Articles by: Don Fitz

Nuclear Fusion: Eternal Energy = Eternal Damnation

Nuclear Fusion: Eternal Energy = Eternal Damnation

by Don Fitz and Stan Cox Like a third rate zombie movie on Netflix, delusions of nuclear fusion repeatedly rise from the dead.  The cover story in the June 2023 issue of Scientific American by Philip Ball, “Star Power: Does Fusion Have a Future After All?” recycles the corporate line which was broadcast on December 13, 2022.  The US Department of[Read More…]

by 04/06/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Two Barrels Aim at African People’s Socialist Party

Two Barrels Aim at African People’s Socialist Party

With new FBI and Department of “Justice” (DOJ) attacks expected in early January, a defense, mobilization and information session attracted hundreds of allies of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP). On Friday, December 23 they zoomed into the “Emergency Mass Meeting: Hands Off Uhuru! Hands Off Africa!” The APSP told its supporters that it expects indictments in early January 2023[Read More…]

by 27/12/2022 Comments are Disabled World
US Abortion Rights: Who Would Kill the Gander that Goosed a Golden Egg?

US Abortion Rights: Who Would Kill the Gander that Goosed a Golden Egg?

The suffering of US women under the iron heel of abortion is intensifying, especially for women of color.  This makes it imperative to closely examine possible paths forward. As a teenager during the 1960s I witnessed two political paths that remain imprinted on my mind. LBJ and 14 (b) Even before classes began in 1963, I had organized the first[Read More…]

by 21/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Life Expectancy: The US and Cuba in the Time of Covid

Life Expectancy: The US and Cuba in the Time of Covid

The article documents that, for the first time, life expectancy in Cuba exceeds that in the US by almost three years. It explores intertwined reasons behind this occurrence, including responses to Covid, health care systems, racism, poverty, misinformation campaigns, the embargo, international solidarity efforts, and resilience to climate change. Recent data shows that between 2019 and 2021, life expectancy (LE)[Read More…]

by 15/09/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Decriminalized Marijuana Reinvents Racism and Poisoning

Decriminalized Marijuana Reinvents Racism and Poisoning

by Don Fitz and Susan Armstrong The change in marijuana laws across the US raises issues far beyond, “Hey, dude, we can blow a joint now without getting busted.”  The racism that permeated the age of criminalization now lurks throughout the phase of decriminalization.  The burgeoning business of growing pot raises the specter of corporate agriculture with its threats to[Read More…]

by 15/05/2022 Comments are Disabled World
 Cuba Prepares for Disaster

 Cuba Prepares for Disaster

The September 2021 Scientific American included a description by the editors of the deplorable state of disaster relief in the US. They traced the root cause of problems with relief programs as their “focus on restoring private property,” which results in little attention to those “with the least capacity to deal with disasters.” The book Disaster Preparedness and Climate Change[Read More…]

by 25/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Path to Extinction or Path to a Livable Future?

Path to Extinction or Path to a Livable Future?

As climate change leads humanity’s march to Armageddon, data surfacing during late 2021 suggests that the march could be much briefer than previously thought. “Nature is starting to emit greenhouse gases in competition with cars, planes, trains, and factories,” asserts Robert Hunziker. The Amazon has switched from soaking up CO2 to emitting it. Likewise, the Arctic has flipped from being[Read More…]

by 02/11/2021 2 comments Book Review
Challenge Capitalist Use of Agriculture as a Weapon of Domination

Challenge Capitalist Use of Agriculture as a Weapon of Domination

It is time to take action against corporate methods of agriculture which poison the food our families eat, threaten the survival of soil ecosystems, destroy the livelihood of farmers, crush farmworker organizing efforts and subjugate entire countries. Here are a few of the many ways that people are challenging capitalist agriculture, from the very theoretical to the very concrete. The[Read More…]

by 22/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Against Overproduction

Against Overproduction

[This is the final part of an exchange between Robert Pollin and Don Fitz carried in Green Social Thought (GST) and ZNet.  The first portion consisted of two articles by Pollin which originally appeared in Truthout on 7/3/21 and 6/10/21.  The second portion was a response by Fitz to Pollin’s articles.  The third portion was a rejoinder by Pollin to[Read More…]

by 09/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Be Careful What Energy You Wish For

Be Careful What Energy You Wish For

[This is the second part of an exchange between Robert Pollin and Don Fitz carried in Green Social Thought and ZNet.  The first portion consisted of two articles by Pollin which originally appeared in Truthout here and here.  The third portion will be a short rejoinder by Pollin to this article.  The final portion will be a short closing statement[Read More…]

by 08/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Is AltE Truly the Best Solution to Climate Catastrophe?

