What lies ahead for U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The headline in today's newspaper asks:

What lies ahead for U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Of course, the question as asked, is only of concern to the Wall Street imperialists and its merchants of death and destruction who profit from the massive human misery caused--- and while our National wealth is squandered on these dirty wars with this great wealth conveniently finding its way into the pockets of these disgusting Wall Street profiteers, more people will continue to die.

As our Nation's wealth is squandered on these dirty wars, funding for health care, education, housing and food stamps will be cut, potholes will increase in number and size in our streets, roads and highways.


All this senseless military spending will push up the prices we pay for goods and services.

A government hell-bent on continuing these dirty wars will never care about the concerns and needs of its own people.

Our problems, caused by the Wall Street crowd, are now so deep-seated it will be impossible to win the smallest of reforms without simultaneously challenging Wall Street for political and economic power.

Any attempt made by the Democrats--- or anyone else--- to rally the American people around support for some kind of "populist economic agenda" which refuses to address the high price we pay for militarism and war is sheer demagogy and just plain mean.

No concern or even a pretense of concern for what happens to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan as these imperialist wars drag on... this is the epitome of great power chauvinism and the worst kind of jingoism.

The Wall Street Journal tries to stifle the movement against racist police murdering people of color and police brutality. The WSJ cries "mayhem."

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in big, bold headlines sends a message to its bribed politicians that it will only tolerate "progressivism" just so far--- and the WSJ draws the line at criticizing these viciously violent and brutal racist cops; for who else but these cops is going to protect these Wall Street parasites here at home like the U.S. military does abroad?

Apparently Wall Street is afraid the American people are going to challenge it for political and economic power... hence the use of the word "mayhem."

Here are the headlines from the WSJ...


Progressives and the Police
Politicians who campaign against cops are inviting mayhem.

The hypocrisy of a Minimum Wage "increase"

The big, bold headlines in newspapers across the country told us yesterday that the Minimum Wage is "going up" in some twenty states.


We are supposed to cheer.


The problem is, no one except a bunch of worthless politicians and Democratic Party hacks along with a few millionaire labor leaders are doing any cheering even though everyone appreciates a raise.

So; why aren't U.S. workers cheering?


Millions are still unemployed.


Millions are still under-employed as part-time workers.


And millions more receiving the Minimum Wage are fully aware their wages will remain poverty wages when compared to actual cost-of-living which no one seems to want to talk about.


And; oh, yes; the employers are cheering because these poverty wages will assure them of huge super-profits for many years to come.


http://fortune.com/2014/12/19/minimum-wage-raise-states/


Check it out; not one state in this country provides a Minimum Wage that is a real living wage when compared to actual cost-of-living figures:


http://investorplace.com/2014/…/minimum-wage-increase-2015/…


Democrats across the country promised "living wages, non-poverty wages" when running for office. Once elected they delivered Minimum Wage "increases" which remain poverty wages.


Not one single newspaper so much as mentioned the promises made versus what was delivered. Wouldn't it be terrible if the mainstream media's over-paid pundits passing themselves off as journalists were to actually ask these politicians why they failed to deliver on their campaign promises of real living, non-poverty Minimum Wages?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/twenty-states-will-raise-t…/


I find it amazingly hypocritical that these mainstream media pundits would be paid so well for peddling lies and half-truths in the name of covering this struggle for living wages while people working their butts off trying to survive are paid such miserly poverty wages.


And the hypocrisy of these Wall Street bribed politicians who give themselves raise after raise for squandering the wealth of the Nation on militarism and wars goes unchecked.


This capitalist system is so rotten to the core with corruption that it stinks.


Something to think about:


The same government which uses the levers of power to minimize wages has never used its governmental levers to restrict profits.

Something to think about...

Are you willing to pay the price to protect Wall Street's interests in Africa?

What is the price we pay?

Do we forgo health care and child care and jobs along with decent pay and a just Minimum Wage in line with the actual cost-of-living?

