Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

Remember the Rouge Forum Conference in ChicagoLand, Lewis University, May 20-22. Speakers: Peter McLaren, Dennis Carlson, George Schmidt and You(?). The call for papers and details are here: www.rougeforumconference.org/

Congratulations to Jean Anyon! “Anyon details how social class analysis has developed in research and theory, how understanding the roles of education in society is influenced by a Marxian lens, how the failures of urban school reform can be understood through the lens of political economy, and how cultural analysis has laid the foundation for critical pedagogy in US classrooms.”

Bertell Ollman: What is Capitalism Hiding?

What exactly is it about capitalism that our rulers are trying to hide? The short list would have to include: 1) that the most apt label for our society-because it brings into focus how our society works (particularly in production, an area of life that most of the other labels ignore or obscure), for whom it works better, for whom it works worse, and its potential for change-is “capitalism”; 2) that the real rulers of this society are those who own the means of production, distribution and exchange, and reap the bulk of the surplus; 3) that the Government, whatever democratic foreplay goes on, serves their interests, hence is their Government and not ours; 4) that we, the rest of us who don’t live on profit, rent or interest, are workers (whether we are willing to admit it or not), because we are forced to seek work in order to live; 5) that the conditions of life and work for us workers are bad and likely to get much worse-while the wealth of the capitalists keeps growing; 6) that a qualitatively better life, a more humane, just, free, democratic, egalitarian and ecologically rational way of organizing society can be developed; 7) that those who benefit from the present order of society have consistently lied to us about all of the above; and 8) that once workers-in the broad sense of the term-break through these lies and half-truths, they/we can win.

Now the best way for the capitalists to hide all of these facts is to hide the first one, that our’s is a capitalist society, because once people learn this all of the facts that follow become easier to see and to grasp. In his book, In Praise of Folly, Erasmus tells the story of a man watching a play who all at once jumps onto the stage and tears the masks off of the actors to reveal who they really are. If you think of Marx as this man and the capitalists as the actors, you can begin to understand both what Marx does and why the capitalists are not too pleased with him for doing it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XChxLGnIwCU

above a musical portrayal of capital’s search for profits

Why it is That US Unionism Cannot Answer Capital’s Crises:

Labor bosses at all levels are the nearest and most vulnerable of workers’ enemies. Rather than “move unions to the left,” better, “demolish the labor quislings, take their treasuries, seize their buildings, as we build a mass class conscious movement to transcend the system of capital.”…richgibson.com/usunionism.htm

Isenberg: The Battle For Hamilton High: Something important took place Friday at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. Students at the highly successful magnet school with excellent Humanities, Music, and Drama Magnets as well as six small learning communities who were threatened last week with the loss of 22 of their teachers decided to fight back.Using Facebook and other social media they organized thousands of their fellow students, parents, and supporters to stage a walkout from the school to say in the clearest of possible terms that they were not going to passively roll over and allow their educations and futures to be compromised by politically inspired manipulations throughout this state and country that were trying to impose draconian cuts to education that really had no rational justification. www.laprogressive.com/education-reform/hamilton-high-walkout/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+laprogressive+(The+LA+Progressive)

Against the Vacillating Reactionary Ravitch: Nothing significant is going to happen if it takes place behind the leadership of the vacillating reactionary Dianne Ravitch and the union bosses who lionize her.
Still a patriot, still a nationalist, still god-blessing everything in sight, still favoring the exploitation that is at the root of capital and its state, as well as the empire’s wars, there is a reason why she is hugged by unionite heads like the presidents of the NEA and AFT who allowed the militarization of schooling, helped create the No Child Left Behind Act and its Democratic inheritor, the Race to the Top, who poured millions of dollars and volunteer hours into electing the easily recognized demagogue, Obama, and who now oversee the wreckage of teachers wages, benefits, and their very jobs. richgibson.com/againstravitch.htm

Red Baiting in the City on the Hill: Timothy J. L. Chandler, the co-author of a 1998 journal article with that quote about university hierarchies, is going to stay a step closer to actual work. On Thursday, he announced that he is turning down the position of provost at Kennesaw State University — in part because of furor set off in the local area over the article, which applies class analysis and several times cites Marx. www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/03/18/provost_designee_withdraws_at_kennesaw_state_amid_controversy_over_journal_citation_of_marx

The International War of the Rich on the Poor

Nations Have Interests, Not Values.

Why Bomb Libya? Did Hillbillary find another Monica Dress?

Hillbillary and Susan Elizabeth Rice Lead March to Libya War

Clinton joined Samantha Power, a senior aide at the National Security Council, and Susan Rice, Mr. Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, who had been pressing the case for military action, according to senior administration officials speaking only on condition of anonymity. Ms. Power is a former journalist and human rights advocate; Ms. Rice was an Africa adviser to President Clinton when the United States failed to intervene to stop the Rwanda genocide, which Mr. Clinton has called his biggest regret.

