Bernie Sanders supporters are circulating this Labor Day meme: “What corporations have done is shut down factories in this country & moved abroad where they pay workers pennies an hour. Forcing American workers to compete against Vietnamese workers who earn 56 cents an hour is a failed policy.”

Now there you have Bernie Sanders in a nutshell. A man without an international bone in his body, a candidate who pits US working people against the working people of other countries & doesn’t want them showing up on our borders trying to get away from sweatshops.

The appropriate response to sweatshop economics is to call it chickens coming home to roost after decades of US workers being privileged at the expense of other workers all over this globe. Now we feel entitled to jobs & wages that sweatshop workers are doing dirt cheap & under inhumane conditions.

The appropriate political response is to call on US workers to drop the xenophobia & identify with the struggles of working people around the world against sweatshops under the guiding mantra that “an injury to one is an injury to all.” You can say, well that’s just a socialist utopian thing. But if you’re looking at economic realities with a hard-nose you can see it’s really the only strategy for survival.

There’s something particularly admirable about the intransigence of the Filipino antiwar movement. Not a single representative of US militarism shows up in their limousine caravans without antiwar protesters responding with effigies & mass protests against the re-militarization of the Philippines, the role of the US government in bankrolling that, & joint military war games between the US & Filipino military.

Filipinos paid a mighty price for the Vietnam War by their government hosting US military naval & air bases. And now in its competition with China, the US is re-engaging the Filipino regime–the same regime forcibly evicting thousands from their farmlands for agribusiness plantations & from urban slums to gentrify. And not just to gentrify to make the country suitable for well-heeled tourists but for hosting the entourage of diplomats & military operatives that come along with US military bases. Kabul & Baghdad redux.

Emancipation US-style: these little kids are watching an outdoor movie in Kabul, Afghanistan. Is it a scary moment in a Harry Potter film? Is that what makes them such a somber audience? In fact, it’s a UN educational video about how to avoid landmines as part of a UN ‘awareness-raising program’. The kids are refugees, most likely born in Pakistan, returning with their parents being deported & routed out by Pakistani authorities.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has been cooperating with Pakistani authorities to “incentivize the return of refugees” by giving a USD $150 cash stipend when they return to Afghanistan. This is supposed to cover transportation from Pakistan to Afghanistan & “basic items of immediate need” like food stuffs, cooking oil, a cooking utensil & blanket. (Presumably, at that rate, they’re traveling back on a donkey.) To make sure the refugees don’t take advantage of such largesse, the UNHCR gathers biometric data like fingerprints before they leave Pakistan. You wouldn’t want any thieves coming back for a second round of chump change.

Saudi feudal monarch Salman bin Abdulaziz & president Obama sharing laughs, affinities, & war stories over their joint project destroying the democratic uprising in Yemen–bringing feudalism & barbarism through drone & cluster bombings.

Cluster munitions are explosives that eject hundreds of smaller munitions on impact. They were first used by Nazi Germany in WWII but are now banned under international agreements–agreements Saudi Arabia & the US refuse to sign. The cluster bombs supplied to the Saudi military by the US Pentagon are designed to kill civilians, destroy vehicles & infrastructure, disperse chemical & biological weapons, & scatter land mines.

On August 24th, Bangladesh’s High Court imposed a six-month ban on the screening of a love story about a real-life survivor of the April 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza. The movie was scheduled to open today in theaters across Bangladesh. Litigants claimed the film negatively portrayed the nation’s US$25 billion garment industry by showing graphic television footage of what is considered the most gruesome industrial accident in history.

The Chinese military sure isn’t doing the battered reputation of socialism any favors: conformity, regimentation, discipline, political repression–piled on top of those sweat shops. Couldn’t even one of the soldiers have pulled a photobomb?

(Photo by Xinhua/Shutterstock)

This photo is a Norwegian ship, part of Frontex operations & one of 26 European navies in the Mediterranean to deter the tsunami of immigrants & refugees. It’s been going on since April but there’s been no media coverage to speak of–likely because it’s a military operation & they don’t want us to know what they’re up to. There are occasional photos of an Irish ship rescuing refugees from sinking boats & reports of continued drowning.

Of course, it cannot be said enough it is unspeakable Ireland would participate in this military operation when it faces its own crisis due to EU-IMF austerity policies forcing thousands of people to immigrate for work. Thousands of them in the US face deportation for working without papers. But when you bend the knee to economic tyranny, such regrettable sarcasms are rife. Oh where is Jonathan Swift when you need him!?