Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

41 Votes Divide Incumbent from Insurgent in Detroit Fed Vote:
In an extraordinarily close vote, incumbent Detroit Federation of Teachers President, Keith Johnson, claimed formal victory over insurgent radical teacher, Steve Conn, by 41 votes, 1974 to 1933. This announcement appeared on the DFT website at 7:00 p.m. EST on Saturday, January 15th.

Tellingly, the incumbent caucus swept the remaining open office seats by a much wider margin, averaging 55% to 45. Mark O’Keefe, the winning vice-presidential candidate, won with 58.8 percent of the vote while Felicia Clark, also of the incumbent slate, won by 55%.
It is uncertain whether a recount will be offered to the Conn slate, called Defend Public Education. However, Conn is represented by one of the finest lawyers in the U.S., George Washington, who has repeatedly sued the Detroit Public School system, and often won.
Insiders at the vote count indicated that as many as 250 substitute teachers’ and others’ votes remain uncounted. At this writing, the charge cannot be substantiated. The phone at the DFT offices went unanswered.
Even so, one insider at the count stated that the election committee would order a recount for Wednesday, January 19th. richgibson.com/DFTElection.htm

The Detroit Federation of Teachers Election (background):

Audio Pre-election Debate Between Insurgent Teacher Steve Conn and Keith Johnson, Detroit Federation of Teachers President: wdet.org/audio/craigfahle/286/CFS_1-12_Podcast.mp3

Jack Gerson On Oakland Education Association Demonstration:

The Bail Out Schools Not Bank demo. More than fifty Oakland teachers (members of the Oakland Education Association) and allies staged a spirited protest today (January 14) calling for reversing priorities to bail out schools, not banks, and to end foreclosures. The demonstrators delivered their message at three Oakland bank branches — Wells Fargo, Chase, and Bank of America — all in the Rockridge Shopping Center. Their message was that the $4.7 trillion bailout of the big banks came at the expense of schools, essential public services, and the nine million families who have lost their homes to bank foreclosures. This message resonated with the many passing motorists who honked their horns in support, and to many bank customers and shoppers who voiced their agreement that something is very wrong when banks are “too big to fail” but schools, workers and families are apparently just the right size to sacrifice.
Today’s action began with a rally in front of the Chase branch at 4:30. At 5 PM the protesters marched to the Bank of America branch, where they picketed before moving on to Wells Fargo. At about 5:30 PM, OEA President Betty Olson-Jones led a delegation into the Wells Fargo branch and presented the branch manager with a letter to be delivered to Wells Fargo President John Stumpf. The letter called on Wells Fargo to organize a bank bailout of the Oakland school debt; to publicly endorse increased taxation of bank and corporate profits; to endorse a “split-roll” property tax to tax corporate property at higher rates than homes; and ending foreclosures by adjusting mortgages to reflect homes’ reduced market values. The delegation remained in the bank branch until the letter was faxed to Mr. Stumpf.
OEA and its allies were greatly encouraged by the community’s enthusiastic and sympathetic response, and believe it shows that there is real potential for a mass campaign to set priorities straight and to show that there’s not a lack of money — it’s just not going to the right places. (Media coverage was also heartening).

Zapatistas: We Don’t Do Kidnappings!: it is well known that the EZLN has demonstrated, in its’ history and practices throughout 27 years, from its inception until this day, it does not carry out kidnappings. It is against their principals. For this reason, the EZLN has neither the development nor the organizational structure nor the physical infrastructure to undertake these types of actions. From the year 1994 when the Zapatistas declared a cease fire, in order to give an opportunity to construct a just and dignified peace, they have kept their word. This can not be said about the Mexican government that has politically, economically, and militarily attacked from the 1st of January in ’94 until this day.

Jasmine Revolution of Students and Workers Overthrows Tunisia’s US-Backed Tyrant and More to Come (Class Struggle–Not Islamic Reaction):

Saudi Arabia has welcomed Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his family a day after they fled an mass uprising in their country…

Friday’s developments come following weeks of violent clashes across the country over unemployment and rising food prices.

