Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say FightBack!

70,000 and more in Madison on Saturday, set back by Nationalism, Racism,  and Unionite Lust for Dems:

The Contradictory nature of am Movement not centered on class

Hundreds of off-duty police officers and deputies joined protests today against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill that would strip most collective bargaining powers from about 170,000 public employees. www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-02-26-wisconsin-officers_N.htm

UC Berkeley: No Cuts, No Fees, Education Should be Free! Eight protesters who spent more than seven hours on a fourth-floor ledge at UC Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall returned to terra firm at 9:20 p.m., greeted by the enthusiastic cheers of a band of fervent supporters on the academic building’s steps.

As part of the agreement for the activists to depart peacefully, university officials apparently have agreed to drop charges against several protesters for this and other demonstrations in the past year. www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/03/BA6J1I3I5G.DTL

What do NEA Dues Eaters Say About Mass Direct Action Militancy in Wisconsin? Send us More Money: “Donate now to help the NEA fight to defend our hard-earned right to collective bargaining in Wisconsin and beyond.” (email sent on 3/1 to all NEA members demanding more money to fund the Democratic party’s Quisling operation and NEA bosses’ lifestyles).

China’s Social Fascists Continue the Clampdown: The call to action shot across mobile phones and Internet chat sites, urging people to converge on 13 Chinese cities to demand an end to corruption, inflation and the strictures of authoritarian rule. “The Chinese people do not have the patience to wait any longer,” said one message.

The anonymous organizers got a sizable turnout — but in China, most of those who poured into squares and shopping centers were police officers and plainclothes security agents.

Two months of upheaval in the Mideast have cast doubt on the staying power of all authoritarian governments. But in China calls for change are so far being met with political controls wielded by authorities who, even during a period of rising prosperity and national pride, have not taken their staying power for granted. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/world/asia/01china.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Detroit Fed of Teachers to Majority Dissidents: Shut Up! Get Out!

Steve Conn, a long-time radical dissident inside the DFT who led the 1999 Detroit Teachers’ wildcat strike, and Johnson’s 2011 opponent, was — imagine this — found guilty and suspended from the union for seven months. In that period, he is prohibited from attending union meetings and holding office, but he can still vote www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=2064&section=Article

Detroit Symphony Orchestra Strike Crushed: A Sour Note: Striking Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians today voted to return to work without a contract if management accepts their plan for binding arbitration, they announced in a press conference outside of Orchestra Hall this afternoon. What good Did AFL-CIO Membership do For DSO? Nothing at All. Solidarity spelled SwingintheWind.

In a press release on the subject, the musicians said they would offer a plan to “end the strike by returning to work under the conditions management has imposed on the employees and without a new contract settlement.”  http://www.detnews.com/article/20110301/ENT01/103010419/DSO-musicians-vote-to-return-to-work-with-no-contract

The Little Red Schoolhouse:

The children walking along the road of truth and reason carry love to all; and they clothe everything in new skies; they illumine everything with an incorruptible fire issuing from the depths of the soul. Thus a new life comes into being, born of the childrens’ love for the entire world; and who will extinguish this love–who? What power is higher than this? Who will subdue it? The earth has brought it forth; and all life desires its victory–all life. Shed rivers of blood, nay seas of blood, you’ll never extinguish it. Maxim Gorky, Mother, p486

Obamagogue and BushIII unite to save Capitalist Schooling:

President Barack Obama will share a political stage at a Miami high school Friday with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, giving the president’s education initiative a bi-partisan boost.

The Republican governor, who last summer criticized Obama as “childish” for continuing to blame the sluggish economy on former President George W. Bush, will join the president and Education Secretary Arne Duncan at Miami Central Senior High School where Obama is to deliver remarks on his push for improving U.S. schools.

Despite his spirited defense of his brother, Bush has lauded some of Obama’s education efforts and has said he believes education is one area where the political parties can find common ground. www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/02/109667/obama-jeb-bush-to-promote-education.html

Capitalist schooling is Not Public and Not Educational. Why “Defend” Public Schooling? “…a schoolmaster is a productive labourer when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his scholars, he works like a horse to enrich the school proprietor. That the latter has laid out his
capital in a teaching factory, instead of in a sausage factory, does not alter the relation.” richgibson.com/EducationFetish.pdf

Worldwide Hot War: Children of the poor Kill the Poor for the rich

WarCriminal Suggests he should have own Head Examined:

“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it,” Mr. Gates told an assembly of Army cadets here. www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/world/26gates.html

O Goodness. Did we kill your 9 Kids? Sorry about that, Again.

Nine boys collecting firewood to heat their homes in the eastern Afghanistan mountains were killed by NATO helicopter gunners who mistook them for insurgents, according to a statement on Wednesday by NATO, which apologized for the mistake. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/world/asia/03afghan.html?_r=1&hp

Wargangster Obamagogue to Ally Quadaffi: Violence must Stop! Above: Hillbillary with Ghadaffi Son–Allies.

These actions violate international norms and every standard of common decency. This violence must stop,” Obama

Wiki Hero Faces 22 New Charges:

The charges, filed Tuesday but disclosed only Wednesday, are one charge of aiding the enemy, five counts of theft of public property or records, two counts of computer fraud, eight counts of transmitting defense information in violation of the Espionage Act, and a count of wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the internet knowing it would be accessible to the enemy. The aiding the enemy charge is a capital offense which potentially carries the death penalty. Five additional charges are for violating Army computer security regulations. www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/bradley-manning-more-charge/

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor:

Taibbi on the Obamagogue: As for President Obama, what is there to be said? Goldman Sachs was his number-one private campaign contributor. He put a Citigroup executive in charge of his economic transition team, and he just named an executive of JP Morgan Chase, the proud owner of $7.7 million in Chase stock, his new chief of staff. “The betrayal that this represents by Obama to everybody is just — we’re not ready to believe it,” says Budde, a classmate of the president from their Columbia days. “He’s really fucking us over like that? Really? That’s really a JP Morgan guy, really?”

Which is not to say that the Obama era has meant an end to law enforcement. On the contrary: In the past few years, the administration has allocated massive amounts of federal resources to catching wrongdoers — of a certain type. Last year, the government deported 393,000 people, at a cost of $5 billion. Since 2007, felony immigration prosecutions along the Mexican border have surged 77 percent; nonfelony prosecutions by 259 percent. In Ohio last month, a single mother was caught lying about where she lived to put her kids into a better school district; the judge in the case tried to sentence her to 10 days in jail for fraud, declaring that letting her go free would “demean the seriousness” of the offenses.

So there you have it. Illegal immigrants: 393,000. Lying moms: one. Bankers: zero.  http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216?page=6

Pimp for the Rich

BP Bosses Take Bonuses for Oil Assault on Gulf: Two of BP’s most senior directors have taken bonus payments for their work in the year of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, although new chief executive Bob Dudley waived his reward.  Byron Grote, finance director, and Iain Conn, head of downstream, had their £800,000 and £724,000 salaries and benefits topped up with rewards of £380,000 and £310,500 respectively. The bonuses amounted to 30pc of the full potential payout.

BP’s annual report also revealed that Tony Hayward, the former chief executive who left the company after the worst of the crisis, will get almost £100,000 a year for his work as a non-executive of BP’s Russian joint venture TNK-BP. He left the board in October with £2m in salary and severance payments, plus a £600,000-a-year pension. www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/8358531/BP-directors-take-bonuses-for-year-of-Gulf-of-Mexico-oil-spill.html

Forbes: What the top 25 US corps  paid In Taxes (GE $1.1 bil refund)

GE’s financial services unit, GE Capital, keeps the overall tax bill so low. Over the last two years, GE Capital has displayed an uncanny ability to lose lots of money in the U.S. and make lots of money overseas, where tax rates are lower www.forbes.com/2010/04/01/ge-exxon-walmart-business-washington-corporate-taxes_slide_5.html

AboveL Goldman Sachs Traders Made $100 Million In A Day 68 Times Last Year (charttoday)

Klare: It’s the End of the World! Us: Why? Oil Moves the Military:

there is almost no way to give full justice to the critical role played by Middle Eastern oil in the world’s energy equation. Although cheap coal fueled the original Industrial Revolution, powering railroads, steamships, and factories, cheap oil has made possible the automobile, the aviation industry, suburbia, mechanized agriculture, and an explosion of economic globalization. And while a handful of major oil-producing areas launched the Petroleum Age — the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Romania, the area around Baku (in what was then the Czarist Russian empire), and the Dutch East Indies — it’s been the Middle East that has quenched the world’s thirst for oil since World War II

…Even if rebellion doesn’t reach Saudi Arabia, the old Middle Eastern oil order cannot be reconstructed. The result is sure to be a long-term decline in the future availability of exportable petroleum.

Spy versus Spy

NYTIMES: All the News the Government Sees fit to Print

For nearly two weeks, The Times tried to report on the Davis affair while sealing off the C.I.A connection. In practice, this meant its stories contained material that, in the cold light of retrospect, seems very misleading. Here’s an example from an article on Feb. 11 that referred to a statement issued by the American government:

“The statement on Friday night said that Mr. Davis was assigned as an ‘administrative and technical’ member of the staff at the American Embassy in Islamabad. But his exact duties have not been explained, and the reason he was driving alone with a Glock handgun, a pocket telescope and GPS equipment has fueled speculation in the Pakistani news media.” www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27pubed.html

Sweetie, Those men at the Door, I’m not Exactly me: The Peruvian journalist deported by the United States to Russia in a spy swap last year says that she never spied for Moscow – and that her husband hid his espionage from her until the couple’s arrest.

Vicky Pelaez says she also intends to return to her native country.

“I might never forgive him,” Pelaez said of her Russian husband, Mikhail Vasenkov, according to an interview published Thursday by the newsmagazine Caretas.

She said she had known him only as Juan Lazaro, a supposed Uruguayan, through nearly 20 years of marriage.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/24/AR2011022405402.html

African Commission To take on CIA Kidnapping/torture project:
A case filed before an African judicial body could open a new front in efforts by human rights groups to hold the CIA and its partners accountable for what they allege was the torture of innocent victims in secret “black site” prisons around the world.

The case involves Mohammed al-Asad, who said he was arrested in late 2003 at his home in Tanzania, blindfolded and flown to a secret prison in Djibouti. He said he was subjected to two weeks of torture and inhuman treatment in a clandestine CIA rendition and detentions program designed to nab suspected terrorists.

From Djibouti, human rights activists say, Asad was dispatched into a network of secret CIA prisons in Afghanistan and Eastern Europe, before being jailed in his native Yemen. In 2006, Asad was released, without being charged with a terrorism-related crime.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/28/AR2011022803848.html?hpid=topnews

Aaron Dehaven Arrested in Pakistan: Who is this Guy?

worsening spy agency row between the countries, with Pakistani intelligence calling on the Americans to “come clean” about its network of covert operatives in the country.

The arrest came at the start of the murder trial of another American held in Pakistan, the CIA agent Raymond Davis.

Peshawar police arrested Aaron DeHaven, a contractor who recently worked for the US embassy in Islamabad, saying that his visa had expired.

Little was known about DeHaven except that his firm, which also has offices in Afghanistan and Dubai, is staffed by retired US military and defence personnel who boast of direct experience in the “global war on terror”.  http://www.u.tv/News/Pakistan-arrests-US-security-contractor-as-rift-with-CIA-deepens/c3895b33-56eb-473c-bb6c-2d2e23b360be

Rapist CIA Spook Sentenced to 5 Years: A former station chief for the Central Intelligence Agency is being sent to prison for five and a half years for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman at the house that the United States government provided for him in Algeria. Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of Federal District Court gave Andrew Warren a sentence nearly two years longer than prosecutors had recommended. She said it seemed he thought he could get away with the crime because he had diplomatic immunity and his victim was a married Muslim who was not likely to report it. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/us/04brfs-CIAAGENTSENT_BRF.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

The New York Times, The CIA, and Weird Spook Dewey Claridge:

The Times should afford Mr. Clarridge the opportunity to express himself. But it’s interesting to examine just how hard this has proven to be. For example, in the negotiation over what this letter would be permitted to say, Mr. Granger agreed to sacrifice his preferred term “hypocrisy” and so substituted his second choice, “disservice.” However, as you will see below, The Times edited out “disservice” in the shortening and cleaning-up process. It also whacked “reckless allegation.” publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/a-war-of-letter/?scp=1&sq=duane%20clarridge&st=cse

Innocent exFBI AID Agent “Contractor” on Trail in Cuba: U.S. government contractor went on trial in Cuba on Friday in a case sure to have a profound impact on relations between the Cold War enemies.

Alan Gross faces a possible 20-year sentence for “acts against the integrity and independence” of Cuba. The 61-year-old Maryland native was working for the Bethesda-based Development Associates International on a USAID-program that promotes democracy when he was arrested in December 2009….

Development Associates International, or DAI, was awarded a $4.5 million contract for the program in which Gross was involved, and Gross reportedly was paid more than a half-million dollars himself, despite the fact he spoke little Spanish and had no history working in Cuba. Gross travelled to the island several times over a short period on a tourist visa, apparently raising Cuban suspicions. www.thespec.com/news/world/article/496405–american-alan-gross-goes-on-trial-in-cuba

Watch This Movie, then eat a Bankster:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpz5DVwnbnk

Magical Mystery Tour:

What With 6 Million + Jews Murdered, Good of Pope to Remember they didn’t Kill his Fake God: Benedict’s relationship with the Jewish community has been spotty in the past. There was that business about getting conscripted into the Hitler Youth, for example, and the 2009 incident where he lifted the excommunication of a bishop who’d claimed that Jews were never gassed in the Holocaust

LA Rapeherder Cardinal Mahony Retires after hiding 500+ Child Abusers and Building a $200 Million Cathedral to the God of the Poor: The scandal, which resulted in a $660 million settlement with more than 500 plaintiffs, proved to be the biggest erosion of Mahony’s authority in a church that had already shifted around him with a revived emphasis on orthodoxy and tradition. In his final years in Los Angeles, Mahony has been dogged by hundreds of lawsuits, criminal investigations into clergy abuse in the archdiocese and a bitter legal fight over sealed church files on some of the church’s worst abusive priests.

Even in his final days as archbishop, newly uncovered allegations against an aging priest refocused attention on Mahony’s role and forced the resignation of the archdiocese’s vicar for clergy. Still, Mahony managed to hang on
www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-02-26-Catholic_Mahony_27_ST_N.htm

Rapeherder and Friend of the Poor Mahony Gets to Wear Funny Hat

Your God is Evil. Mine isn’t. That is Why I am Killing you: The only Christian in Pakistan’s cabinet was assassinated Wednesday by militants linked to al Qaida after he called for the country’s controversial laws on blasphemy to be amended.

Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for religious minorities, had just left his mother’s house in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, and was traveling to work in Islamabad when gunmen sprayed his car with bullets.

The assassination, the second in two months over the blasphemy law, was a reminder of the surge of extremism that is sweeping Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation that is a key U.S. ally in the region. www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/02/109663/another-top-pakistan-politician.html

Look Out Phillies! Hide the Kids! The Priests are Still Free! Three weeks after a scathing grand jury report said the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had provided safe haven to as many as 37 priests who were credibly accused of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior toward minors, most of those priests remain active in the ministry. …one of the most damning episodes in the American church since it became engulfed in the sexual abuse scandal nearly a decade ago.

The situation in Philadelphia is “Boston reborn,” said David J. O’Brien, who teaches Catholic history at the University of Dayton. The Boston Archdiocese was engulfed in a scandal starting in 2002 involving widespread sexual abuse by priests and an extensive cover-up that reached as high as the cardinal. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/us/05church.html?hp

Solidarity Forever:

Union Bosses of All Stripes Unite to Keep those Dues Flowing (no thought of a general strike anywhere, but millions for ads):

The coordinated effort got is start at a Feb. 14 meeting at the headquarters of the National Education Association, the nation’s biggest union with 3.2 million members.

At the meeting, about a dozen presidents of the nation’s biggest unions formed a group called the “Labor Table,” and signed onto a detailed “unity campaign,” which amounts to a contract among the unions outlining how they will mobilize rallies and other events in coming months.

