Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

Class of 2011, Department of Sociology, South Asian University; Image: Courtesy of Dev N. Pathak, Sociology, SAU.

Call for Papers

Department of Sociology, South Asian University in association with Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung will organise an international conference in March 2014 on the theme, Educational Transformation and Transformative Education: Possibilities and Alternatives to the Educational Crisis. The conference would look at the possibilities and alternatives to the crisis generated in the field of education by impact of neoliberalism. Some of the tentative themes to be debated during the conference would include the following:

1. Imagining a transformative education:

a. Resistance as the beginning of transformation; the distinct forms of resisting neoliberalism in education.
b. Alternative as the beginning of resistance; embryonic alternative visions within crisis and the resistances
c. Existing educational alternatives in South Asia and their transformative potential to neoliberal orientations

2. The changes in South Asian education as neoliberalism arrives and the nature of responses to the changes

3. Contribution of critical pedagogy towards imagining an alternative

a. Can education autonomously effect socio-political transformation?
b. Consequences of locating education within the larger socio-economic and political matrix
c. Teacher as an agent of transformation
d. Conceptualising extensions of pedagogy beyond the classroom
e. Establishing the necessity to connect socio-economic and political realities with pedagogy

4. Social movements as pedagogical possibilities

Last date of submission of abstracts (500 words): 30th November, 2013
Submission of selected papers: 1st March 2014For details, please visist:
critiquesouthasia.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/educational-transformation-and-transformative-education-possibilities-and-alternatives-to-the-educational-crisis/

Students Protest Fascist School boss Napolitano  about 40 students demonstrated against Napolitano on Friday, saying deportations of people who entered the United States illegally had increased during her time as head of the federal agency. They also contended that Napolitano is not qualified to head a prestigious university system.
The protesters first marched in a circle near the Bruin statue at the center of campus, then moved to outside the dining hall where Napolitano hosted the lunch. The UC president rushed past the protesters without comment.
“We do not think she is the right choice to be UC president. We believe our institution stands for the complete opposite of what she stands for. She stands for militarization, privatization and increasing the national security state and culture of suspicion,”   www.latimes.com/local/la-me-ucla-napolitano-20131012,0,2715642.story

Brazil School Workers on Strike  A teachers’ protest over pay turned violent in Rio de Janeiro, with masked anarchists pelting police and buildings with fire bombs and breaking into banks in scenes that will raise questions about the security of the 2014 World Cup.
Teachers in Brazil have been on strike demanding better pay for almost two months and on Monday thousands of them – joined by students, anarchists and civil rights groups – marched in support of the action.
The march began peacefully, but ugly scenes erupted when it reached City Hall, where controversial legislation that’s altered teachers’ working conditions has been signed off….’We don’t need the World Cup,’ said Leonardo Fabri, a 19-year-old protester, at the time. ‘We need education, we need better health services, a more humane police.’
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2449400/Brazil-protests-teachers-strike-sees-bombs-thrown-police.html#ixzz2hZVtIlrW
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Boston School Bus Drivers Wildcat Strike  Union steward Jean Claude Toussaint said drivers staged the “work stoppage” to bring attention to a list of grievances. However, Patrick Bryan, an attorney for the United Steelworkers Local 8751, which represents the bus drivers’ interests, said union leadership did not authorize a strike. Rather, Mr. Bryan said, Tuesday’s action was organized by disparate union members.
Veolia’s attorneys were reluctant to accept that the union was unaware that hundreds of its members were going on strike.  http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2013/1009/Boston-school-bus-drivers-end-wildcat-strike-but-city-officials-wary-video

From “The Marketing of War in the Age of Neo-Liberalism ““(top universities must do all they can) to fill security-related positions in the defense industry,the military, the national laboratories, the Department of Defense and Homeland Security, the intelligence agencies, and other federal agencies.”  The Association of American Universities

