Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Swords Into Plowshares



Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. (Happy Black History Month, too.)

It does seem funny wishing a good day in honor of a late great American (assassinated by our own security state), but what else can I say?

I suppose I could say “Happy Inauguration Day!” but some folks would have a complete and utter meltdown if I dare mention Donald Trump being sworn in as president for a second time. So, I won’t say that, but what could I say instead? Maybe: “Trump is living in the White House again. Get use to it”?

I find it interesting how most of the individuals I know who have constantly worried and fretted over or made fun of the “Orange Man” won’t live any differently whether Trump is president or not. They still have their white privilege. They still live solidly middle- to upper-class lives. They will keep their jobs or be able to retire as planned. This is in complete contrast to the poor people that Dr. King spoke about frequently who struggled to pay their bills and never once considered retirement to be possible...

 

And now a short excerpt from our guest blogger's piece: 

Swords Into Plowshares 

by Coast Watcher

...Instead of scrapping one or both of the huge and expensive super-carriers Britain could instead donate them to the United Nations for use as disaster relief ships. Able to travel quickly to wherever they’re needed, each carrier could house dozens of search-and-rescue helicopters and other aircraft. Current hangar space below decks can be repurposed as hospitals equipped for emergency surgery, storage space for medical supplies, food, water, disaster relief equipment, tents and anything else required in a disaster relief operation. The ship’s nuclear power plant can be hooked up to shoreside facilities to provide electricity wherever local power generation has been damaged or destroyed...

 

Please continue reading the remainder of these two essays by copying or clicking on this Substack link: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com. There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers, too.

Subscribe to The Revolution Continues on Substack today. Power to the people!


This article is the 503rd blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another ten years.

Feel free to make a donation to us at https://paypal.me/camatthews or at Buy Me a Coffee or at Ko-fi. Every little bit helps. Thank you.


Tuesday, May 3, 2022

Brother, Can You Spare $7 Billion?


Brother, Can You Spare $7 Billion?

by Coast Watcher

Once they sent some missiles to Ukraine
Thanks to the folks on the Hill
Once they sent some missiles, now we're done
Brother, can you spare seven bill'?

Joe Biden’s continuing in office as POTUS is verging on elder abuse.

His performances during press conferences lack coherence. How can anyone not see his advancing senility? Neoliberal attempts to explain away his decrepit behavior as a "speech impediment" are failing in credence.

Knowing this man has control over nuclear weapons makes thinking people uncomfortable, especially since NATO seems determined to provoke Vladimir Putin by expanding up to Russia’s border. Putin has warned what will happen if NATO does so, yet we see Sweden and Finland proposing to join the outdated Cold War organization. Putin has also warned that shipments of military gear to Ukraine by Western powers will be considered legitimate targets of war, yet those shipments continue at an incredible rate.

This US proxy war in Ukraine is merely the latest example of how this senile president is still useful to the oligarchy. The US government is funneling literally billions of dollars into Ukraine—one of the most corrupt countries on Earth according to the Panama Papers—to prop up its failing war effort against Russia. Most of those billions pass through the coffers of the military-industrial complex to the complete satisfaction of their boards of directors and shareholders. 

And why? Supposedly so the West can utterly destroy the Russian economy and grab their resources and then move on to conquer the King of Global Capitalism, a.k.a. China. Nothing new there.

It’s not only Biden’s decline in cognitive function that’s concerning people. He's sending $33 billion to Ukraine so the folks there can “have something in their pockets.” Fortunately for the Ukrainians, they already enjoy universal healthcare while many US citizens have to make do with GoFundMe.  

You have to give it to the Democrat Party--there’s no pretense made that Biden is working for the good of ordinary Americans. $33 billion could end many injustices that Americans suffer with a stroke of the president's pen. He could easily end student loan debt, institute Medicare For All, send out stimulus checks or start UBI. It's estimated that it would take a mere $20 billion to end homelessness, for instance. Yet Biden gladly sends all that money into a proxy war. Ukraine gets plenty of money for weaponry while American infrastructure disintegrates all around us. 

It makes one wonder who really is at war and with whom. Could it be that struggling Americans are being bombarded by the mindless, selfish destructiveness of capitalism? Is our tax money simply disappearing into a war zone in the form of weapon drops so these arms can be bought and sold later at a discount by other interested parties?

