Why Are Things As They Are?

richgibson.com/mayday.htm

On the Little Rouge School Front:

LA March 4th Conference Sets October 7th as International Day of Action and October 16th as Planning Conference at San Francisco State: Over 151 people attended the meeting at the Santee Educational Complex in LA. Integrated by race and gender, the conference clearly backed worker/student unity (educators are workers), internationalism, anti-racism, democracy, and direct action while opposing union sell-outs and bureaucrats. There is no question the system of capital was under assault. Civil strife on the horizon, well-earned.

The New York Times Loves a Good AFT Sellout: “ Last fall, Michelle Rhee, the tough-minded and creative schools chancellor in Washington, laid off 266 teachers, citing a budget crunch. She has since reported finding a budget surplus. The city’s teachers’ union, which challenged the layoffs unsuccessfully last fall, has now asked a judge to review them again. The atmosphere has grown increasingly toxic. Some of Ms. Rhee’s critics have implausibly suggested that she might have withheld information to justify the layoffs. It would be terrible for the city’s children if the dispute reached a point where it upended the innovative union contract that Ms. Rhee and union leaders provisionally agreed to earlier this month.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/opinion/20tue3.html?ref=opinion

So Long Ed School! (Would This be a Loss? Watch for the Rouge Forum Ed School, Coming Soon): “this week, the New York State Board of Regents could deliver the biggest blow. It will vote on whether to greatly expand the role of the alternative organizations by allowing them to create their own master’s degree programs. At the extreme, the proposal could make education schools extraneous.”  www.nytimes.com/pages/education/index.html

Arnold Seeks to Abolish Tenure: “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he supported a proposed state law that would prevent teacher layoffs based on seniority, a stance that quickly drew the ire of teachers unions while being lauded by civil rights activists.” www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/04/20/state/n141521D10.DTL&type=business#ixzz0ly5AcfJl

Linda Darling Hammond’s Stanford Charter School Flops (Where was this Mother Superior of US Education When People Fought the Tests and Obama?): “Stanford New School has the best of credentials. It was founded by Linda Darling-Hammond, a leader in the school reform movement and President Obama’s adviser on education during his transition. Its blueblood board includes Stanford administrators and professors and Silicon Valley royalty with connections to Google and Cisco. It also includes Maria de la Vega, the superintendent of the Ravenswood City School District — who recommended that her board deny the charter extension.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/education/16sfcharter.html

Who Wrote the Regimented Nationalist Curricula (i.e. Common Core Standards)? NEA, AFT and….: stopnationalstandards.org/action_21.html

“Always be sure you are right, then go ahead”

They Say Cut Back We Say Fight Back Front:

Capistrano CA School Workers Strike Continues: www.cuea.org/indexAlt.htm
87% Capistrano California Teachers Authorize Strike: People will fight back, eventually, because they must in order to live. At issue is whether they will make any sense of why they must fight and, therefore, win and sustain victories, or whether they resist in isolation (teachers for teachers, students for students, public vs private sector workers, etc) and lose. The education agenda is a war agenda. It is a class war agenda and an empire’s war agenda. It is a violent assault on both life and reason emanating from a very real ruling class that is ruthless and calculating. It will not be voted away. It will not be written away, though writing is surely part of how the education agenda can be overturned. This is a fight, not a chat. www.ocregister.com/news/teachers-244536-school-strike.html

Oakland, Ca. Teachers Plan a Strike On April 29t: As Voted, the strike was postponed from April 22 to April 29 oaklandea.com/

New Jersey Students Plan Statewide Walkout on Facebook; 13,000 Sign on: “Facebook page encouraging New Jersey students to cut class Tuesday to rally against state aid reductions has more than 13,000 signed up to participate.”http://www.northjersey.com/news/education/91993069_13_000_students_sign_up_for_walkout_over_aid_cuts.html

Maoist Students in Nepal Stage Strikes:

Nepal Report: Revolutionary students shut down 8,000 private schools indefinitely: kasamaproject.org/2010/04/25/nepal-report-revolutionary-students-shut-down-8000-private-schools-indefinitely/