Is AltE Truly the Best Solution to Climate Catastrophe?

“Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!… Accumulation for the sake of accumulation, production for the sake of production: this was the historical mission of the bourgeoisie in the period of its domination …” Karl Marx, Capital, Vol 1, Ch 25 The world is threatened with environmental disaster and capitalists hope to make a killing off of it. Fossil[Read More…]

by 06/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
Child Labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Solidarity with Resistance to Extraction

by Don Fitz and the Green Party of St. Louis People the world over are opposing fossil fuel extraction in an incalculable number of ways.  It is now clear that burning fossil fuels threatens millions of Life forms and could be laying the foundation for the extermination of Humanity.  But what about “alternative” energy?  As progressives stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those[Read More…]

by 15/06/2021 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
 What Would a Deep Green New Deal Look Like?

 What Would a Deep Green New Deal Look Like?

The Green New Deal has attracted perhaps the greatest attention of any proposal for decades. It would guarantee Medicare-for-All, Housing-for-All, student loan forgiveness and propose the largest economic growth in human history to address unemployment and climate change. But the last of these hits a stumbling block. Creation of all forms of energy contributes to the destruction of nature and[Read More…]

by 02/05/2021 1 comment Counter Solutions
Berta Cáceres outside the US military base of Palmerola in Honduras, where she spoke against the US-backed coup regime in Honduras and against the US military presence in her country.  July 4, 2011 photo by Roger D. Harris

From the Murder of Berta Cáceres to Dam Disaster in Uttarakhand

March 2, 2021 was the five year anniversary of the murder of Berta Cáceres, who opposed the Agua Zarca dam in Honduras.  That date was less than one month after the deaths of dozens of people from Dam disaster in Uttarakhand, India.  The two stories together tell us far more about consequences of the insatiable greed of capitalism for more[Read More…]

by 04/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Is This Revolution Truly Rinky-Dink?

Is This Revolution Truly Rinky-Dink?

During the late 60s, when the US war on Viet Nam was going strong and people were questioning capitalism, I drove from Eugene to Berkeley where my sister was living.  I ran into folks who invited me to a discussion about starting a commune. There, everyone talked about dropping out of consumer society and buying land to get away from[Read More…]

by 27/01/2021 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Do You Remember Cuba’s Dedication to Angola?

Do You Remember Cuba’s Dedication to Angola?

Cuban blood left its stamp on the conscience of the world after the Angolan Wars of 1975-1988.  Corporate politicians are united in their desire for us to ignore this reality. *                                              *                                              * Fed up with foreign wars, Portuguese officers overthrew Prime Minister Marcello Caetano on April 25, 1974.  Many former colonies had the opportunity to define their own future.[Read More…]

by 22/01/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Two Principles of Racial Equity that Outrage US Liberals

Two Principles of Racial Equity that Outrage US Liberals

The May 25, 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a civil rights explosion.  It ignited pushes to demilitarize the police, reallocate police over-funding to necessary social services, end economic and power divides, and replace symbols of oppression with recognition of those who have suffered and resisted. In University City, one of the oldest and more progressive suburbs of[Read More…]

by 15/01/2021 Comments are Disabled World
What Does the Esau Revolution Despise?

What Does the Esau Revolution Despise?

“And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint; And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profits shall this birthright do me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him:[Read More…]

by 07/12/2020 Comments are Disabled World
How Do Medical Students Get More Experience in the US than Cuba?

How Do Medical Students Get More Experience in the US than Cuba?