Just think of all the profits to be made from selling drones and missiles after "cleaning up" all that money... Can't you just picture all those Congress members buying new mansions and yachts with those ill-gotten gains? Hey, they worked hard for it!

Meanwhile across the globe, there is no unity of sanctions against Russia. Hungary is refusing to enact any sanctions, partly because Hungarian President Orbán is getting payback against the EU for penalizing his country over its anti-LGBTQIA laws, and partly because Orbán isn’t stupid enough to deprive his people of cheap Russian fuel. India also refuses to go along with the drive to sanction Russia, its leadership resisting blandishments and threats from Western powers to do so.

Pakistan wasn’t so fortunate. A US-instigated coup against Imran Khan ousted that pro-neutral leader in favor of one more pliable to Western interests. The message is clear: Nothing personal, but if you're a leader of a country who doesn't go along with NATO's sanctions against Russia, you're going to be out of a job soon.

I can only conclude that Biden is still a useful fool for the one-percent. Any comprehension he might still possess on the nature of politics and capitalism as a whole are more the product of ingrained habit than specific thought. But as long as the American oligarchy thinks he can talk the talk—after a drooling fashion—the more likely he'll keep cutting those big checks for that plucky Ukrainian comedian/puppet-president.


BIO: Coast Watcher is tired of watching the working classes get shafted by the greed and evil manipulations of the billionaires invested heavily in the military industrial complex. Isn't it about time we kick all their politician-puppets to the curb and see how they like begging for small change?



More great insight into the why of spending so much on warfare:

The masters of war require an enemy. When an enemy cannot be found, as George Orwell understood in Nineteen Eighty-Four, an enemy is manufactured. That enemy can become an ally overnight – we allied ourselves with Iran in the Middle East to fight the Taliban and later the Caliphate – before instantly reinstated Iran as the incarnation of evil. The enemy is not about logic or geopolitical necessity. It is about stoking the fear and hatred that fuels perpetual war. 

In 1989, I covered the revolutions that toppled the communist dictatorships in Central and Eastern Europe.  President Mikhail Gorbachev, like his successor Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin in the early stages of his rule, hoped to integrate Russia into the western alliance. But the war industry places profits before national defense. It needed an antagonistic Russia to push the expansion of NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany in violation of a promise made to Moscow. There were billions of dollars to be made from a Russian enemy, as there are billions more to be made from the proxy war in Ukraine. There would be no “peace dividend” at the end of the Cold War. The war industry was determined to continue to bleed the US dry and amass its obscene profits. They provoked and antagonized Russia until Russia filled its preordained role. --Chris Hedges, The Age of Self-Delusion

Related article links:

The Age of Self-Delusion  https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-age-of-self-delusion?s=r

An Intellectual No-Fly Zone  https://popularresistance.org/an-intellectual-no-fly-zone-online-censorship-of-ukraine-dissent-is-becoming-the-new-norm/

Ex-General Pushing for NATO Troops in Ukraine Has Weapons Industry Ties https://popularresistance.org/surprise-ex-general-pushing-for-nato-troops-in-ukraine-has-weapons-industry-ties/ 

UN Chief Slams Fossil Fuel Industry for Using Ukraine War to Boost Profits https://truthout.org/articles/un-chief-slams-fossil-fuel-industry-for-using-ukraine-war-to-boost-profits/

On Ukraine, the World Majority Sides with Russia Over US https://popularresistance.org/on-ukraine-the-world-majority-sides-with-russia-over-us/

US/NATO Wants War With Russia  https://popularresistance.org/us-nato-wants-war-with-russia/

Ukraine: How the US Empire Uses Propaganda To Turn People Into Monsters https://rainershea.substack.com/p/ukraine-how-the-us-empire-uses-propaganda

PayPal Blocks Multiple Alternative  Media Figures Critical of US Empire Narratives  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/paypal-blocks-multiple-alternative?s=r 

Americans Believe Nothing Is Getting Better. Biden Feeds That Disillusionment https://www.rsn.org/001/americans-believe-nothing-is-getting-better-biden-feeds-that-disillusionment.html

