Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

above, Sydney, Australia

“Rebellions can be made by 2 per cent active in a striking force and 98 per cent passively sympathetic.” (T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdon). 

UC employees to stage 5-day strike in early March  Union leaders are announcing that more than 21,000 employees at University of California campuses across the state will go on strike for five days at the beginning of March.  http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/state&id=9441694

Miners in the Association of Mineworkers & Construction Union (AMCU South Africa: Strike)  Five Weeks of strikes have not diminished the commitment of workers www.bdlive.co.za/national/labour/2014/02/21/amcu-sticks-to-guns-on-pay-rebuffs-platinum-miners-threat

National Union of Mineworkers of South Africa breaks from Mandela’s sold out ANC/SACP At the conclusion on 20 December 2013 of a special national congress held in Boksburg, NUMSA withdrew support from the ANC and SACP altogether, and called for an alternative movement of the working class. The union stated that it would not endorse any political party in the 2014 South African general election, but that individual members were free to campaign for the party of their choice, provided they do so in their own time using their own resources. It called for COSATU to break from the Tripartite Alliance and form a united front of left-wing forces similar to the United Democratic Front (UDF) during the struggle against Apartheid.[6] As part of this, it called a conference for 2014 to explore the possibility of establishing a new workers’ socialist party en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Union_of_Metalworkers_of_South_Africa#Rejection_of_ANC_and_SACP

IVAW web site is at www.ivaw.org/

Capitalism: A Ghost Story — An Evening with Arundhati Roy and Siddhartha Deb
Wednesday, March 26, 2014 at 7:00 pm
The Auditorium at 66 West 12th Street (formerly known as Tishman), Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall
66 West 12th Street, New York  The School of Writing at The New School and Haymarket Books present a reading and conversation with Siddhartha Deb, and acclaimed novelist and essayist Arundhati Roy on the occasion of the launch of her new book Capitalism: A Ghost Story (Haymarket Books).
From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who have committed suicide to escape punishing debt, to the hundreds of millions of people who live on less than two dollars a day, there are ghosts nearly everywhere you look in India. India is a nation of 1.2 billion, but the country’s 100 richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of India’s gross domestic product. Capitalism: A Ghost Story examines the dark side of democracy in contemporary India, and shows how the demands of globalized capitalism has subjugated billions of people to the highest and most intense forms of racism and exploitation.      events.newschool.edu/event/capitalism_a_ghost_story_-_an_evening_with_arundhati_roy_and_siddhartha_deb#.Uw-j1JK9KK2

and elsewhere…..

Education, Marxism and Society 

MARXISM AND EDUCATION: RENEWING DIALOGUES (MERD)In association with Anglia Ruskin University Department of Education Research Seminars An afternoon Seminar 4pm-6.30pm Wednesday 21 May 2014

Anglia Ruskin University

Chelmsford Campus

CM1 1SQ

Room: SAWYERS 005 

Deirdre O’Neill (InsideFilm.org/) Film, Prisons, Social Class  and Radical Pedagogy: A Marxist Analysis 

Ravi Kumar (South Asian University, New Delhi, India; Editor: Radical Notes) Marxism and Education An Indian Perspective 

Discussants: Gurnam Singh (Coventry University), Alpesh Maisuria (University of East London) and Dave Hill (Anglia Ruskin University)

above, Dave Hill

Chicago School Bosses Threaten Test Boycotters With a group of parents and some teachers threatening to boycott a state assessment test students are supposed to be given starting Monday, Chicago Public Schools warned principals that employees could face disciplinary action if they interfere with the testing process.
“The Chicago Board of Education will discipline any employee who encourages a student not to take the (Illinois Standards Achievement Test) or who advocates against the ISAT on work time for insubordination and for any disruption of the educational process,” the letter reads.
The letter also states that teachers encouraging students to opt out of the ISAT could see their certification revoked by the state Certification Board.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-chicago-schools-test-20140227,0,3743715.story

So Long Michigan MEAP  (written by morons, graded by Standard and Poors)  Statewide scores from the fall 2013 exams show Michigan students have gained in science and writing since 2012, but results were mixed in math and reading. For instance, eighth graders made significant gains in reading, but scores fell for third-graders.
In math, proficiency rates dropped for grades 3-5, rose for grades 6-7 and were flat for eighth-graders.
For students with disabilities, achievement gaps narrowed in reading compared with the overall population, but increased for African American students in nearly all grades for reading and math when compared with other racial groups.
The state’s students took the MEAP for the last time in October, as Michigan prepares to switch to online assessment in the spring of 2015.
From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20140228/SCHOOLS/302280003#ixzz2ugS0Lrsk