Are we prepared to pay for Wall Street's imperialism with the blood and lives of our children and grandchildren who are used as cannon fodder to fight these dirty wars?

We pay for this insanity and the Wall Street parasites profit.

Something to think about... it seems the imperialist countries, notably the G-20 led by Wall Street (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States—along with the European Union) have set their sights on Africa. Cheap resources obtained using cheap labor. War after war will be the result as the people resist theses greedy imperialist beasts:


V.I. Lenin explained it all in this pamphlet available for free here:



http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/


U.S. trade union leader and Communist, William Z. Foster, explained the nature of imperialism even further in this book available for order on the internet:

Gus Hall, the longtime Chair of the Communist Party USA, provides more insight in this book also available from Internet book sellers:







Mark Twain became a fervent anti-imperialist; here are a few excerpts from his writings:

Although born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, he adopted what is one of the most famous pen names in literature, Mark Twain, from a Mississippi river slang phrase. Twain is famous as an author, satirist, essayist, newspaper contributor, and lecturer. He wrote about a myriad of topics, ranging from life along the Mississippi River, detailed in famous works such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1872) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), to a collection of essays written while abroad, to political essays. Twain was an influential writer of his time and remains so today. During the Spanish-American War, Twain became a fervent anti-imperialist, even joining the Anti-Imperialist League. His sentiments about the war and the war in the Philippines were published nationwide.

Works of related interest

• Twain, Mark. Mark Twain's Autobiography.
• Paine, Albert Bigelow (ed). Mark Twain's Letters. New York: Harper & Bros., 1917. LCCN: 17-30756 r94.
• Zwick, Jim (ed). Mark Twain's weapons of satire: anti-imperialist writings on the Philippine-American War. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1992.

Excerpts

From the New York Herald, October 15, 1900:
I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and tame for it to content itself with he Rockies. Why not spread its wings over the Phillippines, I asked myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing to do
I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which had addressed ourselves.

But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Phillippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. . .

It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.



A Boston Herald transcript of a speech he gave in 1900 began thus:
Oh, you have been doing many things in this time that I have been absent; you have done lots of things, some that are well worth remembering, too. Now, we have fought a righteous war since I have been gone, and that is rare in history--a righteous war is so rare that it is almost unknown in history; but by the grace of that war we set Cuba free, and we joined her to those three or four free nations that exist on this earth; and we started out to set those poor Filipinos free too, and why, why, why that most righteous purpose of ours has apparently miscarried I suppose I never shall know.

In a 1906 essay about the Moro massacre in the Phillippines, which was not published until after his death, Twain criticized the military:

General Wood was present and looking on. His order had been, "Kill or capture those savages." Apparently our little army considered that the "or" left them authorized to kill or capture according to taste, and that their taste had remained what it had been for eight years in our army out there--the taste of Christian butchers.



In a February 1901 article titled, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness," he continued to criticize the U.S.:
There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land. . .

True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn't it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit's work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world. . .

And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one--our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones.



And another essay on the American flag, also from 1901:
I am not finding fault with this use of our flag; for in order not to seem eccentric I have swung around, now, and joined the nation in the conviction that nothing can sully a flag. I was not properly reared, and the illusion that a flag was a thing which must be sacredly guarded against shameful uses and unclean contacts, lest it suffer pollution; and so when it was sent out to the Philippines to float over a wanton war and a robbing expedition I supposed it was polluted, and in an ignorant moment I said so. But I stand corrected. I conceded and acknowledge that it was only the government that sent it on such an errand that was polluted. Let us compromise on that. I am glad to have it that way. For our flag could not well stand pollution, never having been used to it, but it is different with the administration.



Nelson Mandela, like Lenin, Mark Twain, William Z. Foster, W.E.B. DuBois, and Gus Hall was, too, a fervent anti-imperialist.



The age of imperialism:

http://www.smplanet.com/teaching/imperialism/

Stop the deportation of U.S. war resister Joshua Key from Canada

Can we help?

http://www.communitynewscommons.org/…/former-ndp-mla-fight…/
It would seem to me every single person reading this should be willing to help.