Matters came to a head in the capital, Tunis, on Friday, as police tear-gassed protesters gathered outside the interior ministry building demanding Ben Ali’s resignation, even after the president had delivered a speech the night before offering major concessions…

The unrest in the country began on December 17, after a 26-year-old unemployed graduate set himself on fire in an attempt to commit suicide. Mohammed Bousazizi’s act of desperation set off the public’s growing frustration with rising inflation and unemployment, and prompted a wave of protests across the country. english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/20111153616298850.html

Detroit Musicians Still on Strike: Speaking from the stage at the Majestic Café on Woodward, cellist Haden McKay pointed to last week’s announcement by DSO leaders that said the executive board was considering “suspending” the remainder of this season and “indefinitely deferring” the announcement of next season. At the same time, McKay said that DSO executives, staff and music director Leonard Slatkin would continue to draw salaries.
“When there are no concerts we have to ask what are they doing for a year or two years in their offices to earn these paychecks,” said McKay, flanked at a press event by about 20 fellow musicians, four owners of Midtown restaurants and three toddlers belonging to musicians. www.freep.com/article/20110112/ENT04/110112017/1319/Musicians-push-back-at-perceived-DSO-threat

Little Red Schoolhouse

Close Look at Gates/Broad et. al, and Schools (for a closer look see Ohanian/Emery “Why is Corporate American Bashing Schools?”)

Hundreds of private philanthropies together spend almost $4 billion annually to support or transform K–12 education, most of it directed to schools that serve low-income children (only religious organizations receive more money). But three funders—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad (rhymes with road) Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation—working in sync, command the field. Whatever nuances differentiate the motivations of the Big Three, their market-based goals for overhauling public education coincide: choice, competition, deregulation, accountability, and data-based decision-making. And they fund the same vehicles to achieve their goals: charter schools, high-stakes standardized testing for students, merit pay for teachers whose students improve their test scores, firing teachers and closing schools when scores don’t rise adequately, and longitudinal data collection on the performance of every student and teacher. Other foundations—Ford, Hewlett, Annenberg, Milken, to name just a few—often join in funding one project or another, but the education reform movement’s success so far has depended on the size and clout of the Gates-Broad-Walton triumvirate.  http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3781

Congratulations to George Rigakos on this Publication!

The International War of the Rich on the Dispossessed:

Defacto Unemployment Rate Hits 26.98%: cwcs.ysu.edu/resources/cwcs-projects/defacto

Demagogic  Class Warrior from Above, Obamagogue, Calls for Imperialist Peace and Nationalist Unity: One Left Response to the Tucson Shootings (Alan Spector):
Every organism struggling to survive employs “trial and error”, whether always consciously or not — gravitating towards whatever actions work for the moment. Intellectuals and/or scientists try to discern patterns of regularity out of this contingent set of actions. It is important to discern patterns to be able to predict, but often the error is made where one assumes that the pattern is consciously causing the whole process out of some sort of “desire”, rather than out of the sheer necessity of trying anything to survive. There are many expressions for this in American English:

“Bet on all horses” or “Throw everything against the wall and see what sticks”.

Capitalism is a closed-ended class system. It cannot keep growing forever so as it begins to approach its limits, its once powerful expansive energy turns inward to cannibalism (among firms and institutions and even people) and from within nations, resorts to more primitive forms of accumulation of wealth (war) in order to meet its short term needs of survival.

All institutions are based on contradictions. They are not “solid” in the way that we perceive giant stone fortresses. To deal with the chaos brought on by each individual firm’s necessary drive for short term profits, major factions of the capitalist class come up with strategies to: 1) restore some Order, lest the system as a whole crumble–this Order requires disciplining major sections of the capitalist class as well as (obviously) further driving down the wages of the working class and stifling or suppressing dissent; and 2) making sure that the CONTENT of the “Order” ensures that one’s own interests within the capitalist system are protected — others, including other capitalists, would make the sacrifices.

The contradiction is one of Organized Chaos — the Chaos comes from the unbridled necessity for firms to accumulate profits or die. The Organization is imposed, forcibly, through political/military methods to prevent the system from completely collapsing by ensuring economic, political, and military discipline (so necessary to prepare for international war, because nations do not just disappear under the grinding international processes of capitalism–some collapse and other formations are created.)

A tendency in human thought/experience is to deal with the stress of contradictions by trying to ease the discomfort–often by just wishfully grabbing onto one seemingly secure side of the contradiction as a way to oppose the other. This may be accompanied by all sorts of intellectual/theoretical rationalizations, but is often driven by a desire to just have the feeling of “peace” that comes with believing/hoping that the struggle to understand the complexities of the situation is over and a clear strategic plan of action now can go forward. This is what Marxists, and others, might call “undialectical” thinking — emphasizing either one-sidedness or an arbitrary compromise between two inevitably opposing forces that only creates temporary peace, but with an anesthetizing sense of relief for the moment.

