Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

Mexico: Armed Vigilantes and Teachers Unite Debate is intensifying over armed vigilante patrols that have sprung up in crime-plagued sections of rural Mexico, particularly in the state of Guerrero, where some patrols joined forces this week with a radical teachers union that has been wreaking havoc with massive protests, vandalism and violent confrontations with police.  The two groups, on the surface, would appear to have little in common. The vigilante patrols, typically made up of masked campesinos, are among dozens that have emerged in the countryside in recent months, purporting to protect their communities from the depredations of the drug cartels. The state-level teachers union, meanwhile, has taken to the streets to protest a sweeping education reform law backed by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Their alliance was announced in a joint meeting Sunday. A leader of the vigilantes said they were joining with the teachers because it was the vigilantes’ “watchword to fight against injustice.”

The groups took part in their first joint demonstration this week in Chilpancingo, the capital of the southern state, which is home to the well-known resort city of Acapulco. The vigilantes apparently chose to march unarmed, and there were no reports of serious trouble.

But there is concern that an already-volatile series of political protests may take on a violent edge.
Before the alliance was announced, stick- and pipe-wielding members of the union, known as the State Coordinating Committee of Guerrero Education Workers, three times had blocked the key freeway connecting Mexico City and Acapulco, disrupting commerce during Acapulco’s crucial spring break season.

Last week, some of the union protesters attacked federal police with homemade weapons as officers removed them from the road, according to police reports carried by Notimex, the state news agency. According to police, 15 officers were injured.      articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/11/world/la-fg-mexico-vigilantes-20130412

100,000+ Students March For Real Education in Chile Students in Chile have resumed their protests for education reforms, with more than 100,000 people taking to the streets of the country.

In the capital, Santiago, riot police fired tear gas and water cannon to break up the march, after being targeted by hooded protesters.

Eight officers were injured and 109 people detained, authorities say.

Students say Chile’s education system, traditionally viewed as the best in Latin America, is profoundly unfair.

They say middle-class students have access to some of the best schooling in Latin America, while the poor have to be content with under-funded state schools.

Local media say the massive turn-out in Santiago puts the first big march of the year among the largest in the last two decades.

Students have been campaigning for about two years, but this was the first nationwide protest in 2013.    www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22118682

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O0NlIS7dy8

IU On Strike This message is to communicate that Hunter Teaches, an autonomous group of adjunct instructors at Hunter College in New York City, declare our solidarity with the students, staff and faculty striking at Indiana University campuses on April 11-12. We have posted this message on our website and sent to our over 300 contacts. We endorse unequivocally the strikers’ demands, which include:
1. Immediate reduction of tuition and fees
2. An end to privatization and outsourcing at IU campuses
3. An end to the present wage freeze
4. Compliance with IU’s pledge to double the enrollment of African-American students
5. An immediate end to HB1402 and SB590, which legitimize racial discrimination on IU campuses
6. No retaliation against strikers

Reminder from Ollman–Toward Class Consciousness Why haven’t the workers in the advanced capitalist countries become class-conscious? Marx was wont to blame leadership, short memories, temporary bursts of prosperity, and, in the case of the English and German workers, national characteristics.1 In the last fifteen years of his life he often singled out the enmity between English and Irish workers as the chief hindrance to a revolutionary class consciousness developing in the country that was most ripe for it.2 The success of this explanation can be judged from the fact that it was never given the same prominence by any of Marx’s followers. Engels, too, remained unsatisfied. After Marx’s death, he generally accounted for the disappointing performance of the working class, particularly in England, by claiming that they had been bought off with a share of their country’s colonial spoils.3 The same reasoning is found in Lenin’s theory of imperialism, and in this form it still aids countless Marxists in understanding why the revolution Marx predicted never came to pass in the advanced capitalist countries.

