The market finds a way to make the job search more terrible

The only thing that sucks more than having a job is not having but needing one -- and as I note in my latest piece for The Baffler, there are more people looking for work than there is work to offer, a fact those with the power to hire and fire have exploited to make the job search an even more degrading process that is statistically more likely to entrench self-loathing than lead to gainful employment. Read the piece and maybe give me a job.

Oh, and for LAist I wrote about efforts to legalize street vendors in Los Angeles and critics who say taco trucks attract sex workers. Check that out.

All the news I feel like printing

"The Starving of Yarmouk, Then the Capture"

After Bashar al-Assad’s regime spent nearly two years massacring Palestinians in Yarmouk camp, after regime bombardments destroyed nearly 70 percent of the camp, after thousands were arrested and tortured to death, and after civilians were forced to resort to scavenging through trash and weeds to ward off starvation — after all this, the world is finally paying attention to the situation in this long-suffering southern Damascus neighborhood. And all they want to talk about is the Islamic State. I think this is a disgrace.

Fellas: If you're going to commit war crimes and, unlike the Islamic State, you don't want to attract the world's attention -- make sure you shave.

"Palestinian Envoy Broke PLO Line to Agree Yarmouk Deal With Assad Regime":

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) official who announced an agreement for a joint military operation between the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Palestinian factions against ISIS in Yarmouk refugee camp did so against PLO wishes and policies because of allegiances to the Syrian government and may be removed from his position as a consequence, Newsweek can reveal.

This week, Ahmed Majdalani, the former Palestinian Authority Labour minister, headed a delegation to the Syrian capital, Damascus, from the West Bank for talks with the Syrian government and yesterday confirmed that a “joint operation centre” will be created for Palestinian groups in Syria and the Syrian regime to coordinate an offensive against ISIS after the terror group captured large parts of the encampment last week.

However, a senior official within the PLO, speaking on condition of anonymity to Newsweek, said that members of the Palestinian executive body were “very upset” with Majdalani’s breaking of the PLO’s official line to announce cooperation with the Syrian government, claiming that he did so because the faction of which he is the secretary-general, the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, is supported by the Assad regime.

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Another PLO official, Wasel Abu Yousef, said that the Syrian regime may destroy the encampment by bombing the site behind the claim of attacking ISIS, as eyewitnesses revealed to Newsweek yesterday that the regime had barrel-bombed the camp’s main hospital.

"We know that if the [Syrian] army, with its planes and tanks, would interfere, this would mean the complete destruction of the camp," Yousef told the Associated Press.

"Reuters Iraq bureau chief flees after death threats over story"

The Baghdad bureau chief for Reuters has left Iraq after he was threatened on Facebook and denounced by a Shiite paramilitary group's satellite news channel in reaction to a Reuters report last week that detailed lynching and looting in the city of Tikrit. The threats against journalist Ned Parker began on an Iraqi Facebook page run by a group that calls itself "the Hammer" and is believed by an Iraqi security source to be linked to armed Shiite groups. The April 5 post and subsequent comments demanded he be expelled from Iraq. One commenter said that killing Parker was "the best way to silence him, not kick him out."

Here's the story that has these Iranian-organized and U.S.-armed militias so upset. Meanwhile, from the BBC: "Karl Marx on Alienation." Gillian Anderson (yes) explains Marx's theory on how capitalism alienates workers, reducing them to cogs in the machine who only truly live a few hours a day when they're not toiling away making products they themselves can't afford so a rich person they've never met can become even richer.


Alienated though they may be, workers have not lost their humanity. "If We Left, They Wouldn't Have Nobody":

When an assisted living home in California shut down last fall, many of its residents were left behind, with nowhere to go. The staff at the Valley Springs Manor left when they stopped getting paid — except for cook Maurice Rowland and Miguel Alvarez, the janitor. "There was about 16 residents left behind, and we had a conversation in the kitchen, 'What are we going to do?' " Rowland says. "If we left, they wouldn't have nobody," the 34-year-old Alvarez says. Their roles quickly transformed for the elderly residents, who needed round-the-clock care. "I would only go home for one hour, take a shower, get dressed, then be there for 24-hour days," says Alvarez.

Finally, a blast from the not-so-distant past, when another dictator beloved by the GlobalResearch.ca pseudo-left was cozying up to the absolute worst the imperialist West has to offer. "Gaddafi wants EU cash to stop African migrants":

"Tomorrow Europe might no longer be European, and even black, as there are millions who want to come in," said Col Gaddafi, quoted by the AFP news agency. He was speaking at a ceremony in Rome late on Monday, standing next to Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. "We don't know what will happen, what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans," Col Gaddafi said. "We don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions."

No capitalism? No wealth.

Over at Salon, I argue that libertarians who insist we do not have true "capitalism" today -- and believe that's a bad thing -- should then logically support the radical redistribution of wealth, as money not made on a "free market" is money made in contravention of their own libertarian ethics.

Go ahead and give it a read. It's more fun than it sounds.

Go ahead and take it

I have a new piece up over at The New Inquiry in which I argue that there is nothing wrong with stealing from thieves (i.e., capitalists). Please copy and paste it broadly.

That cure is a trade secret

In my latest piece for Al Jazeera, I explore how militarism and the profit motive are holding back science -- and what steps scientists can take to undermine capitalism. Read, share, love.