Obscene Wealth

by Greg Godels / May 24th, 2025

Gabriel Zucman is a French-born economist who teaches at California, Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics. Zucman’s academic specialization is in wealth inequality, using tax data to track the stratification in wealth in the US and the rest of the world. A student of famed inequality expert, Thomas Piketty, he is an important figure in the World Inequality Database.

His most recent findings expose a gross obscenity, a level of wealth inequality in the US that should shame every politician, every mainstream-media commentator, and every cultural influencer who fails to make recognition of this travesty central to his or her message.

Discussed in some detail in an article by Juliet Chung, appearing in the Thursday, April 24 Wall Street Journal, Zucman’s most recent findings draw little attention from the other corporate media.

Zucman claims that the wealth of 19 households in the US grew by one trillion dollars in 2024, more than the GDP of Switzerland. That top 0.00001% of households accounted in 2024 for 1.81% of all the wealth accumulated in the US– nearly 2% of all US wealth is held by those 19 households.

Other conclusions drawn from the WSJ article:

● Total US wealth in 2024 was $148 trillion.

● The share of total US wealth held by the 0.00001% of households was, by far, the greatest since 1913, when the US income tax system originated.

● JP Morgan Chase estimates that there were 2,000 billionaires in the US in 2024; 975 in 2021.

● The top 0.1% of households constitute approximately 133,000 households and each holds an average of $46.3 million in wealth, accumulating $3.4 million a year since 1990 (Steven Frazzari, Washington University, St. Louis).

● The next 0.9% of households– approximately 1.2 million households– were each worth $11.2 million and grew by $450,000 per year in the same period (Frazzari).

● The cumulative 1% of households account for 34.8% of total US wealth in 2023.

● In capitalist counterpart countries, the 1% account for 21.3% of the total wealth in the British Isles, 27.2% in France, and 27.6% in Germany (2023).

● The top 10% of US households hold 67% of all the wealth in the US.

● The top half of US households have secured 97% of all US wealth.

● CONSEQUENTLY, THE OTHER HALF OF US HOUSEHOLDS (~ 66 MILLION HOUSEHOLDS, ~166 MILLION CITIZENS) SHARED ONLY 3% OF ALL THE WEALTH ACCUMULATED IN THE US.

These data underscore the fact that the US is a radically unequal society, with wealth concentration increasing dramatically as one ascends the class ladder.

What conclusions can we draw from the Zucman/Wall Street Journal report?

First, it is important to distinguish wealth inequality from income inequality.

Income inequality is a snapshot of the remuneration that an individual or household might receive in a given period. For example, a sports figure or a celebrity might receive a huge compensation package for two or three years of success, but otherwise fall dramatically in income and end with modest wealth.

Wealth on the other hand, is inheritable and cumulative. In a capitalist society, it is possible to have income without accumulating wealth, but it is almost impossible to have wealth without effortlessly gaining income.

Among the employed, income is always contingent. Wealth, to the contrary, is owned and can only be alienated by legal action.

While income is empowering, accumulated wealth imbues its owner with both security and degrees of power and influence proportionate to its quantity.

Thus, wealth is a better measure of personal or household economic status than income.

For those academics and media pundits who prattle on about “our democracy,” it must be pointed out that over half of the US population is effectively economically disenfranchised from the political system. With so little accumulated wealth (3% of the total wealth), they cannot participate meaningfully in an electoral system driven by money. They lack the means to contend for office, as well as to affect the choice of candidates or the outcomes.

Even if the bottom half of households were to pool their resources, they could not match the financial assets readily available to the top 1% in order to dominate political power.

Cold War intellectuals constantly heralded the formal democracy– the rights to participate in electoral politics– enjoyed by citizens in the advanced capitalist countries. They assiduously avoided mentioning citizens’ actual means to participate in any meaningful way, influenced by the vast and telling inequalities in those means. Clearly, the bottom half of all US households have little means of engagement with politics, apart from casting an occasional vote for limited options, for which they have little say in determining.

Further, the next 40% of households have between them, in diminishing amounts as they approach the bottom half, just 30% of US wealth to express their political prerogatives. No doubt that provides the false sense of political empowerment that the two bourgeois parties prey upon.

The victory of form-over-substance in the legitimation of US social and political institutions is surely threatened by the reality of wealth inequality– a reality that empowers the wealthy over the rest.

The fact that the top 10% of US households have a grip on 67% of the wealth makes a mockery of “our democracy.”

Talk of “oligarchs” or “the 1%” — so popular with slippery politicians or internet naïfs — actually masks the rot behind our grossly unequal society. Neither “evil” nor “greedy” people can explain the travesty recorded by the Zucman data.

Instead, it is a system that produces and reproduces wealth inequality. While wars, economic crises, or the militant action of workers and their allies may temporarily slow or set back the march of wealth inequality under capitalism, the system continues to regenerate wealth inequality. That system is called “capitalism.”