The Little Red Schoolhouse

From the Same People Who Brought you the Oil Wars (exxon mobil): The Common Core
Academic performance in the US is uneven, so, 45 states and the District of Columbia have voluntarily decided to raise the bar with consistent educational standards. Now students in those states will have a better chance to succeed in college, careers and to compete in the global economy, which means a better future for our students and our nation. Join ExxonMobil in supporting the Common Core State Standards. Let’s solve this.  (the oil compay ran two page color ads in the NYTimes and LAtimes the week of 10.12.13)  http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/news_ad_letssolvethis_common.aspx

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWzuvO1y02g

SDSU Proud of its Graduate Program in Homeland Security  The HSEC Program offers interdisciplinary graduate study leading to the Master of Science degree in Homeland Security. Our Program was the first of its kind in the nation, taking advantage of the unique learning and research opportunities offered by the “living laboratory” that is the San Diego-Baja border region. The HSEC Program provides a vibrant and challenging learning environment where scholarly, educational, and research endeavors are applied to real-world challenges associated with man-made and natural emergencies and critical incidents on the local, national, and global levels. We currently have over 150 active graduate students who bring their diverse professional, disciplinary, and cultural backgrounds into the learning and research processes. We also have a wonderful group of Faculty who mostly volunteer their time and efforts in support of the Program. One of our biggest assets is a robust group of Adjunct Faculty members from many aspects of the professional Homeland Security world who provide extraordinary learning and research collaboration to the Program and its students.  … We are also focused on positive solutions such as International Trade Optimization as championed by Assistant Secretary of DHS for International Affairs and also Chief Diplomatic Officer, Alan Bersin.   homelandsecurity.sdsu.edu/

School Lunch Accountant May Have Embezzled More than $3 million Prosecutors allege that a former Rialto school district accountant charged with embezzling $1.8 million stole more than $4,200 a week for eight years.
Judith Oakes, 48, faces 16 felony counts and the prospect of up to 11 years in prison if convicted of all the charges in what Rialto police say is the largest white-collar crime case they have ever handled.
Oakes, who was allegedly caught on video stuffing school lunch money into her bra, was charged Tuesday.
As nutrient services accountant, Oakes oversaw the lunch money collected from the district’s 29 schools, along with related state and federal funds. The investigation into Oakes remains ongoing and police are planning to question other district officials as part of the probe.
Rialto Police Capt. Randy De Anda said the department was also investigating a supposed confession letter from Oakes, which has yet to be authenticated. De Anda said the letter was turned over to the school district last Friday by the San Bernardino Sun newspaper.
Oakes, who lives in San Bernardino, was arrested Aug. 7 on the basis of the video evidence, authorities said.
Law enforcement agencies and the state Department of Education are investigating why the loss was not discovered sooner.
An investigative firm hired by the Rialto Unified School District has so far found a “documented” loss of at least $1.8 million dating back to 2005, but warned the losses could be as high as $3.16 million, including discrepancies that could not be documented.  http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-school-lunch-accountant-accused-of-stealing-18-million-took-thousands-weekly-20131009,0,637828.story (Oakes below)

E Wayne Ross:
Wake me up when #DianeRavitch says something #SusanOhanian or #GerryBracey or #DavidBerliner or everyone in @RougeForum didn’t say years ago

National Felon League Goon Attacks UW Marching Band  Dominic Raiola is literally the worst person I have ever had the fortune to encounter. After marching down the field awaiting the national anthem, He went off on a verbal tirade, among other things, questioning my sexuality (as a band member) and then continued on to bring my sister and my recently deceased mother into the conversation. After I refused to give him the satisfaction of turning to look at him, he switched targets to a trombone ranting at him calling him overweight and saying he can’t play a real sport. After our halftime show, the same fine gentleman called a female member of the band the “c” word.  http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/6691/why_wisconsin_band_members_are_calling_dominic_raiola_literally_the_worst_person?utm_source=Deadline+Detroit+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7683553c4b-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4d2ad8703-7683553c4b-73197837#.Ulmw7Evh54L

