Some updates.

crash_course_socialism.md

@@ -51,6 +51,8 @@ Private property in the socialist context shouldn't be confused with [personal p
 
 In a Capitalist society the means of production are owned and controlled privately, by those that can afford them (the Capitalist, aka those with Capital). Production is carried out to [benefit the capitalist](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/a0mwut/what_exactly_is_capitalism/eaj3b4a/) (production for profit). Workers are paid a wage, and [receive that amount regardless of how much value they produce](https://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1979/marxism/ch04.html).
 
+This price of labor power ( called the wage )  becomes a commodity like any other, whose value isn't determined by how much real value the worker adds, but by the absolute minimum amount required for workers to sustain themselves and raise the next generation of workers ( called the cost of social reproduction ). 
+
 Socialists call this difference the [surplus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value), profit, unpaid labor, exploitation, or **wage theft**.
 
 `Wage Theft = Worker Value Added - Wage Paid`
@@ -61,6 +63,16 @@ Unlike workers, Capitalists make their living, not by clocking in and being paid
 
 For example, a Copper mine owner neither physically mines the copper, and (living thousands of miles away) likely delegates day-to-day operations to a hired manager. Yet, **because they have a piece of paper that says they own it, they get a large cut of everything that was mined**: the ultimate free lunch.
 
+Let's say that a garment factory owner spends $90k to buy a facility, machines, and all the other startup costs, as well as $10k per year on operating costs, such as yarn ( called constant capital ). They hire 10 workers, all of whom are paid $20k / year in wages ( called variable capital, or the price of labor power ). They do $400k / year in sales, meaning the owner makes $10k / worker / year ( surplus value ). After 1 year, ( 10 workers * $10k = $100k ), the owner has made up their initial investment. 
+
+`Surplus value = Product sales - Constant Capital - Variable capital`
+
+`100k = 400k - 100k - 200k` total, or
+
+`10k = 40k - 10k - 20k` per worker. 
+ 
+From that year onward, the owner pockets $100k / year, even after fully paying off their initial investment. They've fully paid off their initial investment, yet are "rewarded" indefinitely.
+
 A 1983 report by England national income and expenditures found that on average, **26 minutes of every hour worked** (or 43% of labor value added) by English workers across a wide range of industries went to various exploiting or unproductive groups, with workers receiving only *57% of their pre-tax productive output as wages*<sup>[1](http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf)</sup>. In other words, at least **40% of the work you do every day is stolen by Capitalists.** 
 
 Capitalists use the surplus to [push out competitors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices) and gain market share, leading to the destruction of most small businesses, with [just a few companies](http://imgur.com/a/xgnEp) controlling our food, media, [news](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6U2Un5kEdI), energy, transportation, and finances.

favorite_apps_and_services.md

@@ -56,12 +56,12 @@
 ## Tasks / Todos
 
 - Use a [todo.txt](http://todotxt.org/) file for a personal task list, synced with syncthing.
-  - [QTodoTxt](http://qtodotxt.org/) as a desktop client, [todo.txt-vim](https://github.com/freitass/todo.txt-vim), [Simpletask Cloudless](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.mpcjanssen.simpletask&hl=en_US) for Android.
-- For shared task lists, use [CodiMD](https://github.com/hackmdio/codimd).
+  - [QTodoTxt2](https://github.com/QTodoTxt/QTodoTxt2) as a desktop client, [todo.txt-vim](https://github.com/freitass/todo.txt-vim), [Simpletask Cloudless](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.mpcjanssen.simpletask&hl=en_US) for Android.
+- For shared task lists, use [Hedgedoc](https://hedgedoc.org/).
 
 ## Collaboration
 
-- Use [CodiMD](https://github.com/hackmdio/codimd), a live / collaborative markdown editor.
+- Use [Hedgedoc](https://hedgedoc.org/), a live / collaborative markdown editor.
 
