Rouge Forum Dispatch: Got War? Want More? All Out! 8th Anniversary of US War Crime in Iraq
Thursday, March 17th, 2011We Say Fight Back!
The Demagogue, Obama, Now Promotes War Squared!
To The Streets Of Every City!
Educate! Agitate! Escalate! Occupy!
All Out Against The Wars of the Rich on the Poor!
This is the Ten Year Old Rouge Forum Classic:
Got War?
Sure, we got plenty of them. Wars on every continent but two, and those two send combatants everywhere. War in Nepal, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Iraq, Sub-Saharan Africa, Israel, Palestine, Chiapas, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Korea, Phillippines, Burma, Argentina. We got lots of wars. We got cold wars, hot wars, low intensity wars, drug wars, wars on civil liberties, genocidal wars, secret wars, open wars, indeed we got a US budget over $400 billion for war. Got war? You bought it.
Got Capitalism?
Capitalism won! This is as good as it gets! Capitalism means perpetual war, just as the U.S. national leadership promises to the citizenry. Endless war, forever and ever, amen, always within the context of an international war of the rich on the poor, with every government everywhere serving as a weapon of elites. The Masters are always at war on the slaves, and they call that peace and make laws to preserve the peace. When they want slaves to make war on another Master, that is democracy and justice.
Want More?
Capitalism as a social system demands a relentless search for cheaper labor, markets, a war on the earth and its people for raw materials, the destruction of reason through divide and conquer tactics like nationalism, racism, sexism, all to guarantee the greatest profits–for a very few. The only way out of perpetual war is to strike war’s source, a system set to work by fear and greed: Capitalism. Want more war? Stick with capitalism. It is 100 % guaranteed. No money back.
The trappings of capital are always on sale: spectacles like the Superbowl, segregated schools and their high-stakes tests, Nike logos, casinos. Sell your soul with patriotic consumer debt on a SUV. Sell your life—to a military recruiter. The more you like capital, the better a slave you will be. If you work hard, someday you might make it all the way up to foreman, captain, or house slave. Well, probably not. Sell your neighbor, sell your kids. Open a for-profit jail. Buy capitalism, racism, nationalism, sexism. Buy war. Get your brass coffin and grave sites early. There is going to be a rush. Open 24 hours.
Money Can Buy Almost Anything!
But not everything.
No matter what, for most people work sucks. Those who have jobs face a meaningless future pushing buttons at McBoss. Bosses must drive work faster, use technology not to improve life but to lay people off. Employers must try to strip the creative minds of workers and replace them with the boss’s mind, to maximize profits. Inequality grows, as it must. On every job, every day, people resist. Most people know the bosses and their government tell lies all the time, especially when they go to war. Despite the main message of capital, “Screw Everyone Else!” we take care of our neighbors, family and friends. And while the Masters hate the earth and destroy it for profits, we witness heroes sitting high in trees, risking their lives. Love, work, knowledge, community, harmony with nature; that capital cannot buy. United working people, students, soldiers, can win the world that capital cannot create. It might cost us our credit cards–and a massive change of mind–a new world born in the ashes of the old.
What to do? Fight back, on the job and off. Organize. Shut down the schools. Start Freedom Schools. Close the workplaces. Stop soldiering. Without us, nothing moves. Strike, think, strike again.
Read the Rouge Forum News at RougeForum.org.
Stop the War. Stop Capital. Unite and Fight. Join Us—or them.
“GENERAL, YOUR TANK IS A POWERFUL VEHICLE
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect
It needs a driver.“
Bertolt Brecht, “German War Primer”
Students to Walk Out Of LA’s Hamilton High: This Friday at 9 am, we, the 3,400 students of Hamilton High School will be walking out of our classrooms, signs in hand, wearing “Save Hami” T-shirts, to demand an education. This is not a school wide “Ditch Day.” We are walking out not to avoid our classrooms, but to save them. To protest the terrible budget cuts our school could face. To protest the 22 pink slips handed out to our beloved teachers, to protest the potential closure of our school library. We are walking out to protest the increase of class sizes by 50% or more. And we will walk out to stop our magnets from facing a 90% loss in funding. www.perdaily.com/2011/03/lausd–student-walkout-at-hamilton-high-school-31711-at-900am.html
Chris Hedges on What to do about the Emergence of Fascism: The only place left for us is on the street. We must occupy state and federal offices. We must foment general strikes. The powerful, with no check left on their greed and criminality, are gorging on money while they busily foreclose our homes, bust the last of our unions, drive up our health care costs and cement into place a permanent underclass of the broken and the poor. They are slashing our most essential and basic services—including budgets for schools, firefighters and assistance programs for children and the elderly—so we can pay for the fraud they committed when they wiped out $14 trillion of housing wealth, wages and retirement savings. All we have left is the capacity to say “no.” And if enough of us say “no,” if enough of us refuse to cooperate, the despots are in trouble. http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/power_concedes_nothing_without_a_demand_20110314/
Imperfect Resistance, but Resistance!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTz3fRs7Ano
Keiko Blogs from Japan: keiko-amano.blogspot.com/
Cops Make Arrests in Lansing, Michigan:At least four protesters were handcuffed and arrested inside the state Capitol this evening as demonstrations continued against Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget and legislation opponents say is anti-union.