All institutions are processes and all processes are based on, among other things, the contradictory processes of “trial-error-action-trial-error-action” — endlessly until the institution/process is qualitatively transformed. In a sense, all systems are based on “Contingency–Necessity (not in an Inevitable sense, but in a regularity of patterns sense). This takes the form of “Chaos–Order”. In times where survival is threatened, both sides of the contradiction become sharper and the contradiction itself becomes more intense as various parts of the system seek to protect their own interests/ survival with little thought to the kinds of “intellectual consistency” that intellectuals always seek to uncover as the supposed “root cause”. Perhaps this is because intellectuals deal with ideas so much and get habituated/comfortable with the idea that ideas are the main unit/ level of change that causes change and creates stability. Ideas are important, but it is just another form of short-sightedness to conclude that since “I have an idea and then I commit an action”, that therefore, ideas are the root of action. And therefore, that one only has to EXPLAIN the damage of various strategies to those doing it in order to CONVINCE them of the irrationality of these actions.

Within political-economic-social-cultural-psychological systems whose survival is more threatened, various factions among those in power will oscillate between the two strategies. When they have an opportunity for gain by encouraging more chaos (“deregulation”), they will promote that. When this “chaos” threatens either the individual interests of some of the ruling groups and/ or threatens the stability of the whole system, then various forms of “order” are imposed.

If this seems contradictory, keep in mind that the Nazis simultaneously tried to immerse the population in myths about ancient Viking warriors and the blood and soil of some imaginary Aryan race, the sweet comfort of a mythological rural society freed from the confusion and alienation of modern stressful relativistic urban life (and immigrants) while also calling themselves the creators of a New Order, with gleaming steel weapons of war. It doesn’t matter what works–throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.

The danger, then, is in embracing either side of the contradiction in a one-sided way, without understanding that the glue that holds this whole oppressive system together is the exploitation of humans by other humans — class exploitation/oppression.

It is good to oppose the chaos, the irrationalism, the anti-scientific, superstitious myths pushed by fascists and their allies — even teaching biological evolution correctly is a blow against this social decay and fascism. But this all must be tempered with the understanding that this is only one part of the contradiction, and embracing “Order” wholeheartedly — well, for example, decrying violence in cities and calling for more cameras on street corners….or decrying terrorism and calling for government power or correctly decrying the selfish, irrationalist, ” feel good” bullying that underpins much of the pro-gun culture but then asking that the government — the ones who have “nonviolently” imprisoned 2.5 million people in the USA and killed countless millions–yes, countless millions — so THESE are the ones we should trust to control guns? Many, many in the tradition of the scientific, rational aspect of Marxism — economic determinists, today’s Social Democrats and “moderate socialists”, liberals, etc. make that mistake. In opposition to the Taliban, they supported the military of the most murderous ruling class in world history — and inadvertently (?) helped build support for the war against Iraq, for example. Oppose the chaos and selfish collapse of society — but not by rebuilding the oppressive structures that kill so many and will lead to the same type of collapse later on.
On the other side are those who oppose the hegemonic control of the State. They call for alternative institutions, oppose the generally “Rich White Male” definitions of what is normal. Some anarchists, some out of the “post-modern” tradition, some “identity politics” folks take on aspects of this. It is important to challenge the arrogance of the powerful who try to impose their rule by force of Authority. But taken in a one-sided way, this can lead to irrationalist, “me-first” selfishness posing as “individual rights against the Big Bad Government”.
(This is where the Marxist understanding of class processes is important. If we see human freedom from alienation as being suppressed by denying the connectivity/collectivity/ inseparable parts of our lives, and if we see human freedom from alienation as being suppressed by forcibly imposing an artificial “collectivity” based on identification in one way or another with the ruling class — then we can understand that neither narrow economic determinism/collectivism nor the idealistic hopes of anarchists and liberals can provide the means for liberation from this “unfreedom”, without eliminating class exploitation, the processes where one group of people controls the labor, the lives of others. There is a lot of insight in the simple phrase: “From each according to ability; to each according to need” which not only calls for “equality” but also the full expression of positive human creativity. Without that understanding, we end up with a kind of neo-Weberian preoccupation with ideas as the source of these problems—–or a neo-Durkheimian preoccupation with ideas as the source of these problems. Of course ideas are important. We’re human. It’s our “ideas” that are a major part of that. But change won’t come mainly from convincing the oppressor with the logic of our ideas. They DON’T CARE. They are only trying to survive.)

