Nov. 7, 2023 ❧ Toxic pesticide sprayed near schools, Swedish Tesla strike, and ape-related injury
Plus Tuesday's most important elections, garment workers on strike in Bangladesh, terrifying polls for Biden, and bison democracy
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STORIES THAT SHOULD BE BIGGER
TOXIC PESTICIDE SPRAYED NEAR SCHOOLS
At least 4,028 elementary schools in the United States are located “within 200 feet” of a field where hazardous pesticides are likely to be sprayed, according to a new report from the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. This means that roughly 2 million children could be exposed to the chemicals daily. That’s bad news, because small children are particularly vulnerable to health complications from pesticide exposure, including cancer, organ damage, asthma, and learning disabilities, according to the EPA. In addition, the new report says that many chemicals used to kill insects and fungi can “drift miles from the intended crop target,” creating dangers well beyond a 200-foot radius.
Unfortunately, the United States’ environmental protections are fairly weak by global standards, and we fall behind the rest of the world in how our government regulates toxic chemicals. Many pesticides that are banned in both Europe and China—including compounds like chloropicrin, which was used as a chemical weapon in World War I—are perfectly legal in the States. In California alone, farmers sprayed nearly 430,000 pounds of paraquat dichloride, a compound known to cause damage to the human lungs, kidneys, and heart, in 2021. And they might have done it next to your local school!
This would be bad enough, but as journalist Liza Gross writes for Inside Climate News, some politicians are actually trying to remove what little regulation there is. For instance, the recently introduced Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act (HR 4288) would prevent state governments from requiring any additional warning labels on pesticides, beyond the federally-mandated ones. The Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (or EATS) Act, HR 4177, would go further, prohibiting states from imposing any regulation on the growing conditions of produce they buy from other states, including the use of pesticides. Bills like these often fly under the radar, attracting little attention from the media—agricultural policy, after all, isn’t the most exciting topic. But if they become law, it’ll be even easier for huge pesticide companies to fill the air with poison. For the sake of public health, and especially the health of children going to school downwind from farms, much stricter regulations are needed.
FIGHTING BACK
SWEDISH MECHANICS ON STRIKE AT TESLA
Last week, roughly 120 mechanics employed at Tesla service stations across Sweden went on strike, after a “long period of time” in which they’d failed to get the company to sign a collective labor agreement. Represented by the Swedish trade union IF Metall, the workers haven’t announced specific demands about pay, benefits, or hours. Rather, they simply want an agreement to ensure “decent and safe working conditions” for the future, and to preserve “the Swedish labor market model,” in which around 90 percent of workers are covered by a collective agreement in some form.
For Elon Musk and his accomplices, this is just the latest front in a global war against labor unions. Previously, Tesla refused to sign an agreement with IG Metall, IF Metall’s German equivalent and has been accused of forcing its German staff to work unreasonably long hours, with mandatory non-disclosure agreements to prevent them from discussing working conditions. In the United States, Musk himself has been cited by the National Labor Relations Board for a threatening tweet he made in 2018, telling Tesla employees they would “give up stock options” if they joined the United Auto Workers. The pattern of anti-union behavior is clear, and according to one analyst interviewed in the New York Times, Musk and Tesla may see the Swedish strike as “posing a risk of contagion to other markets,” making them especially hostile.
They may not get a choice in the matter, though. As of November 3, dockworkers at all four of Sweden’s major ports announced that they will stand in solidarity with IF Metall, and refuse to deliver any Tesla vehicles into the country until the strike is resolved. For Tesla, whose Model Y recently became the best-selling car in Sweden, this could be a crippling blow—and as the people with the technical knowledge to fix all those Model Ys, the striking workers themselves have an unusual amount of leverage. If they successfully pressure Tesla into a bargain, it may be a good omen for the UAW, which has promised to organize the company’s facilities in the United States. First Sweden, then the world!
AROUND THE WORLD
❧ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out prisoner exchanges with Hamas. During its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the militant group abducted an estimated 240 people, including soldiers and civilians. Hamas says it will not release the hostages unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire, but Netanyahu shot this possibility down this weekend saying that he would not support the “humanitarian pause” called for by the Biden administration until all the hostages are released but is open to “tactical little pauses” of “an hour here, an hour there.” Until the return of the hostages, Netanyahu says he plans to continue the bombing of Gaza, which has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians as of Monday, “with full force.” Hamas also hopes to use Israel’s hostages to secure the release of more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including the 4,000 laborers currently imprisoned on military bases after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and the more than 1,000 who were imprisoned during raids on the occupied West Bank, which is not controlled by Hamas. Netanyahu is increasingly facing pressure from families of hostages being held in Gaza to negotiate a prisoner swap and a ceasefire. Dozens of protests were held across Israel over the weekend at which families of hostages asked their government to make significant concessions. One participant, Maya Mosche, whose 75-year-old father was killed by Hamas and whose 72-year-old mother was filmed being taken to Gaza via motorbike, told The Guardian:
“I can’t do anything now for my father but I have to do all I can for my mother and all the other hostages. As a country, we cannot allow that these people don’t come back. The Israeli government must start serious negotiations with Hamas. They are monsters and have done horrible crimes but there is no choice.”