"Disinformation Governance Board" Chief is Huge Spreader of Disinformation https://youtu.be/0ac_q8Z9SQk  (video)

 Seen on Twitter:

Tuesday, June 8, 2021

No War But Class War

 

No War But Class War

by C. A. Matthews

Bourgeoisie (in Marxist thought) the ruling class of the two basic classes of capitalist society, consisting of capitalists, manufacturers, bankers, and other employers. The bourgeoisie owns the most important of the means of production, through which it exploits the working class  --The Free Dictionary

It's a funny word, but it's been receiving a lot more airtime lately. Is it because Americans are becoming more sensitive to income inequality, or is it because they themselves are suffering deprivations due to the pandemic? Either way, more people are openly discussing what they find unfair or unjust in our society and aren't afraid to use either bourgeoisie or the "C word."

No, not that "C word"--although often a discussion of communism comes after the mention of this particular C word. (And not that C word, either, for those who have their minds in the gutter.) The word I'm referring to is simply "class." And before you go off on a rant about how America is a "class-less society," let me ask you one question:

Where did you go to high school?

I learned the awesome power of this particular question when I lived in St. Louis, Missouri. Here's the scenario: You're introduced to someone in a conversation and then about nine times out of ten in the St. Louis area you are then asked, "So, where did you attend high school?" I found it an odd question as an adult long since graduated from high school, but I'm friendly so I shared the name of the high school I attended in Ohio. This threw the conversation for a loop usually, and I often got cross looks or simply ignored for the rest of the evening. But all too soon I learned why they asked me, a total stranger, this question, and why the answer was vitally important for the questioner to ask.

Americans tend to dress and speak alike no matter where or how they grew up. I'm not talking about regional dialects or accents. I'm talking about how difficult it is to tell what side of town a fellow American comes from if they dress similarly and use similar terminology to yours. So, we have to figure out another way to discover what "C word" another American belongs to without seeming too obvious. In St. Louis, it's as easy as asking which high school you went to since this gives the questioner the neighborhood you grew up in (true of both public and parochial schools there) and the approximate value of the home you grew up in, and, therefore, how much money your parents made to support your family.

Of course, if you admitted to attending a working class area high school, you could be shunned by those who attended schools in wealthier neighborhoods. That is the true power of the question. It helps separate Americans by class in a relatively quick and painless way. You didn't attend the "right" high school? Then the questioner knows that you're probably not going to fit in well with their bridge club or even know what golf is, let alone how to play it. For recent immigrants and people of color this question is a double insult, as the wealthier high schools are almost certainly populated with a majority of white, native-born students.

Please don't get hot under the collar when I tell you that America displays just as many classes as a Downtown Abbey episode. We all know it's true. Americans don't like to think of themselves as snobs, but we're as human as the rest of the world, and we like to put our inferiors in their place. We've just agreed among ourselves to pretend that we're not capable of such vulgarities as class consciousness.


American might be unique in the fact that there is such a thing as poor snobs as well as rich snobs here. I know because I am one. My favorite tale of how I first realized how much of a poor snob I am comes from my high school days. (Funny how secondary education keeps popping up, isn't it? Possibly this is where most of us first learn how we're "different" from the others who go on from there to attend Ivy League schools and drive luxury cars.)

There was only one high school in our city, one large public high school. This lead to some interesting interactions among students. I remember talking to a classmate at the end of an English class about where we were both planning on working in the summer. Most kids from our side of town worked part-time in the school year and full-time in the summer months. It's how we were able to afford new shoes, winter coats, and save up for college or trade school. 

Anyway, a third classmate entered our conversation and said something along the lines of, "Oh, I don't know what I'm doing this summer, too. Should I go to horse riding school or tennis camp?" The first classmate and I exchanged knowing glances of the variety of, "Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if the summer months were actually a time to have fun and go on vacations, right?"  We then returned to discussing the benefits of working at the local ice cream shack versus looking for more underpaid big chain fast food work located closer to the highway.

It was then that I realized how much I hated rich people--not necessarily my well-to-do classmate since she was a nice enough person, but how this idea of class kept us separated and how it kept working people from ever enjoying a life that our rich classmate took for granted that everyone else in our high school enjoyed.

