Dec. 5, 2023 ❧ America's fake "shoplifting epidemic," the Supreme Court weighs Sackler family immunity, and KISS goes digital
Plus Texas Republicans vote to keep hanging with Nazis, child labor rampant in Ghana, a magic new tool to help you work while you sleep, and a long lost mole is rediscovered!
A perfect fit for your news satchel!
STORIES THAT SHOULD BE BIGGER
AMERICA’S “SHOPLIFTING EPIDEMIC” IS LARGELY FAKE
Over the past year or so, the news has been full of horror stories about shoplifting. The New York Post calls retail theft an “epidemic taking over America,” the Financial Times has issued dire warnings of “surging shopping crime,” and Fox News insists that “the shoplifting crisis is a nightmare.” In response to this supposed scourge, retail stores have ramped up their security, locking everything from toothpaste to frozen pizza behind glass. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump has called for more violent measures, saying that police should simply shoot shoplifters as they leave the store.
Now, though, statistical data shows that the reports of an “epidemic” are highly exaggerated, if not outright made up. In a new report, the Council on Criminal Justice gathered data about retail theft from 24 different U.S. cities, examining the frequency of reports, the dollar value of items stolen, the number of people involved in each crime, and several other factors. At first glance, it does appear that shoplifting was on the rise in the first half of 2023, increasing by 16 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels. However, as German Lopez notes in the New York Times, that figure depends almost entirely on the inclusion of data from New York City. Remove the Big Apple, and the numbers tell a different story: shoplifting has actually decreased in 17 of the 24 cities surveyed, and is now fairly rare, with just 38.6 reported incidents per 100,000 people in June. It might be happening more often in NYC specifically, but an “epidemic taking over America,” it is not.
So why does the media perpetuate the idea of a retail-theft crisis, if the evidence doesn’t bear it out? Lopez has a few theories, including the fact that many news outlets are based in New York City, the popularity of “outlandish anecdotes” about crime on social media, and conservative journalists’ desire to push a narrative about “disorder in liberal cities.” These all seem plausible. But as author and civil rights lawyer, Alec Karakatsanis points out, there’s also a strong class element involved in what kinds of crime are deemed newsworthy to begin with:
When the daily news media reports on a “crime wave” or a “surge in shoplifting” nearly every time the numbers from the police department fluctuate upward (note that no similar metaphors are used for decreases), they are almost always using these terms to describe the collective behavior of poor people and other marginalized groups. Things rich people do don’t often get this same metaphoric treatment in daily news. How many times do you see a major news story on a “surge” in tax evasion (a problem over 60 times the magnitude of other reported property crimes) or a “wave of crime” by oil companies?
In other words, petty thefts committed by poor and working-class people are treated as a crisis, while the much greater crimes committed by the wealthy are just business as usual. (Often the very retailers who complain the loudest about shoplifting, like Walmart and Target, are complicit in things like child labor themselves!) Real justice would mean inverting this relationship, and treating the criminals in the world’s boardrooms and executive suites as the real threat.
BIG STORY
SCOTUS TO RULE ON SACKLER FAMILY IMMUNITY
The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments regarding the bankruptcy settlement for OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, the company alleged to have knowingly fueled the opioid crisis. In the settlement, the billionaire Sackler family, which owns Purdue, agreed to pay out $6 billion dollars—$750 million of which will go to victims and the rest of which will go to programs fighting opioid addiction— in exchange for shielding themselves from civil liability. A division of the Justice Department has challenged the settlement, saying that granting such sweeping immunity—even though the Sacklers themselves never declared bankruptcy—is unconstitutional.
