We Say Fight Back!

Less Voting, More Revolution

You’re looking around at the unleashed white supremacy, the rampant misogyny, the war machines churning death and destruction unchecked, and a growing culture of nihilistic hatred, and you know it doesn’t have to be this way. You believe in a world free of oppression based on sex, gender, sexual identity, or ability; free of racism and privilege; perhaps even one free of exploitation, with a radical redistribution of the world’s wealth and resources based on collective betterment and the preservation of the planet.

You’ve probably read your Marx and Engels, some Lenin and Luxemburg, and possibly even picked out your choice of diverging paths from the likes of Mao or Trotsky or Goldman. And like me, you’re looking at the tiny left, hearing the loud voices of our enemies, and are deeply worried about the future. You’re tired of watching the police exercise their complete impunity by murdering young people of color in real-time video, and anxious about the kind of society for which a handful of demagogues and too many of our neighbors are clamoring. Like me, your anxiety is through the roof.

It’s also possible that you’re looking at the phenomenal growth of the ideologically mercurial Democratic Socialists of America and the rise of a handful of charismatic young reform politicians running on Democratic Party tickets and wondering if maybe you should set aside what you’ve studied, and listen to the voices of those warning against purity and perfection in the face of unprecedented danger. Everybody’s talking about socialism now so maybe this defensive posture of incrementalism with a dose of electoral optimism holds a path forward to hope? I mean, something’s gotta give… maybe the voices urging us to get out the vote in the next, surely most important, election of our lives are right?

I’m here to tell you no, if you really consider yourself a socialist and want the lasting realization of that better world, then tell those voices to shut the fuck up. 

If you grew up in the USA like I did, you grew up learning that we live in a representative democracy. You were taught that your vote was your sacred voice as a citizen, and your path to contributing to our nation’s bright and shiny future. You know that’s all a big fat lie, right? There is nothing representative nor democratic about the United States of America.

You won’t have to dive too deeply back into your stack of Marxist classics to be reminded that what we actually live in is a dictatorship: the dictatorship of the bourgeois class over the rest of us. Turns out that a dictatorship doesn’t require jackboots and concentration camps to be real, though my money certainly isn’t on writing off those particular trappings from some of our potential futures.

The truth is that the system we live in, administered by the capitalist class for its own benefit, is designed to preserve itself and prevent its displacement. There is zero chance, let me repeat, zero chance, that the capitalist class and its representatives will ever be voted out of power.  www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/17/less-voting-more-revolution/

www.facebook.com/novaramedia/videos/2182432981797857/

Congratulations on the publication of:

George Schmidt Fired

“Sorry to Bother You” director Boots Riley has taken to Twitter to voice his many political objections to Spike Lee’s “disappointing” new movie “BlacKkKlansman.”

“This is being pushed as a true story and it is precisely its untrue elements that make a cop a hero against racism,” Riley wrote in a three-page essay about the film, based on the true story of an African American undercover police officer who infiltrated the Klu Klux Klan in the 1970s.

“It’s a made up story in which the false parts of it to try to make a cop the protagonist in the fight against racist oppression,” Riley wrote. “It’s being put while Black Lives Matter is a discussion, and this is not coincidental.”

“BlacKkKlansman” is based on Ron Stallworth’s memoir about his experience as the first black cop in Colorado Springs — a book which, Riley noted, was “published by a publisher that specializes in books written by cops.”

“We deal with racism not just from physical terror or attitudes of racist people, but in pay scale, housing, health care and other material quality of life issues,” Riley wrote. “But to the extent that people of color deal with actual physical attacks and terrorizing due to racism and racist doctrines — we deal with it mostly from the police on a day to day basis. And not just from White cops. From Black cops too. So for Spike to come out with a movie where a story points are fabricated in order to make Black cop and his counterparts look like allies in the fight against racism is really disappointing, to put it very mildly.”

Riley also objected to the way in which Lee took liberties with the facts laid out in Stallworth’s memoir, creating new characters and plot points that he said amplified the heroic status of the law enforcement figures, including Stallworth himself (played by John David Washington in the film).  www.thewrap.com/boots-riley-spike-lee-blackkklansman-disappointing-fabricated-pro-cop/

The Little Red Schoolhouse

In Learning Math, Calculating the Value of Practice and Passion(Susan Ohanian)

How Long Will Student Housing Be Big Business? Cashing in on Campus

The London, a student housing complex in College Station, Texas.