Five others have linked arms and are seated on the glass floor of the rotunda, challenging State Police to arrest them, as well.
Paul Moore on Direct Action in Miami-Dade: I’m not at liberty to reveal the teacher’s name, but in Miami-Dade County, the largest district in Florida and the fourth largest in the country, a former US Army Ranger and conservative Republican began calling and texting his long list of contacts with a message. “You have a doctor’s appointment Monday” went the text and Monday referred to April 12, 2010. It was a call to sick-out, in effect, an illegal strike.
Administration of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) got wind of the proposed action and began warning teachers of the dangers of it. Staffers for the United Teachers of Dade (UTD) fanned out across the District to instill the fear of job loss and even criminal prosecution in the membership. Word began to spread statewide and so the Florida Education Association (FEA) reminded all teachers that a sickout was a violation of law. Teachers should just keep on wearing their red shirts and e-mailing Gov. Crist and even if SB6 did become law teachers would still retain the right to beg for mercy.
But on the appointed Monday 6,300 of Miami-Dade’s 21,260 teachers called in sick. The teachers of Miami-Dade County shutdown the District’s public schools with an act of civil disobedience! Lo and behold that next Friday, Gov. Charlie Crist did a complete about face richgibson.com/directactionFL.htm
Punk Chevron–as YesMen Campaign (pick one of many posters)
chevronthinkswerestupid.org/gallery
Congratulations, Bruce Levine, for “Get up! Stand Up!” They’re much less apt to protest because the primary socialization forces for young people pacify, zombify, and weaken them. For example, our standard schools teach compliance and following orders far more than how to think critically and resist authoritarianism. And television is such a superb pacifying force that America’s for-profit prisons uses more TVs instead of hiring more prison guards, and nowadays, kids are actually watching more television than ever, with more screens than just a television set. And for many kids I talk to, their only experience of potency is a virtual one, for example, winning a video game.
For those kids who do rebel cognitively or behaviorally, and who don’t mindlessly comply with any and all authorities, there is an increasing presence of my business – the mental health profession – in their lives, with increasing medication for so-called disruptive disorders such as “oppositional defiance disorder.” And it is getting even worse for young people. Nowadays student-loan debt—more than two-thirds of college graduates are carrying student-loan debt, often huge amounts–crushes their ability to even consider resisting unjust authority.
Toward A Genuine Movement For Social Justice: We should realize that everything is in place for a dramatic shift to the left, and the right. Either could happen. The US empire has lost its moral standing, it is losing wars, it’s fake democracy is more and more exposed, the financial crises are real, elites are fighting bitterly among themselves, their allies don’t trust them to be able to protect them around the world, and inequality is booming.
We see now a series of what are called “accelerators,” that is, events that speed social change, events that are unpredictable but rush along like avalanches gathering up power and speed from existing social crises that have been, apparently, buried for some time.
A fruit vendor immolates himself in Tunisia: a mass uprising spreads across the Middle East. In the cradle of the region, masses of people gather in Liberation (sic) Square demanding the end of the dictator–and the military backs them. They win a military dictatorship. Libya goes up. The dictator counter-attacks, using a tribal based military and, for this moment, wins, but the US uses the UN to go to war with him and–we shall see. Wisconsin. Bahrain (an important US naval base and oil refinery), ruled by a Suni King, witnesses a majoirity–Shiite uprising. The Saudis invade Bahrain, direct the killing of peaceful demonstrators to protect their Suni monarchy–absolutely vital to the US empire. China experiences mass demonstrations in the west and begins to spend more on putting down internal disturbances than it does for its military. Arrests in Lansing, Michigan. Tibetan monks immolate themselves.
The world is changing now. Can we understand the spirals of change and influence it, or will we pander to those who we know have a reason to promote lies, and not merely become impotent, but lose?richgibson.com/towardgenuine.htm
You Can Easily Defeat the NYTimes Scam to Charge for Content. Just google the title of the article. We’ll see how long this works.