Opinion on the Court is divided, according to The New York Times, but not clearly on ideological lines. Justice Brett Kavanaugh appears firmly in favor of maintaining the Sacklers’ immunity, saying that most of the families who will receive payouts from Purdue are in favor of the settlement and that without the immunity guarantee, the plan may unravel entirely. Meanwhile, fellow conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised the question of what this could mean “for other victims of mass torts.” Abbie VanSickle and Jan Hoffman write in The New York Times:
If the court approves the deal, that could affirm a litigation tactic that has become increasingly popular in resolving lawsuits in which many people claim similar injuries from the same entity, be it a drug or consumer product. By turning to the bankruptcy courts as a tool to resolve those claims, businesses aim to free themselves from civil liability and prevent future lawsuits.
It’s worth remembering just how devastating the Sackler family’s actions have been to the country. While the Sacklers themselves have not technically admitted to wrongdoing, their company has admitted to three federal crimes, including paying doctors to write unneeded prescriptions. More than 640,000 people died of opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2021. Despite knowing of its dangers, the Sacklers downplayed the risks for years and continued aggressively marketing the drug. The family is worth $11 billion and will still be unfathomably wealthy even after the $6 billion settlement. It’s no small thing that their victims are receiving anywhere from $3,500 and $48,000 and any decision by the Court absolutely must ensure that they still receive the compensation they are entitled to. But reducing the family from billionaires to still billionaires but with fewer billions hardly feels like enough to make up for the destruction they have caused.
PAST AFFAIRS
“How Big Pharma Makes a Killing From Letting People Die”
On the Current Affairs Podcast, editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson interviews Nick Dearden, the author of Pharmanomics: How Big Pharma Destroys Global Health. He shows how the pharmaceutical industry has pushed drugs that don't work, buried harmful side effects, experimented on the Global South, and extorted the public to line its pockets. He explains why scientific research needs to be under public, rather than private control, and offers a vision for a healthcare system that actually takes care of people's health. Dearden shows how the infamous Martin Shkreli, who became notorious for hiking drug prices, was not a mere bad apple, but following standard operating procedure in the world of "pharmanomics."
AROUND THE STATES
❧ At least eight unhoused people have been shot in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and four of them have died. In LA, three men—Jose Palanos, Mark Diggs, and another who hasn’t been publicly identified—were shot and killed as they slept alone on the street, in three separate incidents over the course of last week. The murders were apparently committed by a single serial killer, who was “preying on the unhoused.” In Las Vegas, meanwhile, five of the city’s unhoused residents were shot by an unknown attacker at an encampment; at the time of writing, one has died, while another is in critical condition. These tragic deaths are just the latest in a long series of violent acts committed against the homeless in the United States, from the strangling of Jordan Neely on the Manhattan subway to the recent bear spray attacks in San Francisco. The rhetoric of politicians and pundits on the right, who routinely dehumanize homeless people, has undoubtedly contributed to the trend. But equally, these attacks wouldn’t be possible if governments simply provided homes for people who need them, and kept them out of harm’s way. In Los Angeles and Las Vegas, two people pulled the triggers, but the callousness and neglect of an entire society did the killing.
PAST AFFAIRS
“How Anti-Homeless Sentiment Made Its Way Into Popular Cartoons” by Alex Skopic
“Cartoon depictions of the homeless increasingly reflect the hostility of today’s political leaders toward people on the streets. We’ve gone from images of charming hobos with bindles to zombies taking over cities.”