As Paul Sweezy explained most clearly:

The essence of capitalism is the self-expansion of capital, which takes place through the production and capitalization of surplus value. Production of surplus value in turn is the function of the proletariat, i.e., the class of wage earners who own no means of production and can live only by the sale of their labor power. Since the proletariat produces for capital and not for the satisfaction of its own needs, it follows that capitalism, in Marx’s words, “establishes an accumulation of misery corresponding with accumulation of capital.” The Transition to Socialism, lecture, 1971

Economic historians like Piketty and Zucman who carefully track the trajectory of capitalism demonstrate empirically, again and again, that capitalist socio-economic relations give rise to economic inequality.

While the distribution of wealth in advanced capitalist countries is not captured perfectly by the Marxist class distinctions, class-as-ownership-of-capital goes far to explain how wealth is distributed.

With two-thirds of all wealth concentrated in the top 10% of households and an estimated 89% of all capital-as-stocks held by that same 10%, it seems reasonable to conclude that the capitalist class resides within the top 10% of wealthy households.

It should be just as clear that the bottom 50%– with 3% of the wealth, and nearly all of that in personal real estate and other personal property– survives on income from some form of compensation; its members work for a living.

Thus, as one might anticipate from reading the 1848 Communist Manifesto, capitalist society today– 177 years later– remains substantially divided between those who create the wealth by working for a living and those who own the means of wealth creation and, therefore, gain most of their wealth from that ownership. Capital– whether it coalesces as factories, banks, or other enterprises– concentrates wealth at the top.

Between the bottom 50% and the top 10% of households is a contested field of largely income earners– workers– as well as professional, self-employed, and small business owners. While most are, strictly speaking, working class, many have illusions about their class status (“middle class”) or harbor the illusion that their class status will improve.

Some have been characterized as “aristocrats of labor” because of their relatively elevated possession of income or wealth among workers. Others are even better characterized– to follow Marx– as “petty-bourgeois”: small, insignificant capitalists.

From the classical texts through Louis Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas to Soviet analyst S. N. Nadel, Marxism has yet to produce a robust and rigorous theory of the upper-middle strata, though their members often prove to be the pivotal factor in denying social change. Accordingly, it is the segment most intensely courted by the centrist political parties.

If we are to remove the stain of wealth inequality, it must be its sufferers– the working class– who assume that task. And that task will only be decisively accomplished with the replacement of capitalism with socialism.

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Greg Godels writes on current events, political economy, and the Communist movement from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. Read other articles by Greg, or visit Greg's website.

The Obscenity of Obscene Wealth Close to Obscene Famine

Daniel Warner

 May 23, 2025

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Photo by Joe Pregadio

Television news reports recently showed two different worlds at almost the same time. A $600 billion commitment to invest in the United States, $142 billion sales of arms, and a $400 million luxury jet. Such were part of the bounty in Donald Trump’s monarchical tour in the Middle East. But while DJT hobnobbed and made self-proclaimed deals totalling trillions in the oil rich capitals of Riyadh, Doha, and Abu Dhabi, almost concurrent reports showed starving Palestinians as Israel continues to block desperately needed aid from entering Gaza.

The difference between Trump’s high-end luxury tour and the situation in Gaza is startling. The distance from Riyadh to Gaza is 882 miles; Doha to Gaza 1120 miles; Abu Dhabi to Gaza 1400 miles (All distances are in flight miles.). But no physical measurement can accurately portray the distances between the three capitals and what is transpiring in Gaza. While the 47^th U.S. president luxuriated among the world’s wealthiest leaders seeing how he could monetarise his presidency for himself and his family, the ostentatious display of economic “deals” was obscene considering what was taking place roughly one thousand miles away in another obscenity.

How to reconcile the ostentatious displays of wealth and power with those who are starving so close by. (I will get to another situation of starvation later.)

Deals and transactional politics are part of Trump’s modus vivendi. Newly elected presidents traditionally begin their terms visiting allies and neighbors. Trump couldn’t resist being fawned over and raking in money by traveling to the Middle East. He became the first U.S. president to make the Middle East his first foreign destination, doing it twice, having visited Saudi Arabia on May 20-21, 2017. “The last four days have been truly amazing,” Trump said after his recent visit. “Nobody’s treated like that,” he boasted to reporters on Air Force One returning to Washington.

The differences between Trump’s extravagant whirlwind tour and the situation in Gaza needs historical perspective. First, Trump did not visit Israel during his recent tour to argue for or insist on Israel’s opening access to aid. Second, not so long ago the idea of the Right to Development was very much on the international agenda. As the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recently noted:

“Over thirty years ago, the Declaration on the Right to Development broke new ground in the universal struggle for greater human dignity, freedom, equality and justice… It demanded equal opportunities, and the equitable distribution of economic resources – including for people who are traditionally disempowered and excluded from development.” (Italics added)

The Declaration on the Right to Development was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in a 1986 resolution. (The United States was the only state to vote against the resolution.) The “Right to Development” and the 1974 New International Economic Order (NIEO) called for greater economic equality through the equitable distribution of economic resources.

What makes the Trump tour so impressive is how the Middle East leaders’ wealth attracted the president. Human rights and international solidarity were not on his agenda. The tour’s art of the deal was all about money; no right to development, no NIEO, no equitable distribution of economic resources, no help for the people of Gaza. Melvin Goodman perceptively called the Middle East “Trump’s favorite shopping mall.”