U. Washington TA’s Students and Workers Plan Direct Action Resistance: “Bargaining opened with a strong mandate from rank and file, with 90% of us voting in favor of authorizing the bargaining team to call a strike. Shortly after that vote, nearly 1,000 students participated in a one-day student strike on March 4, the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education…..
A strike is most powerful when it is happening and when workers act in solidarity across sector and refuse to cross each others’ picket lines.” forademocraticuniversity.blogspot.com/2010/04/open-letter-to-uaw-bargaining-team.html

Video–U. Washington Student Strike: www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3cLxJkbKAY&feature=youtube_gdata

Video: Educational Inequality in NYC: vodpod.com/watch/3428545-grittv-education-inequality-in-liberal-new-york

On the Perpetual War Front:

John Marciano’s “Empire as a Way of Life” class online: www.kintespace.com/p_john_marciano0.html

War Means Work, Not Bad if Fascism is No Bother. The Impact of War on the San Diego Economy: “The military wrote checks for $16.1 billion in San Diego County and directly employed 136,729 people, or 9.7 percent of the county’s workforce.The report concludes: “Together, the impact of these activities is substantial, providing a relationship between San Diego and the military that is similar to that of New York and finance, Los Angeles and entertainment, and Houston and energy.” www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/apr/21/military-says-spending-swells-in-the-region/

They’re Baack…in the SWAT Valley: “At least five anti-Taliban political leaders have been killed in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan over the past two weeks, residents there said, raising fears that the Taliban forces that once ruled the area could be regrouping.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/world/asia/23pstan.html?hpw

Want to Stop Iran’s Nukes? Invade and Occupy: If Iran decides to go for nuclear weapons, the US may not be able to permanently stop this from happening unless it is willing to occupy the country.This is the candid conclusion of one US general testifying in front of the Senate..” news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8634204.stm

Iraq Puppet Maliki: Keep Voting Until You Get it Right: “ An Iraqi appeals panel ordered Monday that more than 20 percent of the votes cast in national elections be manually recounted in response to complaints from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s political bloc, further placing the Iraq election results in doubt.” www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0419/Iraq-election-Can-Maliki-win-with-a-Baghdad-recount The Solidarity Forever Front:

Labor Bosses Own Corruption and Opportunism Kill their Baby: EFCA: workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2010/04/13/what-happened-to-the-employee-free-choice-act/

On the Ooops there Goes the Economy Front:

The Perfect Foreclosure Storm: “In the current recession several factors have aligned to drive the large and rapid increase in foreclosures, and it appears likely that foreclosure rates might stay high for some time. What leads to increasing foreclosure rates during some recessions and not others? In the perfect storm scenario what happens is that falling house prices (leading to a negative equity position in a house) combined with a job loss can lead to default and a foreclosure. So here it is because of both negative equity and unemployment that foreclosures rise.”  www.forbes.com/2010/04/20/housing-foreclosure-unemployment-opinions-columnists-thomas-cooley-peter-rupert.html?feed=rss_opinions

UnReported: Massive Constant Unemployment: In the week ending April 10, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 484,000, an increase of 24,000 from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 460,000. The 4-week moving average was 457,750, an increase of 7,500 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 450,250. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.6 percent for the week ending April 3, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.5 percent. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 3 was 4,639,000, an increase of 73,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,566,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,638,500, a decrease of 13,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,652,250. The fiscal year-to-date average of seasonally adjusted weekly insured unemployment, which corresponds to the appropriated AWIU trigger, was 5.217 million.
www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/current.htm

Americans Hate the Government: “ new survey found “a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government – a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.”
www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/18/92394/poll-americans-distrust-of-federal.html

Goldman/Government Sachs Lifts $3.4 billion in Profits–Tarnished by Small Time SEC Suit:
“According to the S.E.C. suit, a hedge fund manager, John Paulson, helped ACA Management select mortgage securities in 2007 that he thought had a high likelihood of defaulting, which were then bundled together by Goldman Sachs and sold to investors. When the housing market crumbled, the securities did in fact default, handing Mr. Paulson a profit of about a $1 billion, while ACA, ABN Amro and IKB, a German bank ended up on the losing end.
Goldman, the suit says, never told investors about Mr. Paulson’s role.
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/business/21goldman.html?bl

Sorkin: Wall Street as A Giant Casino (and Capitalism as a Big Company Store): ““With a synthetic C.D.O., it’s a pure bet,” said Erik F. Gerding, a former securities lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton who is now a law professor at the University of New Mexico. “It is hard to see what the social value is — it’s hard to see why you’d want to encourage these bets.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/business/20sorkin.html?ref=business