 ## Browsing
 
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@
 
 - Twitter alternative : [Pleroma](https://pleroma.social/), [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/)
 - Facebook : [Friendica](https://friendi.ca/)
-- Reddit : [Lemmy (I'm a dev)](https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy), [PostMill](https://gitlab.com/edgyemma/Postmill), or [Lobste.rs](https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters)
+- Reddit : [Lemmy (I'm a dev)](https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy), [Lobste.rs](https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters), or [PostMill](https://gitlab.com/postmill/Postmill).
 - Medium : [Plume](https://github.com/Plume-org/Plume), [WriteFreely](https://github.com/writeas/writefreely)
 - YouTube : Torrents, or [Peertube](https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube). 
 - Instagram : [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/)

socialism_faq.md

@@ -114,6 +114,7 @@
 - [Why are there no modern revolutions, in the past 40 years?](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/9y34ea/why_are_there_no_revolutions/)
 - [Didn't Capitalism bring people out of poverty? The UN says poverty has halved in the last few years.](https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/comments/9kdz7p/world_population_living_in_extreme_poverty/e6ypvus/) 
 - [Isn't worldwide global poverty decreasing?](https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-poverty)
+- [On the black panther's community programs.](https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3883&context=jssw)
 
 ## What about human nature?
 
@@ -377,7 +378,7 @@
 * [What is Stalinism?](http://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/15g4xo/what_is_stalinism/)
 * [What about Stalin? Didn't he kill millions? (Revleft podcast on Stalin)](https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/joseph-mother-fucking-stain)
 * [Was Stalin's USSR State Capitalist?](http://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/383c4i/was_stalins_ussr_state_capitalist/)
-* [What about the term tankies / stalinists? What's the meaning of the term?](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/dm2mbz/on_tankies/) [What about the 1956 Hungarian revolt?](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/dh6nyi/why_was_the_hungarian_uprising_crushed_by_the_ussr/), [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/ht4z8a/hungarian_revolution_in_1956/). [MI6 trained the hungarian opposition to fight soviets in the 1956 revolt.](http://archive.is/fMAzu)
+* [What about the term tankies / stalinists? What's the meaning of the term?](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/dm2mbz/on_tankies/) [What about the 1956 Hungarian revolt?](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/dh6nyi/why_was_the_hungarian_uprising_crushed_by_the_ussr/), [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/ht4z8a/hungarian_revolution_in_1956/). [MI6 trained the hungarian opposition to fight soviets in the 1956 revolt.](http://archive.is/fMAzu [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/PartyofCommunistsUSA/comments/9kqkt5/anticommunist_and_antijewish_pogroms_of_hungarys/)  [4](http://www3.sympatico.ca/thidas/Hungarian-history/Exodus.html)
 * [RedSails - on "Tankies"](https://redsails.org/tankies/)
 * [Hakim - Why the USSR was socialist - A critique of left-communism.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKggZ22izDs)
 * [Did Stalin really try to resign 4 times?](https://socialistmlmusings.wordpress.com/2017/02/23/stalins-four-attempts-at-resignation/)
@@ -485,6 +486,7 @@
 * [What's the difference between MZT (Mao-Zedong-Thought) and MLM (Marxism-Leninism-Maoism)? How does Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (SWCC) differ from MLM? Does modern China uphold Mao? What about the cultural revolution?](http://cpcchina.chinadaily.com.cn/fastfacts/2010-10/18/content_11425373.htm) [2](https://leohezhao.medium.com/wrong-turns-on-the-revolutionary-road-ultra-leftism-and-the-cultural-revolution-2e090793dfad) [3](https://leohezhao.medium.com/the-long-game-and-its-contradictions-8ff92823cf68?postPublishedType=repub) [3](https://leohezhao.medium.com/the-long-game-and-its-contradictions-8ff92823cf68?postPublishedType=repub)
 * [Where should I start with Mao?](http://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/1dmxcl/where_should_i_start_with_mao/)
 * [Debastardising Mao.](http://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/1ecf32/debastardising_mao/)
+* [Was Sun Yat Sen a communist?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kvAMVX0bjE)
 * [Deng on why Mao's legacy must be upheld.](http://cpcchina.chinadaily.com.cn/fastfacts/2010-10/18/content_11425373.htm)
 * [Deng Xiaoping - a visionary marxist-leninist.](https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1353776771573948418?s=20)
 * [What about Tibet? (95% of the population were slaves or feudal serfs before China invaded in 1959)](http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html) [audiobook](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0-IkmzWbjoZjKom_Qj0jcDReaMb_r52z)
@@ -542,6 +544,7 @@
 ### Workers rights
 