My suggestion would be that we each:

1. Sign on to a common letter to both the U.S. and Canadian governments calling for an end to deportation proceedings;

2. Contribute at least $25.00 to help Joshua Key and his family, which includes small children, get through this mess.

Concrete acts of solidarity are needed now; isn't this what we are supposed to be all about?

Please listen to the radio program at the link above.

A "few bad apples" or a massive network of brutal police repression?

These police are becoming even more brutal as they attempt to cover up their crimes now being publicly exposed from one end of the country to the other. Their declared hatred of people protesting their crimes is proof these cops fear being publicly exposed for the brutal bullies they are.

People like to say all the cops are not bad but all the cops are involved because they help cover up the brutal crimes being carried out by the "few bad apples."

In addition, the more people one talks to the more we find out just how widespread this police brutality is.

So far, the focus has been mostly on the police killings of people of color; these police murders now surpass in number those hanged during the dark period of Jim Crow. But how many people have been subjected to police beatings and how many more people have been subjected to racist name-calling by the police.

And the discussion hasn't even begun about the nature of these politically repressive "Red Squads," special units organized by the FBI consisting of the FBI, state, county and local police and a bunch of citizen vigilantes, intended to silence anyone and everyone who participates in these demonstrations against police brutality and any other progressive cause from protesting these dirty wars to demanding raising the Minimum Wage.

The United States is hailed, by those in power who hire the police to do these dirty deeds, as the world's greatest bastion of democracy. A bunch of hypocrites all.

While traveling through the Midwest these past few weeks, I was told by a group of people in Oklahoma that when they were putting up signs alongside garage sale signs they were threatened with arrest by police when they refused to take the signs down... if this isn't a clear attempt to restrict the First Amendment I don't know what is.

I was also told that in order to hold a march for justice for the victims of police killings in San Antonio, Texas the organizers were forced to pay for a permit... once, again, it is "pay to play" in what Wall Street holds as its exclusive right to determine public policy.

Here in Minneapolis, people are being arrested for standing up and protesting organized police violence against the people.

How many people in Ferguson, Missouri have been arrested simply for demanding justice as a racist killer cop goes free?

We are living in an era where those wealthy people in power and their loyal servants and protectors only consider their own lives as having any worth or value... this is not what democracy is supposed to be about.

Wall Street owns Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton

A variety of different articles have painted the Democratic Party as "Wall Street leaning." The Democratic Party is much more than "Wall Street leaning;" the Democratic Party is owned outright by Wall Street every bit as much as the Republican Party and both are an integral component of Wall Street's "two-party trap" set for the working class.

Anyone who doesn't believe this should read their daily newspaper... "hot off the press" today is the article:

"Jeb Bush unwinding some financial affairs; Considering run for president, he quits firm that profited from Obamacare:"

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-jeb-bush-money-20141225-story.html#page=1

"In 2007, Bush joined InnoVida, a Miami manufacturer of composite building materials, winning a seat on the board and a $15,000-a-month consulting contract. At the time, company president Claudio Osorio was a big player in Miami’s glitzy social and political world, hosting fundraisers at his Star Island mansion for Democratic politicians like Hillary Rodham Clinton and, in 2008, for then-Sen. Barack Obama.

In March 2010, InnoVida obtained a $10-million federal loan to build homes and a factory in earthquake-wrecked Haiti. But Osorio scammed millions from that loan and from investors, according to a federal indictment filed in Miami.

"A Securities and Exchange Commission complaint in 2012 said Osorio had recruited Bush and other high-profile figures to lend “an air of legitimacy” to InnoVida and help him raise money. In 2013, Osorio pleaded guilty to fraud charges and was sentenced to 121/2 years in prison.

Bush was paid a total of $468,901 before leaving InnoVida in September 2010.
A court-approved settlement agreement in the company’s bankruptcy case says he provided “substantial assistance” to investigations into the company’s finances, and he agreed to pay back $270,000 to the bankruptcy court."