Now, the three women were pushing for American intervention to stop a looming humanitarian catastrophe in Libya. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/world/africa/19policy.html?hp

Susan E. Rice of DC’s Black Elite, Making up For Past Bungles?:

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is a longtime mentor and family friend to Rice. Albright urged Clinton to appoint Rice as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in 1997.[2] Rice was not the first choice of Congressional Black Caucus leaders, who considered Rice a member of “Washington’s assimilationist black elite”.

On February 23, 2011, an article appeared on The Huffington Post website highly critical of Rice for missing the first U.N. Security Council meeting, held on Tuesday February 22, called to discuss continuing unrest in Libya and the killing of civilian protesters by elements of the Libyan government using military air and ground forces. [40] Author Richard Grenell noted that Rice had skipped the U.N. Security Council meeting in New York and opted, instead, to fly to South Africa to attend a “global sustainability” conference while Libya’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, who had resigned his position in protest of the violence taking place against Libyan citizens (and at great personal risk from retaliation), spoke to the Council urging international intervention. Mr. Dabbashi “stepped out to condemn what he called ‘a genocide’ ” occurring in Libya under the direction of its leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. Further noted were several prior instances where Rice and the administration of President Barack Obama had missed other international opportunities that could portray the United States as a leader towards freedom and democracy in both the volatile region as well as worldwide. After the tumultuous overthrow of regimes governing Tunisia and Egypt in January and February 2011, and similar events arising in Bahrain, Yemen and Algeria, the author noted “inconsistencies of the Obama administration’s handling of the Middle East crises” indicative of a lack of timely response and leadership by Ambassador Rice and the U.S. President towards the rapidly changing events occurring in the Middle East.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Rice

Robert Fisk on the Attack on Libya: Then there’s the danger of things “going wrong” on our side, the bombs that hit civilians, the Nato aircraft which might be shot down or crash in Gaddafi territory, the sudden suspicion among the “rebels”/”Libyan people”/democracy protesters that the West, after all, has ulterior purposes in its aid. And there’s one boring, universal rule about all this: the second you employ your weapons against another government, however righteously, the thing begins to unspool. After all, the same “rebels” who were expressing their fury at French indifference on Thursday morning were waving French flags in Benghazi on Thursday night. Long live America. Until… www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-first-it-was-saddam-then-gaddafi-now-theres-a-vacancy-for-the-wests-favourite-crackpot-tyrant-2246415.html

The Real Prize is Saudi Arabia. So Why War on Libya? Stratfor:

The long-term goal, unspoken but well understood, is regime change — displacing the government of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and replacing it with a new regime built around the rebels.

The mission is clearer than the strategy, and that strategy can’t be figured out from the first moves. The strategy might be the imposition of a no-fly zone, the imposition of a no-fly zone and attacks against Libya’s command-and-control centers, or these two plus direct ground attacks on Gadhafi’s forces. These could also be combined with an invasion and occupation of Libya.

The question, therefore, is not the mission but the strategy to be pursued. How far is the coalition, or at least some of its members, prepared to go to effect regime change and manage the consequences following regime change? How many resources are they prepared to provide and how long are they prepared to fight? It should be remembered that in Iraq and Afghanistan the occupation became the heart of the war, and regime change was merely the opening act. It is possible that the coalition partners haven’t decided on the strategy yet, or may not be in agreement…

While all this was going on and before final decisions were made, special operations forces were inserted in Libya on two missions. First, to make contact with insurgent forces to prepare them for coming events, create channels of communications and logistics and create a post-war political framework. The second purpose was to identify targets for attack and conduct reconnaissance of those targets that provided as up-to-date information as possible. This, combined with air and space reconnaissance, served as the foundations of the war. We know British SAS operators were in Libya and suspect other countries’ special operations forces and intelligence services were also operating there….

Gadhafi’s primary capabilities are conventional armor and particularly artillery. Destroying his air force and isolating his forces will not by itself win the war. The war is on the ground. The question is the motivation of his troops: If they perceive that surrender is unacceptable or personally catastrophic, they may continue to fight. At that point the coalition must decide if it intends to engage and destroy Gadhafi’s ground forces from the air. This can be done, but it is never a foregone conclusion that it will work. Moreover, this is the phase at which civilian casualties begin to mount…

The question then becomes whether Gadhafi’s forces move into opposition and insurgency. This again depends on morale but also on behavior. The Americans forced an insurgency in Iraq by putting the Baathists into an untenable position. In Afghanistan the Taliban gave up formal power without having been decisively defeated. They regrouped, reformed and returned. It is not known to us what Gadhafi can do or not do. It is clear that it is the major unknown. www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110319-libyan-war-2011?utm_source=SpecialReport&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110319a&utm_content=readmore&elq=35cbe866b84c4bc1bab9d2b34ef1ec6e

Change We Can Believe In! 112 Missile Hit Libya! Thanks, Libs!

Killer Coward Obamagogue Hides Behind Hillbillary for War:

This is not the way American presidents go to war. The opening act is supposed to feature the president sitting solemnly in the Oval Office, explaining the reasons, laying out the goals, talking tough.

Barack Obama did not even announce the start to the third U.S. war in the Muslim world in a decade. He left that to his secretary of State who was in Paris, standing alongside a French president who a few months ago wanted to do more business with strongman Moammar Kadafi and was now claiming credit for leading airstrikes against him.