 * [The real wage (IE the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it's the most populous country on the planet. The US real wage by comparison is lower in 2019 than it was in 1973.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw8SvK0E5dI)
+* [Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1043159032935006208.html)
 * [US Life expectancy peaked in 2015, is on the decline, and is now lower than in China.](https://www.businessinsider.com/china-boasts-that-its-healthy-life-expectancy-beats-the-us-is-correct-2018-5) [2](http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-09/07/c_138372963.htm) 
   * How [healthcare works in China (refuting a fearmongering NYT video about health care in China)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvpo2jv5eqI).
   * [Uninsured Chinese citizens pay an average of $5-7 to see a specialist (the majority of hospital visits ), and with insurance, its free. 95% of Chinese citizens have insurance](https://hotpot.team/new-york-times-lies/)
@@ -631,6 +634,7 @@
 - [The TiP militants fighting in Syria.](https://apnews.com/article/591f9b238c84477b87cfac68bfe169fc)
 - [China’s Xinjiang Problem – Made in USA](https://journal-neo.org/2015/11/10/chinas-xinjiang-problem-made-in-usa/).
 - [US Col Lawrence Wilkerson admits to USA involvement in fomenting civil unrest in Xinjiang China using Uighurs.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00Cvx0R8iDo)
+- [Former FBI Agent turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds talks about how US-funded Gladio operatives from Turkey have been smuggling out young Uyghurs, turning them into militants, and sending them back to poorer areas in Xinjiang to commit terrorist attacks, as part of an effort to destabilize Xinjiang and disrupt Chinese trade.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gIKdsAlWcE)
 - [No, the UN did not report China has ‘massive internment camps’ for Uighur Muslims](https://thegrayzone.com/2018/08/23/un-did-not-report-china-internment-camps-uighur-muslims/).
 - [What about Democracy now and the Intercept's claims about the Uyghur camps?](https://medium.com/@rainershea612/liberal-anti-chinese-propaganda-helped-create-the-far-right-campaign-to-blame-china-for-covid-19-7253dca6f429)
 - [The better cotton initiative, a global advocacy group for cotton laborers, found that no forced labor was taking place in Xinjiang.](https://www.dimsumdaily.hk/better-cotton-initiative-bci-in-shanghai-reiterates-no-forced-labour-found-in-xinjiang/) 
@@ -819,6 +823,7 @@
   - Elite charitable funds are a legal means of **tax avoidance**. Under US law, investments in charitable foundations are tax-free; moreover, investors are not required to sell their stock positions and may continue to vote their shares without restriction. By sheltering foundations, the US Treasury effectively co-finances the activities of Gates foundation and its investors.
   - [The Bill Gates global health empire promises more empire and less public health.](https://thegrayzone.com/2020/07/08/bill-gates-global-health-policy/)
   - Since he is the largest donor to the WHO, [he pushes funding for "headline grabbers" such as Malaria and HIV, despite local experts telling policy-makers that other ailments such as Tuberculosis, malnutrition, and bacterial disease are the biggest causes of death.](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736\(09\)60885-0/fulltext)
+  - [During the COVID-19 pandemic, he worked on behalf of big pharma again to protect vaccine intellectual property rights, prioritizing wealthy northern countries over the global south. As of April 2021, fewer than 600 million vaccine doses have been administered around the world; three-quarters of those in just 10 mostly high-income countries. The timeline for supplying poor and middle-income countries with enough vaccines to achieve herd immunity, meanwhile, has been pushed into 2024. These numbers represent more than the “catastrophic moral failure” the director general of the WHO warned about. It is a stark reminder than any policy that obstructs or inhibits vaccine production risks being self-defeating for the rich countries defending exclusive rights and gobbling up the lion’s share of available vaccine supplies.](https://archive.is/9bkpq)
   - [Used philanthropy as a front to generate profits for businesses in the agricultural and health sectors. ](https://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?cid=25920011&item=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.edweek.org%2Fv1%2Fblog%2F60%2Findex.html%3Fuuid%3D25408)