I do wonder why we haven't heard about the Obama and Hillary Clinton connections to the same dirty corporate money long before this.

And remember all these people who said, "Obama is the last Democrat I am backing; in 2016 I will support building a new working class based progressive people's party for peace, social and economic justice?" Well, these people are running the same line on us again as they support Hillary Clinton... although this time they are clamoring for Warren to run in the primary even though Warren has already proclaimed her support for Hillary.

Wall Street owns Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush... and Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton both own a part of Wall Street--- ditto for Obama; is this what democracy is all about?

And like with Obama's bailout of the Wall Street bankers, Obamacare is all about Wall Street's profits with the Republicans demagogically railing against Obamacare as they laugh all the way to the bank.

In typical Obama style, he partially normailzes relations with Cuba and then places restrictions on Venezuela

So, Obama partially normalizes relations with Cuba and a day later takes reactionary measures against Venezuela.

It will be interesting to see what kind of "financial restrictions" Obama can place on the socialist bus driver who leads the Venezuelan government or any other members of the Venezuelan government.

I doubt we can expect Obama to twist the arms of any members of Congress to end the economic embargo and tourist restrictions on Cuba when he works with Congress to implement these undemocratic restrictions on Venezuela.

Like with everything Obama has done, this normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba is sure to come with other imperialist intrigues, not only against other nations, but most likely even more sinister and aggressive actions against Cuba.

It is Obama's dirty work going on behind closed doors which needs to be examined.

It is time for the American people to have a say in foreign relations. Foreign relations has been the exclusive arena of the Wall Street crowd and this needs to end once and for all.

Police violence against the people... especially the severe racist edge of this police violence must come to an end

There is a lot of talk coming from those in power--- from Obama on down--- about how to reform the police departments in this country but their response evades the fact that none of those in power are insisting on what justice requires.

In response to the steady stream of racist police killings across this country which have resulted in massive demonstrations--- especially in Ferguson, Missouri--- we here talk about how these police need to be better trained, receive diversity training, providing police with personal cameras, de-militarizing police departments, etc.

But, why no demand from those in power to prosecute these black-booted criminals in blue uniforms committing these racist, cold-blooded murders?

Once again we see those in power evading what justice requires--- criminal prosecution.

There is no doubt real reforms require community control over police departments with the police living in the neighborhoods they patrol.

The police departments never should have been armed to the hilt with weapons of war.

Police should be properly trained--- not after they put on police uniforms and a badge, but before.

Cameras on cops would be good, too.

But, all these needed reforms do not replace the need for prosecution of these criminal police.

Darren Wilson should have to stand trial for the murder of Michael Brown and if convicted Wilson should be placed on Missouri's death row in cells beside others convicted of murder.

These politicians who have funded the militarization of the police departments and put in positions of power those appointed public officials responsible for hiring and training police have made sure police were hired who do not respect human rights let alone the Constitution of the United States and Bill of Rights.

Now these politicians act as if their own hands are clean when their hands are as dirty as the racist cops pulling the triggers.

We see these same cops busting up Occupy Wall Street, harassing and hounding those who demand peace instead of war. These same cops bust up protests against poverty wages and these same cops don't hesitate to beat heads using their billy clubs when workers walk peaceful picket lines.

We need to understand that ending this racist police violence in this country is an integral part of the struggles for peace, social and economic justice because when there is no justice there can be no peace.

Justice requires not just reforms of police departments but the full and complete prosecution of these murdering, violent--- and extremely racist--- criminal cops.

Prosecuting these criminal cops is the best education and training the other cops can receive.

Why haven't we learned lessons from LBJ and his disastorous escalation and continuation of the Vietnam War?

Yesterday I visited the President Lyndon B. Johnson museum in Johnson City, Texas.

The tour guide explained how Johnson got his "left economic populism" from his father.

This is one of the most honest displays of a politician's life I have ever seen.

It is explained to people how the Vietnam War caused havoc with all of Johnson's important social and civil rights programs and people learn how the massive protests against the Vietnam War, which Johnson expanded instead of stopping, led to him not running for re-election. This connection between war and poverty is something politicians have not learned.