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor:
The Sky has Fallen on the US Empire and We Are Not Kidding:
According to a study by a U.S. economics consultancy, China overtook the United States as the world’s top manufacturing country (FT) by output, ending America’s 110- year dominance. Experts suggest this marks a “fundamental shift in the division of labor” that is unlikely to change soon. www.cfr.org/about/newsletters/editorial_detail.html?id=2481
So Long Fellow Patriot! The Rich Flee Japan: The crisis at the nuclear power plant 140 miles north of here is leading to a steady but orderly departure of business executives from Tokyo. Foreigners in particular are among those leaving, as concerns grow about the possibility of a catastrophic release of radiation and governments urge their citizens to consider seeking safety elsewhere in Japan or overseas. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18decamp.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1300399538-SjRu8PdaK3iMl5jUeynRJw
Mattick on the Dismal Future of Capitalism: Capitalism has been around for so many generations now, proving its vitality by displacing or absorbing all other social systems around the globe, that it seems a part of nature, irreplaceable. But its historical limits are visible in its inability to meet the ecological challenges it has produced; to generate enough growth to profitably employ the billions of people accumulating in slums in Africa, South America, and Asia, along with growing numbers in Europe, Japan, and the United States; and to escape the dilemma of dependence on a degree of state participation in economic life that drains money from the private enterprise system. tendency to periodic disaster, it suggests the need finally to take seriously the idea, as the saying goes, that another world is possible.
chronicle.com/article/Capitalisms-Dismal-Future/126659/
At Calpers, Stealing from Pensioners is Job Security: In a scathing report, a former chief executive of the California public employee pension fund was accused of pressuring subordinates to invest billions of dollars of pension money with politically connected firms.
A 17-month investigation also found that Federico Buenrostro Jr. — along with former pension fund board members Charles Valdes and Kurato Shimada — strong-armed a benefits firm to pay more than $4 million in fees to consultant Alfred J.R. Villalobos, who later hired Buenrostro…CalPERS is the nation’s largest public pension fund, with $228 billion in assets, providing benefits to about 1.6 million state and local government employees, retirees, spouses, children and other beneficiaries.
In May 2010, the California attorney general sued Villalobos and Buenrostro, accusing them of scheming to enrich themselves through self-dealing and other misconduct in seeking CalPERS investment money on behalf of clients.
According to the report, one of those investment funds — Apollo Global Management — asked Buenrostro to sign documents acknowledging that CalPERS was aware of so-called placement agent fees it was paying to Villalobos.
Several CalPERS investment officers refused to sign the disclosures, the report said — but Buenrostro did, using pasted-on letterhead to make them look more official.www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-calpers-probe-20110315,0,126433.story
Spy Versus Spy:
US Sets Out To Subvert and Spy on Social Networks(surprise):
The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.
A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an “online persona management service” that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world. www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks
So Long ‘Spy Talk’ (hush, shutup!): Thank you, thank you very much, dear readers, for spending another year with me at SpyTalk.
Alas, however, SpyTalk is going dark.
It’s time to get off the blogging hamster wheel, at least for awhile. I’ll be elsewhere in The Post from time to time, as well as other media outside the company, but the daily deal here is done.
Do please stay in touch, however, with your usual tips, suggestions and even bug-eyed thoughts in the middle of the night, per usual. You can now e-mail me here. Until then, I just wanted to say thank you so very much for being such great and loyal pals. www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/spy-talk
Fess Up! What Was Ray Davis Really Doing? Late in January, Raymond A. Davis — a covert security officer for the Central Intelligence Agency and onetime Green Beret — unloaded a Glock pistol into two armed Pakistanis on a crowded street in Lahore, according to a Pakistani police report. His case was to move forward in court as early as this week.The shooting complicated American attempts to portray Mr. Davis as a paper-shuffling diplomat who stamped visas as a day job; generated an extraordinary swirl of recriminations and for many Pakistanis confirmed suspicions that America has deployed a secret army of spies and contractors inside the country.
It has also called unwelcome attention to a bigger, more dangerous game in which Mr. Davis appears to have played just a supporting role.
The C.I.A. team Mr. Davis worked with, according to American officials, had among its assignments the task of secretly gathering intelligence about Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant “Army of the Pure.” Pakistan’s security establishment has nurtured Lashkar for years as a proxy force to attack targets and enemies in India and in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir.www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/weekinreview/13lashkar.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
Hillbillary, Lying, says US did not pay $3 Million Ransom for Davis:
A second U.S. official said that the U.S. government had yet to make any payments in connection with the case, apparently because the terms and initial payments were handled by Pakistani officials.