Despite these varied explanations (or, perhaps, because of them), most socialists from Marx onward have approached each crisis in capitalism with the certainty that this time the proletariat will become class-conscious. A half-dozen major crises have come and gone, and the proletariat at least in the United States, England, and Germany are as far away from such a consciousness as ever. What has gone “wrong”? Until socialists begin to examine the failure of the proletariat to perform its historically appointed task in light of their own excessive optimism, there is little reason to believe that on this matter at least the future will cease to resemble the past. It is the purpose of this essay to effect such an examination.     www.pipeline.com/~rougeforum/towardclassconsciousness.htm

Mayday is Nigh

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Rhee and the DC Test Cheaters Teachers in 18 D.C. classrooms cheated last year on high-stakes standardized tests, according to the results of an investigation released Friday by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.

The findings come one day after journalist John Merrow published a 2009 memo that raised questions about whether D.C. officials have adequately investigated past cheating allegations. The 18 classrooms found to have “critical” violations of test security were spread across 11 schools, including seven traditional and four charter schools. Critical violations include test-tampering such as providing students with answers or using prohibited electronic devices.

Teachers in four other classrooms were found to have committed “moderate” infractions, such as refusal to sign a non-disclosure form.    www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/teachers-in-18-dc-classrooms-cheated-on-tests-last-year-probe-finds/2013/04/12/b1a57e7c-a3a3-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html

Detroit’s Emergency Finance Manager (from years at failed Government Motors) Rolls out the latest plan to inject false hope into city schools Detroit Public Schools emergency manager Roy Roberts unveiled a plan Thursday that calls for reinventing the district’s identity and improving the way it does business, in hopes of reversing its enrollment slide.

Roberts hopes the changes will help retain more families in the district and attract new ones — one of DPS’s only hopes for long-term survival.

The plan, titled “Neighborhood-Centered, Quality Schools,” calls for preschool for all 4-year-olds in Detroit, the return of art and music programs to elementary-middle schools and a community-schools model where families have access to school buildings 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

A longer school year and day, increased security in and around schools and an enforceable attendance policy are also part of the plan to turn DPS back into a viable school district. It’s a steep challenge, given that Detroit’s population has dropped by more than half over the past 60 years.
From The Detroit News:   www.detroitnews.com/article/20130411/SCHOOLS/304110463#ixzz2QNvtnqZK

Bill Gates Leaps to the Lead of Occupy DOE Efforts are being made to define effective teaching and give teachers the support they need to be as effective as possible. But as states and districts rush to implement new teacher development and evaluation systems, there is a risk they’ll use hastily contrived, unproven measures. One glaring example is the rush to develop new assessments in grades and subjects not currently covered by state tests. Some states and districts are talking about developing tests for all subjects, including choir and gym, just so they have something to measure.

In one Midwestern state, for example, a 166-pagePhysical Education Evaluation Instrument holds teachers accountable for ensuring that students meet state-defined targets for physical education, such as consistently demonstrating “correct skipping technique with a smooth and effortless rhythm” and “strike consistently a ball with a paddle to a target area with accuracy and good technique.” I’m not making this up!

This is one reason there is a backlash against standardized tests — in particular, using student test scores as the primary basis for making decisions about firing, promoting and compensating teachers. I’m all for accountability, but I understand teachers’ concerns and frustrations.     www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-a-fairer-way-to-evaluate-teachers/2013/04/03/c99fd1bc-98c2-11e2-814b-063623d80a60_story.html

Atlanta’s Hall Inidicted. Rhee Not. Huh? Atlanta’s black former school superintendent and 34 other black teachers and administrators have been indicted for “racketeering” in a cheating scandal. Why aren’t others like former DC Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and her team indicted? Should we be rallying the racial wagons around Dr. Hall and the other 34? No way     blackagendareport.com/content/why-was-atlantas-beverly-hall-indicted-racketeering-while-michelle-rhee-wont-be

College Basketball is Capitalist Basketball=Corrupt Basketball Exactly two years after he and nine other defendants were arrested, bettor Paul Thweni was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison Thursday for his role in a scheme to fix basketball games at the University of San Diego.    www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/apr/12/south-dounty-defendants-plead-not-guilty/

Adding to the List–Test Cheats on Long Island??? Teachers in Glen Cove, N.Y., administering annual state tests next week will be under heightened scrutiny after district and law-enforcement officials said they were investigating allegations of cheating.