 - [Citations Needed - The Not-So-Benevolent Billionaire - Bill Gates and Western Media.](https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-45-the-not-so-benevolent-billionaire-bill-gates-and-western-media)
 - [Post from a web developer about Microsoft's monopoly practices in the 1990s.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ragecomics/comments/11c1t1/internet_explorer_rfunny_said_i_should_post_it/c6lbhu2/)
@@ -841,6 +846,7 @@
   - [Hugh MacDiarmid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_MacDiarmid), Scottish nationalist poet, and anti-imperialist. 
   - [George Padmore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Padmore), Trinidadian journalist and anti-imperialist campaigner.
 - His books Animal Farm and 1984 are used widely as anti-communist propaganda in schools in the US and UK. So much so that [his animated animal farm film was funded by the CIA](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/how-cia-brought-animal-farm-to-the-screen/). There's a reason they teach George Orwell in schools and not Franz Fanon, Che, Huey P Newton, Malcolm X, Lenin, CLR James, etc. 
+- In 1941, illustrator Elias Gertrude approached Orwell, then an editor for the British Ministry of information, with an idea for a satirical cartoon film, portraying the Nazis as pig characters ruling a farm in a kind of dysfunctional fairy story. [He told her that there was not much call for her idea, stole it, changed the name from *A Fairy Story* to *Animal Farm*, and changed the pig-nazis into Communists.](https://www.radnorshire-fine-arts.co.uk/brand/elias-gertrude-1913-1988/)
 - [Between 1952 and 1957, from three sites in West Germany, a CIA operation codenamed ‘Aedinosaur’ launched millions of ten-foot balloons carrying copies of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and dropped them over Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia — whose airforces were ordered to shoot the balloons down.](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/novel-explosives-of-the-cold-war). 
 - [Orwell, anti-communist: A criticism of Orwell and his Work - By Isaac Asimov.](http://www.newworker.org/ncptrory/1984.htm)
 - [Orwell - "I have never really disliked Hitler."](https://twitter.com/SarahTheHaider/status/1300360063845126144?s=20)
@@ -928,6 +934,7 @@
   - [AOC pays homage to "Tibetan Uprising Day"](https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1370755518122373121?s=20), a CIA-sponsored campaign to restore the brutal Tibetan theocracy and re-institute slavery.
 - [Voted for Trump's 2020 War budget, allocating $738 Billion to military spending (a 3% increase over the previous year).](http://www.idcommunism.com/2019/07/ocasio-cortez-aoc-votes-in-favor-of-trumps-war-budget.html)
 - [She supports Israel, and its genocide of Palestineans.](https://i.imgur.com/K6QsYZo.jpg)
+- After an anti-war activist posted a video of AOC waffling on a question about Palestine, [he's interrogated by California highway patrol who claimed he issued a death threat against AOC](https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/09/anti-war-activist-police-aoc-video/). In reality, his tweet said: "her response was underwhelming to say the least." Its unknown whether AOC initiated the interrogation.
 - [Is against pardoning Julian Assange.](https://twitter.com/SameeraKhan/status/1359550389578854406?s=20)
 - [Goes along with democrats and Republicans in backing US puppet Juan Guaido over Maduro in Venezuela.](https://twitter.com/telesurenglish/status/1124924184629583872?s=19) 
 - [After the December 2020 Elections in Venezuala, she defends Juan Guaido, and calls Maduro an "authoritarian" yet again.](https://twitter.com/SameeraKhan/status/1336139779281457153)
@@ -938,6 +945,7 @@
 - [Believes that Trump "betrays" US values.](https://i.imgur.com/H61toBx.png)
 - [Claims that socialist theory is only for priviledged few with college educated parents, and that working class people aren't capable of understanding theory. Is unaware of the Spanish-speaking socialist tradition. ](https://medium.com/@marko_v_kobak/sharpening-the-mind-a-response-to-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-24babecac9c5?fbclid=IwAR2I8uYX9ZUvPyd5MZxKiIEeXgbgnfzulR4qjzOGF1hxK6SEX7oqkFmyBIc)
 - [After Biden opens new child immigrant detention facilities in February 2021, she stops calling them "concentration camps", and names them "influx facilities".](https://i.imgur.com/oSlwtda.jpg)
+- [After bucking M4A during the COVID pandemic, AOC touts a FEMA funeral reimbursement program as an acheivement.](https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/c7lHG9fFCI.png)
 