Kazakh devaluation sparks social action  Analysts say that recent protests over Kazakhstan’s surprise devaluation of its currency signal a fresh interest in social action among younger people.  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-260214.html

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Detroit EA Public School Ad: “Teacher wanted for a school in ‘Christian setting” The ACLU of Michigan is criticizing the Education Achievement Authority for posting a job seeking teachers to work in a “Christian setting.”
In a letter to authority Chancellor John Covington on Tuesday, Michael Steinberg, the legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, said there is no principle more fundamental to American public education “than the requirement that schools be welcoming of all students and teachers regardless of religion or racial background.”
The posting was for lead preschool teachers to work at Bethune, Law and Brenda Scott public schools in Detroit.
“Teachers are responsible for implementing a developmentally appropriate early childhood education curriculum in a Christian setting,” the job posting said.  http://www.freep.com/article/20140226/NEWS06/302260114/Education-Achievement-Authority-Bethune-Law-Brenda-Scott-public-schools-Detroit-Christian-job-posting

Are Women Safe in the Philosophy Department at UColorado Boulder? www.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/attached-files/APA%20Report%20document.pdf

New probe launched into academic fraud at UNC-CH  After two years of probes that couldn’t uncover the cause of a long-running academic scandal at the state’s flagship university, UNC leaders on Friday announced that they are bringing in a high-profile investigator to “follow the facts where ever they might lead.”
UNC system President Tom Ross and UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol L. Folt announced Friday that Kenneth Wainstein, a 19-year veteran of the U.S. Justice Department will begin the “independent inquiry” of academic irregularities at the campus.
The probe is based on new information that emerged in the criminal investigation of fraud in the African and Afro-American Studies department, where bogus classes disproportionately benefited athletes.
Read more here: www.newsobserver.com/2014/02/21/3643359/new-probe-launched-into-academic.html#storylink=cpy

Quite Sporting! ANN ARBOR — Michigan offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier has signed a three-year contract with the university worth at least $2.57 million over the duration of the deal.  www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2014/02/michigan_to_pay_doug_nussmeier.html#incart_river_default

Michigan State nearly doubles Mark Dantonio’s salary; assistants get raises, too
Dantonio’s new deal adds a year to his current contract — he’s now signed on for six years — and raises his base salary from $682,905 to $2 million. He also saw his supplemental income increased to $1 million from $869,000, and had $86,000 added to his contingent annual base, up from $200,000. He also will continue to receive $100,000 from his shoe/apparel agreement and $50,000 guaranteed performance incentives.
A nice new perk, Dantonio also will have access to a private plane for 25 hours for personal use, something basketball coach Tom Izzo also enjoys.
All together, Dantonio’s total compensation package nearly doubles, to $3.64 million from $1.99 million and makes him the fifth-highest paid coach in the Big Ten behind Ohio State’s Urban Meyer, Michigan’s Brady Hoke, Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz and Penn State’s James Franklin.

Coach School Salary (millions)
Urban Meyer OSU $4.608
Brady Hoke MICH $4.154
James Franklin PSU $4
Kirk Ferentz IOWA $3.985
Mark Dantonio MSU $3.64  From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20140225/SPORTS0202/302250113#ixzz2uPNsdbKR

Exploited Adjuncts “The Just-In-Time Professor,” released last month by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, describes a growing population of more than one million adjunct and other nontenure-track instructors. “In 1970, adjuncts made up 20 percent of all higher education faculty,” the report says. “Today, they represent half.”
As a rule, adjuncts have few or no benefits. They are generally paid per course, and paid poorly. (The Coalition on the Academic Workforce estimates that the median pay for a standard three-credit course is $2,700.) Because adjuncts often teach several classes in order to cobble together a living, they have little time for the research necessary to advance their careers.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/opinion/the-new-college-campus.html?_r=2

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

“We are readying ourselves to enter a long tunnel full of blood and darkness.” Andre Gide, July 28, 1914. 