When Obama did emerge hours later, he stood at a lectern in the bottom of a convention center in Brasilia, capital of a nation that did not vote for the U.N.  (wait, isn’t Congress to Declare War?) www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-crisis-20110320,0,6578999.story

Navy Builds USS Detroit Combat Ship (perhaps equipped with a PSYOPS device that will spread administrative corruption, decay, and incompetence–a real wmd!)

U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus unveiled the names Friday of the next two littoral combat ships to be built at Marinette Marine Corp. LCS 5 will be the future USS Milwaukee and LCS 7 will be the future USS Detroit.

Mabus addressed a group of Marinette Marine workers while standing in front of LCS 3 (Forth Worth), which is under construction in the shipyard.
Late last year Lockheed Martin secured a contract with the U.S. Navy to build as many as 10 littoral combat ships through fiscal year 2015. www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20110319/GPG03/103190664/1978/GPG0101/USS-Milwaukee-USS-Detroit-next-Marinette-Marine?odyssey=nav%7Chead

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor:

George Schmidt on Grandma’s Pension and BankofAmerica:

Brian Moynihan = BOA- $59 Million Since 2004, gives the Thumb

Bank of America has most homes facing foreclosure in the country.
FACT: Bank of America services 1.1 million home loans facing foreclosure (over 60 days delinquent) under the Making Home Affordable (HAMP) program. This is more than double the loan amount of the next largest mortgage servicer in the program. Bank of America has modified loans at the lowest rate of any of the major banks.
FACT: Bank of America made permanent loan modifications loans to only 56,500 borrowers, or 5.2% of their total eligible loans under HAMP (as of April 2010 last date when data was publicly available).
Bank of America continues to foreclose on more homes than any other bank.
See the Call for BOA Occupations! www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=2102&section=Article

Capital Beats the Press at Every Turn: Scott Burgess, the automotive critic for The Detroit News, resigned on Wednesday after a local Chrysler dealer complained about his review of the Chrysler 200 — the centerpiece of the company’s “Imported from Detroit” advertising campaign. Mr. Burgess was subsequently directed by editors to amend the online version of his story, which he did on March 11, the day after the article appeared in the print edition.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Burgess, who said he technically remained on staff, confirmed that he had been instructed to soften what was generally a scathing assessment of the 200, the successor to the midsize Chrysler Sebring sedan.
Mr. Burgess said he had been told “point by point” what to change in the column, which appeared in the print edition of the paper on March 10. wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/detroit-news-auto-critic-resigns-after-dealer-complaint-results-in-changes-to-review/?scp=3&sq=Detroit&st=cse

Spy versus Spy:

The CIA and Their Libyan Ally: In recent years, the C.I.A. has been closely tethered to Colonel Qaddafi’s intelligence service as it hunts for information about operatives of Al Qaeda in North Africa.

Now, the uprising against the Libyan leader, along with the revolts that drove out the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt and threaten other rulers, have cast a harsh light on the cozy relationships between America’s intelligence agencies and autocratic, often brutal Arab governments. The C.I.A. faces questions about whether such ties blinded it to undercurrents of dissent and may now damage America’s standing with emerging democratic governments…

In the current crisis, those close intelligence relations may offer a channel for candid communications. But this week, the same Bahraini intelligence and security officials who have worked so closely with their American counterparts have again used force to crush pro-democracy demonstrations, acting on orders from the country’s monarchy and with the backing of Saudi Arabia. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/africa/18cia.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Those Missile on Libya? What Might they Hit? CIA Killerdrones:

Several missiles fired from American drone aircraft on Thursday struck a meeting of local people in northwest Pakistan who had gathered with Taliban mediators to settle a dispute over a chromite mine. The attack, a Pakistani intelligence official said, killed 26 of 32 people present, some of them Taliban fighters, but the majority elders and local people not attached to the militants.

The civilian death toll appeared to be among the worst in the scores of strikes carried out recently in Pakistan’s tribal areas by the C.I.A., which runs the drones. Local residents and media reports said as many as 40 people had been killed in all, though the intelligence official disputed that.www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18pakistan.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Best Thing in the History of the World

A Kid in Yosemite: When the library closed, we walked toward the playground down by the school, but we never make it that far. Just one street away three of Karis’s friends were stirring mud with long sticks and jumping in it. They came running when they saw her and asked her to play which she did while the moms gabbed.

Then, suddenly, the sun was setting and it was time to head back home. So we turned back—back up the road, back along the culverts and the creeks, back past the meadows, the waterfalls and the potholes. And just before we made the final turn down the dirt road to our house, Karis gave me a hug and said, “The next time you want to go for a walk, don’t call it a walk. Call it an explore. Walks aren’t fun, but explores I could do all day.” sierraclub.typepad.com/explore/2011/03/walk-on-the-wild-side.html

So Long, Ferlin: Gone.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oertr7UPVbA

Another Great Idea! Pour Bankers on the Nuke Plant til they Suck the Life out of It!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oertr7UPVbA