Why Are Things As They Are?

April 11 Einstein Releases Theory of Relativity (1905): Einstein on Why Socialism? “The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society. The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. ” monthlyreview.org/598einstein.php

April 10, 1919, Zapata Murdered: “In the course of his campaigns, Zapata distributed lands taken from the haciendas, which he frequently burned without compensation..:

Remember Proposals are Due, April 15, for the Rouge Forum Conference: rougeforumconference.org/

Send Your Articles, Photos, Cartoons, for the RF News to Community Coordinator Adam Renner (arenner@bellarmine.edu).

On the Little Rouge School Front:

AFT Sells Out DC Teachers in Innovative Ways: Accepts Merit Pay, Waltons and Broad’s Buy the Teachers, Phony Raise Included: “The private funding sources for the contract are expected to draw scrutiny from teachers and council members. The proposed pay package would be financed with grants from four private donors: the Eli and Edythe Broad, Laura and John Arnold, Robertson and Walton Family foundations….The pay package covers five years, with base salary increases of 3, 3, 5, 4 and 5 percent. If the council ratifies the deal, the first 11 percent will be paid retroactively to the District’s 3,800 teachers, who have not had a raise in nearly three years. The other major piece of the deal would allow officials more freedom in deciding whether to retain teachers who are “excessed” when schools are closed because of budget or enrollment issues. Under the proposal, teachers would be cut according to a formula that gives greatest weight to the previous year’s evaluation. Seniority would receive least weight.”
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/06/AR2010040604392.html

Opportunism, Sectarianism, Education, Ravitch, Education and Change:” What is Ravitch defending? Methods to buttress capitalism. The rest is details. She is still a propagandist for witless patriotism; the vile notion that we should ally with our nation’s ruling class as they make war on us and others. It’s suicide through class unity.” richgibson.com/opportunismravitch.html
Brit Teachers Prep Test Boycotts: “Sats only gave children the right to pass exams, not the right “to be educated in the round”. They reduced children to “little bundles of measurable outputs trained in a mechanistic model of education…”
www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/apr/06/nut-conference-sats-tests-blower

Zionists Move to Take Over Berkeley Student Government: “How are we going to beat back the anti-Israel divestment resolution at Berkeley? We’re going to make certain that pro-Israel students take over the student government and reverse the vote. That is how AIPAC operates in our nation’s capitol. This is how AIPAC must operate on our nation’s campuses.”

AIPAC: We’ll take over Cal’s student government

California Universities Steal Student Fees for Secret Projects: “California universities have faced round after round of crippling budget cuts and protests against increased fees have flared on campuses, administrators have tapped funds meant for classrooms and students to cover some extraordinary costs: losses on ill-timed real estate deals, loans to high-ranking officials and an ambitious construction project.”
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-student-funds4-2010apr04,0,2506603.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29

Let’s Revive John Brown and Do the War Again! Virginia Governor States Confederate History Month and Forgets Slavery: “McDonnell recognized he had made a “major omission” in not citing slavery, a practice that sparked the 1861-1865 Civil War between the Union of 20 free states and five border slave states and the 11 southern slave states that declared they were seceding to form a Confederacy.” “Bob McDonnell was endorsed by Sheila Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television and owner of the Washington Mystics;”
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100408/ts_alt_afp/uspoliticssocietyrace

Hot For Teachers Video (Up to You, Will this Build a Movement?):
latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/04/hot-for-teachers-video-produced-by-la-parents-protests-school-budget-cuts-.html

New York Times Loves Ratt’s Bait and Switch Success: “Plenty of states will line up for the remaining $3.4 billion. But even if the program ended today, it already has had a huge, beneficial effect on the education reform effort, especially at the state and local levels.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/opinion/08thu2.html?ref=opinion

Reminder: California Teachers Association (NEA) Spent $211.8 Million on Electoral Losses in the Last Decade:
latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2010/03/teachers-union-tops-list-of-state-political-spenders.html

More Fraud In Detroit Public School Contracts: “In the summer of 2005, Detroit businesswoman Sherry Washington and three partners sold Detroit Public Schools on a pilot wellness program for its employees. Their company, Associates for Learning, promised to educate roughly 3,000 employees on the benefits of a healthy lifestyle for $150,000.By 2006, payments to Associates for Learning had ballooned to $3.32 million, DPS alleges in a lawsuit. And yet fewer than 150 workers had taken part…The district’s claims against Associates for Learning are part of a larger lawsuit that alleges the former DPS director of risk management, Stephen Hill, and his assistant, Christina Polk-Osumah, diverted more than $57 million in improper wire transfers to a dozen vendors, including Associates for Learning. The suit claims Hill used secret offices and computer systems to hide the payments, which were made to vendors who were friends, associates or relatives of Hill and Polk-Osumah.” www.freep.com/article/20100411/NEWS01/4110512/1319/Lawsuit-Embattled-DPS-contractor-spent-lavishly