During the last 10 years I have written multiple articles documenting how Cuba has better medical practice and education than the US.  To be honest, I have known for a long time that there is an area of medical training where medical students in the US get considerably more training than do those who study in Cuba. This realization came[Read More…]

by 08/11/2020 Comments are Disabled World
What Can We Learn from Cuba? Medicare-for-All Is a Beginning, Not the End Point

What Can We Learn from Cuba? Medicare-for-All Is a Beginning, Not the End Point

As a coup de grâce to the Bernie Sanders campaign Joe Biden declared that he would veto Medicare-for-All.  This could drive a dedicated health care advocate to relentlessly pursue Med-4-All as a final goal.  However, it is not the final goal.  It should be the first step in a complete transformation of medicine which includes combining community medicine with natural[Read More…]

by 01/09/2020 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
A Statue of Hatuey

A Statue of Hatuey

If you look at a US $20 bill, you might notice Andrew Jackson nervously watching statues of Columbus and Robert E. Lee coming down and wondering if his face is going to disappear from currency. As Democrats ponder which militarist they wish to glorify in the next round of monuments, it is critical to realize that statues which go up[Read More…]

by 05/07/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Should NYC’s Wall Street Be Renamed “Eric Garner St.?”

Should NYC’s Wall Street Be Renamed “Eric Garner St.?”

Scenes of sorrow spread across the US. Football teams apologize. Cops march with demonstrators. Democratic Party politicians call for “structural change” in police departments. Delmar Blvd. at Sgt. Mike King Dr. Image by David Doonan. Some of these are sincere. Others are crocodile tears shed in hopes that people will be pacified with assurances that turn out to be vague[Read More…]

by 28/06/2020 Comments are Disabled World
 How Che Guevara Taught Cuba to Confront COVID-19

 How Che Guevara Taught Cuba to Confront COVID-19

Beginning in December 1951, Ernesto “Che” Guevara took a nine-month break from medical school to travel by motorcycle through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. One of his goals was gaining practical experience with leprosy. On the night of his twenty-fourth birthday, Che was at La Colonia de San Pablo in Peru swimming across the river to join the lepers.[Read More…]

by 09/06/2020 Comments are Disabled World
JARED RODRIGUEZ / TRUTHOUT

Soaring Beyond the Green New Deal with Stan Cox

When Stan Cox was writing his book, The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can, he scripted these prophetic words: “The oft-predicted national decline in use of fossil fuels is nowhere to be seen, and it is unlikely to occur on its own, at least until the next economic meltdown.”  He became one of[Read More…]

by 20/05/2020 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
 Can We Simultaneously Oppose Bayer/Monsanto’s Biotechnology and Support Cuba’s Interferon Alpha 2B?

 Can We Simultaneously Oppose Bayer/Monsanto’s Biotechnology and Support Cuba’s Interferon Alpha 2B?

Genetically engineered crops are a form of food imperialism.  This technology allows mega-corporations like Bayer/Monsanto to patent seeds, lure farmers into buying them with visions of high yields, and then destroy the ability of small farmers to survive. Genetic engineering produces an artificial combination of plant traits which often results in foods with less nutritional value while introducing health problems[Read More…]

by 12/05/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Cuba: From AIDS, Dengue, and Ebola to COVID-19

Cuba: From AIDS, Dengue, and Ebola to COVID-19

Preparing for a pandemic requires understanding that a change in the relationship between people is primary and the production of things is secondary and flows from social factors.  Investors in profit-based medicine cannot comprehend this concept.  Nothing could exemplify it more clearly than Cuba’s response to the corona virus (COVID-19). The US dawdled for months before reacting.  Cuba’s preparation for[Read More…]

by 17/04/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Gordon Dam, Southwest National Park, Tasmania, Australia (2008). Creator: JJ Harrison. Via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gordon_Dam.jpg

Dammed Good Question about the Green New Deal

Hydroelectric power from dams might be the thorniest question that proponents of the Green New Deal (GND) have to grapple with. Providing more energy than solar and wind combined, dams could well become the backup for energy if it proves impossible to get off of fossil fuels fast enough. An August 2019 forum on the GND included representatives from the Sunrise Movement, Renew[Read More…]

by 05/11/2019 Comments are Disabled Counter Solutions
Green Party Debates Green New Deal