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-QZKcAaf7s

Holy Cow. US Not Leaving Afghanistan   The United States and Afghanistan agreed Saturday on a draft deal that would keep some U.S. forces in Afghanistan past next year, but only if Afghan political and tribal leaders agree to a key U.S. demand that American troops not be subject to Afghan law, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the framework security agreement meets his demands regarding counterterrorism operations on Afghan soil and respects Afghan sovereignty. The U.S. demand to retain legal jurisdiction over all remaining U.S. forces will be put before a loya jirga, Karzai said. He plans to convene the Afghan tribal consultation body next month. www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/kerry-in-afghanistan-suggests-agreement-may-be-near-on-us-presence-beyond-2014/2013/10/12/1581d9ce-3349-11e3-89ae-16e186e117d8_story.html?hpid=z4

Human Rights Watch on US Backed Syrian Terrorists n a coordinated attack, numerous rebel groups fought off a small garrison of government troops and swept into the villages, killing 190 people, according to a Human Rights Watch report to be released on Friday. At least 67 of the dead appeared to have been shot or stabbed while unarmed or fleeing, including 48 women and 11 children, the report said. More than 200 civilians are still being held hostage.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/world/middleeast/syrian-civilians-bore-brunt-of-rebels-fury-report-says.html

Pilger on Liberal Fascism  Under the “weak” Obama, militarism has risen perhaps as never before. With not a single tank on the White House lawn, a military coup has taken place in Washington. In 2008, while his liberal devotees dried their eyes, Obama accepted the entire Pentagon of his predecessor, George Bush: its wars and war crimes. As the constitution is replaced by an emerging police state, those who destroyed Iraq with shock and awe, and piled up the rubble in Afghanistan and reduced Libya to a Hobbesian nightmare, are ascendant across the US administration. Behind their beribboned façade, more former US soldiers are killing themselves than are dying on battlefields. Last year, 6,500 veterans took their own lives. Put out more flags.  http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/11/the-biggest-lie/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXhEiZUBBrQ

William Blum on America’s Barbarians  For about two years, his dear American government has been supporting the same anti-government side as the jihadists in the Syrian civil war; not total, all-out support, but enough military hardware, logistics support, intelligence information, international political, diplomatic and propaganda assistance (including the crucial alleged-chemical-weapons story), to keep the jihadists in the ball game. Washington and its main Mideast allies in the conflict – Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia – have not impeded the movement to Syria of jihadists coming to join the rebels, recruited from the ranks of Sunni extremist veterans of the wars in Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, while Qatar and the Saudis have supplied the rebels with weapons, most likely bought in large measure from the United States, as well as lots of of what they have lots of – money.
This widespread international support has been provided despite the many atrocities carried out by the jihadists – truck and car suicide bombings (with numerous civilian casualties), planting roadside bombs à la Iraq, gruesome massacres of Christians and Kurds, grotesque beheadings and other dissections of victims’ bodies (most charming of all: a Youtube video of a rebel leader cutting out an organ from the chest of a victim and biting into it as it drips with blood). All this barbarity piled on top of a greater absurdity – these Western-backed, anti-government forces are often engaged in battle with other Western-backed, anti-government forces, non-jihadist. It has become increasingly difficult to sell this war to the American public as one of pro-democracy “moderates” locked in a good-guy-versus-bad-guy struggle with an evil dictator, although in actuality the United States has fought on the same side as al Qaeda on repeated occasions before Syria. Here’s a brief survey:  http://williamblum.org/aer/read/121