Florida Moves to Abolish Tenure: “A bill before Gov. Charlie Crist threatens to eliminate teacher tenure — one of the hallmarks of the profession.” (FEA spends millions on political action, we shall see the impact of that spending soon–in 1968 Florida had the first and only state-wide teacher strike): www.tampabay.com/news/education/tenure-reform-fight-creates-anxiety-for-florida-teachers/1086573

UTLA Makes Back-Door Concessions (concessions never save jobs, just make bosses want more): “Under the agreement, which was negotiated over several months, teachers would take an unpaid day off the Friday before Memorial Day and schools would close four days earlier for summer vacation. Seven additional instructional days would be cut from the 2010-11 academic year.” www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd11-2010apr11,0,6136114.story

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

On the Perpetual War Front:

Wikileaks Release Video of Murder of Reuters Crew and Children by US Economy/Conscript Troops:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJV1jVnPBr4  And a longer version here: wikileaks.org/

No Fly List and Surveillance Grows and Grows: “Every year, thousands of people find themselves caught up in the government’s terrorist screening process. Some are legitimate targets of concern, others are victims of errors in judgment or simple mistaken identity. Either way, their numbers are likely to rise as the Obama administration recalibrates the standards for identifying potential terrorists…” www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/us/07watch.html?scp=1&sq=no%20fly%20list&st=cse

Karzai Won’t Dance on His Puppet Strings: Out of Step and Ready to be the Afghan Diem? “With Karzai, you never know,” said Ramazan Bashardost, an Afghan lawmaker who unsuccessfully ran against him in last summer’s turbulent presidential election. “He says one thing in the morning, and another in the afternoon. And he might mean both of them.”
Concern about Karzai’s mercurial temperament is taking on strategic dimensions as the United States and its allies engage in a military buildup and prepare for what they describe as the most important offensive of the Afghanistan conflict, a campaign to wrest the southern province of Kandahar from the Taliban.”
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/asia/la-fg-karzai7-2010apr07,0,4223228.story

Henry Kissinger: War Criminal: ” As secretary of state, Henry Kissinger canceled a U.S. warning against carrying out international political assassinations that was to have gone to Chile and two neighboring nations just days before a former ambassador was killed by Chilean agents on Washington’s Embassy Row in 1976, a newly released State Department cable shows.”  www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/10/us/AP-US-Kissinger-Chile.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=kissinger%20condor&st=cse

The They Say Cutback–We Say Fightback Front:

French Workers Threaten to Blow Up Factory Facing Closure: “Workers at a factory facing closure in France have threatened to blow up the plant unless they are given better layoff compensation.” www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=122277&sectionid=351020603

Chris Hedges: Calling All Rebels: “A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object,” Camus warned. “But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.”
www.truthdig.com/report/page2/calling_all_rebels_20100308/

The Maoists are Coming! The Maoists Are Coming! “Maoist rebels in eastern India killed at least 76 paramilitary troops Tuesday, authorities said, underscoring the continued strength of an insurgency that India has tried for decades to wipe out.” www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-india-maoists7-2010apr07,0,1458060.story
and in India Today: indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/91467/Top%20Stories/73+jawans+killed+in+Chhattisgarh+Naxal+attack.html

Arundhati Roy: Walking with the Comrades (Naxalite Maoists): “The antagonists in the forest are disparate and unequal in almost every way. On one side is a massive paramilitary force armed with the money, the firepower, the media, and the hubris of an emerging Superpower.
On the other, ordinary villagers armed with traditional weapons, backed by a superbly organized, hugely motivated Maoist guerilla fighting force with an extraordinary and violent history of armed rebellion. kasamaproject.org/2010/03/21/walking-with-the-comrades/

Suit Filed vs NYC Rubber Room: “  Public school teachers and other educational personnel employed by, or formerly employed by Defendant DOE are being brought up on disciplinary charges that are pre-textual, orchestrated, and in some cases perjured and fabricated no longer have a choice of arbitrator as all other educators in NYS outside of NYC still do; they no longer have the right to a three arbitrator panel when incompetence or pedagogical judgment is at issue.”
forpubliced.blogspot.com/

Interview With a Former Revolutionary From Grenada: “People of Grenada, this revolution is for work, for food, for decent housing and health services, and for a bright future for our children and great grand-children. The benefits of the revolution will be given to everyone regardless of political opinion or which political party they support. Let us all unite as one.” blackpolitics.co.uk/2010/04/02/interview-with-a-revolutionary/

The Solidarity Forever Front:

So Long UAW; It Was Not So Good to Know Ya: “membership fell by 18 percent from 2008 to 2009, with current membership at 355,191 men and women. The job losses came courtesy of several plant closings around the country as domestic automakers struggled to right-size a footprint that was too big to sustain. And the UAW isn’t just losing people, the labor organization is also losing cash and political influence. The UAW lost a total of $69 million in assets in 2009, as cash reserves are now down to $1.12 billion. The UAW is spending less money in Washington as well, as the rank and file spent $9.7 million on lobbying efforts in 2009, down from $10.6 million in 2008. Even long-time union boss Ron Gettelfinger took a bit of a haircut in 2009 as his pay was cut by $1,000 to $173,069.  (The UAW lost another 45oo members when the last auto plant in California closed in April ‘10. Today the largest UAW local is not auto workers, but Michigan State Employees, sold out as usual by Quisling mis-leaders.)
www.autoblog.com/2010/04/02/report-2009-uaw-membership-fell-to-lowest-figure-since-wwii/

