Why Are Things As They Are?

June 19: Juneteenth

1865 – Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are finally informed of their freedom. The anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 13 other contiguous states as Juneteenth.

1982 – The body of God’s Banker, Roberto Calvi is found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London. USE CALVI DEAD and background
www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/269.html

June 20 1979 ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart is shot dead by a Nicaraguan soldier


June 21 1964 – Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

June 21 1945 – World War II: The Battle of Okinawa ends. Fascist Die. Fat Man/Little Boy Next
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcIAgtmrDyk

Little Red Schoolhouse:

Kellen Blumberg, High School Essay Winner, on the Ratt: “In fact, tests have shown that the emphasis on standardized testing has actually led to a reduced amount of “teaching higher-order thinking, time spent on complex problems, and amount of high-cognitive context in the curriculum.” National standardized testing has led to a teaching style that is less innovative and more rigid. Creative teaching styles have been shackled by new standards, and the importance of high test scores has taken precedence over the value of genuine learning. Standardized testing has led teachers to “teach to the test” instead of instilling the fundamental principles of critical thinking,” www.voiceofsandiego.org/peoplespost/essaycontest/article_51477dd6-7a49-11df-a978-001cc4c03286.html

Duncan Loves Those Ed-Union Hacks and His Ratt: “Mr. Duncan used his time with the lawmakers to say that the administration does not view charter schools as the answer to closing the achievement gap between affluent students and their low-income peers. He also went out of his way to downplay what he said was the media’s misportrayal of the administration’s agenda as a battle between education reformers and teachers’ unions.”Resist those easy platitudes and narratives,” he said. “There are dozens of examples of breathtaking union leadership.”
blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2010/06/arne_duncan_courts_state_lawmakers_for_reform_agenda.html

What Actually Does Motivate People?

CSU System Fees Hiked Again: “California State University Board of Trustees on Friday approved a 5% fee increase for undergraduate students for the fall, taking action at a special board meeting in Long Beach. The fee hike translates to a $204 increase for full-time undergraduates, bringing the total university fee to $4,230 for the 2010-2011 academic year. Including campus fees, the cost for an undergraduate to attend a Cal State campus would rise to $5,097…Last fall, undergraduate fees rose 32%, after an unprecedented reduction in state support, resulting in a deficit of $584 million.” latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/at-board-meeting-in-long-beach-cal-state-raises-student-fees-another-5.html

D.C. Teachers Ratify Merit Pay Contract: “Teachers in D.C. have voted overwhelmingly to ratify a tentative union agreement, a deal that’s been almost three years in the making. More than 1,400 union members voted in favor of the contract, while approximately 400 voted against it.”
wamu.org/news/10/06/02.php

NYTimes Letters: Big Tests Create Big Cheats: “Testing is fine as long as it has no high-stakes results; test scores along with other information help us know what reforms are working, as the editorial points out. But once these tests are linked to high-stakes consequences, like teacher pay, tenure or the closing of schools, the results are no longer dependable for diagnostic purposes, either for schools or individuals.” www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/opinion/l19teach.html


We Say Fightback !!!

Puerto Rico Students and Community Win! “The government’s credibility and strategy were battered by the student’s overwhelming victory which had paralyzed the entire University of Puerto Rico system and surprised everyone with technological and judicial superiority, its willingness to resist the police, and its model of direct democracy which made the national political institution look bad. After suffering losses that the government itself calculated at $305 million in the frustrated struggle against the students, the university leadership had to accept all of the economic demands made by the strikers and postpone a plan designed in January of 2009 in the Santa Catalina Palace by the then recently inaugurated governor Luis Fortuno so that the government would keep the increase in the subsidy sent by the United States for students.”
alainet.org/active/38969&lang=es

Student Strike In Puerto Rico, Ignored by Media, Still On: “A majority of the island’s population has also taken the strikers’ side. Tired of how double-digit unemployment and poverty continue to wrack Puerto Rico’s economy, they are watching closely as students’ final confrontation with government authorities draws near….Over seven weeks later, students still have control of the university — and they haven’t been idle. They’ve organized an urban garden, daily lectures, poetry readings and an online radio station — all while the police surrounding the school viciously beat family members and students who try to get food or water to the protestors.” race.change.org/blog/view/students_shut_down_puerto_ricos_largest_university_us_media_ignores_them

Chicago Teachers Union CORE Caucus Upends Old Crooks in Landslide Vote: From the CORE web site– We support:
• Capping CTU officer and staff salaries to the average teacher salary prorated over 12 months.
• Limit standardized tests. Ban using test results to punish, label or denigrate schools, students or teachers.
• Repeal mayoral control of schools and restore our right to collectively bargain class sizes, counselor loads and stop school closings and reconstitutions.
• Lead legislation to fund all schools equitably and return all TIF (Tax Increment Financing) funds to each school taxing district.
www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1472&section=Article (George Schmidt)
coreteachers.com/