So back to the main point: Who falls for these kinds of one-sided investment in Abstract Absolutes? All of us who invest too much in abstract slogans as if they were Absolutely True at all times. The problem is that they are conditional and furthermore, often contradict each other. “Peace”, “non-violence”, “free speech”, “self-determination”, “sovereignty”, “Rule of Law” — these and more all have important valuable elements, but when taken in a one-sided way can actually reinforce the ability of the exploitative, oppressive capitalist class to build movements and cultural trends that strengthen their oppressive rule.

So all these rambling thoughts are leading to this:

As we oppose the more irrationalist proto-fascist (and I mean that literally) trends in society, let us be very careful that we do not put ourselves into an alliance with those who will claim to oppose them, (but mainly for their own purposes), and who will continue to maintain oppression just as severe as the more obviously irrationalist “extremists”.

And by the way, the “We Need to be More Civil (so stop rebelling)” group has in the past, and will in the future, easily ally with those same irrationalist elements if they need to do so in order to suppress the rest of us.

Just some thoughts on the Arizona shooting and the response of some on the left–

Alan Spector

US Demands Wiki Twitters: The subpoena is the first public evidence of a criminal investigation, announced last month by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., that has been urged on by members of Congress of both parties but is fraught with legal and political difficulties for the Obama administration. It was denounced by WikiLeaks, which has so far made public only about 1 percent of the quarter-million confidential diplomatic cables in its possession but has threatened to post them all on the Web if criminal charges are brought. www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/world/09wiki.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

After $12.9 Trillion Bankster Bailout, Fed Says “No Help Available for Cities and States–it’s ‘Illegal!”:

“We have no expectation or intention to get involved in state and local finance,” Mr. Bernanke said in testimony before the Senate Budget Committee. The states, he said later, “should not expect loans from the Fed.”

The $2.9 trillion municipal-bond market has been stung recently by worries that some cash-strapped cities or states won’t be able to pay off or roll over debt. Costs have risen broadly for municipal borrowers. The market also faces challenges from the expiration of the Build America Bonds program, which helped cities and states borrow $165 billion at interest rates held down by federal subsidies. 

Will the UAW Foist Pay for Performance on its Pathetic Ranks?
General Motors Co. is seeking to tie workers’ pay to improvements in vehicle quality — an incentive the Detroit automaker’s North American president, Mark Reuss, says will apply to both hourly and salaried employees.

“I want to make sure we pay people for superior results,” Reuss told reporters on the sidelines of the North American International Auto Show on Monday. “Period.”

“When we’re not performing, I’m not going to be paid out and neither is anyone else,” he added.

The Detroit automakers’ contracts with the United Auto Workers union expire in September.

UAW President Bob King, who attended Monday’s press preview of the auto show, said his union will consider the proposal. www.detnews.com/article/20110111/AUTO04/101110385/GM–Tie-workers’-pay-to-vehicle-quality

Perpetual War:

China to Gates: “Welcome and Look at our New Stealth Warrior:

China’s military conducted a test flight of a new stealth fighter jet on Tuesday, overshadowing a high-profile visit by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates aimed at improving defense ties — and apparently catching China’s civilian leadership off guard.

Staging the test flight of the long-secret J-20 while Mr. Gates was in Beijing amounted to an unusually bold show of force by China. But the demonstration also raised questions about the degree of civilian control of the Chinese military, as China’s president, Hu Jintao, and other civilian leaders appeared to have no knowledge that the test had been conducted only hours before they received Mr. Gates for a formal meeting at the Great Hall of the People. www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/world/asia/12fighter.html?hp

Cold War On Again: The Pentagon is stepping up investments in a range of weapons, jet fighters and technology in response to the Chinese military buildup in the Pacific, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Saturday on the eve of his visit to Beijing. Despite billions of dollars in proposed Pentagon budget cuts that Mr. Gates announced this past week, he said that the Chinese development of its first radar-evading fighter jet, as well as an antiship ballistic missile that could hit American aircraft carriers, had persuaded him to make improvements in American weaponry a priority. “They clearly have potential to put some of our capabilities at risk, and we have to pay attention to them, we have to respond appropriately with our own programs,” Mr. Gates said.

Once, Flag Officers Had (some) Ethics. Now? “Rent a General”: The Globe analyzed the career paths of 750 of the highest ranking generals and admirals who retired during the last two decades and found that, for most, moving into what many in Washington call the “rent-a-general’’ business is all but irresistible.

From 2004 through 2008, 80 percent of retiring three- and four-star officers went to work as consultants or defense executives, according to the Globe analysis. That compares with less than 50 percent who followed that path a decade earlier, from 1994 to 1998.