WEIGHT LOSS TIP OF THE WEEK:
FROM THE JERUSALEM POST
Need to shed some pounds? Try moving to an active war zone!
❧ Several NFT enthusiasts have reported “severe, burning eye pain” after a Bored Ape event in Hong Kong. Of course, the sheer ugliness of a Bored Ape image is enough to give anyone a headache, but this was a real medical emergency. After attending “ApeFest,” a convention for the few remaining people who still care about NFTs, several fans of Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape project say they’ve suffered burn-like symptoms and even temporarily lost their ability to see. “I woke up at 04:00 and couldn’t see anymore,” said one tweet from “Crypto June” (presumably not their real name.) “Had so much pain and my whole skin is burned. Needed to go to the hospital.” It turns out the Hong Kong venue that hosted “ApeFest” had ultraviolet stage lights, which were too intense to be used safely. Another attendee, Adrian Zduńczyk, reported being diagnosed with photokeratitis, a condition similar to the “snow blindness” that affects mountain climbers. According to Yuga Labs, 15 people seem to have been affected so far. This disaster comes as a real shock; after all, who could have predicted that users of cryptocurrency would fail to understand how a piece of technology works, and recklessly cause harm to everyone around them?
❧ Thousands of garment workers in Bangladesh are on strike for living wages. More than a thousand workers who took to the streets of Dhaka, the country’s capital, were dispersed using tear gas and stun guns by police (who said they used tear gas “peacefully”). Bangladesh is the second-largest producer of garments in the world, behind only China, with more than 4 million people being employed in clothing factories, most of whom are women. According to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, the workers on strike earn a minimum wage equal to $75 per month and often have to work overtime to make ends meet amid rising inflation—an amount that one worker says is not even enough to make monthly rent anywhere but the slums. Workers shut down about 300 factories in Dhaka and Gazipur after the BGMEA offered them a meager wage increase to the equivalent of $90 per month, which was far below the increase to $208 they’d asked for. Bangladesh is a major supplier for U.S. fashion brands, which rely on it as a source of cheap labor. It is also notorious for having some of the worst working conditions and lowest wages in the world. A study earlier this year from the group Transform Trade found that many of America’s biggest brands—including the GAP, Zara, H&M, J.C. Penny, and Primark, engaged in unfair labor practices, including refusing or delaying to pay factory workers for products. “Cheap fashion” relies on “cheap labor,” says Human Rights Watch.
❧ Kenyans are demanding reparations for England’s colonial atrocities. Charles Windsor, the so-called King of England, has just returned from a four-day trip to Kenya, during which he expressed “the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret” for the “abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence” committed by the British colonial government. If anything, he’s understating the case. As historian Caroline Elkins detailed in her landmark book Britain’s Gulag, the British imprisoned more than a million of Kenya’s indigenous Kikuyu people during the 1950s and 60s, constructing a network of concentration camps where torture, malnourishment, and sexual assault were commonplace. The colonial regime also unlawfully confiscated thousands of acres of land from Kenyan farmers and committed several massacres. Decades later, Kenyans are demanding that Britain put its money where its mouth is, and make reparations for its colonial crimes. One member of parliament, William Kamket of Tiaty, has requested compensation of $35,000 for each life lost in the 1950 Kolowa massacre (a pittance, compared to the $125 million cost of Charles’ coronation) while many members of the Kipsigis people are seeking the restoration of their ancestral land, which is still held by multinational tea companies like Lipton. In a public statement on Charles’ visit, the Communist Party of Kenya summed up the moral and historical case for reparations:
The suffering of our people at the hands of the British colonialists cannot be [overstated.] The pain, loss, and trauma experienced by Kenyan families continue to haunt us to this day. The struggles, the lives lost, the resources plundered, and the cultural heritage stolen during this dark period of our history cannot be ignored or brushed aside. It is a stain on the pages of history that must be addressed.