A few of the displays on civil rights and poverty allow for citizen interaction with people being allowed to post their thoughts on index cards which are posted for everyone to see.

The real lesson to be learned from visiting the Johnson Museum and History center none of these pundits and "populist" economists like Paul Krugman, Robert Reich or even Bernie Sanders seem to understand is that wars create poverty, along with great human misery, and make it impossible to end poverty or even improve the lives and livelihoods of all the people.

Lyndon Johnson lamented the fact that "capitalism created vast wealth" but "a way had not been found to bring the millions in poverty better lives...;" another lesson we need to learn and force these politicians and over-paid pundits to confront.

Lyndon B. Johnson's political career began by fighting the banks, big-agriculture and the oil men and fighting for the New Deal Reforms.

Just imagine what kind of health care, education and jobs programs we could have had in this country had as much effort and resources been expended on building Lyndon B. Johnson's vision of a "Great Society" if so much of our national wealth had not been squandered on war after war the last 50 years... something to think about.

Looking across the "hill country of Texas," which Johnson called "home" one can see the massive poverty.

The facts of what wars are doing to us was made very clear in the graph at the Johnson museum which showed a very brief period of time when real headway was made in the fight against poverty through Johnson's many social and economic reforms and these graphs very lucidly depict how the fight against poverty came to an abrupt end with the rapid, costly escalation of the Vietnam War.

The other thing that is very clear from the Johnson exhibits is that organized, militant and massive public intervention on issues ranging from war and peace to wealth and poverty and in defense of public education and equality for all can really influence the direction of the country in very tangible ways that improve the lives of the majority of the people... one can easily imagine just what kind of country we could be living in if we were to be successful in coming together to take power out of the hands of the greedy Wall Street parasites which include the merchants of death and destruction.

Johnson made a horrible blunder in allowing Wall Street's Military-Industrial Complex to lead him into escalating the Vietnam War... one has to wonder if Johnson's conscience didn't bother him since he died of a massive heart attack at the young age of 64 shortly after deciding not to seek a second term.

Upon Johnson's invitation, he met with George McGovern at his very modest Texas ranch, the Texas White House, shortly before his death and no one seems to know exactly what they discussed. No doubt McGovern, another "left economic populist," but one who understood that war and solving the problems of the people are mutually exclusive, attempted to explain to Johnson that this is where he screwed up.

Hillary Clinton will now attempt a shot at the presidency using this failed "left economic populist" rhetoric devoid of any mention of how these dirty wars are making us all poor and all these Obama supporters will attempt to tell us we need to vote for Hillary because she is the lesser of two evils as compared to Jeb Bush or Scott Walker but history, and economics, prove that any talk based on "economic populism" that is devoid of integrating the need to end war with a just transition to a peace based economy where we beat swords into plowshares is as sure to end up in expanded misery for the majority of the people.

I do find it of interest that all these Democratic Party politicians run from acknowledging Lyndon B. Johnson's victories--- and defeats; especially when there are such important lessons to be learned.

I would also point out that Lyndon B. Johnson supported George McGovern for president from which one can draw the conclusion that Johnson understood, at least in his own mind and in his heart, that he had been wrong in expanding the war in Vietnam... perhaps had Johnson had the courage to take on the Wall Street crowd as he did with the oil barons, big agri-business, the bankers and in his defense of the New Deal we would be living in a much different country today where people come before profits.

I remember many on the left calling for going "part of the way with LBJ;" but life has proven we can not have jobs and a decent standard of living alongside wars... something present day so-called "economic populist" pundits and economists alike do not understand or, more than likely, don't want to understand because they fear offending the Wall Street hand which feeds them.

Isn't it time to begin talking about the politics and economics of livelihood? Ending poverty and wars.

Finally the Cuban Five are free!!!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/obama-us-re-establishing-relations-with-cuba/ar-BBgUJV0?ocid=mailsignout

Some good news...