In some years, the move from general staff to industry is a virtual clean sweep. Thirty-four out of 39 three- and four-star generals and admirals who retired in 2007 are now working in defense roles — nearly 90 percent.

And in many cases there is nothing subtle about what the generals have to sell — Martin’s firm is called The Four Star Group, for example. The revolving-door culture of Capitol Hill — where former lawmakers and staffers commonly market their insider knowledge to lobbying firms — is now pervasive at the senior rungs of the military leadership.  http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/12/26/defense_firms_lure_retired_generals/

Spy Versus Spy:

Enviro Spy Outed and Confesses: For seven years Mark Stone was an important and serious environmental activist. According to the Guardian, he took part in every major protest in the UK from 2003 onwards and traveled abroad to demo’s as well.

In October environmentalists discovered that he was living a double life as an undercover agent for the police. Now, in the midst of a trial of activists, he has expressed remorse and quit the police, telling friends that what he did was wrong. www.treehugger.com/files/2011/01/environmental-activist-exposed.php

Police Spy Sullivan Infiltrated Minnesota Activist Groups: Outed

Lawyers for the activists have learned from prosecutors that the feds sent an undercover law enforcement agent to infiltrate the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee in April 2008, just as the group was planning its licensed protests at the Republican National Convention.

Going by the name “Karen Sullivan,” the agent blended in with the many new faces the Committee was seeing at meetings in the lead-up to the RNC. But she stayed active afterward, attending virtually every meeting.

CIA Bomber Posada Goes on Trial: Declassified F.B.I. documents place him at two meetings during which the bombing of a Cubana airliner was planned in 1976. He was held in a Venezuelan prison for nine years as a suspect in that case, but never convicted. In 2000, he was convicted in Panama in connection with a plot to kill Castro at a summit meeting.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/us/13carriles.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Solidarity Forever

King of UAW Swears UAW is Not A Union: “The UAW has learned from the past and we have embraced radical change,” King said. “We have completely discarded the us versus them mentality”…(King’s comment) comes as the union prepares to renegotiate its four-year labor contracts with the Detroit Three automakers, which expires in September.
The UAW has lost thousands of members in recent years as the domestic automakers have lost market share and as unions have lost favor with the American public. The UAW had less than 400,000 members at the end of 2009, after reaching a peak of 1.5 million in 1979.

King also has said that the labor rates of American autoworkers in foreign-owned plants are a critical issue for the UAW as it enters contract talks with American auto companies.

This year, for the first time, the UAW faces a binding arbitration clause adopted in contract talks in 2009 that bars the union from going on strike on any wage and benefit issues that would make domestic automakers uncompetitive with Asian automakers in the U.S.

Worst Thing in History Of the World:

Shorty Beheads 15 in Acapulco: Police discovered the bodies of 15 decapitated men outside a shopping mall in Acapulco early Saturday, bringing the death toll from a day of raging drug violence in the Pacific resort to 27, a top official said.

The headless bodies were found on a walkway outside the Playa Sendero shopping mall, about a mile from the sweep of high-rise hotels on the scenic bay that made Acapulco Mexico’s first famous beach resort.
It was the largest single group of decapitation victims ever found in Mexico www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/08/106425/15-headless-bodies-in-acapulco.html

SoCal Says So Long Cruise Ships to Mexico:

Carnival Cruise Lines said Thursday it is pulling the last of its ships out of San Diego, and other cruise operators are departing Southern California because of economic woes and tourists’ fears over traveling to Mexico.
The 2,500-passenger Carnival Spirit is moving to Australia by April 2012, the cruise line announced on its Web site, citing a “huge potential for growth” there while its San Diego business sags.
The Port of San Diego estimates the departure of the ship, which takes more than 60,000 passengers a year to destinations along the Mexican Riviera, will cost the local economy about $54 million in annual spending, the San Diego Union Tribune said. www.latimes.com/travel/sns-ap-us-travel-brief-cruise-ship-flight,0,2794376.story 

Gropenfuhrer Commutes Sentence of Killer Son of Crony: The reduction of Esteban Nuñez’s sentence from 16 years to seven years, one of Schwarzenegger’s last acts before leaving office, sparked cries of dismay from prosecutors and accusations of cronyism by legal experts…Fabian Nuñez grew close to Schwarzenegger while serving as speaker of the Assembly. The two worked to pass the state’s landmark global-warming law, and Nuñez is now a business partner of the governor’s chief political advisor at the consulting firm Mercury Public Affairs.  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/01/nunez-clemency.html

Magical Mystery Tour:

Sainthood? You Don’t Need no Stinkin’ Pope: