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Privatization

Panama: Indigenous Leaders Condemn ‘Criminalization Of Protests’

May 27, 2025 Richard Arghiris, Intercontinental Cry. , , , ,
Indigenous authorities in Panama have condemned the “escalation of persecution and repression” by the government of President Raúl Mulino. The traditional authorities of the Ngabe-Buglé Comarca claim that armed security agents have made violent house-to-house raids including the use of tear gas, large-caliber weapons and arbitrary arrests of indigenous leaders in various communities, such as Trinidad, El Piro, Ojo de Agua, Tolé, Viguí and El Prado. Faced with nationwide strikes and protest, President Mulino has eschewed dialogue and instead deployed riot police and armed SENAFRONT (National Border Service) officers to disperse marches and gatherings using chemical agents. Dozens have been injured but the protests are continuing into their second month.

CEO Of US-Israeli Aid Scheme Announces Resignation

May 26, 2025 News Desk, The Cradle. , , , , , , , ,
Jake Wood, the executive director of the controversial Israeli-led aid distribution plan for Gaza, announced his resignation on 26 May due to the impossibility of implementing the initiative without violating “humanitarian principles of humanity.” Wood stressed that upon assuming his role, the plan was still a “loose constellation of various ideas and concepts” which he sought to establish “as a truly independent humanitarian entity.” “I am proud of the work I oversaw, including developing a pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza,” the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) director added.

Voters Overwhelmingly Oppose Postal Privatization

May 8, 2025 U.S. Mail Not For Sale. , , , ,
A new survey, conducted by Hart Research and North Star Research has found that an overwhelming majority of people oppose the privatization of the U.S. Postal Service, fearing increasing shipping and postage costs and deteriorating service. The release comes as the USPS Board of Governors is reportedly considering appointing a Trump administration-backed nominee with strong ties to private sector competitor, FedEx, to succeed Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General. Both President Trump and his senior advisor, Elon Musk, have gone on the record to support privatizing the Postal Service.

Don’t Let Elon Musk Privatize the Postal Service

May 3, 2025 Sarah Anderson, Inequality. , , , , , ,
The Trump Administration has been reviving plans to privatize the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). But many lawmakers don’t like the idea, including some from President Donald Trump’s own party. “We are not going to privatize the Postal Service,” declared U.S. Representative Pete Stauber, Republican of Minnesota, at a March 25 rural letter carriers rally on Capitol Hill. “We rely on you to bring us our medicine, bring us our food, bring us our Social Security checks, bring us our documents that we need in a timely fashion.” Stauber understands that if the U.S. Postal Service is sold off to for-profit corporations, many of his constituents in northern Minnesota’s Iron Range would almost certainly lose mail and package delivery at their homes—or have to pay an arm and a leg for it.

As US Threatens To Privatize Amtrak, UK Begins To Renationalize Rail

April 22, 2025 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. , , , , ,
While the Trump Administration and billionaire advisor Elon Musk are talking about privatizing passenger rail here in the USA, in the UK, they’re going in the opposite direction. Next month, on May 25, the British will begin nationalizing passenger rail after decades of failed privatization, which began in 1994 (see write-up from the British House of Commons). Amtrak referenced the UK’s experiment with privatization in a March 2025 analysis explaining why privatization is a bad idea (see Amtrak FAQ here). On this side of the Atlantic, Amtrak had its best year ever for ridership and revenue. Some of its ridership growth is due to an increasing number of long-haul commuters, especially commuters from Philadelphia to New York City.

How Trump’S 21st Century Version Of Fiscal Forestry Will Harm VA Care

April 13, 2025 Suzanne Gordon, Substack. , , ,
In his brilliant book, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, James C. Scott, warned of projects “driven by utopian plans and authoritarian disregard for the values, desires, and objections of their subjects.” Although the Yale Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, who died last year, wrote Seeing Like a State in 1998, his message is more important than ever as Donald Trump and his allies try to destroy and privatize the VA healthcare system and other government services. Like the other authoritarian schemers that Scott analyzes, Trump, Elon Musk and their faithful servant, VA Secretary Doug Collins view the world through a narrow lens that ignores the “far more complex and unwieldly reality” in which human beings live their lives and, in the case of the VA, experience health and illness.

Why Oligarchs Want A Recession

April 8, 2025 Van Jackson, Labor Notes. , , , ,
A recession is looming. Trump himself recently affirmed that his economic plans would induce a recession in the near term. He remarked when asked as much by an interviewer, “There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big.” And yet, before Trump crashed the stock market last week with his global tariff regime, America’s CEOs had the highest confidence in the U.S. economy that they’ve had in three years, according to a nationwide survey in the early weeks of the Trump administration. And Trump has simply been carrying out the promises he’s long made.