Unite With Your Boss Caucus Still Runs the UFT While Members Hold Their Noses and Don’t Vote (George Schmidt):The participation rate this year was about 32 percent — slightly higher than in 2007, when about 30 percent of union members voted. Of 114,000 active union members, about 27,500 voted. That participation rate of 24 percent is an increase from 22 percent three years ago, but still down from 29 percent in 2004. Of the union’s 53,000 retired members, about 25,000 voted, or about 47 percent, up from 38 percent in 2007.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1300&section=Article

On the Ooops there Goes the Economy Front:

Urgent Financial Crises in Detroit and LA (looks like evil twins wrote these assessments);
LA: “ The city’s top financial official issued a grim assessment of the escalating budget crisis Monday, warning that Los Angeles could be unable to pay its bills in just over four weeks.
City Controller Wendy Greuel declared an “urgent financial crisis” and said the only way to continue paying bills in the short term was to begin to drain the city’s already limited emergency reserve.
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-la-city-budget6-2010apr06,0,2012176.story

And Detroit: “The city’s dramatic population loss, high unemployment and other ills have had adverse effects on the city. And now government must respond in a dramatic way to downsize and make sound budget choices, the report argues.”
From The Detroit News: detnews.com/article/20100405/METRO01/4050389#ixzz0kIPJDnv5

GM and Chrysler Pension Funds Underfunded by $17 Billion (guess who gets the tab?): “If either company’s plan must be terminated, the government would become liable for paying benefits to hundreds of thousands of retirees. The effect on the government’s pension insurer, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, would be “unprecedented,” the report said. The agency manages plans with assets totaling $68.7 billion, less than the $84.5 billion in G.M.’s plan alone…The plans cover about 650,000 people at G.M. and 250,000 at Chrysler. The Treasury Department owns 61 percent of G.M. and 10 percent of Chrysler as a result of the emergency loans the carmakers received last year. The government spent $81 billion bailing out the companies and others in the auto industry.
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/business/07cars.html?hp

GM Lost $4.3 Billion So Far in 2009: “In 2008, GM lost $30.9 billion. During that year’s third and fourth quarters, GM lost $12.1 billion.” www.freep.com/article/20100407/BUSINESS01/100407028/1318/GM-lost-4.3-billion-during-2nd-half-of-2009

Inverse Merit Pay: Mr Prince can You Explain the $12.5 Million, Please?: “In 2007, Mr. Prince resigned from Citigroup under pressure, after the bank announced that it had written down $5.9 billion to account for the declining value of its mortgage assets and would most likely write down $8 billion to $11 billion more. (Boy, was that estimate off; those write-downs actually added up to tens of billions.) As a thank-you present for running the bank into the ground, the board gave Mr. Prince a parting gift valued at $12.5 million.
www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/business/06sorkin.html

Domhoff’s Update on Who Rules America: “In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2009)”:
sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

On the “Look it’s Magic!” –Give Me Your $ and Kids Front:

New Boss for LA: “Gomez is a former member of Opus Dei, a conservative and controversial Catholic organization (known to most Americans because of its unflattering role in “The DaVinci Code,” which Opus Dei leaders denounced as misleading and offensive). latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/04/archbishop-jose-gomez-vows-to-be-advocate-for-los-angeles-immigrants-and-the-less-fortunate.html

How Do They Do It? “Thus, the final cost of the new Los Angeles cathedral was $189.7 million.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Our_Lady_of_the_Angels

Classics and Poems: Becht:

A Worker Reads History:

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima’s houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
The night the seas rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.

Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War.
Who triumphed with him?

Each page a victory
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?

So many particulars.
So many questions.

For Zapatat: Recuerdo:

Little star in the night
that rides the sky like a witch
where is our chief Zapata
who was the scourge of the rich?

Little flower of the fields
and valleys of Morelos,
if they ask for Zapata,
say he’s gone to try on halos.

Little bubbling brook,
what did that carnation say to you?
It says our chief didn’t die.
that Zapata’s on his way to you.

-corrido mexicano

But Wait! The Season is Begun! Spectacles! Flyovers! Flags! Anthems! and THE Game!

Vital Information! MLB predictions from five of the most knowledgeable and bias baseball experts in North America and the Caribbean. blogs.ubc.ca/ross/2010/04/mlb-2010-prognostications/

Song : Guthrie: This Land Is… www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaI5IRuS2aE

Thanks to Sean, Doug, Faith, Candace, Marisol, Crystal, AG,  Barb, Danny, Donna, Carol O., Sandy H., Sue H., Ronna, Toby, Terry, Sherry, Ken and Barb, Amber, Wayne, Tommie and Bob, Mr J and Mr Z, Judy T., Bobbie, Marisol, Ed B., Ruben and Jasmine, George S and George L, Peter M, Steve and Eric H, and Bonnie (good health to you!).

Good luck to us, every one.

r