CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM

RALPH NADER—Torrents of Trump tweets somehow overlooked H.P. Acthar Gel, a drug produced by Mallinckrodt to treat a rare infant seizure disorder, which increased in price from $40 per vial to $39,000 per vial! Other drug prices are booming cruelly upward, while Trump blusters, but fails to deliver on his campaign promises.For years our country’s political and corporate rulers have saddled college students with breathtaking debt and interest rates. Student debt is now at $1.5 trillion. Both corporations and the federal government are profiting off of America’s young. In no other western country is this allowed, with most nations offering tuition-free higher education.On May 2, 2019, The New York Times featured an article titled, “Tuition or Dinner? Nearly Half of College Students Surveyed in a New Report Are Going Hungry.”

GLEN FORD—“Normal” governments, even of great powers, usually leave the sordid business of tactical disinformation campaigns to their clandestine services. Presidents and secretaries of state only tell the “big” strategic lies that are central to Big Power foreign policy. But then, normal governments are not constantly engaged in regime change operations against multiple targeted states.  Especially since 9/11, U.S. imperialism appears to have entered a stage–a permanent war-against-all–in which disinformation is the only language it speaks, from the CIA professional specializing in destabilization in Caracas all the way up to the Oval Office in Washington.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Barack Obama made a promise to protect whistleblowers and have the most transparent administration in history, which was very well-received by the public after the frightening Orwellian advancements of George W Bush. People understood that in order for democracy to exist, the public needs to be able to see what its government is doing in all possible ways, and the prospect of a president who would give that to them made a lot of people feel hopeful. Obama then he went on to prosecute more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined, and his successor, despite all the partisan chatter about how wildly different the two presidents are, is following right in his footsteps.

ERIC SCHECHTER—EXTERNALITIES are the unmeasured side effects of every market transaction. They are not paid for by the buyer or the seller; they are paid for by everyone else. They include war, poverty, and ecocide. They are enormous. No corporation today would be profitable if it had to pay for its externalized costs. If ecocide continues, it will kill us all, and thus end the economy. Thus the so-called “efficiency of the market” is a lie.