The Nassau County district attorney’s office Friday said it opened an investigation into whether 18 elementary-school teachers in the city on Long Island’s North Shore had coached students during last year’s state tests. The school district disclosed this week that it opened an internal inquiry in November 2012.

The allegations surfaced as teachers and students in New York state’s 700 school districts prepared for this year’s state tests, which begin next week. The state Education Department will dispatch a staff member to Glen Cove next week to help the superintendent monitor the exams.     online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324695104578419171762821136.html

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Above, photo from Afghanistan by Kathleen Foster. The trailer to her award winning film, Afghanistan/Pakistan 10 years On, is linked here 10yearsonafghanistanandpakistan.wordpress.com/

US Imperialism Massacres More Civilians in Surgical Strike An American military airstrike in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border was reported to have killed 18 people, including at least one senior Taliban commander but also women and children, raising the thorny issue of civilian casualties for the third time in roughly a week.  …In addition to killing Mr. Khan and about four other Taliban fighters, at least 10 children died in the strike, and at least 5 women were wounded, said Abdul Zahir Safi, the governor of the Shigal district, where the attack occurred. Afghan officials said they believed that the women and children were relatives of the Taliban commander.    www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/world/asia/years-worst-attack-on-united-states-in-afghanistan.html?ref=global-home

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI5hLuuYmYw

Barbarians Funding Fanatics in 14th Century Religious Wars (today) The group that abducted us, the Nusra Front – or Jabhat al Nusra in Arabic – has good reason to be suspicious of Americans. In December, the U.S. State Department declared it a front for al Qaida in Iraq and a wing of the Islamic State of Iraq, another al Qaida branch – a relationship that its members don’t try to hide. One bluntly, and smilingly, told me last month: “Of course we’re all al Qaida.”

That relationship was formalized this week when the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq released a video announcing that the two groups would drop the pretense of being separate and operate under a single name, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. On Wednesday, the al Qaida connection was completed when the head of Nusra pledged allegiance to Ayman al Zawahiri, the man who replaced Osama bin Laden at the top of the terrorist group.

The chain of events comes at a time when the Saudi, Qatari, Turkish and Jordanian governments, with support from the U.S., have increased weapons shipments to the rebels. Those weapons have also reached Nusra, which also is getting a steady flow of non-Syrians across the Turkish border to fight. Turkey has made no steps to stop that traffic.

The U.S. government’s designation of Nusra as a terrorist group backfired on the ground, increasing Syrian support for the group, which is also working quickly to provide people in areas affected by fighting with basic services. It recently scored a major victory on that front, taking over a hydroelectric dam near Raqqa, the capital of the province of the same name, making it the only place in Syria that has power 24 hours a day. Nusra also has seized oil installations, grain silos and other strategic infrastructure across northern and eastern Syria….After our release, the men who’d abducted us took us to their commander’s house for a meal and to have all our belongings returned. Abu Omar asked me whether I believe in God, and whether I thought Syrians had a right to an Islamic state. He suggested to Mousab that he read portions of the Quran that focus on separating oneself from bad influences, that is, from non-Muslims like me.

My glasses – they had been taken when I was blindfolded – and a satellite tracking device I was carrying were the only things that were not returned to us. Abu Omar apologized for the missing items, and I said something to the effect that it didn’t really matter, I was genuinely relieved to be alive.

Abu Omar turned to me, appearing somewhat pleased.
“That is the difference,” Abu Omar said. “We love death.” Read more here:   www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/10/188167/nusra-front-members-in-syria-have.html#emlnl=McClatchys_10_Best_Read#storylink=cpy

McClatchy: Drone Strikes Gone Wild Contrary to assurances it has deployed U.S. drones only against known senior leaders of al Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified “other” militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, classified U.S. intelligence reports show.

The administration has said that strikes by the CIA’s missile-firing Predator and Reaper drones are authorized only against “specific senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces” involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks who are plotting “imminent” violent attacks on Americans.