Green Party Debates Green New Deal

Despite the furor over the Green New Deal (GND), many of its supporters have no idea of the wide variety of views on it, especially within the Green Party (GP), where it originated in the US.  From June through August, 2019 Missouri Greens held public discussions contrasting at least three distinct GP views to those from the Democratic Party (DP).[Read More…]

by 02/10/2019 1 comment Counter Solutions
Politicians Agree: “Any White Cop Can Kill a Black Man”

Politicians Agree: “Any White Cop Can Kill a Black Man”

  In 2017 my Countercurrents article, “Any White Cop Can Kill a Black Man at Any Time,” told how St. Louis cop Jason Stockley killed a 24-year-old black man, Anthony Lamar Smith.  Though Stockley claimed he had fired in self defense when Smith pulled a gun on him, evidence showed that he had planted the gun after the killing.  When[Read More…]

by 27/09/2019 Comments are Disabled World
The first wind turbines in Europe, built by Paul La Cour in Denmark, had traditional slatted wooden sails. Image: Paul La Cour Museum

What Is Energy Denial?

The fiftieth anniversary of the first Earth Day of 1970 will be in 2020.  As environmentalism has gone mainstream during that half a century, it has forgotten its early focus and shifted toward green capitalism.  Nowhere is this more apparent than abandonment of the slogan popular during the early Earth Days: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” The unspoken phrase of today’s Earth[Read More…]

by 21/09/2019 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Cuba’s First Military Doctors (Part 2)

Cuba’s First Military Doctors (Part 2)

[The first part 1 of this article addressed the need for Cuba’s participation in conflicts in Zaire, the Congo and Guinea-Bissau during the 1960s to remain concealed for over three decades.  It covered the background to the struggles, what Cubans found in Africa, the role of race relations in Cuba’s campaigns, and the recruitment of doctors.  This Part 2 explores[Read More…]

by 26/11/2018 Comments are Disabled World
Amílcar Cabral

Cuba’s First Military Doctors (Part 1)

  [Part 1 of the article addresses the need for Cuba’s participation in conflicts in Zaire, the Congo and Guinea-Bissau during the 1960s to remain concealed for over three decades.  It covers the background to the struggles, what Cubans found in Africa, the role of race relations in Cuba’s campaigns, and the recruitment of doctors.  The second part will explore[Read More…]

by 23/11/2018 1 comment World
A Debate for Auditor: What the Papers Wouldn’t Say

A Debate for Auditor: What the Papers Wouldn’t Say

  Why does the Green Party elect so few people in the US while similar parties have elected representatives across the globe?  Some have suggested it is the way Greens organize or problems with the leadership.  While these may be contributing factors, they could hardly be a complete explanation since the Democrats and Republicans have elected thousands of incompetent, disorganized[Read More…]

by 30/10/2018 1 comment World
Energy: Missing from the Nuclear Story

Energy: Missing from the Nuclear Story

One of my first memories of watching TV during the early 1950s was ads promoting leaded gasoline for reducing engine knock.  Little did I suspect the strange history of that gas.  By the beginning of World War I, it became clear that the internal combustion automobile was edging out its rival steam cars and electric cars.  Shortly afterwards, Thomas Midgley[Read More…]

Photo by Lucia Scanlan

Other Revolving Doors

It’s more than doors between government and the businesses that they supposedly regulate that go round and round.  One of the other swinging doors is between the Democratic and Republican Parties. A second door Perhaps the best known case is when Al Gore ran for president in 2000, he picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate.  Then, in 2008, Lieberman[Read More…]

by 14/07/2018 2 comments World
When Cuban Polyclinics Were Born

When Cuban Polyclinics Were Born

As discontent increases with overly expensive and totally inadequate US health care, it is time to look closely at the beginnings of the modern Cuban medical system. Like the US, Cuba had unintegrated, overlapping medical institutions that failed the poor, especially black, population of the island. Though several European countries have developed health care systems about 40% cheaper than the[Read More…]

by 22/06/2018 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Nuclear Disaster at Chernobyl: Reality and Unreality