Teachers Anti-War Protest Draws Attention: “When D-Y resource Officer Nicholas R. Pasquarosa Jr. addressed the crowd, comparing the volunteer enlistees to a sheepdog standing between the flock and a wolf, Verani and Koscher stood on the bleachers and held an “end war” sign while everyone else sat. What to many was a sign of respect for the students was to the protesting teachers a recruiting moment, said Verani, who noted that assistant principal George Morrison, a National Guardsman, attended in military fatigues.” freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2534820/posts

Hedges–The Greeks Get It! “They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it.”
www.truth-out.org/chris-hedges-the-greeks-get-it59807

Video: Chinese Workers Strike Honda (2): www.euronews.net/2010/06/11/honda-hit-by-another-chinese-strike/

Perpetual War Front:

Still Awaiting the Deluge of Self-Criticism From “Leaders” Who Urged the Obamagogue Vote:
“Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy and beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and other radical groups, according to senior military and administration officials.  Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year…One advantage of using “secret” forces for such missions is that they rarely discuss their operations in public. For a Democratic president such as Obama, who is criticized from either side of the political spectrum for too much or too little aggression, the unacknowledged CIA drone attacks in Pakistan, along with unilateral U.S. raids in Somalia and joint operations in Yemen, provide politically useful tools. Obama, one senior military official said, has allowed “things that the previous administration did not.” ”
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060304965.html

Bob Herbert: “The U.S. doesn’t win wars anymore. We just funnel the stressed and underpaid troops in and out of the combat zones, while all the while showering taxpayer billions on the contractors and giant corporations that view the horrors of war as a heaven-sent bonanza. BP, as we’ve been told repeatedly recently, is one of the largest suppliers of fuel to the wartime U.S. military. Seven American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan on Monday but hardly anyone noticed. www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/opinion/12herbert.html?src=me&ref=homepage

New Strategy! Hug the Thug! “ Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s team once talked openly about the need to remove Ahmed Wali Karzai, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s brother and the most powerful man in Kandahar, from power. Last October, as reports of Wali Karzai’s role in the opium trade were circulating, McChrystal’s intelligence chief Gen. Michael T. Flynn said, “If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy in Afghanistan, and we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves.”  www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51566

Yippee! We’re Rich! We’re Rich! “The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe. An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries. www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?hp

Wait, We Already Knew We’re Rich! So, Why Did We Know it Again? “The problem is, what the NYT describes as “beyond any previously known reserves” and “the previously unknown deposits”, were in fact quite well known – in 2007, well before President Obama made the fateful decision to send thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan.”
communities.canada.com/shareit/blogs/reality/archive/2010/06/14/us-knew-about-afghan-mineral-bonanza-in-2007.aspx

Total Shocker! Fill A Country With Troops–There’s VIOLENCE!!! “Afghanistan is increasingly dangerous for troops and civilians alike, the report says, citing an ‘alarming’ 94% increase in IED attacks alone in the first four months of 2010, compared to last year. Suicide bombings and political killings also have risen.”http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghanistan-report-20100620,0,4978503.story

Why Kandahar? Draw the TAPI Pipeline Routes:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGMzfWvpB0E

Solidarity Forever:

Above: AFL Goons Sweeney and Trumka

UAW Bosses Have Retiree Arrested For Leafletting:
A United Auto Workers retiree was briefly handcuffed outside Cobo Center today for trying to hand out pamphlets critical of union leadership. From The Detroit News: www.detnews.com/article/20100613/METRO/6130329/UAW-retiree-handcuffed-for-passing-out-leaflets-at-Cobo-Center#ixzz0qlPEdN1V

King Crowned at UAW Party:”Democracy in action!” UAW President Ron Gettelfinger yelled to a cheering crowd. Gettelfinger and the union’s executive board endorsed King’s candidacy.
King’s nomination was loudly cheered by many of the delegates in the morning. He can only run for one term because of the union’s mandatory 65-and-out retirement policy.Dissident Walkowicz was roundly booed by many delegates on the convention floor as he spoke briefly at the podium in the morning. Some delegates even yelled “withdraw” at Walkowicz. From The Detroit News: www.detnews.com/article/20100616/AUTO01/6160387/Bob-King-wins-UAW-presidency#ixzz0r555yyQR

Oops There Goes the Economy


More than One in Five USA Kids Live in Poverty: “The rate of children living in poverty this year will climb to nearly 22%, the highest rate in two decades, according to an analysis by the non-profit Foundation for Child Development. Nearly 17% of children were living in poverty in 2006, before the recession began.” www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-06-08-1Achild08_ST_N.htm