❧ The Texas Republican Party has voted against a resolution barring members from associating with Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers. You might wonder why such a resolution would need to be passed in the first place: It’s because a former Texas state representative and prominent GOP fundraiser for the Texas Defend Liberty PAC, Jonathan Stickland, was caught hosting avowed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes at his consulting firm two months ago. The chairman of the Texas GOP, Matt Rinaldi, was also in attendance (though he claims to have been in the building for reasons unrelated to Fuentes…How big, we must ask, is this office?). While passing a pro-Israel resolution, the Texas GOP’s executive committee voted to strip the provision banning its members from interacting with those “known to espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial” by a narrow vote of 32-29. The board then attempted to prevent this vote from being recorded. (In general, if you feel compelled to hide that you are voting for a specific thing, it may be worth questioning whether you should reconsider your support for said thing). Members of the Texas GOP justified voting down the measure by saying that the bill’s use of the words “tolerate” or “antisemitism” was too “vague” and “subjective.” This is, of course, very ironic considering how freely the rest of the resolution accuses Democrats of “celebrat[ing] Hamas sympathizers like Rashida Tlaib and remain[ing] silent on the rampant anti-Semitism in their party.” Somehow these people are perfectly fine throwing around antisemitism accusations when they can be used to silence people who don’t like seeing innocent people getting bombed in Gaza, but when it comes to Nick Fuentes—who recently opened a speech by saying “I love you, and I love Hitler”—we apparently need to give him the benefit of the doubt. What a time to be alive!
❧ The rock band KISS has discovered the secret to immortality! After nearly five decades of performing, the band’s members will have their likenesses transformed into digital holograms to continue touring long after they have rocked their way off the mortal coil. At their final ever live show at Madison Square Garden, the band debuted their new virtual simulacra for the first time. “Kiss army! your love — your power — has made us immortal. The new Kiss era starts now. Oh yeah!” frontman Paul Stanley howls in the introductory video before it cuts to some very amusing imagery of the aged KISS gang dancing around in motion capture suits.
As for what this actually looks like live…well…imagine the iPhone’s uncanny “Animoji” avatars, but with KISS makeup…and also they’re giant holograms hovering over you like the dictator in the “1984” Macintosh commercial.
If it seems hard to imagine this sort of thing taking off in lieu of actual live performances, you should know that ABBA has also been doing these sorts of digital “performances” for more than a year to rave reviews and massive commercial success. The company that created these de-aged “ABBA-tars,” Pophouse Entertainment, is doing it again with KISS. This development has fascinating ethical implications: On one hand, imagine how cool it would be to witness a performance by James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, or John Lennon in 2023. It’s exciting that future generations might get the ability to experience such a thing with today’s beloved artists even after they’re no longer with us. But on the other hand, it’s hard to ignore the crass commercialism here: an entity that had nothing to do with KISS or ABBA’s music will now profit handsomely from their legacies. The digital recreations of KISS and ABBA were done consensually, but the same cannot be said for Roy Orbison, Tupac, and Michael Jackson, who have also had their likenesses digitally resurrected for various one-off performances. It’s difficult to weigh the “cool” factor with the larger questions of artistic ethics. Regardless, it seems inevitable that as long as money can be made, the digital cloning of musicians will keep on happening.
THIS WEEK IN EVIL: Work while you sleep!
A new tech startup called Prophetic is developing a “non-invasive neurostimulation device” —their term—that uses ultrasound waves to induce a lucid dream state. If they wear the company’s “Halo” headband to sleep, users will supposedly be aware of the fact they’re dreaming, and be able to control their dream-actions.
That might sound pretty cool—but this is a tech startup, and Prophetic thinks the technology should be used to squeeze more productivity out of workers. In Fortune, journalist Rachyl Jones describes the company’s rather disturbing plans:
“The goal is to give people control over their dreams, so they can use that time productively. A CEO could practice for an upcoming board meeting, an athlete could run through plays, a web designer could create new templates—‘the limiting factor is your imagination,’ founder and CEO Eric Wollberg told Fortune.”
Given that the project shares some of its staff with Elon Musk’s Neuralink—which so far has produced little besides dead monkeys—there’s every possibility this device simply won’t work. If it does, though, it could dramatically change the nature of human life and labor, ushering in a dystopian future where people are expected to work literally 24/7. We cannot emphasize this enough: do not allow a Silicon Valley company to do anything to your brain!