Gaza is not the only current obscenity. Riyadh to Sudan is 1200 miles; Doha to Sudan is 1400 miles; Abu Dhabi to Sudan is 1200 miles. Sudan is now considered the world’s most disastrous humanitarian crisis. A March 2025 statement from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported:

“Sudan is facing the most severe hunger crisis in the world: nearly 25 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity, with close to nine million in emergency and catastrophic levels of hunger. One in every two Sudanese is struggling to put food on the table, and people are already succumbing to hunger.”

(For those interested in domestic United States income disparities, a Robin Hood Foundation’s Poverty Tracker in New York City 2025 report showed that that of the 2.02 million New Yorkers now living in poverty, 1.6 million are adults and 420,000 are children. In comparison, in the 2024 edition of the World’s Wealthiest Cities Report by Henley & Partners and New World Wealth, New York City remained the world’s wealthiest city with 349,500 millionaires, 744 centi-millionaires (with investable wealth over $100m), and 60 billionaires. That’s all in the same city with no 1000 mile separation.)

A superficial reading of the above might suggest that I am asking the Middle East monarchs to use their vast wealth to help the most vulnerable, such as in Gaza (if possible) or Sudan. With the United States and other Western countries cutting back on foreign aid, one could hope that the oil rich countries would use some of their new-found wealth to replace the reduced contributions of traditional Western donors.

The Western donors have been by far the major humanitarian donors. The U.S. provided roughly 40% of all U.N. humanitarian aid in 2024. “Together, the U.S., Germany, the European Union and the United Kingdom account for nearly 65% of global humanitarian assistance,” Dorian Burkhalter wrote in Swissinfo. “The Trump administration’s decision to slash 83% of programmes run by USAID – the U.S. government’s main aid agency – has further accelerated a broader decline in funding from traditional donors,” Dorian Burkhalter added.

A report by the Geneva Policy Outlook on Paying for Multilateralism 2013-2023, noted that; “The top 15 donors account for over 86% of all contributions received by the 21 institutions studied [in Geneva]. This donor group is composed of Western governments, the EU, the UN, and the Gates Foundation.”

And the wealthy Middle East countries as donors? Will they replace the traditional Western ones? “Gulf nations – particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE – have in recent years become regular top-ten contributors to UN humanitarian agencies,” Burkhalter observed. “But their funding is mostly allocated to countries of the Arab League.”

As for the future, it may be that China, through its Belt and Silk Road Initiative, may become a major donor. For the moment, the newly wealthy states of the Middle East have shown little desire to replace traditional Western donors on a global scale.

What cannot be denied is that Trump’s wealth meetings highlighted the obscene differences between the global haves and have nots. Whatever or whoever works to diminish those differences needs to move quickly. The starving in Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere need immediate help. Hundreds of billions of dollars in non-humanitarian business deals in the face of millions starving is obscene. And one doesn’t need formal U.N. programs, resolutions or declarations to see that and to try to fix it. The distances between the global super-rich and the impoverished are more than mere measurable miles; and they are obscene.

Daniel Warner is the author of An Ethic of Responsibility in International Relations. (Lynne Rienner). He lives in Geneva.

Masterpieces of Contemporary American Cinema, Part Two

Beyond The Crucible

by David Penner / May 24th, 2025

In part one of this series, we discussed a number of films which encapsulate the depravity of an America enslaved to unbridled corporate power, and how many of our countrymen dispense with all semblance of morality in order to earn a living. In part two we will revisit this theme, while delving into “the war on terror” and the grave dangers of biofascism.

Up in the Air, directed by Jason Reitman; starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick (2009)

Up in the Air unveils the macabre rotting heart of an America in the throes of late-stage unfettered capitalism. The protagonist, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), embodies the amorality of many Americans who flourish in this ruthless and unforgiving world. Bingham’s illustrious job is firing people, which he does by flying around the country and terminating American workers whose employers are too cowardly to do this unsavory work themselves.

At one point in the film Clooney’s boss, Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman), gives a pep talk to his team excitedly explaining how housing, retail, the auto industry and other sectors of the economy are in an abysmal state. This is cause for considerable glee he informs his team of hit men, as woeful economic times offer no shortage of people to fire – and this is good for business.

Due to unchecked privatization and the lack of a social safety net, losing one’s job can quickly land an American in a precarious financial position, but as American society has likewise devolved into a Tower of Babel losing one’s job can also bring about a loss of identity, a motif that is raised repeatedly throughout the film.

Like many Americans who have managed to retain a comfortable middle class existence, our protagonist’s conception of success revolves exclusively around money and power. In conjunction with this rather dubious value system, he relishes the prestige of regularly flying for his work and clings to the childish dream of being one of the few to reach ten million frequent flyer miles. The selfishness and lack of empathy for those whose lives he helps destroy is shared by fellow corporate cannibals Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) and Ryan’s protege, Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), who adhere to a similar, if not even more, ruthless ethos.

Initially, Ryan lives purely for his career and eschews meaningful long-lasting relationships, a philosophy on display when he grudgingly agrees to attend his sister’s wedding. His estrangement from his family (undoubtedly familiar for many American viewers) is mollified when he inadvertently commits a number of selfless acts to help the young couple.

