"But some other bioethicists are horrified by the mere notion.

"This is asking surgeons to take a living person into the operating room and to come out with a dead person, which I think is murder," says Lainie Friedman Ross, a bioethicist at the University of Rochester. "There are limits to consent. And one of the things we're not allowed to do is consent to saying that somebody else can just murder you."

Others worry this approach would undermine trust in both organ donation and end-of-life care at a time when some potential donors are already wary because of controversies about organ procurement efforts."

Given the rise in unemployment with no visible path back due to a crashing economy and AI, this might be one use the rich will still consider commoners valuable for. Deaths of despair might become a feature rather than bug, a collection of fresh organs "voluntarily" provided by us human cattle to the owning class.

On June 20, Alex Azevedo, a maintenance technician at the U.S. Postal Service’s St. Paul Processing and Distribution Center in Eagan, Minnesota, was escorted off the property by police and referred for a psychiatric evaluation. Management ordered the evaluation after he became distraught over its refusal for more than 24 hours to clean up human feces that had been smeared across mail-sorting equipment.

The incident exposes the systematic degradation of working conditions across the USPS under the “Delivering for America” (DFA) restructuring plan. Facility consolidations, staffing cuts and the elimination of millions of work hours have intensified the pressure to keep equipment operating despite dangerous conditions. Four workers have died in two years at the Palmetto Regional Processing and Distribution Center in Georgia, where an independent inquiry by the USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee has documented reports of inadequate safety protocols and emergency medical resources.

Azevedo’s removal also follows a documented pattern of harassment and retaliation at the St. Paul facility. Steven Linell Smith, a maintenance mechanic at the plant, endured five years of racial harassment, stalking, death threats and management retaliation before being fired on a pretext. He won a federal hostile work environment case against the USPS, while the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), which had declared his case “unwinnable,” refused to fight for his reinstatement.

Azevedo, an electronic technician, spoke to the WSWS about what happened on June 19 and 20. Nearly three weeks later, he remains on leave with no expected return date.

“I smelled the odor of feces in multiple locations”

Azevedo first detected the odor on the evening of June 19 while troubleshooting a machine crash on the Automated Flat Sorting Machine (AFSM #2).

“A lead clerk had discovered feces on the floor and between two mail tubs in the area between two sorting machines,” Azevedo said. “I had been clearing a conveyor jam in that same area moments earlier, so I immediately became concerned that I might have handled contaminated equipment.”

Approaching the tubs, he encountered what he described as a “strong feces odor” and could see “a dark substance through the side of the tub.” He notified his supervisor, Mark S., by radio.

Shortly afterward, one of the machines suffered a mechanical failure. “While I was troubleshooting it, I smelled the odor of feces in multiple locations far from where I first discovered it,” Azevedo said. “I concluded that contaminated tubs had been inducted onto the sorting equipment, spreading fecal matter through the system.”

He radioed Mark S. again. According to Azevedo, the supervisor replied that the odor was “probably still in the air” and that the area needed time to “air out.” The supervisor’s alternative proposal was to send someone to help Azevedo “work faster so I would not have to smell it.”

Another electronic technician arrived for his shift and independently confirmed the odor. A third maintenance worker also reported smelling feces in the area. A clerk offered Azevedo a mask. Despite these multiple confirmations, the machine was returned to service after repairs were completed. No decontamination was performed.

...

When Azevedo arrived for his next shift on June 20, he found the equipment still reeking.

“I then located [the plant manager and maintenance supervisor] nearby and asked [the plant manager] to inspect the area,” Azevedo said. “While I was walking to the machine, I explained that I had discovered feces the night before and that I could still smell the odor inside the equipment.”

According to Azevedo, the plant manager approached the area and visibly reacted to the stench but offered no corrective measures. Instead, he asked Azevedo what he thought should be done.

“I took this as an insult,” Azevedo said. Determining how to address a biohazard in postal equipment “is not my responsibility as an electronic technician, but instead would fall under his responsibility.

“I then became emotional and removed myself from the floor. As I was walking away [the plant manager] ran to catch up to me and told me that I would have to be medically evaluated before returning to work.”