Failed Seals Attack on Al Shabab Encourages Counterpart Barbarians  A commando unit from the US Navy’s Seal Team Six launched an amphibious raid on a Somali town, but failed to confirm a capture or kill of their Al Shabab target, suspected to be linked to Nairobi’s Westgate mall terror attack.  The operation could have opposite its intended result of discouraging further attacks. Analysts warn that even earlier successful targeted strikes against Al Shabab, a Somalia-based Islamist militant group, failed to curb the group’s capacity to carry out international terror attacks, and that failed missions could in fact bolster its support and recruitment.
The predawn raid Saturday came unstuck when the US troops were faced with heavier-than-expected return fire, and pulled out http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/2013/1006/Failed-Navy-SEALs-raid-on-Somali-target-could-bolster-Al-Shabab-video

What about those US Nukes??? The Air Force on Friday fired the general in charge of all land-based nuclear missiles, the second time in a week that a senior commander of the country’s nuclear arsenal has been let go for allegations of personal misconduct.
Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, commander of the 20th Air Force, was removed from his job “due to a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgment,” said Brig. Gen. Les Kodlick, an Air Force spokesman…Carey’s firing comes two days after the Navy announced it had fired a three-star admiral from his post as deputy commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees all nuclear-armed missiles, bombers and submarines.
In that case, Vice Adm. Tim Giardina remains under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service after a casino in Iowa allegedly caught him using $1,500 in counterfeit gambling chips. The casino is near the Strategic Command headquarters in Omaha. www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/air-force-fires-commander-of-land-based-us-nuclear-arsenal/2013/10/11/78b9565e-3293-11e3-8686-68fca83a474f_story.html?hpid=z4

 

In Memory of the beginning and end of the Grenada Revo: October 79-83  www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/05/the-last-prisoners-of-the-cold-war-are-black/

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
DR. RICHARD JOHN GIBSON,
Plaintiff,
v. Case No. 97-CV-72734
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, and Honorable Denise Page Hood
DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY United States District Judge

Defendants.

________________________________/
JUDGMENT
This action having come before the Court by way of Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment, and the Court having issued a Memorandum Opinion and Order this date granting Plaintiff’s Motion,  Accordingly,
Judgment is entered in favor of Plaintiff and against Defendants.
JOHN P MAYER
CLERK OF THE COURT

Michael Ledeen edited “The Grenada Documents,” and helped narrate he History Channel “documentary.”   Jonah Goldberg, Ledeen’s colleague at National Review, coined the term “Ledeen Doctrine” in a 2002 column. This tongue-in-cheek “doctrine” is usually summarized as “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business,” which Goldberg remembered Ledeen saying in an early 1990s speech.[

In memory of Commissioner Winston Courtney Who gave his life trying to stop the Grenada Prison Tortures

Counterpunch on the Obamagogue Legacy  Obama will be remembered too for his role in reconstructing America’s perpetual war machine – with weaponized drones and “elite” assassination squads substituting for politically risky “boots on the ground.”
Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush era neocons harbored similar aspirations, but they barely got the project going.
Under Obama’s leadership, it has become feasible — technologically and politically — to deploy military force whenever and wherever the empire’s stewards decide, without putting many (or any) American troops in harm’s way and without stirring up troublesome discontent at home.  http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/11/what-obama-has-wrought/

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

image from liberal reformer Robert Reich’s new Film

In Every Aspect of Every US Institution: Stagnation Not knowing who, ultimately, will lose as a consequence of our past excesses helps explain America’s current strife. This is not an argument for immediate and painful austerity, which isn’t working in Europe. It is, instead, a plea for economic honesty, to recognize that promises made during good times can no longer be easily kept.
That means a higher retirement age, more immigration to increase the working-age population, less borrowing from abroad, less reliance on monetary policy that creates unsustainable financial bubbles, a new social compact that doesn’t cannibalize the young to feed the boomers, a tougher stance toward banks, a further opening of world trade and, over the medium term, a commitment to sustained deficit reduction.
In his “Future of an Illusion,” Sigmund Freud argued that the faithful clung to God’s existence in the absence of evidence because the alternative — an empty void — was so much worse. Modern beliefs about economic prospects are not so different. Policy makers simply pray for a strong recovery. They opt for the illusion because the reality is too bleak to bear. But as the current fiscal crisis demonstrates, facing the pain will not be easy. And the waking up from our collective illusions has barely begun. www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/opinion/when-wealth-disappears.html?pagewanted=all