Obamagogue’s Fight Song (Custer’s too)

Now What, Hegemon? For much of his time in office, President Obama has been accused by a mix of conservative hawks and liberal interventionists of overseeing a dangerous retreat from the world at a time when American influence is needed most.
The once-hopeful Arab Spring has staggered into civil war and military coup. China is stepping up territorial claims in the waters off East Asia. Longtime allies in Europe and in the Persian Gulf are worried by the inconsistency of a president who came to office promising the end of the United States’ post-Sept. 11 wars. Now Ukraine has emerged as a test of Obama’s argument that, far from weakening American power, he has enhanced it through smarter diplomacy, stronger alliances and a realism untainted by the ideology that guided his predecessor.
It will be a hard argument for him to make, analysts say.
A president who has made clear to the American public that the “tide of war is receding” has also made clear to foreign leaders, including opportunists in Russia, that he has no appetite for a new one. What is left is a vacuum once filled, at least in part, by the possibility of American force.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ukraine-crisis-tests-obamas-foreign-policy-focus-on-diplomacy-over-military-force/2014/03/01/c83ec62c-a157-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html?hpid=z2

Who Lost the Crimea?  (there goes another red line) Russian armed forces seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula on Saturday, as the Russian Parliament granted President Vladimir V. Putin broad authority to use military force in response to the political upheaval in Ukraine that dislodged a Kremlin ally and installed a new, staunchly pro-Western government.
Russian troops stripped of identifying insignia but using military vehicles bearing the license plates of Russia’s Black Sea force swarmed the major thoroughfares of Crimea, encircled government buildings, closed the main airport and seized communication hubs, solidifying what began on Friday as a covert effort to control the largely pro-Russian region. In Moscow, Mr. Putin convened the upper house of Parliament to grant him authority to use force to protect Russian citizens and soldiers not only in Crimea but throughout Ukraine.  Both actions — military and parliamentary — were a direct rebuff to President Obama, who on Friday pointedly warned Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/world/europe/ukraine.html?hp

Ukraine Says Invasion Means War  Ukraine told Russia that a military invasion would be an act of war following a vote by lawmakers in Moscow to give President Vladimir Putin the right to send troops after pro-Russian forces seized control of Crimea.
Ukraine, which put its military on full combat alert, is ready to fight for its sovereignty, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said at a news conference in Kiev yesterday.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-01/ukraine-tells-russia-troop-entry-means-war-after-putin-approval.html

Roger Cliff, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council, Testimony on the Issue of War with China One way to analyze the implications of China’s military modernization for the United States is to consider how China would use its military capabilities in a conflict with the United States. This, in turn, would depend on the nature of the conflict. A conflict over minor interests would likely entail limited commitments of force and lower levels of escalation, while a conflict over issues that threatened China’s national survival could potentially entail the commitment all of China’s military forces and unlimited levels of escalation.  A conflict over Taiwan is one of the more likely scenarios for armed conflict between the United States and China and, given the stakes involved for the Chinese leadership, would probably entail large-scale force commitments and high, but not unlimited, levels of escalation. Examining a hypothetical conflict over Taiwan, therefore, can provide insights into how China’s military capabilities could impact the United States.  http://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Roger%20Cliff_Testimony1.30.14.pdf

Warlords/Druglords With Dark Pasts Battle in Afghan Election  Ashraf Ghani, the apparent front-runner in the Afghan presidential race this year, was once unstinting in his opinion of one of the country’s most prominent warlords, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, calling him a “known killer.”
He said that in 2009, when General Dostum was supporting President Hamid Karzai for re-election. Now, Mr. Ghani simply calls General Dostum his running mate.
In fact, of the 11 campaigns in the April 5 presidential election, six include at least one candidate on the ticket who is widely viewed as a warlord, with pasts and policies directly at odds with Western attempts to improve human rights here…. General Dostum’s candidacy poses some thorny questions. He still maintains a private army, and human rights activists accuse him of ordering mass killings. But he was also a stalwart of the American-allied Northern Alliance that overthrew the Taliban in 2001, and he is a powerful political leader among Afghanistan’s ethnic Uzbek minority.
General Dostum is now the first vice-presidential candidate on the ticket of Mr. Ghani, who is regarded as the front-runner based on an early poll conducted for the American government. Mr. Ghani is a former World Bank official who helped negotiate an initial version of the security agreement, and as a Karzai adviser he presided over the handover of responsibility for security to Afghan forces.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/world/asia/warlords-with-dark-pasts-battle-in-afghan-election.html?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry819%23%2Fafghanistan+warlords

above, CIA plans to overthrow Arbenz government in Guatemala

Can Obamagogue Overthrow Three Governments at the Same Time?  ashington, which failed in 2011 to bomb Libya and Syria simultaneously, is now engaged in a new demonstration of its strength: organizing regime change in three states at the same time, in different regions of the world: Syria (CentCom), Ukraine (EuCom) and Venezuela (SouthCom). To do this, President Obama has mobilized almost the entire National Security Council team. www.voltairenet.org/article182295.html