Obamagogue Supped at the Goldman Sachs Trough: $1 Million Plus: “(Bloomberg) — U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias pushed his Republican opponent in Illinois to give back donations from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. without saying whether President Barack Obama should return almost $1 million that bank employees contributed to his White House bid.
Obama, a political mentor and basketball buddy to Giannoulias, received the money from employees and their family members, making Goldman Sachs second only to the University of California as his biggest single source for donors in 2007 and 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics…Wall Street provided three of Obama’s seven biggest sources of contributors for his presidential bid. In 2007 and 2008, Goldman Sachs employees and family members gave him $994,795, Citigroup Inc. $701,290, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. $695,132.” www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aFFDRNbDQdV8&pos=9

Goldman Sachs Hires Obamaite Lawyer for First Line of Defense: “Goldman Sachs is launching an aggressive response to its political and legal challenges with an unlikely ally at its side — President Barack Obama’s former White House counsel, Gregory Craig.”
Read more: www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36056.html#ixzz0lgFLhTgs

Reminder: Obamagogue Sucking up to Banksters: “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth,” “Obama was responding to a question about new bonuses for Wall Street types Lloyd Blankfein ($9 million) and Jamie Dimon ($17 million). Obama said, “I know both those guys” and “they’re very savvy businessmen.” “http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/02/obama-i-don’t-begrudge-people-success-or-wealth/1

Video: The Golden Rule Documentary (Those Who Have the Gold Make the Rules):
goldenruledocumentary.blogspot.com/

Eye on The Bailouts (Nice Propublica Easy to Read Chart): bailout.propublica.org/main/list/simple

Buy American! (A Hot Chrysler Slogan til Fiat Bought Them): “Chrysler Group LLC lost nearly $4 billion since exiting bankruptcy last year”
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704133804575197591370809782.html?mod=WSJ_auto_IndustryCollection

The Long Downturn (Great Charts): The administration has made economic policy as if it believes that once financial institutions and financial markets are restored, credit will start flowing and growth will follow. This would be in keeping with its analysis of our economic problems, but ignores the deeper roots of the crisis, which lay not so much in the incapacity of financial institutions to lend, as in the overcapacity that has long gripped the global economy.”
growth.newamerica.net/publications/policy/the_long_downturn

On the “Look it’s Magic!” –Suffer the Little Children Unto Me Front (Tithe Lots Too):

Florida’s Mystics Push Nonsense Into Schooling: “teachers would be allowed to pray with children, behavior long frowned upon by opponents who say mixing faith and public schools marginalizes minority students. The legislation passed unanimously Tuesday in the Senate’s Education PreK-12 committee, with proponents defending it as a necessary protection of free speech”  www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/21/92552/florida-republicans-throw-support.html#ixzz0lm4UtNBO

Suffer the Rapists Unto the Cardinals: “Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the former Vatican official who sent a letter in 2001 praising a French bishop for sheltering an abusive priest, had earlier intervened, against the wishes of a U.S. bishop, on behalf of an American abuser priest, according to documents that were part of a lawsuit.” ncronline.org/news/accountability/vatican-cardinal-bucked-us-bishop-abuse

Vatican News: “The latest Vatican attempt at damage control and image recovery is really an example of history revision. The Vatican has posted to its Web site a short explanation of the 2001 motu proprio, Sacramentorum sancitatis tutela. This decree was not hidden in official secrecy and is fairly well-known throughout the world. The short article provided a summary of the main action steps for cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics. That offered nothing new. A real surprise, though, is found in one sentence: “Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed.”
This is the first time the Vatican has publicly agreed that sexual abuse of minors is not only a crime in the secular world, but one that should be reported to civil authorities. This is the first time the Vatican has publicly agreed that sexual abuse of minors is not only a crime in the secular world, but one that should be reported to civil authorities. The scandal that has been swirling around the institutional church for decades has been caused by the fact that bishops consistently did precisely the opposite of what the Vatican now presents as standard operating procedure
ncronline.org/blogs/examining-crisis/revising-history-vatican-style