Postal Workers Throng To 500 Rallies To Save The Postal Service

March 29, 2025 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. , , ,
From big cities to small towns, postal workers organized hundreds of rallies across the country in the past week to defend a beloved public service—and the nation’s largest union employer—against privatization and DOGE attack. “Whose Postal Service?” workers chanted in New York: “The people’s Postal Service.” “U.S. Mail Is Not for Sale” was the rallying cry March 20 at 250 rallies organized by the Postal Workers (APWU). “Fight Like Hell” was the theme March 23 for another 210 rallies led by the Letter Carriers (NALC). A hundred people came out to the NALC rally in St. Petersburg, Florida, covering all four corners of the busiest intersection in town, said Roger Ezra Butterfield, a recently minted steward in APWU.

A Land Bank Is Buying Property To Protect Altadena From Displacement

March 29, 2025 Eliana Perozo, Next City. , , ,
On the evening of Jan. 7, the Eaton fire hit Altadena, destroying over 10,000 commercial and residential homes and displacing thousands of families. Just a little over two months later, and this historically Black community is facing a new threat. Shortly after the fire, a private developer paid $550,000 in cash for the first vacant lot left behind from the wildfires, about $100,000 above asking price. In the days since, at least 13 more properties have sold, at least half of them by offshore private developers. But community leaders are working to beat back the tide. Earlier this month, a Pasadena-based housing justice nonprofit purchased a burned lot in the neighborhood, marking the first Altadena property that has been removed from the market and protected in a community land bank.

What Is Esencia And What Will Happen If This Is Constructed?

March 26, 2025 Diaspora Pa'Lante Collective, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
Esencia is a massive $2 billion colonial development project aiming to seize over 2,000 acres of land, spanning three miles of beaches in Punta Melones, Cabo Rojo, by 2028. The United States has long justified its imperial presence in Puerto Rico under the guise of “progress” and “development.” With the complicity of a local government that prioritizes U.S. interests, policies like Act 60—which grants foreign investors the ability to evade local and federal taxes—serve Puerto Rico on a silver platter to wealthy developers, speculators, and those eager to claim and exploit a slice of “paradise.”

Postal Workers Rally Against Proposal To Privatize USPS

March 24, 2025 Hank Lee, WCNC. , , , , ,
Charlotte , NC - Charlotte postal workers held another rally Sunday, speaking out against a proposal to privatize the U.S. Postal Service. Sunday's rally was held at the post office in Ballantyne and led by the local branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers. Leaders said it's all about protecting rural communities that rely on the Postal Service.  Conversations about privatizing the USPS have been ongoing and floated by President Donald Trump previously. "The NALC and all postal employees what the postal workers to know, and the president to know, that the Postal Service is not for sale," NALC Branch President Sylvin Stevens said.

‘Not For Sale’: USPS Workers Hold Day Of Action

March 21, 2025 Michael Sainato, the Guardian. , , , ,
US Postal Service workers and advocates are holding a day of action today in more than 150 cities as they brace for the Trump administration to launch an “illegal hostile takeover” which they warn will slash jobs, boost prices and shut down post offices. Donald Trump’s officials are weighing plans to transfer the USPS to the Department of Commerce, stripping it of its independence. The president and his allies have also signaled they are willing to privatize the service. “This is the people’s postal service, emphasis on ‘service’,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union

Amtrak Doesn’t Understand Why Elon Musk Wants To Privatize Amtrak

March 18, 2025 Ryan Erik King, Jalopnik. , , ,
Elon Musk has eagerly positioned himself as a chainsaw-welding horror movie slasher with government agencies as his victims, instead of promiscuous high schoolers. The Tesla CEO set his sights on privatizing the USPS and Amtrak, but the federally-owned railroad released a response last week stating that it can't understand why it needs private ownership. Amtrak has turned a lemon from the 1960s into a decent lemonade by the 21st century. Musk spoke at a Morgan Stanley technology conference last week and advised travelers visiting the country to stay away from Amtrak.

Organizing To Stop Stealth Privatization Of The US Postal Service

March 17, 2025 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
Beginning with the so-called Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, which required the postal service to hold billions of dollars in reserve to fund retirement benefits for workers who have not yet been born, and then the sell-off of post offices, cuts to the workforce and price hikes, the ground for privatization of the US Postal Service, as was done in Canada and the United Kingdom, has been laid. Clearing the FOG speaks with Annie Norman, a leader of the Save the Post Office Coalition, about the current effort to begin privatizing the postal service in incremental steps. Norman also discusses the upcoming national days of action to protect our post offices and the People's Postal Agenda, a program to strengthen the postal service and add more services for people.

As DOGE Mauls Social Security, Profit-Hungry Private Equity Is Swooping In

March 17, 2025 Tyler Walicek, Truthout. , , ,
The Social Security Administration (SSA), an irreplaceable lifeline for 73 million people, is only the latest venerable U.S. institution to be hit with a campaign of media falsehoods and startling internal sabotage efforts, all on the orders of Trump and the reactionary right. This has taken its most visibly outrageous form in the bureaucratic pillaging committed by Elon Musk’s self-proclaimed “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), the widely loathed advisory body with a meme-derived name as juvenile as its staffers. But this week, a still-more ominous threat appears to be circling.
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