Rashid on Balochistan: The untold story of Pakistan’s other war–The Frontier Corps, the anti-Shia group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other groups are all enmeshed in a decade-long campaign of “pick up and dump” in which Baloch nationalists, militants or even innocent bystanders are picked up, disappeared, tortured, mutilated and then killed.
The army, paramilitaries and the government have consistently denied being responsible for violence in Balochistan, pointing instead to the myriad of armed groups operating in the region.
But even though the Supreme Court has taken up some of the cases of the disappeared, the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has failed to engage with the issue.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26272897

Who is the West Backing in the Ukraine? As the Euromaidan protests in the Ukrainian capitol of Kiev culminated this week, displays of open fascism and neo-Nazi extremism became too glaring to ignore. Since demonstrators filled the downtown square to battle Ukrainian riot police and demand the ouster of the corruption-stained, pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich, it has been filled with far-right streetfighting men pledging to defend their country’s ethnic purity.White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kiev’s occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. After Yanukovich fled his palatial estate by helicopter, EuroMaidan protesters destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established “autonomous zones” in and around Kiev.An Anarchist group called AntiFascist Union Ukraine attempted to join the Euromaidan demonstrations but found it difficult to avoid threats of violence and imprecations from the gangs of neo-Nazis roving the square. “They called the Anarchists things like Jews, blacks, Communists,” one of its members said. “There weren’t even any Communists, that was just an insult.”“There are lots of Nationalists here, including Nazis,” the anti-fascist continued. “They came from all over Ukraine, and they make up about 30% of protesters.”One of the “Big Three” political parties behind the protests is the ultra-nationalist Svoboda, whose leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has called for the liberation of his country from the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.”  http://www.globalresearch.ca/is-the-us-backing-neo-nazis-in-ukraine/5370759

And What’s Next for the Ukraine? Ukraine is undergoing a transformation of the worst kind. Its political institutions have been trampled upon by a motley collection of delusional liberals, slick politicians in fancy suits, and Nazi extremists. The social fabric is tearing apart at the seams, with each region searching for a local solution to the problems of what used to be their nation. And, in the midst of it all, the specter of profit-seeking financiers with dollar signs in their eyes is all the Ukrainian people can expect.  http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/24/ukraines-sickness/

Syrian troops reportedly kill more than 150 Al Qaeda-linked (US funded) “rebels”
More than 150 Syrian rebel fighters were killed Wednesday in an ambush by pro-government forces outside Damascus, according to official and opposition accounts.
The casualty toll appeared to be one of the largest in a single operation reported during much of the almost 3-year-old war.
The operation was part of a military push to deny rebels proximity to Damascus, President Bashar Assad’s seat of power.
Though initially appearing in state media, accounts of Wednesday’s attack and the high death toll were later reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based, pro-opposition monitoring organization.
The group put the death toll at 152 fighters, mostly members of “Islamic battalions” and Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda-linked rebel faction. www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-syria-troops-victory-20140226,0,135843.story#ixzz2uTFqJJL0

Cannon Fodder Redux: Navy Knew Sailors Exposed to Fukishima Radiation  A stunning new report indicates the U.S. Navy knew that sailors from the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan took major radiation hits from the Fukushima atomic power plant after its meltdowns and explosions nearly three years ago.
If true, the revelations cast new light on the $1 billion lawsuit filed by the sailors against Tokyo Electric Power. Many of the sailors are already suffering devastating health impacts, but are being stonewalled by Tepco and the Navy.The Reagan had joined several other U.S. ships in Operation Tomodachi (“Friendship”) to aid victims of the March 11, 2011 quake and tsunami. Photographic evidence and first-person testimony confirms that on March 12, 2011 the ship was within two miles of Fukushima Dai’ichi as the reactors there began to melt and explode.  http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-navy-knew-that-major-radiation-hits-from-fukushima-dangerously-contaminated-the-uss-reagan/5371018?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=us-navy-knew-that-major-radiation-hits-from-fukushima-dangerously-contaminated-the-uss-reagan

More than 1700 dead in Iraq in February  More than 1,705 people were killed across Iraq during
February, according to figures compiled by Antiwar.com. This number is up considerably from last month owing to a large number of militant casualties, particularly in Anbar and the northern provinces. At least 804 of the dead weremilitants, bombers or gunmen. Another 2,045 people were wounded, about
the same as in January.  http://news.antiwar.com/2014/03/01/over-1700-killed-in-february-iraq-bloodshed/

Pakistan polio team hit by deadly attack  A bomb attack on a polio vaccination team in north-west Pakistan has killed at least 11 people, officials say  A roadside bomb went off as the police-guarded convoy drove through a village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border. The attack is the latest in a series targeting polio teams in the country.
No group has claimed responsibility, but the Taliban oppose the polio schemes, which they see as a cover for international espionage. Initial reports said the convoy was struck by two separate bombs on Saturday.
The blasts were reportedly followed by a fierce gun battle between security forces and the militants.
Officials confirmed that people wounded in the attack were taken to a nearby hospital. Some of those injured are said to be in a critical condition. Pakistan has witnessed a campaign of violence against health workers, who militants also accuse of being part of a Western plot to sterilise Muslims. www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26397602

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Thomas Sugrue on Detroit and why Trickle Down Urbanism Will fail  John Gallagher: Tom, attitudes toward Detroit range from the deeply pessimistic — that Detroit is dead and never coming back — to the wildly optimistic, that Detroit is the next Berlin or the new Brooklyn. Where on that continuum do you place yourself?
Thomas Sugrue: I would fall somewhere between the two extremes, but leaning more toward the pessimistic side. But, like many native Detroiters, I’m a pessimist of the intellect and an optimist of the will.
Gallagher: Why do you lean more toward the pessimistic side?
Sugrue: Well, a lot of the plans to transform and revitalize Detroit are targeting a relatively small subset of the metropolitan population, that is, people with means, hipsters, creative types, professionals; and Detroit is an overwhelmingly working-class and poor city. The thrust of the most energetic policy right now isn’t targeting that population whose fate is critical to the city’s future.
Gallagher: One of the phrases you use is “trickle-down urbanism.” What do you mean by that?
Sugrue: It’s a pretty commonplace assumption that if you gentrify neighborhoods, if you bring new investment to downtown, that its benefits will trickle down to the majority of the city’s population. There are benefits from new investment, including job creation, increased tax revenue and safety in the city, but on the other hand, the kinds of jobs that are being created by a lot of the downtown redevelopment are jobs for folks who have significant education, skills and means already. They’re not, by and large, creating stable secure jobs for folks down the ladder, for working-class folks in particular.  http://www.freep.com/article/20140223/OPINION05/302230041/Thomas-Sugrue-Gallagher-Detroit-bankruptcy-future-city

What in Hell is the Obamagogue’s presidency for? Barack Obama has now been in power for longer than Johnson was, and the question remains: “What the hell’s his presidency for?” His second term has been characterised by a profound sense of drift in principle and policy. While posing as the ally of the immigrant he is deporting people at a faster clip than any of his predecessors; while claiming to be a supporter of labour he’s championing trade deals that will undercut American jobs and wages. In December, even as he pursued one whistleblower, Edward Snowden and kept another, Chelsea Manning, incarcerated, he told the crowd at Nelson Mandela’s funeral: “There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people.”
If there was a plot, he’s lost it. If there was a point, few can remember it. If he had a big idea, he shrank it  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/23/what-is-barack-obama-presidency-for?CMP=ema_565

JPMorgan Chase increases ’14 layoffs to 8,000 total  JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to eliminate a total of 8,000 jobs this year as its mortgage business shrinks and as the giant bank aims to control costs at its branches.
About half of those job cuts had already been announced. JPMorgan Chase now plans to cut more jobs as it tries to reduce $2 billion in consumer banking expenses by the end of 2016.
The new job cuts announced Tuesday include reductions in the bank’s mortgage and retail banking businesses. The bank also cut 16,500 jobs last year in those areas. The 8,000 job cuts this year are equivalent to about 3 percent of JPMorgan’s total workforce of 251,000. JPMorganChase also says it will add about 3,000 jobs in other areas this year.
For years, low interest rates caused a boom in mortgage refinancing. But interest rates began rising midway through last year, and now fewer Americans are refinancing.
“We’re seeing much lower volumes as we’re going through the first quarter of 2014,” said Gordon Smith, who runs the company’s consumer and community banking business. The company said its mortgage business will lose money this year.  http://www.newsday.com/business/jpmorgan-chase-increases-14-layoffs-to-8-000-total-1.7202473

2,000 Best Buy Layoffs to Hit Managers  The latest round of Best Buy layoffs comes after the retailer faced a difficult holiday shopping season during which sales declined 2.6%. The current round of Best Buy layoffs is expected to involve around 2,000 supervisors and managers. Last week, 500 field managers received word of the new Best Buy layoffs, which will affect both stores and business offices. Individual store management teams are expected to be advised of the Best Buy layoffs in the coming days.  http://investorplace.com/2014/02/bby-2000-best-buy-layoffs-hit-managers/