Had she ever been to our side of town? Possibly not. Why would she leave her side? She had everything she needed on her wealthier side of town and could go out of town to the big city whenever she or her parents wanted to go. Working class kids just had to make do with what we had and stay put. That was our lot in life. End of story.


I take some hope in the fact that more and more Americans seem free to talk about class and income inequality and the lack of universal health care in 2021, but we still have a ways to go. We still need to discuss what concrete steps we're willing to take to destroy this system that condemns those without what our society calls "wealth" to a life of poverty, hunger, possible homelessness, and an early preventable death. If the founders were willing to risk it all for the "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" why aren't we?

"No war but class war" says the bumper sticker slogan. I think that's what it's going to take--an all out assault against the institutions that propagate the evil capitalistic class system in this country and the world. Voting out the corrupt billionaire supporters has proved impossible. The Citizens United ruling has taken away our voices since money is speech according to it. We will never be able to outspend the billionaires and their lackeys. We'll have to outsmart and out-fight them in the streets.

In other words, it's time for the pitchforks, folks. 

We can't keep pulling our punches. Speak out, speak loudly, and never give in to those who say it's not a fight worth winning. It is. Our planet is dying because of capitalism. We don't need to maintain the classes to survive. The system is killing us all. We need each other without these artificial divides.

All is not lost for the rich according to this short video--they can be taught to empathize! https://youtu.be/Pg5QFOuMoN8

***

Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker, candidates for the Green Party nomination for president and vice president
 

Over 300,000 immigrants were deported in Biden’s first 100 days — a rate of deportations higher than any period under the openly anti-immigrant Donald Trump or under the “Deporter-in-Chief,” Barack
Obama.

The deportation machine of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continues unabated. ICE and CBP defied Biden’s 100-day moratorium on deportations.
Predictably, these agencies targeted Black and Latino immigrants for deportation.

Biden partially rescinded Trump’s “Return to Mexico" policy for asylum seekers, but only for Latin Americans. Reflecting the longstanding anti-Black racism of US immigration policies, Haitians and Africans were excluded.

Black people have been flown by ICE without due process of their asylum requests to countries like Haiti, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the political violence means they may face death.

More Haitians were deported to Haiti in Biden’s first 100 days than in the last year of the Trump administration.

Biden has the legal authority to bring ICE and CBP into compliance with the law and his administration’s policies. These rogue agencies’ unions and members campaigned in uniform for Trump in open defiance the Hatch Act. ICE and CBP must be dismantled and replaced with a new agency that will uphold the law.

But Biden shows no appetite for that fight.

Instead, Biden submitted a moderate immigration bill to Congress on his first day in office, the U.S. Citizenship Act, which would leave ICE and CBP in place. It would provide immigrants in the U.S. before
2021 with a path to legal status and, after eight years, to citizenship. But it reinforces the racial biases in the criminal justice and national security systems toward Black, Latino, Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern,
and South Asian people, who remain targeted for criminal and national security surveillance, discrimination, and arrest that would render them ineligible for legal status and citizenship.

In any case, if the Democrats in the U.S. Senate don’t eliminate the filibuster, no immigration reform will happen. 800,000 Dreamers and more than 20 million undocumented immigrants will continue to live
their lives in constant fear of deportation.

Meanwhile, Biden has continued Trump's "Title 42" public health authority to immediately expel people seeking asylum without due process.

The only exception is allowing the entry of unaccompanied minors, tens of thousands of whom are now stuck in some 200 facilities across two dozen states. Most of these detentions centers are unlicensed and riddled with neglect, abuse, covid, lice, and failure to help connect children with their families or vetted care providers.

While Biden has said he will not build more border wall, his administration is in the courts pursuing eminent domain proceedings that were initiated by the Trump administration against landowners at the border where more wall could be built.

Nor has Biden stopped the policy of co-opting local police into federal immigration enforcement, which has made racial profiling worse and undermined the trust and cooperation of immigrant communities
with local police in solving crimes.

The rule-or-ruin intransigence of the Republicans make them irrelevant to immigration reform—or any other reform. The Democrats in control of both houses of Congress and presidency are negotiating with themselves. They may try to blame the Republicans, but it is the Democrats who could but will not eliminate the filibuster by a simple majority vote in the Senate.

That is why we need the Green Party now more than ever.