Ryan’s hyper-individualism is upended when he unwittingly falls in love with the heartless Alex, who ends up treating him precisely how he has treated the thousands of people he has fired over the years, raising the question of whether using human beings like disposable plastic cups is such a great idea after all.

Bingham’s incessant travels hinder his ability to form long-lasting relationships but also unmoor him from belonging to any particular place, thereby mirroring the mercenary existence of corporations; while his apartment is a sterile hotel room devoid of artwork, keepsakes, and warmth.

Deceptively insightful and unerringly astute, Up in the Air casts the spotlight on an America where voracious corporations operate with complete impunity while millions of Americans lack good health insurance and education, unionization; and above all, real communities, without which we are cast into a pit of solitude, despair, and appalling dehumanization. As the timeless Zulu proverb Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu reminds us: “A person is a person through other people;” or more simply, “I am, because you are.”

Equals, directed by Drake Doremus; starring Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart (2015)

Perhaps the most important movie ever made about the informed consent ethic and its inextricable connection to democracy, Equals tells the story of an Orwellian police state where a people known as The Collective have been enslaved to a psychiatric dictatorship and emotionally lobotomized.

Drake Doremus (who incidentally had a bad experience with psychotropic drugs as a child) masterfully demonstrates what can be lost when informed consent and the oath to do no harm are tossed to the wayside and physicians become the servants of a sinister political apparatus.

Shot with an elegant and ethereal cinematography, Equals is likewise a compelling dystopian futuristic film in that it succeeds in fashioning a society anchored in a value system which is very alien and yet simultaneously eerily familiar to our own; and viewers who understand the grievous crimes of the Cult of Psychiatry, the Church of Vaccinology, the Branch Covidians, the opioid epidemic, and the war on informed consent generally will be transfixed by its hallowed and undying message.

Malfunctioning humans who begin to re-experience emotions despite genetic modifications designed to eliminate them are diagnosed with SOS, or “switched-on syndrome,” which the viewer knows to be an imaginary disease but which the characters trapped in this totalitarian hell have been taught from birth to fear as an incurable condition inevitably leading to terrible suffering and death.

Sufferers of SOS who progress from Stage 1 to Stage 4 and fail to commit suicide are committed to the dreaded DEN, or Defective Emotional Neuropathy facility – the police state’s prison and political psych ward. “Coupling” is strictly forbidden and those who fail to seek “treatment” for their illicit emotions are called “hiders.” The supremely powerful police are chillingly referred to as Health and Safety.

Amidst the horrors of this biofascist 1984, a love affair develops between Nia (Kristen Stewart) and Silas (Nicholas Hoult), who eventually realize that it is their “illness” that allows them to experience deep emotions without which they wouldn’t have been able to fall in love and share such special moments together.

Equals depicts a terrifying world where bodily autonomy has ceased to exist, emotions are a disease, and love is the greatest crime of all. A grave warning of what can unfold when health care is weaponized and dissent pathologized, the haunted poetry of Equals will stay locked in your heart long after the final credits have ebbed and melted away.

Camp X-Ray, directed by Peter Sattler; starring Kristen Stewart, Payman Maadi, and Lane Garrison (2014)

Kristen Stewart is superb as Amy Cole, a young soldier assigned to Guantanamo Bay in Peter Sattler’s Camp X-Ray. From a small Southern town, poorly educated, and indoctrinated to believe that all Muslims are terrorists, she is initially a devout believer in “the mission.”

Her grim ideological ship capsizes when she begins to develop a friendship with one of the prisoners, Ali Amir. As their bond strengthens and she learns to look at Ali as a tortured and wrongfully incarcerated man, she starts to question the veracity of what she has been told about “the war on terror,” and her growing sense of unease about how they are “defending freedom” alienates her from her fellow soldiers.

In this man-made hell the detainees are prisoners of the body, and yet the guards are also prisoners; for they are imprisoned in a cage of lies, ignorance, authoritarianism and the scourge of unreason. They are prisoners of the soul.

Through her growing empathy we observe Amy journey from a callous soldier that unquestioningly follows orders to a more compassionate person who is increasingly loath to blindly believe what she is told. As she comes to look at her only friend at Guantanamo as a suffering human being her humanity is restored, and her soul is duly saved from the plains of demonic nihilism reserved for those who blindly hate another people.

A heartrending tale, Camp X-Ray is nevertheless an uplifting one, and as we gaze within its haunted waters we are reminded that even within the darkest glades of evil there can still be a ray of light.

Redacted, directed by Brian De Palma; starring Patrick Carroll, Rob Devaney, and Izzy Diaz (2007)

Called “one big mess” by the Los Angeles Times and “an almost total failure” by the BBC, Redacted is one of the most devastating anti-war films made in recent decades. A fictionalized reconstruction of the events that led up to a murderous raid on an Iraqi home outside Baghdad by US Army soldiers in which a young girl was raped and murdered along with her family, Redacted is the antithesis of the nauseating American Sniper and other jingoistically depraved Hollywood war movies.