Western Michigan Bronco Bob Kohler on the Government Shutdown In an agony of stupidity, the government shuts down.
Only some of it shuts down, of course. The part that stays open is the part that’s at war. “Those of you in uniform will remain on your normal duty status,” the president said. “The threats to our national security have not changed, and we need you to be ready for any contingency. Ongoing military operations, like our efforts in Afghanistan, will continue.”
As I once observed, there’s no such thing as a relaxed nation. It can shut down what it does right, if clumsily, like feeding people, educating them and helping them through difficulty, but it will only shut down its predatory sense of identity in a state of total defeat by a bigger predator. Not letting that happen is its endless obsession.
This is the sly, primitive, irrational part of government: its reptile-brain function. That’s still in full operation. We’re continuing to raid, bomb and terrorize Fourth World countries and pointlessly harvest global metadata. We’re still “completing our mission” in Afghanistan. We’re just phasing out the government functions that have value. Perhaps what we should talk about is a rationality shutdown.
Bizarrely, the irrational functions of government are usually called “security,” though of course they have nothing to do with rational security.  http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Rationality-Shutdown-by-Bob-Koehler-Compassion_Security_Shutdown_Violence-War-131011-83.html

Berkeley Inequality Report  From 2009 to 2012, average real income per family grew modestly by
6.0% (Table 1). Most of the gains happened in the last year when averageincomes grew by 4.6% from 2011 to 2012. However, the gains were very uneven. Top 1% incomes grew by31.4% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.4% from 2009 to 2012. Hence, the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years of the recovery. From 2009 to 2010, top 1% grew fast and then stagnated from 2010 to 2011. Bottom 99% stagnated both from 2009 to 2010 and from 2010 to 2011. In 2012, top 1% incomes increased sharply by 19.6% while
bottom 99% incomes grew only by 1.0%. In sum, top 1% incomes are close to full recovery while bottom 99% incomes have hardly started to recover.  http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf

LATimes: Jamie Dimon Presides over Lawbreaking The toll of JPMorgan Chase’s relentless lawbreaking under Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon may finally be getting real for shareholders.
According to the bank’s third-quarter financial results, released Friday morning, its litigation expenses of more than $9 billion (pretax) more than wiped out its third-quarter profits — and then some. The bank booked a loss of $380 million. In the year-earlier quarter it made a profit of $5.7 billion.
More hits from legal and regulatory problems are coming.  http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-dimon-20131011,0,3276812.story

CBS: Detroit=Mogidishu  Veteran CBS correspondent Bob Simon said he was struck by the contrast between Detroit’s ailing neighborhoods and a revitalizing downtown during his recent visit for a “60 Minutes” TV segment set to air Sunday.
Simon, who interviewed a half-dozen residents, civic and business leaders for the news program’s segment on Detroit, said that from downtown it was hard to tell he was in a bankrupt city “until you get in the car and drive for 5 minutes.”
Yet once he toured through the city’s vast neighborhoods, he was surprised by the extent of the decay and number of burnt-out buildings.
Speaking by phone Friday, Simon said that of all the places he has visited in more than four decades of reporting, much of it as a foreign correspondent, Detroit reminds him most of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. www.freep.com/article/20131011/BUSINESS06/310110132/60-minutes-Detroit-segment-Dan-Gilbert

Suffering Queen Gets Much Needed Raise Her household is set to receive a hiked amount of 37.9 million pounds, a 5 per cent rise on this year and 22 per cent rise compared to the 31 million pounds she was given in 2012.
The recommended increase in the grant was justified in the context of “significant reductions” in the monarchy’s funding over the last 20 years. articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-11/news/42942119_1_sovereign-grant-queen-elizabeth-ii-1-million-pounds