 ### What's wrong with Elizabeth Warren?
 
@@ -1177,6 +1185,7 @@ Much credit to [David Kinder's current affairs article, the rise of the Ruth Bad
 
 ### DSA / Jacobin
 
+- https://archive.is/pzWy6
 - https://twitter.com/camilateleSUR/status/1193767195031068673
 - https://twitter.com/DemSocialists/status/1194298720780791810
 - https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/1202641283023376384
@@ -1244,4 +1253,5 @@ Much credit to [David Kinder's current affairs article, the rise of the Ruth Bad
 - [Ziq](https://web.archive.org/web/20180405002453/https://raddle.me/f/lobby/28422/i-m-stepping-down-as-admin-because-of-some-shit-i-did-emma)
 - [Robert Evans](https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1288116233133424648) [2](https://communism.lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/XwBw0R0M59.jpg)
 - Paul Morrin - [China is imperialist](https://twitter.com/LurkerUntamed/status/1372732445146165251?s=20), [Cuba, China, the DPRK, and the USSR are "social imperialist".](https://twitter.com/ANTICONQUISTA/status/1375213633186193413)
+- [Blackredguard](https://twitter.com/BlackRedGuard1/status/1383849476863844359?s=20)
 - [A response to David Harvey's theories of Imperialism by John Smith.](https://urpe.wordpress.com/2018/01/11/a-critique-of-david-harvey-on-imperialism/)

star_trek_communism.md

@@ -7,4 +7,5 @@
 - [Star trek - A legacy of diversity.](https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/star-treks-most-significant-legacy-is-inclusiveness)
 - [According to Gene Roddenberry's (Star Trek's creator) wife, Magel Barret, Gene was a communist, favoring the Chinese model of Communism as his ideal.](https://mix979fm.com/ten-things-you-didnt-know-star-trek-creator-gene-roddenberry/)
 - [Does star trek promote communism?](https://www.quora.com/Does-Star-Trek-promote-communism)
+- [The Star Trek Communist Hopes.](https://www.startrek.com/news/the-star-trek-communist-hopes-star-trek-can-inspire-a-real-revolution)
 

us_atrocities.md

@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ Notes :
 - In 1988, a US navy cruise missile shot down [Iran Flight 655](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655), killing its 290 civilian passengers. In 1996 As part of the settlement, the US did not admit legal liability or formally apologize to Iran but agreed to pay on an ex gratia basis $61.8 million. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655),[2](https://www.snopes.com/?p=145201)
 - In 1980, the US helped Turkish armed forces in the [1980 Turkish coup d'état](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat), including supplying them with American-made Sikorski helicopters. [1](1)
 - In 1980, the US funded and sold weapons to both sides in the [Iran-Iraq War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War), hoping to destabilize the region and create a puppet regime favorable to US interests. Over 500,000 people died in the conflict. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War)
-- From 1979-89, the CIA begins supplying arms and money ($630 million per year by 1987, and a total of 5-6 Billion USD) to factions fighting against the soviets in their [invasion of afghanistan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan), In what was known as [Operation Cyclone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone). the U.S. government secretly provided weapons and funding for the [Mujahadin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahadin) Islamic guerillas of Afghanistan fighting to overthrow the Afghan government and the Soviet military forces that supported it. Supplies were channeled through the [Inter-Services Intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Services_Intelligence) (ISI) of [Pakistan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan).[[44\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#cite_note-44)[[45\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#cite_note-45)[[46\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#cite_note-46) Although Operation Cyclone officially ended in 1989 with the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, U.S. government funding for the Mujahadin continued through 1992. Fanatical extremists now possess state-of-the-art weaponry, including [Sheik Abdel Rahman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Abdel-Rahman), and [Osama Bin Laden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden), who were later responsible for the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center bombings in New York. The architect of the war, Zbigniew Brzezinski, an advisor to president carter, admitted in a 1998 interview with the Parisian publication Le Novel Observateur, confirmed that Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the Mujahadin against the soviet-supported Kabul government, before the soviet invasion. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone), [2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan)