“It has to be a threat that is serious and not speculative,” President Barack Obama said in a Sept. 6, 2012, interview with CNN. “It has to be a situation in which we can’t capture the individual before they move forward on some sort of operational plot against the United States.”

Copies of the top-secret U.S. intelligence reports reviewed by McClatchy, however, show that drone strikes in Pakistan over a four-year period didn’t adhere to those standards.

The intelligence reports list killings of alleged Afghan insurgents whose organization wasn’t on the U.S. list of terrorist groups at the time of the 9/11 strikes; of suspected members of a Pakistani extremist group that didn’t exist at the time of 9/11; and of unidentified individuals described as “other militants” and “foreign fighters.”
Read more here:   www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/09/188062/obamas-drone-war-kills-others.html#emlnl=McClatchys_10_Best_Read#storylink=cpy

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

America’s Mole People Below the streets of Kansas City, there are deep underground tunnels where a group of vagrant homeless people lived in camps.

These so-called homeless camps have now been uncovered by the Kansas City Police, who then evicted the residents because of the unsafe environment.

Authorities said these people were living in squalor, with piles of garbage and dirty diapers left around wooded areas.    Read more:   www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306113/Kansas-City-homeless-city-Group-living-underground-crude-camps.html#ixzz2QNsBVMey

So Long Michigan Welfare Workers (and thank your fake UAW union) More than 1,000 jobs, or nearly 9 percent, would be cut from the Michigan agency that handles welfare, food assistance and child abuse investigations under a budget approved Tuesday by a Republican-led House panel.

GOP lawmakers voted to hire fewer additional child protective workers than proposed by Gov. Rick Snyder and cut more than 200 public assistance caseworker positions along with hundreds of other staff in the Department of Human Services. Three juvenile justice facilities also would be closed and the youth offenders sent to private facilities under the budget.
From The Detroit News:   www.detroitnews.com/article/20130409/POLITICS02/304090415#ixzz2Q2AjRjHZ

Thanks for that $192 Million, Obamagogue (and taxpayers) and So Long Fisker Fisker was to receive up to $529 million in U.S. loans, in part to open a factory in Delaware. It ended up borrowing about $192 million, but missed financial and product-development benchmarks.    blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/04/09/house-republicans-plan-a-hearing-on-fisker/

So Long Entertainment Book, and All those workers Entertainment Promotions, known for its thick coupon book, abruptly closed its doors after 50 years Tuesday, laying off 667 employees, including 225 at its Troy headquarters.

The Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing also surprised its customers across the country, which include many schools that sell the books for fund-raisers.

Despite the closing, as of Tuesday afternoon, Entertainment Promotions’ website was still taking orders for books. www.freep.com/article/20130313/BUSINESS06/303130037/Troy-Entertainment-publisher-files-for-Chapter-7-bankruptcy

Obamagogue–the Most Effective Evil (Glenn Ford) Contrast Kennedy’s assessment of the African-American community’s support with how President Obama has demonstrated his solidarity with the Hispanic community. He nominated the first Hispanic female Supreme Court justice. He has supported the Latino community’s call for comprehensive immigration reform.

He demonstrated his support to the gay and lesbian community by ending the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. To signal his support for women and feminists, he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Even as the tide shifts in the Middle East, the Obama administration continues to provide unambiguous support to Zionist interests in America. These are real policy outcomes, not abstract political sentiments.

Here are some real data for Kennedy and others to consider. The economy started its most recent decline during the administration of George W. Bush. African-American households lost more than half their wealth between 2005 and 2009. If these same “black detractors,” as Kennedy describes them, were not wrong to criticize President Bush, why should we sit idly by as the situation grows worse under President Obama? Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, recently said, “If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House.”     www.theroot.com/views/some-black-critics-obama-are-right?page=0,1

Consumers begin to think the economy Might Suck Consumer confidence tumbled sharply this month to its lowest level since July amid a slew of discouraging economic reports and continued gridlock in the nation’s capital, according to a leading barometer.