The meetings involved officials of the Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Teachers, the Communications Workers of America, the United Steelworkers, the International Association of Machinists and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, among others, according to someone familiar with the meeting…

Unions spent $400 million in 2008 to help elect President Barack Obama and other Democrats, and they spent more than $200 million in the 2010 midterm elections online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704520504576162791562718756.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Why Unions Cannot meet the Challenge of Capital and Empire:

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.”  http://richgibson.com/USUnionism.html

Why does that make better sense?

Emergence of Fascism as a Mass, Popular, Movement

“Bourgeoisie democracy BREEDS fascism…The more workers place their trust in legalism, in constitutionalism, in bourgeois democracy, the more they make sacrifices to save the existing regime, as the “lesser evil’ against the “menace” of fascism, the heavier become the fascist attacks and the more rapid the advance to capitalism. To preach confidence in legalism, in constitutionalism, in the capitalist state, means to invite and guarantee the victory of fascism.” R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution, 1935.p49

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLTyGPOnxEs

Above: Dior Didn’t Know? Huh? FashionNazi Mincing, no words

Worst thing in the History of the World:

Back to the 18th Century–Pirates vs Missionaries:

For years, the infant American government, along with many others, had accepted the humiliating practice of paying tribute — essentially mob-style protection fees — to a handful of rulers in the Barbary states so that American ships crossing the Mediterranean would not get hijacked. But in 1801, Tripoli’s pasha, Yusuf Karamanli, tried to jack up his prices. Jefferson said no. And when the strongman turned his pirates loose on American ships, Jefferson sent in the Navy to bombard Tripoli, starting a war that eventually brought the Barbary states to their knees. Rampant piracy went to sleep for nearly 200 years.

The question now is: Are we nearing another enough-is-enough moment with pirates?

On Tuesday, Somali pirates shot and killed four American hostages. A single hostage intentionally killed by these pirates had been almost unheard of; four dead was unprecedented. Until now, the first thing that came to mind about Somalia’s buccaneers was that they were brash and mercurial. Just a few weeks ago they let go some Sri Lankan fishermen after they essentially said, “You’re poor, like us.” They were seen as a nuisance, albeit an expensive one, but not a lethal threat.

2nd Worst Thing in History of the World–Another Pride of San Diego State (following on the heels of the prize of the Chem Dept, murderess Kristy Rossum, and the Wilkes/Foggo/Jailed Cunningham criminals of Football program Fame) the half-wit twit from the psych program to marry OctoHeff:

A little more than two years ago, Harris was a senior at San Diego State University. She and a friend drove up to the mansion for a Halloween party, where, dressed as a French maid, she caught Hefner’s eye. Two weeks later, she quit school and moved into the mansion. “I was a psychology major, and I didn’t want to be a psychologist,” she said. “I thought it would be cool to come up here and just, you know, hang with Hef. School will always be there, I guess.”

3rd Worst Thing in the History of the World: Texas too big for racism: Yes, the Texas-based nonprofit organization has launched a scholarship for white men. Members of the group, which goes by FMAFE, say they aren’t racist and “have no hidden agenda to promote racial bigotry or segregation,” according to their Web site. Instead, they say their goal is to provide financial aid to white men who might not qualify for other scholarships. voices.washingtonpost.com/campus-overload/?hpid=sec-education

4th Worst thing in History of the World: Hypocritical, Bureaucratical, Tyrannical, Parasitical Feudal Monarchs Appear:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MowQHEEWkI

5th Worst Thing in history of World: Child Tortured by Paper:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXXm696UbKY

Best Thing s in the History of the World:

Look What My Prof did for Extra Credit service learning: The president of Northwestern University said Thursday that he was “troubled and disappointed” by a psychology professor’s decision to present his students last week with a demonstration outside class that featured a couple engaging in a live sex act using a prop. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/education/04northwestern.html?ref=education

Very Best Thing in all of History: Attention Members of the Underwear Terrorist Fan Club! You can use your Secret Decoder Rings to check off Every Ninth letter in the Update and Discover the Secret Message!