Nuclear Disaster at Chernobyl: Reality and Unreality

  With the escalating doom of climate change hovering over us, it is tempting to push nuclear horror to the back of our minds. To those of us who grew up in the 1950s, it was omnipresent. Nuclear war could not exist without nuclear power and on April 26, 1986 the world experienced a form of nuclear horror it will[Read More…]

by 16/05/2018 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Alexander Shlyapnikov

Democratic Production and the Workers’ Opposition of Revolutionary Russia (Part 2)

  [This is the second of two parts.  The first section covered the origins of the Workers’ Opposition (WO), interpretations of “workers’ control,” and the 10th Party Congress.] How Do You Strangle an Opposition? After the 10th congress, anti-WO campaigns multiplied.  Party leaders removed former WO organizers from positions and/or transferred them to locations where they would be isolated.  The[Read More…]

by 19/03/2018 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Alexandra Kollontai

 Democratic Production and the Workers’ Opposition of Revolutionary Russia (Part 1)

  In a post-capitalist society, who should control production? How should decisions about worklife be made? Who should decide what is produced, where it is produced and how it is exchanged within a country and between countries? For the first time in history, the great Russian Revolution of 1917 had to confront these issues in more than a theoretical way.[Read More…]

by 15/03/2018 2 comments Life/Philosophy
Eric Greitens And The Bondage Scandal: Looking Beneath The Surface

Eric Greitens And The Bondage Scandal: Looking Beneath The Surface

When I shook hands with Eric Greitens following the 2016 debate for Missouri Governor, none of us on the Green team imagined that, a year before, he had tied a woman up, blindfolded her, undressed her, photographed her and warned that he would release the photo if she ever said what happened.  The story made local and US news on[Read More…]

by 15/01/2018 Comments are Disabled World
Will Black Become The New Green?

Will Black Become The New Green?

  On November 7, 2017, Elston McCowan could well become the first Green Party candidate to defeat a Democrat in Missouri.  If he wins the Ward 2 race in St. Louis City he will also become the first Green Party candidate to beat a Democrat in an overwhelmingly black district. And it might not be crazy to think that McCowan[Read More…]

by 06/11/2017 Comments are Disabled World
Smith With Daughter

Any White Cop Can Kill A Black Man At Any Time

  And the cop will not go to jail.  This is what has sparked protests by thousands in St. Louis from September 15 through today. In 2011, St. Louis cop Jason Stockley fired 5-7 shots at Anthony Lamar Smith, killing him.  Stockley claimed that Smith was selling drugs and chased him at high speed and shot him to defend himself. [Read More…]

by 22/09/2017 Comments are Disabled Human Rights
Is Pope Francis the World’s Most Powerful Advocate for Climate Stability?

Is Pope Francis the World’s Most Powerful Advocate for Climate Stability?

  Maybe not now. But that’s what he could well become. Pope Francis’ Encyclical “On Care for Our Common Home” recognizes the incredible damage being done to climate change and biodiversity. Few realize how strong his beliefs are and the unused power of persuasion he has. Here’s 10 ways that power could be used. 1. Francis could call for a[Read More…]

Quinn Parks, Green Party Candidate for St. Louis Alderman at Picket to Defend New Life.

St. Louis City Mayor’s Race Underscores Pitfalls Of Plurality Elections

On March 7, 2017 Lyda Krewson won the Democratic Party nomination for mayor of St. Louis City with only 32.0% of the vote.  Ms. Krewson is white.  Six black candidates split over two-thirds of the votes. The problem goes beyond color.  One of the hot-button issues has been the New Life homeless shelter, called a shelter-of-last-resort because it offers beds[Read More…]

by 14/03/2017 1 comment World
Attack On St. Louis Homeless Foreshadows Things To Come

Attack On St. Louis Homeless Foreshadows Things To Come

The sub-freezing temperature was dropping.  As the snow began to fall, many felt their hands were too cold to hold signs during the December 17 action.  Two dozen had answered the Green Party call to picket the mayor of St. Louis for his efforts to close down New Life Evangelistic Center, the city’s homeless “shelter-of-last-resort.”  They knew things would be[Read More…]

by 27/12/2016 2 comments Human Rights
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