“To date the U.S. government has not paid anybody anything,” the U.S. official said. “We expect to receive a bill.” The U.S. official said that no other concessions had been made.
“There was no quid pro quo between the Pakistani and U.S. government” in connection the attempts to get Davis freed, the U.S. official said.
The unexpected release of Davis stunned Pakistanis, and opponents immediately accused the Zardari government of bowing to US pressure and selling the nation’s sovereignty by allowing him to be pardoned for blood money. Hundreds of angry protesters tried to gather outside the U.S. consulate in Lahore, where they were beaten back by police, and religious groups said they planned nationwide protests Friday.www.washingtonpost.com/world/cia-contractor-raymond-davis-freed-after-blood-money-payment/2011/03/16/AByVJ1d_story.html
International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
Got War? Want More? US Pushes UN to War on Libya: U.S. and allied forces began preparing to conduct military operations against Libya late Thursday after the United Nations Security Council authorized international action to prevent Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi from ending a month-old revolt with indiscriminate slaughter.
Despite widespread doubts that the outgunned rebels can still be saved, the council gave its blessing to attacks on the Libyan aircraft and ground forces now encircling the final rebel stronghold of Benghazi. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-un-libya-20110318,0,2697370.story
According to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, India surpassed China to become the world’s largest importer of arms (al-Jazeera). India’s military budget is $32.5 billion, up 40 percent from two years ago. www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=113424
Stratfor on Saudi Military Move to Bahrain: The Iranians clearly benefit from an uprising in Bahrain. It places the U.S. 5th Fleet’s basing in jeopardy, puts the United States in a difficult position and threatens the stability of other Persian Gulf Arab states. For the Iranians, the uprisings in North Africa and their spread to the Arabian Peninsula represent a golden opportunity for pursuing their long-standing interest (going back to the Shah and beyond) of dominating the Gulf.
The Iranians are accustomed to being able to use their covert capabilities to shape the political realities in countries. They did this effectively in Iraq and are doing it in Afghanistan. They regarded this as low risk and high reward. The Saudis, recognizing that this posed a fundamental risk to their regime and consulting with the Americans, have led a coalition force into Bahrain to halt the uprising and save the regime. Pressed by covert forces, they were forced into an overt action they were clearly reluctant to take.
We are now off the map, so to speak. The question is how the Iranians respond, and there is every reason to think that they do not know. They probably did not expect a direct military move by the Saudis, given that the Saudis prefer to act more quietly themselves. The Iranians wanted to destabilize without triggering a strong response, but they were sufficiently successful in using local issues that the Saudis felt they had no choice in the matter. It is Iran’s move.
www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110314-iran-saudis-countermove-bahrain?utm_source=redalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110314%281%29&utm_content=readmore&elq=07b6cfe7c67e4b0eba8e8a7b6a1bd275
Behind the Saudi Hit on Bahrain: Obamagogue: In the immediate wake of Gates’ visit, the Gulf Cooperation Council has conspicuously sent a contingent of Saudi troops into Bahrain to help put down the protests. Cowed by the Pentagon and its partners in the Arab lobby, the Obama administration has seemingly cast its lot with Bahrain’s anti-democratic forces and left little ambiguity as to which side of history it’s actually on.www.tomdispatch.com/post/175367/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_the_pentagon_and_murder_in_bahrain/
Saudi Monarchist Mercs Start Killing in Bahrain: The current situation in Bahrain is disastrous. Efforts to find a compromise between the royal family and the leaders of the Shia community failed, and now foreign troops have come in to help the government suppress demonstrations and protests.
There is presumably some blame for both sides. It’s clear that some Shia protesters were demanding an end to the monarchy, something the King would obviously refuse, while at least some in the royal family (such as the Prime Minister, who is the King’s uncle) were apparently resisting all reforms and concessions. So instead of progress toward a constitutional monarchy, there is violence, economic disruption, and the presence of foreign soldiers. Both sides will lose from this face-off. blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2011/03/16/bahrain/
US Government’s Biggest Boondoggles:
www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13arquilla.html
Object to Torture? Get Fired by USA: P.J. Crowley, the state department spokesman, stepped down Sunday after saying publicly that treatment of Wikileaks suspect Pfc. Bradley Manning in military detention has been “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.”
