, Leon Trotsky and the Struggle for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century. North is the chairman of the International Editorial Board of the WSWS and the National Chairman of the U.S Socialist Equality Party:
“Despite the many years that separate the first and last document, they are connected by a central argument: that Leon Trotsky was the most significant figure in the history of socialism during the first four decades of the twentieth century, and that his legacy remains the critical and indispensable theoretical and political foundation of the ongoing contemporary struggle for the victory of world socialism.”
WSWS: Leon Trotsky and the Struggle for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century
Biofuel article from author of The New New Deal
I’ve spoken about my admiration for Michael Grunwald’s writing, in particular his book The New New Deal, which details the White House response to the 2008 financial crisis. Since then, he’s produced a number of cover stories for various outlets, including NYT and Politico. Now he’s publishing a Substack called Emissions, and focusing on climate change. Here’s an excerpt from his recent op-ed in the NYT.
“I’m obsessed with the global land crunch, because by 2050 the world is going to need to produce way more food with significantly less land. Biofuels are a fake solution to the fossil fuel problem that can make that food and land problem much harder to solve. The world now uses a landmass larger than California to grow less than 4 percent of our transportation fuel. We need that land to grow food or store carbon instead. Land is really good at growing food and storing carbon, but it sucks at growing energy—and fortunately, we have better ways to grow energy.”
Substack: Emissions
NYT: The Climate Solution That’s Horrible for the Climate
Unf*cker Comment of the Week
Pastor Tim:
“I am going to stay engaged and not back out of my appreciation for the analysis and education that you bring into this sphere, but I struggled mightily with your prideful ignorance and dismissal of religious services and celebrations displayed on your Show Notes episode following Socialism Pt. 1. As an ordained minister, socialist, teacher, and interpreter of ‘religious issues’ for Northern California Democrats for 10 years, I can assure you, your words are not ‘calling people in,’ nor ‘meeting them where they are,’ and as such represent an egregious failure to uphold the basic tenets your promised us all to represent. I get it. Seriously, I get it. Many of the most bigoted people in America claim Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but that is no more evidence of their beliefs than if I claimed to be the finest ballerina in all of Galveston as accurate evidence of my fitness. I suppose I expected a more nuanced appreciation for all of the possible avenues of being that the human can embrace. Maybe appreciate what was good in the service held for your mother (my sympathies, btw), and if other things happen in other traditions that you don't get or understand, perhaps, and this is just a suggestion, SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT AND ASK SOMEONE.”