Soros–Now, Stage Two of the Crisis: “Billionaire investor George Soros said “we have just entered Act II” of the crisis as Europe’s fiscal woes worsen and governments are pressured to curb budget deficits that may push the global economy back into recession.“The collapse of the financial system as we know it is real, and the crisis is far from over,” Soros said today at a conference in Vienna. “Indeed, we have just entered Act II of the drama.” Soros, 79, said the current situation in the world economy is “eerily” reminiscent of the 1930s with governments under pressure to narrow their budget deficits at a time when the economic recovery is weak.
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=aY_SHqr1LQhk

There Goes Greece: “June 15 (Bloomberg) — Greece’s credit rating was cut to non-investment grade by Moody’s Investors Service, threatening to further undermine demand for the nation’s assets as it struggles to rein in the euro region’s second-biggest deficit.”
www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-15/greece-cut-to-junk-by-moody-s-on-substantial-risks-update2-.html

Emerging Fascism

Obamagogue in Court: “One reason many people supported a Democrat for President was that they hoped it would prevent the nomination of far-right Supreme Court justices. Instead, President Obama has nominated a female candidate whose sole criteria is her relative inoffensiveness to the right. This is no advance for women. We need justices willing to uphold human rights.”http://queerartist.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/on-the-nonimation-of-elena-kagan/

Merc SAIC chasing $2 billion in defense contracts:
“ Science Applications International Corp., which has more than 3,900 employees in San Diego, is pursing a series of Defense Department contracts that have a collective value of $2 billion, the company says. The Defense Department gave SAIC a contract of unspecified size to to work with other contractors to improve and create software and equipment that gets real-time information to the military more quickly. The work also is meant to distribute information more broadly and easily, especially to combat units.”
www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jun/14/saic-chasing-huge-defense-contract/

Red Cross Declares Gaza Blockade Illegal: “ The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has described Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip as a violation of the Geneva Conventions and called on the Israeli government to lift it.In a statement released on Monday, the organisation called the blockade “collective punishment”, a crime under international law. It described Gaza as a territory plagued by frequent power cuts, a ruined economy, and a collapsed health care system. english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201061452646659588.html

Brits: “Bloody Sunday? Sorry ‘Bout That (oh and the years since too)”:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY0sgIbSBwA

Spy vs Spy
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuhzlDxfAQ0

Holy Crap! The ISI is Up to Its Neck in Taliban! “Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency not only funds and trains Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, but also maintains its own representation on the insurgency’s leadership council, claims a new report issued by the London School of Economics.” www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-isi-20100614,0,863571.story

Bill Blum on Remnick’s Coverup for the Obamagogue:
David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker magazine and former Washington Post reporter, has a new book out, “The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama”. In the three pages Remnick devotes to Obama’s 1983-4 employment at Business International Corporation in New York he makes no mention of the well-known ties between BIC and the CIA. In 1977, for example, the New York Times revealed that BIC had provided cover for four CIA employees in various countries during earlier years of the Cold War; 10BIC also attempted to penetrate the radical left, including Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). 11 Did Remnick not think it at all interesting and worthy of mention that the future president worked for more than a year with a company that was a CIA asset? Even if the company and the CIA made no attempt to recruit Obama, which in fact they may have done? It’s this kind of obvious omission that helps feed the left’s conspiracy thinking.Because Remnick has impeccable establishment credentials the book has been widely reviewed. But none of the many reviewers has seen fit to mention this omission. And the way it works of course is that if it’s not mentioned, it didn’t happen. And if you mention such a thing, you’re a pathetic conspiracy theorist. Like me, who discussed it in the January edition of this report.  killinghope.org/bblum6/aer82.html

The Heavens Weep:

The Obamagogue Gushes Up Predictable Swill: “  Tonight, we pray for that courage.  We pray for the people of the Gulf.  And we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a brighter day.  Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless the United States of America.”
blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2010/06/the-obama-speech-word-for-word.html

The BP Obamagogue Gusher is Not Your Fault (Mine neither):
“No, the BP oil volcano in the Gulf of Mexico is not your fault, despite what many pundits will tell you. Back in the 1960s when the environmental movement got going, major US corporations responsible for much of the nation’s pollution decided to fight it by paying for television advertising that urged individuals not to litter, thus implying that pollution is produced by anarchic individuals rather than by organized businesses. It was a crock then and it is a crock now…You did not demand that BP consistently cut safety corners more than any other petroleum company, thus resulting in the Deepwater Horizon calamity, which could end up costing the economy of the Gulf of Mexico literally hundreds of billions of dollars this year.”
www.juancole.com/

Hey! BP Boss! Kill Yourself! : “BP America President Lamar McKay probably expected to hear some harsh words from lawmakers today during his congressional testimony about the Gulf oil spill, but he probably didn’t expect to hear one congressman suggest that other cultures would ask him to kill himself.” www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20007795-503544.html