In a statement, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote that she accepted his resignation with regret.thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/state-department-spokesman-out-after-comments-on-prisoner/?hp
Start the Kids Early: Endless War at Home
The Heavens Weep
Capitalism is War on People and Nature: Japan, Nukes and Oil: Japan is the world’s third-largest economy, a bit behind China now. It is also the third-largest industrial economy, behind only the United States and China. Japan’s problem is that its enormous industrial plant is built in a country almost totally devoid of mineral resources. It must import virtually all of the metals and energy that it uses to manufacture industrial products. It maintains stockpiles, but should those stockpiles be depleted and no new imports arrive, Japan stops being an industrial power.
There are multiple sources for many of the metals Japan imports, so that if supplies stop flowing from one place it can get them from other places. The geography of oil is more limited. In order to access the amount of oil Japan needs, the only place to get it is the Persian Gulf. There are other places to get some of what Japan needs, but it cannot do without the Persian Gulf for its oil.
This past week, we saw that this was a potentially vulnerable source. The unrest that swept the western littoral of the Arabian Peninsula and the ongoing tension between the Saudis and Iranians, as well as the tension between Iran and the United States, raised the possibility of disruptions. The geography of the Persian Gulf is extraordinary. It is a narrow body of water opening into a narrow channel through the Strait of Hormuz. Any diminution of the flow from any source in the region, let alone the complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz, would have profound implications for the global economy.
For Japan it could mean more than higher prices. It could mean being unable to secure the amount of oil needed at any price. The movement of tankers, the limits on port facilities and long-term contracts that commit oil to other places could make it impossible for Japan to physically secure the oil it needs to run its industrial plant. On an extended basis, this would draw down reserves and constrain Japan’s economy dramatically. And, obviously, when the world’s third-largest industrial plant drastically slows, the impact on the global supply chain is both dramatic and complex…
Beyond the human toll, these reactors were Japan’s hedge against an unpredictable world. They gave it control of a substantial amount of its energy production. Even if the Japanese still had to import coal and oil, there at least a part of their energy structure was largely under their own control and secure. Japan’s nuclear power sector seemed invulnerable, which no other part of its energy infrastructure was. For Japan, a country that went to war with the United States over energy in 1941 and was devastated as a result, this was no small thing. Japan had a safety net.www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110314-japan-persian-gulf-energy?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110315&utm_content=readmore&elq=7463c2f651d04387876fd8f71503c92f
The Seattle Times on How a Nuclear Reactor Works(nice graphs)
seattletimes.nwsource.com/flatpages/nationworld/reactor.html
Solidarity Forever:
NYC Union Boss ($330,000/year) Forced Out (again): Mr. Ahern has been under fire for months, with some union presidents quitting the labor council’s board and several top council aides resigning. There was criticism that he had not been a forceful presence on behalf of the city’s union members and that he had doubled his council salary to $80,000 on top of his $250,000 salary at the local….Mr. Ahern, 57, has led the Central Labor Council for two years and was initially welcomed as a reformer after the council’s former president, Brian M. McLaughlin, was convicted of embezzling more than $2 million and sentenced to 10 years in prison. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/nyregion/15ahern.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
Magical Mystery Tour:
Pedophile Protector Goes to Trial: Monsignor Lynn’s indictment sent shock waves through chanceries across the country, serving as a warning that the secular criminal justice system was no longer afraid to reach into the church hierarchy and prosecute officials accused of participating in coverups. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/us/15priests.html?hpw
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhyZJjtJCQY
Worst Thing in the History of the World:
Murdered for Hair Weaves: The thieves who killed a beauty supply storekeeper made off with an estimated $10,000 — retail — in hair weaves. And hair professionals in Metro Detroit suspect the robbers will have no problem unloading the merchandise.
“Weaves — it’s like selling crack,” said Lashawnda Washington, a cosmetologist and hair instructor at Michigan College of Beauty in Troy. “If I (were) to load my car down with weaves and go salon to salon, by the end of the night I’d have nothing left. It’s like selling drugs.” www.detnews.com/article/20110317/METRO01/103170417/1408/local/Hair-weaves-are-hot-property-for-thieves
American Scientists at it Again: Tuskegee Part 2:
When government scientists came up with the following idea, someone in the room should have said, “You want to do WHAT?”
No one did, and so the U.S. Public Health Service in 1946 began paying diseased prostitutes to visit Guatemalan prisoners and infect them with syphilis.
If the women weren’t already carrying the deadly disease, the U.S. government gave it to them to pass along.
Still, the infection rate among the prisoners wasn’t as high as hoped, darn it.
Determined to get a large enough sample of diseased inmates, researchers tried other, more painful means, as you will see. www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-17/paying-women-to-pass-syphilis-isn-t-worst-of-it-commentary-by-ann-woolner.html
Best Thing in the History of the World (where there’s life…)