+- From 1979-89, the CIA begins supplying arms and money ($630 million per year by 1987, and a total of 5-6 Billion USD) to factions fighting against the soviets in their [invasion of afghanistan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan), In what was known as [Operation Cyclone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone). the U.S. government secretly provided weapons and funding for the [Mujahadin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahadin) Islamic guerillas of Afghanistan fighting to overthrow the Afghan government and the Soviet military forces that supported it. Supplies were channeled through the [Inter-Services Intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Services_Intelligence) (ISI) of [Pakistan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan).[[44\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#cite_note-44)[[45\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#cite_note-45)[[46\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#cite_note-46) Although Operation Cyclone officially ended in 1989 with the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, U.S. government funding for the Mujahadin continued through 1992. Fanatical extremists now possess state-of-the-art weaponry, including [Sheik Abdel Rahman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Abdel-Rahman), and [Osama Bin Laden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden), who were later responsible for the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center bombings in New York. The architect of the war, Zbigniew Brzezinski, an advisor to president carter, admitted in a 1998 interview with the Parisian publication Le Novel Observateur, confirmed that Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the Mujahadin against the soviet-supported Kabul government, before the soviet invasion. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone), [2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan) In 2010 Hillary Clinton commented on how the house majority democrats, in coalition with then president Reagan, thought that "it was a pretty good idea" to create Al-Qaeda in order to combat the Soviet Union.](https://twitter.com/sahouraxo/status/1379509816385622016?s=20)
 - Since the 1960s, the US has given immense economic and military aid to Israel in the [Israeli-Palestinian conflict](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict), which has taken 100,000 - 200,000 lives. The US has used its UN veto power to block a two-state solution countless times. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict)
 - In 1958, [Eisenhower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_D._Eisenhower) authorized Operation Blue Bat, an invasion of 14,000 US troops in the [ongoing civil war in Lebanon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lebanon_crisis). This was the first application of the [Eisenhower Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_Doctrine) under which the U.S. announced that it would intervene to protect regimes it considered threatened by international [communism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism). The goal of the operation was to bolster the pro-Western Lebanese government of President Camille Chamoun against internal opposition and threats from Syria and Egypt. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lebanon_crisis)
 - In 1953, the CIA in Iran overthrows the democratically elected [Mohammed Mossadegh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh) in a [military coup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat), after he threatened to nationalize British oil. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran, whose secret police, [SAVAK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK), is as brutal as the Gestapo. After the initial coup failed and the Shah and his family fled to Italy, the CIA payed millions of dollars to bribe military officers and pay gangsters to unleash violence in the streets of Tehran. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat)
@@ -357,6 +357,7 @@ Notes :
 