In the sense that the film engages in a retelling of a significant historical event using a fictional documentary format, Redacted is reminiscent of Paul Greengrass’ excellent Bloody Sunday. Yet it is also a masterpiece of the found footage genre, and in this regard shares much in common with the nightmarish Apocalypse Cult (also known as Apocalyptic) and The Blair Witch Project. Merging these two styles while injecting an uncompromising anti-imperialist sentiment, Brian De Palma brings the senseless savagery of the Iraq War into our laps and living rooms. Clinging to our lapels, it doesn’t let us look away.

An unusual example of polyphonic narration in cinema, Redacted is told through a variety of narrative voices, each of which records the Iraq War from a distinct perspective.

Much of the story unfolds through the lens of the unscrupulous Private Angel Salazar, who intends to use the footage he records of his time in the military to get into film school. Additional scenes (some of which are interestingly not even recorded by human beings) are shot by rebel jihadists, a security camera from inside the wire, a camera recording the interrogation of the soldiers who participate in the brutal raid, footage from French TV and Iraqi TV, and a website for a soldier’s wife to share her thoughts.

Many of these scenes initially appear as live footage uploaded to social media, and as the images pass from the eye to the brain a disorientation ensues which forces the viewer to repeatedly question which images are “real” and which are “an illusion.”

As the American education system is rigged to breed sheep, an effective psyop requires information saturation bombing, and this is precisely how the psyops that went hand in hand with the Branch Covidian putsch and the destruction of Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, and to a somewhat lesser extent Iraq and Afghanistan were successful. Ironically, while Redacted contains a great deal of truth about Washington’s invasion of Iraq, the legacy media lemmings will invariably dismiss it as sensationalist nonsense, and “just a movie.”

Vividly resurrected are the helpless Iraqi civilians trapped in a hellscape where the rule of law has been dissolved, and the new reigning power is a band of unhinged barbarians. In this same vein, the film underscores the profound ignorance and dehumanization of many American soldiers fighting wars of which they know nothing, in countries of which they know even less, and who harbor a fathomless rage from being relentlessly humiliated all their lives by an unseen hand; a hand, which unbeknownst to these dogs of war, has duped them into fighting for the very government which has so debased them all their lives.

As transpires in Oliver Stone’s Platoon and De Palma’s Casualties of War a rift unfolds within the platoon, with some soldiers objecting to the deliberate targeting of civilians in an attempt to exact revenge for fallen comrades; but as Yeats once bemoaned, “The best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity.” If a soldier stands by and does nothing while their fellow storm troopers commit a war crime, will they not have to live with this on their conscience until the day they die?

Repeatedly blurring the line between a dramatic film and a documentary, Redacted ponders the significance of launching an illegal war of aggression in an age where mass media and social media, which can work together and which can likewise be at odds with one another, wield enormous power.

Redacted encourages the viewer to think about the ways in which propaganda can be used to manipulate, deceive, and dupe people into thinking that they understand a conflict of which they know nothing (Russia’s “unprovoked invasion” being a perfect example). And yet as war imagery (both still and video) can be used to foment lies, treachery, and deceit, De Palma turns the tables on the presstitutes by demonstrating how it can also be used to reveal the truth.

Shocking, violent, and relentlessly harrowing Redacted vividly portrays the Tartarean horror wrought by Washington’s sacking of Iraq, encapsulated by the diabolical destruction of one innocent and defenseless Iraqi family.

Blackfish, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite (2013)

“There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men” wrote Herman Melville in Moby-Dick, a reality glaringly on display in Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s poignant film Blackfish.

One of the more unsettling documentaries to come out in recent years, Blackfish tells the tragic story of how whales are treated in captivity, where SeaWorld and other marine mammal theme parks treat orcas with great cruelty in order to get them to perform aquatic stunts, an extravaganza of villainy tied to a multi-billion dollar industry.

Indeed, this is yet another instance where what is profitable is simultaneously deeply unethical, and the marine parks that debase these wondrous creatures and ravage their souls also endanger their trainers who are frequently young, naive, and ignorant of the fact that orcas can be very dangerous when held in conditions tantamount to torture and forced to become circus animals.

(Starting about five years ago orcas started ramming small boats and attacking their rudders in the Iberian Peninsula, the Strait of Gibraltar; and to a somewhat lesser extent, off the Shetland Islands. Marine biologists have proposed a number of theories to try and explain this phenomenon. Perhaps these ornery blackfish have seen the same movie, albeit without the screen?)

At the heart of this seminal cinematic work is the excruciating and seemingly never-ending destruction of the orca Tilikum, who is kidnapped from Icelandic waters at the age of two, and is henceforth condemned to a life of wretchedness away from his pod. (Orcas typically stay with their mothers their entire lives). Transferred from one marine park to another, his fate is not unlike that of a slave in the antebellum South. Suffering repeated humiliations and brutalized into becoming a plaything for the amusement of the pseudo sentient, Tilikum becomes increasingly aggressive and ends up killing three people. Are humans fundamentally any different? Richard Wright’s Bigger Thomas comes to mind, along with certain demonic practices all too common in American prisons, such as sensory deprivation and pitting prisoners against one another.