Number of Layoffs at IBM a Secret “IBM is laying off U.S. employees this week as part of a $1B restructuring, and is apparently trying keep the exact number of cuts secret. The Alliance@IBM, the main source of layoff information at IBM, says the company has stopped including in its resource action documents, given to cut employees, the number of employees selected for a job cut. The union calls it a ‘disturbing development.  http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/02/27/2216235/ibm-begins-layoffs-questions-arise-about-pact-with-new-york

US Economy: Grotesque Stagnation Fourth-quarter economic growth was revised down sharply Friday to 2.4% as new data showed consumers opened their wallets less in the face of severe weather and businesses sold fewer goods abroad than initially estimated.
The new figures indicate the recovery had less momentum heading into the new year and add to concerns that recent lackluster economic data could signal even weaker growth in the first quarter.
Last month, the Commerce Department estimated total economic output, known as gross domestic product, expanded at a 3.2% annual rate in the final three months of last year.             www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-gdp-fourth-quarter-economy-20140228,0,4231134.story#ixzz2umRskT1G

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations  Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.”
By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.
Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums. Here is one illustrative list of tactics from the latest GCHQ document we’re publishing today:

How is Obamagogue Doing Now? By Karen J. Greenberg
In January 2009, Barack Obama entered the Oval Office projecting idealism and proud to be the constitutional law professor devoted to turning democratic principles into action. In his first weeks in office, in a series of executive orders and public statements, the new president broadcast for all to hear the five commandments by which life in his new world of national security would be lived.
Thou shalt not torture.
Thou shalt not keep Guantanamo open.
Thou shalt not keep secrets unnecessarily.
Thou shalt not wage war without limits.
Thou shalt not live above the law.
Five years later, the question is: How have he and his administration lived up to these self-proclaimed commandments?
Let’s consider them one by one:  http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175812/tomgram%3A_karen_greenberg%2C_obama’s_commandments/#more

Solidarity for Never

Adolph Reed on the Counterfeit “Left” and the Obamagogue The left has no particular place it wants to go. And, to rehash an old quip, if you have no destination, any direction can seem as good as any
other. The left careens from this oppressed group or crisis moment to that one, from one magical or morally pristine constituency or source of political agency (youth/students; undocumented immigrants; the Iraqi labor movement; the Zapatistas; the urban “precariat”; green whatever; the black/Latino/LGBT “community”; the grassroots, the netroots, and the blogosphere; this season’s worthless Democrat; Occupy; a “Trotskyist” software engineer elected to the Seattle City Council) to another. It lacks focus and stability; its métier is bearing witness, demonstrating solidarity, and the event or the gesture. Its reflex is to “send messages” to those in power, to make statements, and to stand with or for the oppressed.                                                            This dilettantish politics is partly the heritage of a generation of defeat and marginalization, of decades without any possibility of challenging power or influencing policy. So the left operates with no learning curve
and is therefore always vulnerable to the new enthusiasm. It long ago lost the ability to move forward under its own steam. Far from being avant-garde, the self-styled left in the United States seems content to
draw its inspiration, hopefulness, and confidence from outside its own ranks, and lives only on the outer fringes of American politics, as congeries of individuals in the interstices of more mainstream institutions.
With the two parties converging in policy, the areas of fundamental disagreement that separate them become too arcane and too remote from most people’s experience to inspire any commitment, much less popular action.
Strategies and allegiances become mercurial and opportunistic, and politics becomes ever more candidate-centered and driven by worshipful exuberance about individuals or, more accurately, the idealized and evanescent personae — the political holograms — their packagers project. As the “human cipher” Taibbi described, Obama is the pure product of this hollowed-out politics. He is a triumph of image and identity over content; indeed, he is the triumph of identity *as* content. Taibbi misreads how race figures into Brand Obama. Obama is not “without” race; he embodies it as an abstraction, a feel-good evocation severed from history and social relations. Race is what Obama projects in place of an ideology permalink.gmane.org/gmane.politics.communism.environmental/53192

Noel Ignatiev on the UAW’s Failure at VW The Chattanooga election was close, 712 to 626, with an 89% turnout. “Left” pundits are blaming the outcome mainly on the interference of rightwing Republican politicians, who stoked up workers’ fears of Chattanooga becoming another Detroit, where high wages for autoworkers were ultimately responsible for the collapse of the auto industry and the bankruptcy of the city. One prominent “Left” commentator declared that by voting “no” the workers gave up their chance to bargain collectively and have a voice in determining their working conditions. (I worked in UAW plants for years, and never felt the UAW gave me a voice; the only voice I and other workers had was a result of our actions outside of, and often against, the union—wildcat strikes, sabotage, slowdowns, etc. As for bargaining collectively, the union officials negotiated a contract with the Company, and that was that.)  …One inconvenient fact that most Leftists have preferred not to discuss is that, unlike in 1936 when union activists faced spies, gun thugs injunctions and police, and got the union only by occupying the Chevy plant in Flint, Michigan for six weeks, VW wanted the union and its collateral “works councils”….The revolutionary movement is not the outgrowth of reform struggles but their negation. It will enlist those for whom nothing less than a total change is worth fighting for, including many who may be deaf to the appeals of reform. When a struggle breaks out that poses the possibility of a new world, the people who voted “no” may very well be in the forefront. It is a mistake to attach importance to how people they voted in this election (or any other).  http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/25/the-greatest-defeat-since/