 ### LGBTQ People
 
+- From ~1980-1996, its estimated that around 600k people have died, and 1.2M are living with HIV as a result of the US's mismanagement of the AIDS epidemic. It disproportionately affects gay and bisexual men, black ppl, and latinos. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_in_the_United_States)
 - In 1969, LGBT activists began the [Stonewall riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots) in response to a police raid in Greenwich Village, which highlighted a pattern of discrimination against gay people in the legal system. The Stonewall Inn It catered to an assortment of patrons and was known to be popular among the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: [drag queens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_queen), [transgender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender) people, effeminate young men, [butch lesbians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_and_femme), [male prostitutes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_prostitution), and homeless youth. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s. The riot began an extended confrontation with the [New York City police](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Department), and within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their [sexual orientation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation) without fear of being arrested. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots)
 - In the 2nd [Red and Lavendar Scare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavender_scare) of 1947-56, Joseph McCarthy framed homosexuality as a dangerous, contagious social disease that posed a potential threat to state security.[[59\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism#cite_note-Patrizia_Gentile_2010._pg_65-59) Hundreds of suspected homosexuals were imprisoned or fired.[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism#Victims_of_McCarthy)
 
@@ -445,6 +446,10 @@ Notes :
 - The 1787 [US Constitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution) is falsely portrayed as a document representing an ideal of social and political equality, despite **every framer being a rich white propertied man**. Historian [Charles Beard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Beard) found that a majority of the framers were lawyers by profession, that most of them were **men of wealth, in land, slaves, manufacturing, or shipping**, that half of them had money loaned out at interest, and that forty of the fifty-five held government bonds, according to the records of the Treasury Department. Thus, Beard found that most of the makers of the Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong federal government: the manufacturers needed protective tariffs; the money lenders wanted to stop the use of paper money to pay off debts; the land speculators wanted protection as they invaded Indian lands; slave-owners needed federal security against slave revolts  and runaways; bondholders wanted a government able to raise money by nationwide taxation, to pay off those bonds. Four groups, Beard noted, were not represented in the Constitutional Convention: **slaves, indentured servants, women, men without property**. And so the Constitution did not reflect the interests of those groups. He later wrote: "Inasmuch as the primary object of a government, beyond the mere repression of physical violence, is the making of the rules which *determine the property relations of members of society*, the dominant classes whose rights are thus to be determined must perforce obtain from the government such rules as are consonant with the larger interests necessary to the continuance of their economic processes, or they must themselves control the organs of government."
 - The [American Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_revolution) is falsely portrayed as being a social revolution. [Carl Degler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Neumann_Degler) says (*Out of Our Past*): "**No new social class came to power through the door of the American revolution.** The men who engineered the revolt were largely members of the colonial ruling class." **George Washington was the richest man in America**. John Hancock was a prosperous Boston merchant. Benjamin Franklin was a wealthy printer.  [Edmund Morgan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Morgan_(historian)) sums up the class nature of the Revolution this way: "The fact that the lower ranks were involved in the contest should not obscure the fact that the contest itself was generally a struggle for office and power between members of an upper class: the new against the established." Looking at the situation after the Revolution, Richard Morris comments: "Everywhere one finds inequality." He finds "the people" of "We the people of the United States" (a phrase coined by the very rich governor Morris) did not mean Indians or blacks or women or white servants. In fact, there were more indentured servants than ever, and the Revolution "did nothing to end and little to ameliorate white bondage." 
 
+### Children
+
+- In 2021, it was revealed that the [Boston PD covered up that it's union leader was a child molester for over 20 years.](https://archive.is/CmN5h)
+
 ### Prisoners
 
 - The US **currently** operates a system of slave labor camps, including at least [54 prison farms involved in agricultural slave labor.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_farm#In_the_United_States_.28partial_list.29) Outside of agricultural slavery, [Federal Prison Industries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries) operates a multi-billion dollar industry with ~ 52 prison factories , where prisoners produce furniture, clothing, circuit boards, products for the military, computer aided design services, call center support for private companies. [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_farm#In_the_United_States_.28partial_list.29), [2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries), [3](https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/20/mass-incarceration-prison-labor-in-the-united-states/)

zak_cope_divided_favorites.md

@@ -76,3 +76,29 @@ In 1933, W.E.B. Du Bois characterized the split within the global working class
 > Thus the engineers and saving better-paid workers, form a new petty bourgeois class, whose interests are bound up with those of the capitalists and antagonistic to those of common labor. On the other hand, common labor in America and white Europe far from being motivated by any vision of revolt against capitalism, has been blinded by the American vision of the possibility of layer after layer of the workers escaping into the wealthy class and becoming managers and employers of labor[...].
 
 > The second influence on white labor both in America and Europe has been the fact that the extension of the world market by imperial expanding industry has established a worldwide new proletariat of colored workers, toiling under the worst conditions of 19th century capitalism, herded as slaves and serfs and furnishing by the lowest paid wage in modern history a mass of raw material for industry. With this largesse the capitalists have consolidated their economic power, nullified universal suffrage and bribed the white workers by high wages, visions of wealth and the opportunity to drive "n____." Soldiers and sailors from the white workers are used to keep "d____" in their "places" and white foremen and engineers have been established as irresponsible satraps in China and India, Africa and the West Indies, backed by the organized and centralized ownership of machines, raw materials, finished commodities and land monopoly over the whole world.
+
+## ILO statistics
+
+Just how much more are imperial core workers making? As of 2012, according to the ILO, **11x more.**
+
+---
+
+Average Monthly Wage Rates for male OECD workers in 2002–2003 = $2,104
+
+Average Monthly Wage Rates for male non-OECD workers in 2002–2003 = $224
+
+Inflation-adjusted Average Monthly Wage Rates for male OECD workers in 2007[2] = $2,378
+
+Inflation-adjusted Average Yearly Wage Rates for male OECD workers in 2007 = $28,536
+
+Inflation-adjusted Average Monthly Wage Rates for male non-OECD workers in 2007 = $253
+
+Inflation-adjusted Average Yearly Wage Rates for male non-OECD workers in 2007 = $3,036
+
+Inflation-adjusted Average Hourly Wage Rates for male OECD workers in 2007[3] = $17
+
+Inflation-adjusted Average Hourly Wage Rates for male non-OECD workers in 2007 = $1.50
+
+Factoral Difference between OECD and non-OECD wages = 11
+
+Median Global Hourly wage = $9.25