Shares of the Week: The Third Wave Edition
Battle of the Titans
What Google's API copyright win over Oracle means - The internet was born under the premise of freedom, equality, and collaboration, so this latest United States Supreme Court decision is one small victory in the continuing war to uphold these values.
More Moe, More Problems
Overdose deaths rise again in March; more than 100 recorded since January - Months after Sask premier Scott Moe cited mental illness as a reason to not have another lockdown in the winter, it is becoming more clear he was lying all along. The party of personal responsibility doesn’t actually care about finding effective ways to save lives and help society’s most vulnerable people, otherwise they would put money where their mouthes are. What they do care about is offloading responsibility onto individuals, while leaving the free market to pick up and profit from the mess.
Sask. legislative assembly disagreement over mask use continues as NDP MLA reveals he's immunocompromised - Missing in this report is the fact that Sask Party MLAs mocked and laughed at their fellow member, Matt Love, for his request they wear a mask in the legislature, showing us yet again that the Sask Party are full of cold and heartless jerks who would rather appear macho than to protect each other and set an example for the rest of a province that is fully into a third wave of the pandemic. It is clear from their actions over the years, or lack thereof, that deep down these Sask Party members are attempting to re-live the high school years when their lives likely peaked. We are at a low point in our province’s history and anyone with an ounce of dignity and self-respect should be embarrassed and full of shame.
Drivers say Sask.'s move to become first province to tax electric vehicles is political - It couldn’t be any more clear that the Saskatchewan government is bought and paid for by the oil industry, otherwise we would be doing the opposite of applying a token, meaningless tax to electric vehicles and actually incentivizing people to drive then in an effort to lower our carbon emmissions. Conservatives don’t believe in the free market or conservatism as much as they care about protecting the profits of traditional industries and allowing them to continue to destroy our planet without consequence.
Exploiting Workers
McDonald's, Other CEOs Tell Investors $15 Minimum Wage Won't Hurt Business - Of course a higher minimum wage won’t hurt business. Even when you ignore the fact that a minimum wage levels the playing field for all businesses to compete fairly with each other, when you put more money in the hands of workers, they are more likely than not to immediately return that money to their local economies. Contrast that with excessive profits being offshored away, doing nothing but inflating the egos of the ownership class. It is clear a livable minimum wage would be a boon for an economy that is still waiting for the 'efficiencies' of 1980s neoliberal policies to trickle down.
School custodian refuses to download phone app that monitors location, says it got her fired - Technology should be a liberator that makes life better for all of us but instead it is consistently being used by those in power for exploitation and surveillance, which of course is the complete opposite of freedom and should very well be illegal in most cases.
Under Capitalism, the Deck Is Always Stacked Against Unionizing at Companies Like Amazon - It is an extremely disappointing result but it is nonetheless unsurprising thanks to the sheer, unmatched power of capital, the nature of corporate structures in America, and the anti-worker legal system that they helped shape. It’s going to take a lot more than a union drive in a southern state to change America for the better and reverse the worsening trends for workers
Liberal Hypocrisy
Pod Can’t Save America - Liberals like Oprah, Bill Clinton, and Barrack Obama don’t want to just influence us–like most social media influencers, they want to sell us something. A lot of us are getting tired of constantly being sold to, however, as we learn that acquiring more and more material goods and self-help routines are not making us or our societies any better. To solve most of our deep-rooted socioeconomic problems, we need meaningful and effective institutional change, not ego-stroking platitudes from faux-social justice influencers.
The Cult of Ignorance
Canada Could Have Avoided the Deadly Third Wave But Politics Got in the Way - When a majority of provinces are being led by conservatives who are fundamentally against government and are ideologically-motivated to keep their own governments from acting proactively and effectively, resulting in a reactive, piecemeal free market approach, of course we are going to have a bad time when trying to battle something that doesn't care about economics. It seems that conservative politicians are nothing but trolls in suits.
Marketplace attended a COVID-19 conspiracy boot camp to see how instructors are targeting vaccine skeptics - This is what an underfunded education system matched with the normalization of faith and the supernatural looks like–a society full of people who are ill-prepared for the future and who are ripe for being manipulated by snake oil salespeople. The global collectiveness needed to combat major threats like climate change, fascism, and further pandemics can only be done when driven by a population that can think critically and with empathy. The narcissism and tribalism that neoliberalism and religion breeds in us will guarantee that we never get on top of these global crises, allowing the bottom feeders of our society to take advantage.
More than 100 corporate executives hold call to discuss halting donations and investments to fight controversial voting bills - There is only one reason that corporations are uniting to speak out against new laws that would restrict voting in various American states, and that is the prospect that it would effect their bottom lines, proving once again that the supposedly-pro-business Republicans pushing these laws don’t care about the free market nearly as much as they care about achieving ultimate power.
Lil Nas X's 'Satan Shoes' trolled some Christians. But 'Montero' is about more than that. - The puritans are at it once again because of their need for attention and their desire to find any possible way to make themselves feel superior. These self-righteous Christians missed the mark on this one though because Lil Nas X's music video is pretty tame compared to what's in the Bible and it is arguably a fantastic piece of art.