BP Thugs Threaten Reporter on Public Beach: “Private security guards patrolling an oil-stained portion of Grand Isle attempted repeatedly to prevent a WDSU news crew from walking on a public beach and speaking with cleanup workers — a confrontation that followed a BP corporate promise not to interfere in such a manner.
It was the second day in a row WDSU News anchor Scott Walker was approached by hired security in the area.” www.wdsu.com/news/23876961/detail.html

They Lied, Lied and Lied Some More. Who? All of the Bastards (and they’re still at it): “The new estimate, that the flow rate ranges from 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day, is a sharp increase from one issued only last week, of 25,000 to 30,000 barrels a day. It continues a pattern in which every new estimate of the flow rate has been sharply higher than the one before. The current range is far above the figure of 5,000 barrels a day that the government clung to for weeks after the spill started after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/us/16spill.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1276640681-FEPPQXIbav0T6QoFaXmCKA

Gushing Until Christmas? “One of the world’s leading authorities on oil well management has warned it could take until Christmas to cap the Gulf of Mexico spill that is devastating the southern coast of America – and BP’s reputation. Nansen Saleri, a Gulf drilling expert, said he hoped BP would meet its August timetable for capping the blown-out well, but made it clear success was not certain.” www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/13/bp-oil-spill-timetable

BBC Video: “We at BP Care About the Small People”: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10338351.stm

BP Goes Yachting:

Hey Look! Magic!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVuh3RjCrZ4
God Hates Graven Images: “A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.”

God Hates BP: “…BP’s ill-fated relief efforts to stop the damaged well hit yet another snag, underscoring once again the fragility of the containment effort: lightning struck the vessel that had been collecting the oil from the well, suspending operations for nearly five hours from 9:30 a.m. Central time until 2:15 p.m.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/us/16spill.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1276640681-FEPPQXIbav0T6QoFaXmCKA

Flying Spaghetti Monster Spotted In Germany:


Letter from Dr Kauffman to the Pretender, Dr Laura (Judge Judy is America’s Last True Moral Compass): www.snopes.com/politics/religion/drlaura.asp

The Weekly Infuriator: Quoting from the Web Site of UAW Local 6000 (Michigan State Employees, now the largest local in the UAW) : “As the most democratic Union (sic) in the world, the UAW elected Bob King as their new international president…”
www.uawlocal6000.org/

Best Thing in the History of the World: US Military Policy Tipped Over–McCain Puzzled:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tjFKGM2IHY (6:40)

Worst thing in the History of the World: Detroit School Board Top Loves Playtime!:
“At least one Detroit Public Schools board member said today he has no problem with board president Otis Mathis remaining on the board amid allegations that he fondled himself in a meeting with the superintendent. Reverend David Murray said Mathis took responsibility for his bad behavior toward DPS Superintendent Teresa Gueyser.“He’s a young man; maybe he didn’t know it was offensive to her,” Murray said of the 55-year-old Mathis. “It’s not something I would do. He’s a young man. That’s just the way it is.”
www.freep.com/article/201006181225/NEWS01/100618036

Channel 7 on the Infamous Playboy Otis Mathis: Community or Barbarism in the City?
www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/region/detroit/woman-accuses-detroit-school-board-president-of-fondling-himself-during-meeting

No Comment from Otis Mathis:

What was He/She Thinking???

Do Not Shoot Yourself to Get Health Care: www.wdsu.com/video/23892419/index.html?source=CNN

The Only Solution to the Myriad Problems of Out Time–Battling Depression:

Classics:

From Friend and Professor Fredy Perlman: “Neither natural nor cultural barriers halt the spread of Capital, the transformation of people’s daily activity into alienated labor, the transformation of their surplus labor into the “private property” of capitalists. However, Capital is not a natural force; it is a set of activities performed by people every day; it is a form of daily life; its continued existence and expansion presuppose only one essential condition: the disposition of people to continue to alienate their working lives and thus reproduce the capitalist form of daily life.”     http://libcom.org/library/reproduction-everyday-life-fredy-perlman

So Long, Joan Hinton: a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atom bomb, but spent most of her life as a committed Maoist working on dairy farms in China, died on Tuesday in Beijing. She was 88.
www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/science/12hinton.html
Thanks to AG, Bob, Sharon and George, Kevin, Faith, Adam and Gina on the road, Perry, Kate, Sherry, Marc, Bonnie, Ben and Cheryl, Sherri, Donna, Betty, Don, Doug and Connie, Tony Amigo Uno, Marisol, Arturo, Pete, Weird Eric, Yvonne, Gerri and Bea, Bonnie M, Eva,  Marion B, The Susans, and Ron Sweed.

Good luck to us, every one.
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