AROUND THE WORLD
❧ Russian police have begun raiding gay bars and nightclubs across Moscow. The move comes just days after the country’s Supreme Court ruled that “the international LGBT public movement” is an extremist organization, and banned it under Russian law. Of course, there is no such organized group, and the ruling itself is classified, so it’s unclear what activities are actually prohibited. But Moscow police didn’t let that stop them, launching raids against several gay clubs, bars, saunas, and other public spaces last Friday night. According to the Associated Press, the searches were conducted “under the pretext of a drug raid,” but the fact that only queer venues were targeted made the intent clear, and police made a point of photographing the ID documents of everyone present—no doubt to target them for future harassment. It’s a worrying escalation of state-sponsored homophobia and repression, which have been building steadily since Vladimir Putin took office. In light of the invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s loathing for LGBTQ people has fallen out of the international spotlight, but it’s more insidious than ever, and it must be fought.
❧ Mars Inc. has been accused of exploiting child labor in Ghana. According to a scathing investigative report by CBS, the huge multinational company—which makes a variety of popular chocolate candies, including Twix, Milky Way, M&Ms, and Snickers—buys its raw cocoa from farms where children as young as 5 years old work in the fields. On its website, the company claims that it uses “robust” systems to “identify, prevent and seek to remediate cases of child labor,” and sponsors education programs for Ghanaian youth. However, CBS found that many children the company listed as attending school were in fact harvesting and processing cocoa:
In some cases, names on the lists were outright fabrications. CBS News visited a farm where according to a list there was a child who was no longer working in the cocoa fields. The list identified her as the daughter of the farmer, but she doesn't exist. Only a third of the 300 students registered at one school visited by CBS News actually attend classes. All students said that they harvested cocoa either before or after school.
In one particularly awful anecdote, reporters “witnessed one child nearly lose his fingers to a machete blade while hacking open cocoa pods.” Mars isn’t the only chocolate company with a history of exploiting underaged African workers, either: Hershey, Cargill, and Nestle have also been implicated in various cases over the years. The cocoa trade enriches white, Western capitalists like John Mars (estimated wealth: $47 billion) with the sweat and pain of Africa’s children. It’s one of the most repulsive examples of modern-day imperialism, and it won’t change until someone forces it to.
❧ A new investigation from +972 and the Israeli outlet Local Call explains the Israel Defense Force’s strategy of intentionally bombing civilian areas, including ones with no military significance. The investigation included interviews with seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community and looked through IDF documents, data, and testimonies from humanitarian workers on the ground in Gaza. Yuval Abraham writes:
Compared to previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the current war — which Israel has named “Operation Iron Swords,” and which began in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7 — has seen the army significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. These include private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as “power targets” (“matarot otzem”).
The bombing of power targets, according to intelligence sources who had first-hand experience with its application in Gaza in the past, is mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society: to “create a shock” that, among other things, will reverberate powerfully and “lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas,” as one source put it.
Several of the sources, who spoke to +972 and Local Call on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Israeli army has files on the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza — including homes — which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target. This number is calculated and known in advance to the army’s intelligence units, who also know shortly before carrying out an attack roughly how many civilians are certain to be killed.
In one case discussed by the sources, the Israeli military command knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top Hamas military commander. “The numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [permitted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage,” said one source.
“Nothing happens by accident,” said another source. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”
According to the investigation, another reason for the large number of targets, and the extensive harm to civilian life in Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called “Habsora” (“The Gospel”), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can “generate” targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a “mass assassination factory.”
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or, “What’s going on with our politicians?”)
❧ Senator Tommy Tuberville has blocked more than 300 military promotions, but he may relent soon. Tuberville, a former college football coach, started putting holds on Pentagon nominations and promotions back in February, as a protest against the U.S. military expanding access to abortions and other reproductive healthcare. It’s a pretty dumb reason to do anything. Ironically, though, the practical effect has been to slow down the United States war machine, which may have saved lives around the world. For instance, Newsweek points out that thanks to Tuberville’s one-man blockade, the U.S. Navy didn’t have a chief of naval operations for the Middle East in October, a fact which was “reportedly undermining the U.S.'s ability to assist Israel” in its war on Gaza. Representative Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, went so far as to say Tuberville was “paralyzing the Department of Defense” in September. Now, it seems he’s nearing a deal with other Congressional Republicans to “promote people in the very near future.” But for almost a full year, Coach Tuberville threw a serious wrench in the military-industrial complex—and he did it all through sheer stupidity and stubbornness! Truly an American icon.