Quelle Horreur! French TV Finds Old Blood Samples In An Abandoned Detroit Hospital  The pace picks up when they try on breathing masks and see shelves full of drugs, then they discover what appears to be hundreds of reddish glass slides on a floor.
“Those are people’s blood samples,” says Bobby, as they reach down and examine them in detail.
“It’s got people’s blood smeared on it!” Bobby says. “Look at that!”
That concludes Martin Weill’s report on “Le Detroit Trash.”  http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/6599/quelle_horreur_french_tv_finds_old_blood_samples_in_an_abandoned_detroit_hospital?utm_source=Deadline+Detroit+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7683553c4b-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4d2ad8703-7683553c4b-73197837#.Ulmw7Evh54L

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

Preparing For Riots Reports are that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is engaged in a massive, covert military buildup. An article in the Associated Press in February confirmed an open purchase order by DHS for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. According to an op-ed in Forbes, that’s enough to sustain an Iraq-sized war for over twenty years. DHS has also acquired heavily armored tanks, which have been seen roaming the streets. Evidently somebody in government is expecting some serious civil unrest. The question is, why?
Recently revealed statements by former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the height of the banking crisis in October 2008 could give some insights into that question. An article on BBC News on September 21, 2013, drew from an explosive autobiography called Power Trip by Brown’s spin doctor Damian McBride, who said the prime minister was worried that law and order could collapse during the financial crisis. McBride quoted Brown as saying:
If the banks are shutting their doors, and the cash points aren’t working, and people go to Tesco [a grocery chain] and their cards aren’t being accepted, the whole thing will just explode.
If you can’t buy food or petrol or medicine for your kids, people will just start breaking the windows and helping themselves.
And as soon as people see that on TV, that’s the end, because everyone will think that’s OK now, that’s just what we all have to do. It’ll be anarchy. That’s what could happen tomorrow.
How to deal with that threat? Brown said, “We’d  have to think: do we have curfews, do we put the Army on the streets, how do we get order back?”   http://ellenbrown.com/2013/10/07/is-homeland-security-preparing-for-the-next-wall-street-collapse/

Thug Ranger Tickets Women on a Walk in their Park Borchers said she and her sister, Donna Kanehl, 53, were ticketed by a Bureau of Land Management officer for “creating a nuisance” by entering the closed Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area on Saturday.
“Obviously we were bad, bad old ladies with our visors and our water bottles,” the 55-year-old said.
The citation could wind up costing each of them $275, though Borchers might challenge hers in federal court.
“We were not trying to get away with anything. We were walking,” she said. “We’re not the kind of ladies who get into trouble.”
The two came to town for a dental convention and were staying at the Luxor. Borchers said their run-in with the law put a damper on the rest of their trip.
They planned to hike for an hour or two, but about 20 minutes into their walk they heard the ranger’s voice booming over a loudspeaker on his vehicle.
“I thought he was going to tell us to be careful or watch out for rattlesnakes,” Borchers said.
She works for the city of San Clemente, Calif., so she knows a little something about how government employees can — and should — interact with the public.
“The ranger had many responses to choose from and with us; he decided to choose a particularly harsh one,” she said. “He was all puffed up and angry.”  http://m.reviewjournal.com/news/fine-day-hike-leads-blm-fines-red-rock

Solidarity for Never

San Diego Overlords Join Unionites to Screw Working Class A political alliance is getting almost unstoppable in San Diego: organized labor, led by the construction trades, marching alongside the downtown corporate welfare boosters. They control big chunks of both political parties.
This alliance will almost certainly be responsible for further financial fatuity, similar to the proposed $520 million convention center expansion. The unions and business can frustrate public debate, or even block a vote on a project, such as on convention center expansion. The downtown oligarchs want fat subsidies, and labor wants high-paying jobs. The result is more money going into wholly unneeded downtown structures, while throughout the city, infrastructure rots and maintenance lags.  “The construction industry and labor unions are partners,” says civic activist Mel Shapiro. “They want to build things, whether or not it makes economic sense.” Shapiro and attorney Cory Briggs sued to block the kinky arrangement by which the hotels made the decision on the convention center expansion and the people were denied the right to vote. The two lost at the trial level and are now appealing.
“Big Business and Big Labor go hand in hand to promote [unnecessary] projects,” says Brian Peterson, veterinarian and president of the Grantville Action Group. His organization tried unsuccessfully to block a legal agreement through which tax proceeds from Grantville were used to fund projects in downtown San Diego.
Read more: www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2013/oct/02/citylights1-san-diego-overlords-unions/#ixzz2hY9Gwpxt

VW to Workers: Why Bother with UAW Sellouts?  Now Volkswagen and its German labor leaders are proposing a solution that is commonplace in Europe, but has yet to be tried in the American auto industry.
The senior labor representative at Volkswagen in Germany, Bernd Osterloh, is planning a trip to the United States to suggest a compromise in what has become a heated battle over the U.A.W.’s relentless drive to organize a foreign-owned auto plant in the American South.
He is expected to push for a German-style works council in the plant — a committee of hourly and salaried employees that gives labor a voice at the management table.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/business/vw-plant-opens-door-to-union-and-dispute.html?emc=edit_tnt_20131011&tntemail0=y

UAW Thugs Determined to Extort Southern Workers  The unionization battle has badly divided workers at the gleaming white Nissan plant here, which stretches four-fifths of a mile along Interstate 55 and produces 450,000 Altimas, Sentras and other vehicles a year. The pro-union forces say many workers are backing the U.A.W., while anti-union workers insist the union has little chance of gaining majority backing. Some anti-union workers wear T-shirts saying, “If you want a union, move to Detroit.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/world/africa/a-terrorism-suspect-long-known-to-prosecutors.html?ref=global-home&_r=5&

Hawaii Teachers About to Fund Dues Eaters in AFL-CIO  REGARDING AFL-CIO MEMBERSHIP The HSTA Board has approved the initiative to apply for a potential membership with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). In addition to its affiliation with the National Education Association (NEA), a partnership with the AFL-CIO would strengthen the HSTA’s voice in union debates for the benefit of its 13,500 members, as well as broaden its partnerships with other unions to promote educational transformation for the state of Hawaii. – See more at: www.hsta.org/index.php/news/hsta-bod-considerations-afl-cio-affiiation#sthash.5XOjmIDz.dpuf

Former AFL Boss Heads NY Reserve Bank Denis M. Hughes, a New York labor leader, was named Monday to chair the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s board of directors.
Instead of a résumé filled with corporate or financial experience, as has been typical of his predecessors, Hughes is president of the New York State AFL-CIO.  http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-08-25/business/36913188_1_banks-class-c-directors-board-members

Spy versus Spy

Undercover Police, Just About Everywhere in NYC  The city now has a sturdy legion of undercover officers who have taken up residence in many surprising regions of civic life. Much of this began in early 2003, when a federal judge lifted many restraints on spying by the Police Department. The city had been failed by the federal intelligence services, and thousands died on Sept. 11. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg created an independent intelligence capacity.
So before and during the Iraq War, the organization of antiwar rallies was regarded as a fit matter for police surveillance; so were the monthly Critical Mass bicycle rallies, as well as groups protesting at the Republican National Convention in 2004, and a range of Islamic facilities, from mosques to college student clubs. Undercover New York police officers showed up at activists’ meetings all over the country, carrying guitars and knapsacks. Handlers left money for them in the wheel wells of cars. Field reports were stamped “NYPD Secret.” www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/nyregion/undercover-just-about-everywhere.html