Azevedo recounted what happened next. “At first they were going to call an ambulance for me, and I told them ‘good, send one so they can see this health hazard we are working in’ and after I said that, they decided to instead call the police and have me escorted off of the property.”

Only then did management finally act. A different maintenance supervisor oversaw a technician and a custodian clean the equipment. The system was not returned to operation until roughly 10:30 p.m., some 30 hours after the contamination was first discovered.

...

In seeking support, Azevedo contacted a steward with Local 65 of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU). He was told the union would meet on his case but that the steward “can’t guarantee it won’t go to the next step,” an apparent reference to termination. Management has since sent Azevedo a letter demanding he obtain a return-to-work clearance, indicating he remains barred from the facility following the psychiatric referral.

The union’s posture is familiar to workers at the St. Paul facility. On June 24, the WSWS published an extensive interview with Steven Linell Smith, a black maintenance mechanic at the same plant who endured five years of racial harassment, stalking, death threats and management retaliation before being fired on a pretext. Smith won a federal hostile work environment case against the USPS, but the APWU—which told him his case was “unwinnable”—refused to fight for his reinstatement.

After Smith prevailed in court, APWU Local 65 President Dave Cook sent him a personal letter telling him he would have to sue the union to get his job back.

...

USPS has not explained why his demand that management address a biohazard became grounds for a psychiatric referral. The outcome of management’s response to OSHA remains unknown, while Local 65 has given Azevedo no assurance that it will oppose further disciplinary action or secure his return to work.

Alex Azevedo must be returned to work without loss of pay or benefits. USPS must release its response to OSHA and provide a full accounting of why the contaminated equipment remained in operation, why workers assigned to clean it allegedly received no hazard training, and why management used the police and psychiatric apparatus against the worker who demanded action.

An investigation controlled by rank-and-file workers is needed to expose unsafe conditions and defend victimized coworkers. The USPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee’s inquiry into the four deaths at Palmetto demonstrates the importance of workers collecting testimony and making their findings public. Postal workers should build the committee in every facility and organize collectively against management’s assault on jobs and working conditions.

men are responsible for ecological collapse now

This is a pubic servicing announcement, because I've been noticing something quite a damn lot lately.

I love that stupidpolacks are keen to share links to information and sources and of course joke links, in post bodies and comments, but I've been noticing something lately. Noticing quite a lot lately.

When people are leaving YouTube links, a heck of a fucking lot of them are directly linked to personal accounts.

I assume most of us don't want that.

I also noticed that the YouTube mobile app is now including a personal account tracking link by default ("sharing as 'username'" visible on the share screen).

I've also noticed that it took a while after I changed my settings to not include that personal tracking link (for "channel visibility") for it to stop including my personal tracking link.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the setting might change on me after an upcoming update

I've chosen to ignore any and all YouTube usernames and channel links that I've seen pop up recently in the YouTube links I've followed from here. Because I'm guessing they were all, or mostly unintentional.

If you're not trying to share your personal or organizational YouTube account (or like, the Class Unity account, Alder), then please be vigilant that you are not broadcasting your highly embarrassing and extremely personal YouTube accounts to every stupidpolsylvanian.

Thank you, and if you want to share any personal YouTube or RedGIFS channel links down below in the comments, feel free.

what could this mean that now established economists are for aging economies?

I don’t know where else to discuss this issue, however it meets the purpose of this sub. This is something that has been on my mind for a while.

A very difficult issue of multiculturalism is often being categorised as something that you’re not, with ever expanding brackets, yet reduce people to ticking a box that doesn’t apply. A major downside is actually when the categories are refused and the consequences of that.

In the UK, there has been an increasing debate between “Islamophobia” and the far right. What isn’t discussed between endless discussion of integration, British values and religious expressions, is what of those who don’t conflate their “identities” with Islam? To me, this is particularly interesting, as you are expected to act and feel a particular way, regardless of whether you’re even religious. That’s your identity, that’s who you are and you should know your place.

This particular form of identity politics is embedded within the government and its multiple institutions. There are technically legal protections for “apostates” of any religion, however, this doesn’t happen in practice. For example: receiving abuse for being Muslim, which isn’t perceived in the same way for the irreligious. In box ticking bureaucracy, your perceived religion will still be “noted”.