❧ This weekend, members of Congress held the first vigil on Capitol Hill mourning both the 1,200 Israelis and more than 15,000 Palestinians killed during the last two months of war between Israel and Hamas. Though the vigil honored both Israelis and Palestinians, only around half a dozen members of Congress—including Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Cori Bush (D-MO)—attended. The Intercept’s Ryan Grim drew attention to this point when he compared this vigil for all victims of the conflict (who have been mostly Palestinian) with the one held a month ago on Capitol Hill which mourned only Israeli victims of the violence while saying nothing about the Palestinians killed.
“We grieve the lives of every innocent civilian killed, no matter their faith or ethnicity,” said Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. We cannot lose sight of our shared humanity. This is the first vigil on Capitol Hill that mourns both the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost, all of the homes and communities destroyed by violence, and every family torn apart.” Though Tlaib was recently censured and called a bigot for her strident criticisms of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, her statement here is one of the few from a sitting member of Congress to actually treat Israeli and Palestinian lives with equal magnitude. It’s to be expected that most Democrats would not come out in support of a ceasefire to the conflict (though it’s still cowardly and far out of step with public opinion). But for members of Congress to refuse to even mention the 15,000 dead Palestinians in vigils while pouring their hearts out for dead Israelis feels like a blatant, intentional statement that Israeli lives simply matter more to them than Palestinian ones. Arab and Muslim voters are currently abandoning the Democrats in droves. And while Republicans are still even worse on this issue, it’s hard to blame these voters for feeling too disgusted to vote for people who refuse to acknowledge their humanity.
❧ North Dakota governor Doug Burgum has dropped out of the Republican primary. It once seemed inevitable that Burgum, who recently exceeded 1 percent of the total GOP primary vote in some polls, was about to burst forth in an unstoppable surge of “Burgumentum.” But alas, his two-pronged strategy of paying people to donate to his campaign with gift cards and getting very specific about oil trade policy was not the winning combination that one would expect. Of course, also not helping were the obnoxious Burgum Bros, spreading their toxic male energy on Twitter. We here at The Current Affairs News Briefing have had fun observing Burgum’s journey as a strange, nearly anonymous interloper in the world of real politics. But though we came down with a case of Burgum Fever, the rest of the world is just not ready.
MOLE NEWS OF THE WEEK
Scientists have just rediscovered a species of South African mole believed to have been extinct for nearly 90 years. De Winton's golden moles are entirely blind, and at first glance, they appear to have no eyes at all (they actually do have eyes, but they are covered by a layer of skin which sort of defeats the purpose of having eyes). But these moles make up for it with their supersonic hearing, which they use to help them “swim” beneath the sand and avoid detection. Scientists have been on the hunt for De Wintons for years, and in 2017 they were placed on a “most wanted lost species” list by the Re:wild conservation group.
The moles were detected by a border collie named Jessie, who was trained to sniff them out from previous samples that had been gathered. However, scientists still faced the challenge of determining whether those samples were actually from the long-lost De Winton’s mole or one of the more than 20 other golden mole species in existence. Relying on decades-old DNA samples from the last known De Winton’s mole, they were able to determine that it was indeed a match.
One of the scientists says they believe this could open new frontiers for detecting lost species. Still at large: Indonesia’s Wondiwoi Tree Kangaroo, India’s Pink-Headed Duck, and Potugal’s Fagilde’s Trapdoor Spider (the only known spider species to build its traps horizontally).
Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Fact-checking by Justin Ward. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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