(Other imprisoned cetaceans have rebelled against their captors, such as a well publicized dolphin attack of a trainer at the Miami Seaquarium three years ago).

Unlike with violent dogs that are put down, Tilikum’s sperm was used for breeding purposes (a practice also reminiscent of the antebellum South) and his descendants have likewise shown a proclivity towards violence, such as one of his sons, Kyuquot, who nearly drowned his trainer.

Commenting on the dastardly practice of kidnapping orcas, The Whale Sanctuary Project states:

“By any definition and by any standard, keeping these apex predators of the ocean in small tanks for the amusement of tourists is more than just wrong; it is a crime against each of them individually and a sin against nature….”

Cowperthwaite forces us to examine the ways in which we treat animals, especially highly intelligent and evolved animals such as orcas. For the iniquitous manner in which these magnificent creatures are treated will ultimately mirror how we treat each other, and is yet another example of rapacious oligarchic power fomenting moral degradation, wickedness, and death.

Conclusion

These penetrating films remove the veil of obfuscation ceaselessly fomented by academia and the mass media, revealing a system of exploitation and oppression that is devouring millions of lives.

Due to the increasingly deplorable state of American education, the ruling establishment faces fewer and fewer obstacles in enslaving the population to delusive fears of oligarchically constructed bogeymen, and Redacted and Camp X-Ray underscore the dangers of a government deflecting anger away from itself and onto an imaginary enemy through the ancient, yet all too pervasive tactic of scapegoating.

Many of the characters discussed in this series that have been enveloped by a pall of amorality have been raised in a dog-eat-dog world where one either prevails or is reduced to a state of destitution, and they would rationalize their actions by saying that they are simply doing everything in their power to survive. However, as the characters of Jane in The East, Arthur in Michael Clayton, and Amy in Camp X-Ray remind us, while people can lose their moral bearings this doesn’t necessarily mean that they will never find them again. Amidst this maelstrom of inhumanity, the body yearns for the soul, and the soul for the body.

These bold works of cinema open a window into a reeling society that is being ravaged by the wolves of unchained capital, wolves which relentlessly cultivate ignorance, economic inequality, autocratization and atomization, revealing all too vividly what we have become – but not, as Langston Hughes once eloquently cautioned – what must be.

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David Penner’s articles on politics and health care have appeared in Dissident Voice, CounterPunch, Global Research, The Saker blog, OffGuardian and KevinMD; while his poetry can be found at Dissident Voice, Mad in America, and redtailedhawk.substack.com. Also a photographer, he is the author of three books of portraiture: Faces of The New Economy, Faces of Manhattan Island, and Manhattan Pairs. He can be reached at 321davidadam@gmail.com. Read other articles by David.

 

An “In” on Getting in Small Town Newspapers

Start with the national/international celebratory stuff, then go for the anti-Capitalist jugular

by Paul Haeder / May 24th, 2025

Thousand-word Opinion Editorials are a fine thing to pen, and you can cover a lot of ground in this amount of verbiage. Normally, local rags limit letters to the editor to 300 words, and alas, in this sound bite sort of scrolling-on-the-screen culture, going over a 500-words limit is the kiss of death — you lose your reader.

But there is a method and mad dash of hope in this formula of once-a-month tributes to hard work, that is, highlighting the hard work of “heroes” in this hard land of penury and disaster and predatory (retaliatory) capitalism.

Today’s piece in my local rag (5/21) is emblematic of my own proof that we can fight the surge of shallow thinking and even shallower writing.

Here, just heading home from assisting at the 60+ Center (senior adult center), I caught this show, on the radio station where I broadcast my own Wednesday show, Finding Fringe. 6 PM, PST, streaming live on kyaq.org.

Hard work of reporting: Thirsting for Justice: East Orosi’s Struggle for Clean Drinking Water (Encore)

East Orosi hasn’t had safe drinking water in over 20 years. The water is full of nitrates, runoff from industrial agriculture, which is harmful to human health. The community has taken action to find a solution, from lobbying at the state capital to working with neighboring towns.

And they may finally have one. New California laws, passed  in the last five years, have opened up funding to build water infrastructure in small towns like East Orosi. But even as laws and funding develop, implementation has been challenging.

We visit East Orosi and talk to Berta Diaz Ochoa about what it’s like living without clean drinking water and the solutions on the horizon in part one of a two part series. — Listen.

Learn More:

• Community Water Center
• Self Help Enterprises
• State Water Resources Control Board

So, imagine, a sound bite around the issues of field workers pulling up crops that are destroying healthy water systems, forcing them to have to drink that toxic water or paying for bottled water to survive. Is water a human right? In California is it.

So, take ANY community, not just the fenceline ones, the communities that are in the sights of the perveyors of criminal capitalism because they are poor and probably BIPOC, and then find how infrastructure and services and even bloody retail enterprises like pharmacies or grocery stores are being gutted by Capitalism, pre-Trump/post-Trump.

You have any axes to grind? You live in a flyover state or rural community?

Here,

Stop trying to save Rural America.

Efforts to write it off as “disappearing” are complicated by the 60 million Americans who call a rural community home.

We must recognize that innovation, diversity of ideas and people, and new concepts don’t need to be imported to rural communities – they’re already there. Rural entrepreneurs and community leaders have always, by necessity, been innovative.