The consumer sentiment reading compiled by Thompson Reuters and the University of Michigan fell to 72.3 in the preliminary reading for April, down from 78.6 last month, Reuters reported Friday.

Economists had expected the reading to stay about the same.

Instead, with recent data indicating a slowdown in the recovery and large federal budget cuts kicking in, consumers expressed more pessimism about the state of the economy and their long-term outlook.     www.latimes.com/business/money/

Wells Fargo Doing Great–How About you? Wells Fargo & Co.‘s quarterly profit jumped 22%, beating expectations, despite a fall-off in the mortgage business, which generates a quarter of all revenue at the San Francisco banking giant.

The quarter was marked by cost-cutting, fewer loan losses and growth in loans and deposits. Revenue declined slightly, reflecting pinched profit margins on lending at a time of record-low interest rates.     www.latimes.com/business/money/

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

Gitmo Concentration Guards Force Feeding Prisoners The U.S. government has begun notifying lawyers of Guantanamo Bay prisoners if the men they represent are being force-fed to prevent them from starving to death in a hunger strike that has dragged on for more than two months, though its extent remains in dispute.  http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CB_GUANTANAMO_HUNGER_STRIKE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-04-08-17-34-35

Wife of World’s Biggest Warmaker/Assassin wants to Disarm Americans ABC News edited out First Lady Michelle Obama saying that a Chicago teenager was killed with an “automatic weapon.” Hadiya Pendleton was allegedly shot by a gang member on probation for a weapons charge with a handgun, not a rifle, which would be semi-automatic (unless it was a revolver.)
Robin Roberts got the first interview with Mrs. Obama since the inauguration in January, which she used to ask about gun-control efforts by President Obama.
A spokesman for ABC News, Heather Riley, emailed me that, “The full sto was posted to our website in advance of the interview being broadcast. The edits made to Robn’s interview with the First Lady were made solely for time.” Read more: www.washingtontimes.com/blog/guns/2013/feb/26/miller-abc-edits-out-time-michelle-obama-wrongly-c/#ixzz2Q7tgbLPm
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Solidarity for Never

Hey CTA Members! Dues Going to a Bill To Make it Easier to Fire You California’s largest teachers union is backing a measure that would make it easier to discipline and fire teachers accused of misconduct after successfully fighting a similar proposal last year. www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_22907747/californias-largest-teachers-union-now-backs-bill-ease

UTLA Votes No Confidence in Deasy and No Confidence in UTLA Los Angeles teachers overwhelmingly expressed “no confidence” in L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy in the first vote of its kind in the nation’s second-largest school system…One side effect of the Deasy vote was to deflect attention from another question that went before teachers on the same ballot. It had been put there by teachers gathering signatures independently of the union leadership. That measure sharply criticized the leadership and laid out education and negotiating priorities for the union.

The resolution criticized “current UTLA practice” for “weakening and dividing us,” asserting that “UTLA has neither mobilized, nor organized its own membership, nor has it reached out to build alliances with community forces in a meaningful and consistent way.” www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0412-teachers-deasy-20130412,0,7411286.story

Spy versus Spy

The Family Jewels  http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Kwame Kilpatrick’s (jailed former Detroit Mayor) Mom, ex-US Rep Cheeks, to hold hearings on extraterrestials on earth at National Press Club A group hoping to prove alien contact with Earth has tapped former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick to help convince the federal government to acknowledge the existence of extraterrestrials.

The Detroit Democrat and mother to former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick will help preside over 30 hours of congressional-style hearings April 29 t May 3 at Washington’s National Press Club. She did not respond to calls for comment.Dubbed the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, the public panel pledges to expose evidence of “extraterrestrial vehicles” and a government effort to deny sightings of such craft commonly called UFOs….Kilpatrick will be joined by five other former members of Congress for the hearings. Each will be paid about $20,000 and their expenses will be covered, Bassett said.

Joining Kilpatrick on the bipartisan panel are ex-Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska (Democrat and more recently Libertarian), as well as former Reps. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., and Merrill Cook, R-Utah.
From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20130411/POLITICS02/304110362#ixzz2QNxWvvKd

So Long