UAW and VW bosses didn’t get to be partners in production after all

WSW on the UAW’s Misadventure at VW According to their narrative, which echoes that of the union leadership, the UAW is a “progressive” organization whose loss is the result of antiunion Republicans playing upon the backwardness of southern workers and manipulating them to vote against their own interests.
This narrative is a reactionary fiction.
The UAW was supported by VW and signed a “neutrality agreement” pledging that any future labor agreement would be committed to “maintaining and where possible enhancing the cost advantages and other competitive advantages [Volkswagen] enjoys relative to its competitors in the United States and North America.” It sought to increase its income stream from union dues at the expense of the VW workers by offering its services to suppress opposition to poverty wages and sweatshop conditions at the Tennessee plant.
The company gave the UAW full access to the factory to address shift meetings, handed UAW representatives its list of employees and publicly advocated the setting up of a German-style “works council” in collaboration with the union. The UAW initially opposed even giving the workers an opportunity to vote on its installation as a de facto company union.
Now the UAW is bitterly complaining of “outside interference.” It is an irony of history—one that reflects the transformation of the UAW into a pro-corporate, anti-working class organization—that it today echoes the “outside agitator” propaganda used by the auto companies against union organizers in the mass struggle of the 1930s that established the UAW.  http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/27/pers-f27.html

Randi Weingarten’s Key Ambition (herself)  AFT has a lot of sway regarding the AFL-CIO endorsement of the next Democratic presidential candidate. However, Weingarten cannot have this dissent among AFT ranks in the form of NYSUT delegates voting against the AFT “solidarity” (that word is actually a line item on AFT’s tax forms). So, using her influence through UFT, Weingarten plans to unseat NYSUT officers unfriendly to her “unity” cause and replace with UFT “solidarity” folk. If she can accomplish this, then she might sway that AFL-CIO Democratic presidential candidate endorsement — quite the power position to be in — and Weingarten is all about power and control.
And guess who she wants to give that Democratic presidential endorsement to?
Someone she “grew up in politics” with.
Andrew Cuomo.
Why would she do this?
That part is simple: To climb her own career ladder. If she can get Cuomo into the White House, he will owe her.
(A great example of Weingarten’s career drive is her vying for Hillary Clinton’s vacated Senate seat in 2008. As she was pursuing the Senate appointment, Weingarten had recently been elected AFT president and was continuing to hold the position of UFT president.)
I think Weingarten is positioning AFT to be the key in the AFL-CIO endorsement of Cuomo for Democratic candidate for president  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mercedes-schneider/weingartens-aflcio-power_b_4856272.html

So Long, Strike–Portland Teachers Agree To A Deal  “Nobody is happy with a good deal,” said Knowles. “This shows a lot of compromise from both sides.”  http://www.popularresistance.org/strike-averted-as-portland-teachers-agree-to-a-deal/

Spy versus Spy

Mulholland was a CIA asset training agents in trickery and deception–and a very popular magician

Woo Hoo Yahoo!  Yahoo webcam images from millions of users intercepted by GCHQ
• Optic Nerve program collected Yahoo webcam images in bulk
• 1.8m users targeted by UK agency in six-month period alone
• Yahoo: ‘A whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy’
• Material included large quantity of sexually explicit images                      Britain’s surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal.
GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 explicitly state that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saved them to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were an intelligence target or not.
In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected webcam imagery – including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications – from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally.
Yahoo reacted furiously to the webcam interception when approached by the Guardian. The company denied any prior knowledge of the program, accusing the agencies of “a whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy”.
GCHQ does not have the technical means to make sure no images of UK or US citizens are collected and stored by the system, and there are no restrictions under UK law to prevent Americans’ images being accessed by British analysts without an individual warrant.  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo

www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/cias-lost-magic-manual-resurfaces/

Another slippery trick from the manual here www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/CIA_illusion?pg=7