Rural communities have faced some harsh realities in the last generation: they’ve seen manufacturing move overseas, farming monopolized by big outfits with only 5% of rural residents working in agriculture, generational migration to bigger cities, school consolidation, and the absence of basic community resources such as health care and broadband, and, more recently, threats to the lifeline that is the U.S. Postal Service. This, and the pandemic.

Every brightly lit corporate store on the edge of town is a monument to a system that does not build community or advance a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem.

And before the super out-of-touch elite from err, New York City call us bumkins, get over it: Don’t Blame Rural Residents for a Broken Political System

While noting the decades of gerrymandering to enhance the power of rural officials, New York magazine author Ed Kilgore concludes, “Underlying it all are real differences in outlook between different parts of the country, made more important by the distinct institutional features of a constitutional system designed to protect the interests of small, largely nonmetropolitan states.”

Sorry, Ed; the values of citizens of rural areas have as much to do with school violence and immigration resistance as do video games. In fact, Kilgore undermines his own argument by citing Ronald Brownstein’s analysis in the Atlantic of the red-blue divide. Alas, the same Ronald Brownstein reported on CNN just one week later that a prosperity gap was the source of the split between Democrats and Republicans. “Observers in both parties agree that the sense of economic displacement in recent years has intensified the long-standing movement toward the GOP among small-town and rural communities initially rooted in unease over cultural and demographic change.” It’s fair to observe that gun-loving nativists did not create the dismal economic prospects that drove them to vote for candidate Trump.

It is true that after years of civic disengagement, rural voters turned out in record numbers to elect the only coastal elitist who showed up in their communities and asked for their votes. So, Trump won and Clinton lost. Beyond that, any generalization about the impact of rural citizens on national politics is just horsepucky. Rural citizens didn’t create the electoral system that permits unlimited campaign donations to state officials who draw Congressional districts to favor entrenched wealth. In fact, rural citizens are the victims of gerrymandering as much as any disenfranchised cohort that ends up in a noncompetitive legislative district.

Alas, here’s the Google Gulag AI response to “all the problems in rural America”:

Rural communities face numerous interconnected challenges that can be described as “broken systems” due to a combination of historical disinvestment, geographic isolation, and economic shifts.

Here’s a breakdown of some key broken systems in rural communities:
1. Healthcare:

Limited Access: Rural areas often have a shortage of healthcare providers, specialists, and hospitals, forcing residents to travel long distances for care.

Hospital Closures: Rural hospitals are closing at an alarming rate due to financial difficulties and staffing shortages, further limiting access to care.

Lack of Services: Rural areas may lack crucial services like mental health care, substance abuse treatment, and specialized medical care.

2. Economic Systems:

Job Losses: Rural communities have experienced significant job losses due to the decline of manufacturing and agriculture, leading to higher unemployment and poverty rates.

Limited Opportunities: A lack of diverse industries and businesses can limit economic opportunities for residents, particularly young people.
Brain Drain: Young, educated individuals often leave rural areas for better opportunities in urban centers, further weakening the local economy.

3. Infrastructure:

Poor Broadband Access: Many rural areas lack access to reliable, high-speed internet, hindering economic development, education, and access to telehealth.

Inadequate Transportation: Limited public transportation options can isolate residents and make it difficult to access jobs, healthcare, and other essential services.

Aging Infrastructure: Rural areas may have aging infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and water systems, which require significant investment to repair and upgrade.

4. Education:

School Consolidation: Rural schools have been consolidated, leading to longer commutes for students and the loss of local schools as community anchors.

Funding Challenges: Rural schools often face funding challenges, which can impact the quality of education and available resources.

Teacher Shortages: Rural schools may have difficulty attracting and retaining qualified teachers, impacting student outcomes.

5. Social Systems:

Social Isolation: Geographic isolation and limited social opportunities can contribute to social isolation and mental health challenges for residents.

Lack of Community Resources: Rural areas may lack access to essential community resources such as libraries, childcare facilities, and recreational opportunities.

It’s important to note: These “broken systems” are interconnected and often exacerbate each other. The challenges faced by rural communities vary depending on location, demographics, and economic conditions.
Addressing these challenges requires a multi-faceted approach involving government, businesses, non-profit organizations, and community members.

+–+ Here is May 21st’s piece.

Identify, Diversify, and Harmonize How We Think this May

By Paul Haeder/Lincoln County (Oregon) Leader
One may wonder how the heck did we get all these national and international days of celebration. It is a feature of Homo sapiens to celebrate accomplishments and honor causes and individuals who make the world, well, theoretically a better place.

May is no exception, and of course, the International Workers’ Day is May 1. In this time of rampant hatred of so many professions by Trump and Company, it goes without saying that his shallow but deeply narcissistic persona just will never grasp the value of the worker.

His entire raison d’être is about tearing down and imploding institutions and attacking individuals for which he deems “the enemy.”

The billionaire classless cabal sees workers as the enemy. And the goals of the International Workingmen’s Association in 1864 were clear: Shorter work hours; safer work environment; fair wages; elimination of child labor; the ability for the state to regulate labor conditions.