Now is the time for the American people to push for ending this barbaric U.S. economic embargo against Cuba and exert pressure on Congress to open up U.S. tourism to Cuba without limitations.

This is the first half-way decent thing Obama has done during his presidency... but still far too little and far too late; but, better late than never even if only a half-measure.

No doubt this will be center-pieced by the Obama Administration to cover up its dirty deeds in bringing us closer to World War III as Obama sends arms to the fascists who have illegally seized power in the Ukraine.

I look forward to being able to get on a boat or plane from the United States with my destination Cuba as I am sure many other Americans do just as our Canadian neighbors to the north have been able to do for so many years.

Two choices: bust up the big banks or take them over?

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is calling for "busting up" and "breaking up" the big banks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJpTxONxvoo#t=458

BUT--- busting up the big banks is no solution to anything.

Busting up these big banks isn't even any kind of progressive reform.

What is required is bringing these big banks, and the entire banking and financial industry, under public ownership and democratic control.

We should have learned from the government ordered, overseen and directed break-up of Ma Bell that busting up these huge monopoly corporations is no solution at all... and only makes it more difficult to regulate and control these industries which government ordered the "break-ups" of to reach greater profits through more severe exploitation of the industries' employees (and outright union busting as in cases like Verizon and CenturyLink) while expanding into new heights in ripping off consumers.

Workers and consumers will fair no better with the break-up of big banks like Citibank than they did with the government busting up Ma Bell.

I find it interesting Senator Elizabeth Warren fails to examine what happened after the government busted up Ma Bell before she starts talking about doing the same thing with the big banks like Citibank.

The real progressive solution in both situations--- be it communications or banking--- is nationalization: public ownership of these industries under the democratic control of the people.

Elizabeth Warren sounds like she is attacking Wall Street when Wall Street investors are drooling at the mouth just waiting for the government to bust up these big banks so their fortunes will increase as the misery created for most people deepens.

Just ask any worker who had been employed by Ma Bell if their union is stronger today than before Ma Bell was busted up and if their livelihoods in comparison to actual cost-of-living are better today than before the break-up. And don't forget to ask them about health care costs.

Real reformers of the banking industry talk about public banking and public take-over of the banking industry and they aren't afraid of the red-baiting that they are sure to endure.

Many are saying that this recent speech in the U.S. Senate by Elizabeth Warren has assured her a shot at the presidency; but, does her anti-Wall Street rhetoric match up with the real reforms required which would really challenge Wall Street's strangle-hold on political and economic power?

In fact, in spite of her anti-Wall Street rhetoric, Warren proposes the Wall Street solution... public banking is the working class solution.

Senator Elizabeth Warren should be calling for the establishment of a national bank along the lines of the State Bank of North Dakota... then she would be talking about a real progressive solution.

The KKK not past history in Texas

I am visiting Texas.

Yesterday I went to the Bob Bullock Museum in Austin, Texas.

At this museum a few blocks from the Texas State Capitol building, they have an important exhibit about the Ku Klux Klan in the history of Texas which points out its long, sordid, criminal history of racism and dirty racist deeds.

One fact I found quite surprising, and alarming, since Texas is always puffed up as one of the more modern and forward thinking of the southern states is that Texas has, at present, the largest number of KKK chapters in the United States.

Ethics and morality

Ethics and morality under capitalism.

Some people push the idea that some kind of new ethics and morality beyond greed can be created under capitalism if people will just purchase in an informed manner the products produced by corporations bound by some kind of code of ethics and morality.

Missing from this thinking is the fact that under capitalism all production by these corporations begins with unethical and immoral conduct from which they can't escape; namely, the exploitation of workers by these capitalists and only the public ownership of the mines, mills and factories along with other enterprises can change this.

For working people, capitalism will always be an unethical and immoral system with only socialism being an ethical and moral alternative because socialism puts an end to the exploitation of man by man.

One simply can not wisely purchase products manufactured by workers employed by capitalists believing they are changing corporate ethics and morality because these capitalist corporations and those who own and run them only understand greed: profits.