Noted Whistleblowers Honor Snowden  National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, from his asylum in Russia, accepted an award on Wednesday from a group of former US intelligence officials expressing support for his decision to divulge secrets about the NSA’s electronic surveillance of Americans and people around the globe.
The award, named in honor of the late CIA analyst Sam Adams, was presented to Snowden at a ceremony in Moscow by previous recipients of the award bestowed by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII). The presenters included former FBI agent Coleen Rowley, former NSA official Thomas Drake, and former Justice Department official Jesselyn Radack, now with the Government Accountability Project. (Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern also took part.) original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2013/10/10/snowden-accepts-whistleblower-award/

Assange on the “Fifth Estate” Film (and hey give credit to the real FE of Detroit fame!)  “I believe you are a good person, but I do not believe that this film is a good film.
“The United States government has engaged almost every instrument of its justice and intelligence system to pursue—in its own words—a ‘whole of government’ investigation of ‘unprecedented scale and nature’ into WikiLeaks under draconian espionage laws. Our alleged sources are facing their entire lives in the US prison system. Two are already in it. Another one is detained in Sweden.
“Feature films are the most powerful and insidious shapers of public perception, because they fly under the radar of conscious exclusion. This film is going to bury good people doing good work, at exactly the time that the state is coming down on their heads. It is going to smother the truthful version of events, at a time when the truth is most in demand.
“As justification it will claim to be fiction, but it is not fiction. It is distorted truth about living people doing battle with titanic opponents. It is a work of political opportunism, influence, revenge and, above all, cowardice. It seeks to ride on the back of our work, our reputation and our struggles.
“The film’s many distortions buttress what the prosecution will argue. Has argued. Is arguing. In my case, and in others. These cases will continue for years.”  http://wikileaks.org/RELEASE-Julian-Assange.html

NSA Spy Boss: Of Course We Watch Everything and Everyone for your own good   The director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, said in an interview that to prevent terrorist attacks he saw no effective alternative to the N.S.A.’s bulk collection of telephone and other electronic metadata from Americans. But he acknowledged that his agency now faced an entirely new reality, and the possibility of Congressional restrictions, after revelations about its operations at home and abroad.      www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/us/nsa-director-gives-firm-and-broad-defense-of-surveillance-efforts.html?ref=global-home

The Magical Mystery Tour

Above Ad in Michigan

 

 

 

 

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

When the Tigers won the world series, the police surrounded the inside of Tiger Stadium to prevent fans from tearing up the field, a tradition. So the fans went outside, turned over empty cop cars and—above.

KKKwame Kilpatrick, The Racists’ Fave Mayor, Gets 28 years  Kwame Kilpatrick has been sentenced to serve 28 years in prison for crimes of racketeering and conspiracy committed during his six years as the mayor of Detroit. That sentence was handed down Thursday afternoon in federal court by Judge Nancy Edmunds.
Edmunds said she was required to issue a sentence that is “sufficient but not greater than necessary” for a criminal enterprise that ran from Kilpatrick’s time in the state House to the mayor’s office. She described the former mayor as a larger-than-life character who helped himself to a jet-setting lifestyle. A significant sentence, she said, sends the message that corruption won’t be tolerated.
Kilpatrick appeared stunned at hearing his sentence, and a few in the courtroom crowd could be heard saying “Oh no.” If he serves the entirety of the 28 years, the 43-year-old would be 71 when he walks out of prison.
From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20131010/METRO01/310100078#ixzz2hUaBG5BO

Nazi SS Captain Dead at Last  Erich Priebke, a former Nazi SS captain who evaded arrest for nearly 50 years after taking part in one of the worst atrocities by German occupiers in Italy during World War II, died Friday in Rome. He was 100.
Priebke was finally extradited to Italy from Argentina in 1995 to face trial for the 1944 massacre, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Because of his age, he was allowed to serve that sentence under house arrest at the home of his lawyer, Paolo Giachini.  http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-erich-priebke-20131012,0,3042076.story

So Long