Beat/Rape the Kiddies and Send the Money: “A German bishop accused of beating children decades ago when he was a priest has tendered his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI, the diocese in Augsburg said Thursday, the latest blow to the Roman Catholic Church in Germany as it grapples with a swirling sexual-abuse scandal. The accused man, Bishop Walter Mixa, was one of the church’s most prominent and outspoken conservatives in Germany, and he aggressively defended himself for weeks against charges of physically abusing children in a Bavarian orphanage. Accusations have also surfaced of financial irregularities at the orphanage’s foundation. A lawyer hired by the foundation has raised questions about thousands of dollars spent on wine, art, jewelry and even a tanning bed while Bishop Mixa was chairman of the foundation’s board in the 1990s…..(in Ireland) Bishop Moriarty’s resignation was the latest reverberation of the abuse scandal in Ireland, where two government reports last year revealed the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of Irish children and a widespread cover-up.” www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/world/europe/23germany.html?hp

Another Rapist Bishop Ducks Out: Where are the Prosecutors? “The longest-serving bishop in Belgium resigned Friday after admitting to sexually abusing “a boy in my close entourage” many years ago, becoming the latest cleric to quit in a spreading abuse scandal.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/world/europe/24vatican.html?hp

Fanatic Irrationalists Threaten to Kill Cartoon: “a blogger on www.revolutionmuslim.com warned that “South Park” co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone would end up like Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was slain for making a film critical of Islamic society.”
www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-talk-jon-stewart-south-park-0424-20100423,0,6858122.story

Obamagogue Jumps on Board With the Snake Handlers and Glossolaliaites:

“The Obama administration said yesterday it will appeal a court decision that found the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional.”
www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/04/23/obama_will_appeal_day_of_prayer_ruling/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+Boston+Globe+–+National+News

Don’t Forget the Boy Scouts! Merit Badges for Rape? On My Honor I Will… “PORTLAND, Ore. — The Boy Scouts of America were ordered Friday to pay $18.5 million in a lawsuit that has focused new attention on the secret files the Scouts keep to document claims of sexual abuse by troop leaders and volunteers. Known variously as the “perversion files,” the “red flag files” and the “ineligible volunteer files,” the documents have been maintained for more than 70 years at the Scouts’ national office in Texas. Yet even after scores of abuse cases against the Scouts in recent decades, the case here is one of the few times that substantial portions of the files have been made accessible to a jury.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/24scouts.html?hp

We Mourn the Death of Robert Hicks, Deacon For Defense: “ The Deacons, who grew to have chapters in more than two dozen Southern communities, veered sharply from the nonviolence preached by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They carried guns, with the mission to protect against white aggression, citing the Second Amendment. And they used them.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/25hicks.html?hpw

Vital Information! March on Mayday! “Albert Parsons at his hanging, “Here you will tread upon a spark, but there and there, behind you and in front of you and everywhere, flames blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out.” richgibson.com/mayday.htm

America Loses Its Second-to-Last Moral Compass (Long Live Judge Judy): 

“DEAR ABBY: I’m a 20-year-old female who has been dating my boyfriend, “Will,” for three years. Our long-distance relationship was going along just fine until the topic of his 21st birthday came up recently. Will mentioned in passing that he’s planning on going to a strip club with friends to celebrate this momentous birthday. Will says he just likes to look at women, that all men do and it’s completely fine. He didn’t seem to care how I felt about it. His mind was already made up. He wants me to be more accepting of who he is, but it turns my stomach to think of him hanging out at a strip club. Abby, is a young man in a committed relationship going to a strip club to drink and view naked women “normal”? Should I not take this so personally? Or am I right to see this as a lack of commitment to me?
— Offended in Fort Collins, Colo.
DEAR OFFENDED: If your boyfriend had attempted to hide his plans from you, or if he was planning on frequenting strip clubs alone and often, I’d say you should feel threatened. But he was open about going out to celebrate his “momentous” birthday with his friends — and plenty of women have been known to visit clubs with male dancers. So calm down. This has nothing to do with his “commitment” to you.

Thanks to Faith, Adam,  Linda, Gifford, Renee, Rosemary, Jack, Richard, AG, George and Sharon, Kelly, Bob, Sandy, Sally, The Susans, Boyd, Carl G., Pedro, Marisol, Donna, Donnie S., TC, Ricky, Steve, and Ginger.

Good luck to us, every one.

r