Who Murdered the Swedish Premier in 1986?   Ever since Prime Minister Olof Palme of Sweden was gunned down on a Stockholm sidewalk in 1986, theories about his unsolved murder have proliferated, with suspicions that Kurdish separatists or apartheid-era South African hit teams were behind it.
On Tuesday, the novelist Stieg Larsson, author of the top-selling “Millennium” trilogy, who died in 2004, emerged as the latest player in the drama with the revelation that he had sent the police 15 boxes of documents linking the killing to a Swedish former military officer, Bertil Wedin, associated in turn with the South African security services.
The South African connection is not new. In 1996, an apartheid-era police colonel, Eugene de Kock, said in court testimony that the killing was the work of a clandestine unit run by Craig Williamson, South Africa’s so-called superspy, who denied the charge. www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/world/europe/twist-in-swedish-premiers-murder.html?src=rechp&_r=0

The Magical Mystery Tour

The Butler did it. The Popes Secret Documents on Money Laundering, Rape, Secrecy, Cover-ups, Opus Dei, and much more www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/pope-benedict-xvis-leaked-documents-show-fractured-vatican-full-of-rivalries/2013/02/16/23ce0280-76c2-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_story.html

This book is an extract from Dr. Wesley Muhammad’s work, The Book of God, New Revised Edition: An Encyclopedia of Proof that the Black Man is God. Topics Include: (1) A Stranger in Detroit (2) The Twenty Four Scientists (3) Early History of Master Fard Muhammad (4) The FBI, W.D. Fard and Wallace Dodd Ford (5) FBI Docs Prove Hoax: The Messianic Secret (6) Master Fard Muhammad: The Perfect Son

Fardite Farrakhan In Detroit netting suckers , Praises Nazi Henry Ford Farrakhan also praised auto baron Henry Ford. “Mr. Ford was a great man, who was called an anti-Semite,” he said. “That man set up in Highland Park a community building homes for workers to give them a middle-class existence.”
Farrakhan has been accused himself of using anti-Semitic language in speeches, recently in May at Detroit’s Fellowship Chapel. In Detroit last year, Farrakhan denounced “satanic Jews” and the “synagogue of Satan” that he said controls major U.S. institutions and said President Barack Obama has “surrounded himself with Satan … members of the Jewish community.”  From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20140223/METRO01/302230049#ixzz2uJCuYIS2

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Better than the Oscar Winners

Detroiter’s ‘Deport Justin Bieber’ petition becomes second-most popular in White House history  The Washington Times reports the anti-Bieber effort spearheaded by Roger Skrzynski, s 24-year-old native of Riverview, Mich., is the second-most popular petition in the website’s history.
A 2012 petition asking that Westboro Baptist Church be declared a hate group is the top petition with 367,180 signatures, according to the Times.The signup period for Skrzynski’s “Deport Justin Bieber” petition ended Saturday and generated a whopping 262,817 signatures – 162,817 more than the required 100,000 needed to receive a response from The White House.
It’s unclear when White House officials will respond to the anti-Bieber petition. www.mlive.com/entertainment/detroit/index.ssf/2014/02/detroiters_deport_justin_biebe_1.html#incart_river_default

Sugar Blues www.20sjazz.com/videos/tradition-lives-on/sugar-blues-1.html

Don’t You Leave Me Here Scandinavian Rhythm Boys – See more at: www.20sjazz.com/videos/tradition-lives-on/dont-you-leave-me-here.html#sthash.ykaY3x5K.dpuf

above, life too close to the Ukraine

Three Different Detroit Women Shoot and Kill Home Invaders in one Week   A woman on Friday shot and killed a man trying to break into her west side home, making it the third time this week that a Detroit homeowner with a legal firearm has killed an intruder.
The shooting involved a woman in her 50s, who was in her house in the 22000 block of Grove Street at about 3:30 p.m. when she heard noises coming from her rear window, Detroit Police 3rd Deputy Chief Rodney Johnson said.
“She went to investigate and noticed a man trying to come in through the window,” Johnson said. “She told him, ‘stop,’ but he continued trying to break in.”
The woman ran to the next room to retrieve her handgun, Johnson said.
“She fired a shot and hit the man in the chest,” Johnson said. “He ran off and collapsed in the street. He was found by responding officers and conveyed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.”
The homeowner will be questioned but isn’t expected to face charges, Johnson said.
The incident also marked the third time in less than two weeks that a gun-wielding female opened fire on home invaders in Detroit. From The Detroit News: www.detroitnews.com/article/20140228/METRO01/302280125#ixzz2ugSpIU3x

above, Froggy and the Ghoul

So Long

Detroit son, Chokwe Lumumba