We are working to help Greens build that alternative and advance the agenda we advocated during the presidential campaign, from immigration reform and student debt relief to Medicare for All and the Ecosocialist Green New Deal.

Please help us carry on this fight for justice, peace, and the environment with a donation today!

In Solidarity,

Howie Hawkins

***



 

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

No One Should Live in Poverty

 


 

"Why don't we cut child poverty in whole? Why are we leaving half the children in poverty? How much child poverty are you comfortable with?" All valid questions Jimmy asks the propagandists. https://youtu.be/7SboDoWF_XU

The Trinity of Needs

by Coast Watcher

Nobody should lack a roof over their heads, food on the table, and access to free healthcare. This is a simple trinity of needs that a country as rich as the United States is more than capable of meeting. In fact it’s right up there in the preamble to the Constitution—it’s the American government’s duty to promote the general welfare. 

General (definition): Everybody.

Welfare (definition): Health, happiness, prosperity. 

Instead we have the unedifying spectacle of the government doing it’s best to water down all welfare passed to its people while providing ever-greater wealth for a select minority of uber-rich parasites. The one-off $1400 is patently less than the $2000 Biden and numerous so-called Democratic Party candidates promised before the Georgia run-off elections in a clear bribe to the electorate. It’s also means tested. That’s right; the so-called Democrats delivered less than their governmental partner in crime, the Republican Party.

If the United States was a properly-functioning country it'd be focused on getting affordable nutritious food to all people as a form of health care. Instead it’s entirely focused on food banks to ensure people don't starve to death. Food deserts are rife and spreading as supermarket chains grow ever larger and migrate to the wealthier neighborhoods.

If the United States were not a failed nation, it would provide housing for all its citizens. There are on average 550,000 people sleeping rough every night in all weathers. There are on average 4.2 vacant houses for every homeless person. Instead banks and mortgage companies seize properties which then stand vacant for years in a state of gradual decay.

Thirty two out of thirty three first world nations have universal free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare services. Only the United States does not. Instead, American healthcare costs on average twice as much as that found in any other country, while delivering half the value.

The situation is as it is because there are those who make money out of poverty, hunger, poor healthcare and homelessness. These people would have you believe the people afflicted by these dire situations are to blame for their plight. The money to rectify all these problems is there. The political will is not. Politicians prefer to cozy up to Big Business and accept funding and policy direction from their boards of directors than to listen to what the ordinary people need.

The time has come for a drastic change for the better, before it’s too late.


BIO: Coast Watcher isn't buying the "We can save half the children in poverty" line of the Dems. Every child could be saved. He sees who's behind these morally corrupt politicians and why they don't act too anxious to end poverty for all time for everyone on the planet. #CapitalismKills is more than just a hashtag--it's a truth that is becoming more and more evident to more and more people than ever before. Don't let them try to convince you that some folks must live in poverty in order for our economy to function...because no one should.

Spotted on Twitter: 

Related Articles and Videos:

https://youtu.be/cCcMwZ2a29E

The American Dream of Upward Mobility Is Broken https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/68288-the-american-dream-of-upward-mobility-is-broken-look-at-the-numbers

The Sovietization of the American Press https://scheerpost.com/2021/03/14/the-sovietization-of-the-american-press/ 

Capitalist Economies Overproduce Food But People Can't Afford To Buy It  https://truthout.org/articles/capitalist-economies-overproduce-food-but-people-cant-afford-to-buy-it/

Biden's Big Bailout Can't Pull America Out of Its Death Spiral (by Chris Hedges) https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/68328-focus-bandaging-the-corpse-bidens-big-bailout-cant-pull-america-out-of-its-death-spiral 

How Democrats Abandoned You In Relief Bill (video) https://youtu.be/7xge33CwtL0

***

I went to Louisville, KY, last summer and felt the violence of the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department firsthand. Three of my friends were arrested while we protested for justice in Breonna Taylor’s name, and I was sent to the hospital after police shot us with rubber bullets.
 
Luckily, they weren’t real bullets, and I wasn’t another Black woman murdered by police.