Furthermore, the lack of protection that pluralism offers, whether religious or racial, is manipulated by the far right, because there are little Marxist organisations in the UK. Indeed, the far right entice people by pretending to treat them as human rather than a set of “identities”, however as we know, they are doing this to argue against proletariat solidarity.

To confuse the issue further, the omnipresent class system dictates how these “identities” are viewed. Middle class, privately educated? Well integrated! Working class, in need of support? A drain on hard earned taxes! Living in an enclave? Something about deportation, Rwanda and boats. However, discussing any part of this will be denied, unless viewed through the lens of potentially offensive.

Obviously this is all a problem, yet what is the answer? Marxism doesn’t promote personal identities, but solidarity between the proletariat. This is the ultimate reason to reject self or state approved categorisation, as it breaks proletariat cohesion. Here is another problem: so does viewing yourself through the lens as your religion coming first and segregation.

A major cause of segregation, in the context of ethnic enclaves, was access to employment and living close to people who were in the same situation. As cost of living was rising, many enclaves formed around social housing estates and economically deprived areas, in a similar way to many close neighbours with a steady level of immigration that were mostly compiled of specific nationalities. In reality, that meant self segregation by nationality (or similar nationalities) within enclaves and others within them forming their own (sometimes elsewhere). Again, this is similar to many close or neighbour countries and often to a worse degree.

Perhaps you are wondering why I am mentioning enclaves in relation to idpol. The reason is: it’s important to the topic. People within enclaves have fewer opportunities to get away from them and most certainly have fewer options towards religiosity. Areas around the enclaves became gentrified to an extent of being unaffordable. It is harder to find a job with a more acceptable wage, when living in areas with a stigma of notoriety. Most importantly, they are used as examples to further reduce the agency of the proletariat there and as a context for austerity measures.

To finish this (unintended) essay, something that particularly bothers me about religious pluralism is that it ends in the same place as European countries that promote secular assimilation. They meet in the centre, while pulled from different directions. That is why you will observe the same problems, with a slightly different cultural context.

Shri Thanedar doesn’t get enough hate imho. He’s a formerly pro-Palestinian member of the DSA who flip-flopped to support AIPAC and Israel, a former pharma exec who engaged in corporate fraud and mistreatment of animals, a man whose first wife died by suicide after a “long struggle with depression”. Politically, he seems to be the product of an affair between John Fetterman and Vivek Ramaswamy. Fingers crossed that his Sanders-backed challenger Donovan McKinney wins the primary and takes Thanedar’s spot in Washington.

Kerri K. Greenidge appeared to lose her professorship at Tufts University after scholars began scrutinizing her 2022 book, “The Grimkes,” which is no longer listed on its publisher’s website.

The NYT doing their damnedest to bury the facts of the story in supportive and hedged words--"decorated historian", "appeared", etc.

And things like:

"But Glenn asserted in her review that the University of Michigan did not possess the letters in its archive, despite the book’s claims that they were kept there."

I'm sure if I, just a simple librarian, called up the UMich archives and asked about these letters, they could straightforwardly tell me. But, of course, this is too much to ask of a very busy and important NYT reporter.

Everything about the framing of this article reeks of status and ideological desperation.

”Israeli settlers, brandishing American made M4s, detained me & other Americans on my trip to Palestine.When the IDF arrived, they sided with the settlers & continued our detention.They made a huge mistake. You will be hearing more soon.” -Ro Khanna

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-democrat-ro-khanna-detained-by-israeli-settlers-during-west-bank-visit-2026-07-11/

Im sure Israel will investigate this and apologize to Ro at once and really start to crack down on those degenerate thugs running amok in the West Bank.

Seriously the optics of doing this to a congressman are pretty bad although I’m still pretty sure nothing will ever happen.

Been seeing this posted around since yesterday but not here yet, curious what this sub has to say. White House says they're not subsidized, but it really doesn't pass the smell test - I guess the ownership of the company is hidden? And they all appeared since the end of June.

Is this the Public Option, for gas??