Ironically, I was in Ashland on International Firefighters Day, talking to two captains in the city’s two fire stations. I was told that a few years ago firefighters responded to 1,600 calls annually. Last year, Ashland’s stations went out over six thousand times.

Aging in place and lack of family and support precipitates many of the EMT calls. And a fire engine they are waiting for is still four years out, to the tune of $2 million once it’s completely outfitted.

If you watch the milquetoast mainstream media, you will have recalled the Accused Sexual Predator Trump made a mockery of National Teacher Day by laughing at all the cuts to the hundreds of educational initiatives smart and reasoned individuals over decades had initiated for the betterment of society through the intellectual progress of our youth.

Another group of workers in the bulls eye of Musk, Thiel, Stephen Miller and Vance/Trump is nursing professionals. We see the almost total breakdown of nursing and doctoring in Lincoln County because of the hard reality of a for-profit health care system putting profits over patients. Add to that the lack of affordable housing, and rural counties throughout the land are suffering massive nursing and doctor shortages.

Which then brings us to National Day of Reason, where groups of people see the value in enlightened thinking. You know, valuing the separation of church and state, which for all intents and purposes under this fascist regime has been imploded into a crusade against reasoned thinkers who do not see prayer or faith as central to their lives.

Humanists and Secularists created this National Day in response to the national day of prayer.

Celebrations have taken the form of blood drives, secular events and activities, and in some cases, protests against the National Day of Prayer. Imagine Trump and Company having the wherewithal to wrap their heads around this celebration – the Secular Week of Action when people volunteer to make the world a better place.

Two not necessarily different international recognition days in May include World Day for Cultural Diversity and International Day for Biological Diversity. Did you get the memo yet that Trump-Vance are on the attack against affirmative action and ecological health.

In fact, on the biodiversity front, Trump and Company have “redefined” harm as it is applied to the Endangered Species Act. This pinhead thinking is just the tip of the iceberg of clownish but dangerous moves.

Defenders of Wildlife explains:

“Trump administration is hell-bent on destroying the ESA  to further line the pockets of industry. The vast majority of imperiled wildlife listed as endangered or threatened under the ESA are there because of loss of habitat. This latest salvo to redefine ‘harm’ to eliminate protection for wildlife from habitat destruction, if successful, will further imperil threatened and endangered species. We will fight this action and continue to protect the wildlife and wild places we hold dear as a nation.”

Are you seeing the pattern carried out by billionaires such as Miriam Adelson, Larry Fink and Larry Ellison? Given the fact half of American cities are under air advisories, we have International Asthma Day to lend pause to how destructive these executive actions have been and will continue to be decades from now.

‘Harm’ is what unchecked air pollution in many forms continues to do to young and old. Harmful air advisories come in daily, and the fear is that Trump will just ban the notifications as a way to say, “See, I have cleaned up the air since there are no more warnings.”

Maybe we can pray the polluted air away.

The backers of Trump’s ideal America will see our “secular humanist” society based on science and reason destroyed. The Ten Commandments will form the basis of the legal system.

Finally, we have World Press Freedom Day. If you have any deep regard for the so-called Fourth Estate, then shivers should be running up your spine under this anti-journalist regime.

Mickey Huff of Project Censored states press freedom succinctly:

“We have to remember that it’s the independent media that is often the grassroots voice of the people. It is often the independent press that is operating on ethical standards and principles, and it is the independent press that is reporting in the public interest, not the corporate media.”

Diversify your news media diets. Find independent outlets, and for journalists, we need to reform the media and create better avenues for news reporting, including better accuracy and what we call “solutions journalism,” which creates truly constructive dialogue in our communities.

*****

Footnote: And not one mention of the genocide in Gaza, the trillions stolen from Arab nations’ populations, the trillions stolen from citizens of Canada, EU, USA, for the starvation and immolation and rape of a people.

There are no other topics to write about with the same amount of importance that Palestine conveys, from every aspect of War Terror of the Capitalists of both Jewish and Goyim descent.

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Paul Haeder's been a teacher, social worker, newspaperman, environmental activist, and marginalized muckraker, union organizer. Paul's book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years (now going on 17 years) of his writing at Dissident Voice. Read his musings at LA Progressive. Read (purchase) his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal. Here's his Amazon page with more published work Amazon. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.

 

Elon Musk’s Worst Nightmare Is Happening (But Not How You Think)

by Cyrus Janssen / May 24th, 2025

Tesla was once the undisputed king of electric vehicles but BYD is now the King. In this video, we break down how China’s BYD dethroned Elon Musk’s Tesla to become the world’s #1 EV manufacturer. From dominating domestic sales to overtaking Tesla in global deliveries, BYD’s meteoric rise is reshaping the future of the auto industry — and it’s all part of China’s larger plan to lead in green technology.

Cyrus Janssen is a geopolitical analyst, investor, speaker, and social media influencer with over 1 million fans across his social media platforms. Born in the United States, Cyrus lived abroad for 15 years in China and Canada and enjoys sharing cultural and geopolitical insights from his travels to over 60+ countries. Read other articles by Cyrus, or visit Cyrus's website.