One year ago today, Louisville police officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor. She was a young, Black woman like me, only a little older. Despite Breonna Taylor’s murder receiving intense press coverage and her name becoming known worldwide, we still don’t have justice. Her murder sparked a nationwide outcry – I was on the streets of Washington, D.C., nearly every day this summer alongside hundreds of peaceful protesters, demanding justice for Black lives, including Breonna Taylor and her family.


Police violence is gun violence. Breonna Taylor was one of the many Black women who was unfairly and unnecessarily stolen by America’s racist gun violence epidemic. And it’s not something unique to my generation: Black people have faced deadly bias and racial profiling from police for decades and are twice as likely to be killed by them. We must take action to protect Black lives, C.A.. Right now, the Senate has the chance to pass sweeping police accountability policies that would potentially save Black lives and chip away at the racist institution that took Breonna Taylor’s life.
 
The House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act this month and if it passes the Senate, it could prevent unjustified murders by police. This bill would ban the use of chokeholds, like in the murder of George Floyd, and ban no-knock warrants — like the one that police used to enter Breonna Taylor’s home. This is a critical step in drastically overhauling the racist policing tactics that are taking the lives of far too many Black Americans.
 
Since the moment I had to use my classmate’s lifeless body to protect myself from being shot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, I have been putting my own body on the line to fight against the gun violence that is predominantly killing Black and Brown young people. Today, one year after Breonna Taylor was murdered by police, I am asking you to fight with me and take action against racist gun violence perpetrated by police. I am asking you to fight as hard as I do for Black lives.
 

In honor of Breonna Taylor, will you sign our petition urging the Senate to pass this critical legislation to address policing? We cannot end gun violence without ending police violence.
 
I am remembering Breonna Taylor today. I am thinking of all the Black women who I am lucky to know and work with every day. And I will keep fighting for Black women until we finally address gun violence in this country.
 
Thank you for fighting for justice for Breonna Taylor and Black lives.
 
Aalayah Eastmond

Gun Violence Survivor
Team ENOUGH Executive Council Member
Founder, Concerned Citizens DC

 ***

From Roots Action:


As a result of broad U.S. economic sanctions, countries such as Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe struggle without adequate food, electricity, medicine, medical supplies, masks and respirators. Those who suffer most under sanctions include pregnant women, children, and the chronically ill.

We need to urge the Biden administration to issue a worldwide temporary general license to allow all countries and locations sanctioned by the United States to be able to easily import all related medicines, medical supplies, and vaccines, to facilitate international relief efforts related to COVID-19.

We've put together, with our allies, a petition that will be delivered to President Joe Biden; Vice President Kamala Harris; White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain; Sec. of State Antony Blinken; Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin; Sec. of the Treasury Janet Yellen; and Sec. of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

Click here to add your name!

Facebook button Donate button Twitter button

The U.S. Treasury Department has the power to issue a worldwide, temporary general license authorizing the exportation and re-exportation of medical supplies and equipment and other essential goods that might otherwise be prohibited by sanctions. The temporary general license would not require Congress to suspend or repeal sanctions and would only cover the listed types of supplies and equipment. By making it clear these types of financial transactions are allowable, this license would aid in the donation or sale of items such as test kits, respirators, sanitizers, personal protective equipment, and medicine, which are all critical for preventing and treating COVID-19.

U.S. economic sanctions technically exempt humanitarian items -- but banks, insurance companies, and other corporations are afraid that if they make loans, provide insurance for shipments, or send goods, the U.S. government will accuse them of violating the sanctions, levy hefty fines, and place them on a banned business list.

An April 2020 Human Rights Watch report explained that sanctions have had a particularly detrimental effect on Iran’s healthcare system, as the country lacks access to critical medical equipment and medicine despite existing exemptions. UN Human Rights Commissioner Michele Bachelet echoed this point when she called for an easing of sanctions for COVID-19 relief. Past Republican and Democratic Party administrations have issued temporary general licenses after earthquakes in Iran. So, there is precedent for following through on this request.

Sign the petition here!

***

The Revolution Continues is now in our sixth year taking on the propaganda of the fauxgressives and their friends in the corporate-owned duopoly. We need passionate revolutionaries like you to help us provide progressive insights that are being actively censored elsewhere. If you can donate a little to the cause, please do so at the Paypal.me link below.

http://paypal.me/camatthews

Thanks for all you do in making the world a better place. Power to the people!