AROUND THE STATES
❧ The company behind Fortnite is taking Google to court, over claims its Play Store is an illegal monopoly. Epic Games already tried suing Apple on similar grounds in 2021 and lost nine out of ten counts. Still, they feel they have a case against Google, arguing that the company’s Play Store holds a monopoly over the buying and selling of Android apps. Epic’s popular game Fortnite was removed from both the Play Store and Google’s App Store in 2020 after the developer introduced its own way for players to buy in-game items. This bypassed the so-called “Google tax,” a 30 percent cut taken by the Play Store on every in-game transaction. Epic argues that this was an anticompetitive move, interfering with consumers’ ability to choose between its online store and Google’s, and therefore illegal. It’s a case with significant implications, both for the future of the tech industry and antitrust law more broadly—and unlike the earlier Apple trial, this one will be decided by a jury.
UNSETTLING POLL OF THE WEEK
According to recent polling by The New York Times and Siena, Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden in five out of six swing states, all of which the President carried in 2020.
“Discontent pulsates throughout The Times/Siena poll, with a majority of voters saying Mr. Biden’s policies have personally hurt them,” The Times writes. The survey also reveals the extent to which the multiracial and multigenerational coalition that elected Mr. Biden is fraying. Demographic groups that backed Mr. Biden by landslide margins in 2020 are now far more closely contested, as two-thirds of the electorate sees the country moving in the wrong direction.”
For years now, we at Current Affairs have been blasting the warning sirens about Biden’s viability as a candidate, begging for the party to nominate anyone else (again, the mainstream press has caught onto what we have been saying for years, proving definitively that we are prophets). The new Times/Siena poll also shows that when replaced with the “generic” Democrat, the margins shift by an unbelievable 12 points in the party’s favor, turning Biden’s four-point deficit against Trump into an eight-point lead. However, when you replace this faceless cipher with an actual real-life Democrat like Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, or Gretchen Whitmer, they don’t do quite that well. Perhaps the Democrats should take the success of this “generic Democrat” literally and run an A.I. language model that’s been fed with the policy platform of the average party candidate. It would probably stand a better chance than any flesh and blood Democrat currently in consideration.
IT’S ELECTION DAY IN AMERICA!
Here are some of the most important state and local races happening today that you ought to know about:
✶ Ohio will vote on whether to add a constitutional amendment protecting the right to abortion up until fetal viability. If the public referendum—which requires a simple majority of support from the public—fails, Ohio will be able to enforce a six-week ban that was passed in 2019. Ohioans will also vote on whether to legalize recreational marijuana.
✶ Virginia may be on the verge of a GOP trifecta. With Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin in power until 2024 and a narrow Republican majority in the House of Delegates, Republicans hope to flip the state senate—where Democrats have a narrow 22-17 majority—red. This could also have major implications for reproductive rights, as Youngkin has supported restricting abortion to 15 weeks. It could also be the death knell for public sector unions—Youngkin has pledged to repeal a law allowing public employees like teachers to collectively bargain.
✶ Voters in Tacoma, Washington will decide the fate of a proposed “tenants’ bill of rights.” Known as Initiative Measure No. 1, the proposal would require landlords to give at least six months’ notice before raising rent, pay relocation assistance to departing tenants if they raise rent 5 percent or more, and limit evictions during winter months, among other protections. Proponents say the bill of rights would “restore balance” to the relationship between tenants and landlords, but property owners’ groups have already spent more than $293,000 on a “no” campaign.
✶ Mississippi’s Republican governor Tate Reeves is running for re-election. But he’ll have to get past Democrat Brandon Presley…Elvis’ cousin! Presley has run on expanding Medicaid in a state that ranks second-to-last in healthcare quality. Mississippi is one of ten states to turn down federal Medicaid funding (literal free money!) which has led several hospitals to close. Governor Reeves opposes Medicaid expansion. And while the state welfare office was turning down requests for assistance from poor families, Reeves was involved in a scandalous backroom deal to funnel more than $5 million in welfare funds to former NFL quarterback Brett Favre to help him build a volleyball court at the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter Breleigh attends. It will be a tall order for Presley to take down Reeves in a state that hasn’t had a Democratic governor since 1999, but polls suggest that the race will at least be competitive.
BISON FACT OF THE WEEK:
European bison practice a form of democracy!
To decide which direction a bison herd should move, individual bison “vote” by pointing their bodies in the direction they’d like to go. Eventually, one bison will start to move; if a majority of the others agree, the whole herd will follow, but if the direction is unpopular, they’ll stay put. The behavior is also shared by other bovine species, like the African buffalo.
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. Current Affairs is 100% reader-supported and depends on your subscriptions and donations.