Isaac Sitt and Elliot Tamir had been investing in real estate for years when they stumbled onto the idea. They’d bought a few apartment buildings in Brooklyn in 2008 and, after the financial crisis, were struggling to rent units. So they decided to put up ads at the nearby Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, expecting to lease to doctors. Instead, they got medical students. With jobs scarce, tons of people were going to school, they realized. Sitt remembers thinking, “Hey, this is a good business,” even in a downturn. “Not only does it make sense, but I think we can raise equity for it.”

Today, Sitt and Tamir run Vesper Holdings LLC, one of the largest owners of student housing complexes in the U.S. If you’ve visited a college town such as Athens, Ga., or Lawrence,

Kan., in recent years, you may have seen one of their properties. They have names like The Ivy and The Gramercy, meant to evoke a boutique hotel. Many have pools, study areas with free Starbucks coffee, and “gyms that look like Equinox”—the kinds of amenities, Sitt says, that millennials really want. It’s been a lucrative niche. One of the few dangers for the business is bringing back the draft, Sitt jokes. “That would be a problem for the college population,” he says. The other, he adds, “is overbuilding.”

Previous

U. of Akron Will Phase Out 80 Degree Programs and Open New Esports Facilities

The University of Akron will phase out 80 degree programs, about 20 percent of what it now offers, in part, to save money for the future, the university announced on Wednesday.

The cuts come after a yearlong review of Akron’s degrees and degree tracks. Among the university’s strengths are nursing, biosciences, engineering, dance, and music, Akron’s Board of Trustees said in a statement. The 10 Ph.D. programs, 33 master’s programs, 20 bachelor’s programs, and 17 associate-degree programs that will be phased out suffered low enrollment or were duplicates of prosperous programs at other, similar institutions.

The process will take a few years, and will free up about $6 million for reallocation, Alex Knisely, a university spokesman, said in an email. There’s no plan to terminate any faculty or staff members because of the program cuts, the statement said. Akron also wants to hire 31 full-time faculty members in those programs identified as priorities, the statement said.

As the university ends what it deems unpopular degrees, it is leaning into a current trend on college campuses: competitive video gaming, known as esports. On Thursday, Akron announced that it would open three facilities to accommodate varsity, club, and recreational gamers.  The university said the centers would represent “the largest amount of dedicated esports space of any university in the world to date.”  www.chronicle.com/article/U-of-Akron-Will-Phase-Out-80/244293/#.W3d0Ll5-hqw.facebook

Florida’s teacher shortage is ‘real, and it’s going to get worse,’ State Board of Ed member worries

As millions of Florida’s school children returned to classes this week, many schools struggled to find enough teachers greet and teach them.

“We are very concerned about the growing teacher shortage,” Cathy Boehme of the Florida Education Association told the state Board of Education on Wednesday.

Her review of three years’ worth of statewide teacher job vacancies posted to district websites in the days before school began revealed a disturbing trend.

Two years ago, Boehme said, the number of advertised teaching positions was about 2,400. Last year, the number rose to 3,000.

This year, it reached 4,063.

“That’s the acceleration in the teacher shortage you need to be looking at,” Boehme told the board. “This is a critical problem we must address.”   www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/2018/08/16/floridas-teacher-shortage-is-real-and-its-going-to-get-worse-state-board-of-ed-member-worries/

Hundreds of teaching jobs unfilled as school starts with most Oklahoma districts saying hiring is worse than last year

The University of Southern California appointed a retired aerospace executive as interim president and laid out a detailed plan for selecting a permanent leader Tuesday, ending speculation about whether outgoing President C.L. Max Nikias might remain in the post.

Nikias, beleaguered over his administration’s handling of a campus gynecologist accused of sexually abusing patients, relinquished his duties after a meeting of USC’s board. The trustees tapped one of their own, Wanda Austin, an alumna and former president of the Aerospace Corp., to temporarily run the university.

The trustees also approved the formation of a search committee and the hiring of search company Isaacson, Miller to coordinate the selection of a successor. A second search company, Heidrick & Struggles, will also advise trustees.  www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/usc-names-retired-aerospace-executive-as-acting-president-announces-nikias/article_f5836a45-9ed1-52cf-8f47-bb8947589842.html

I remember long long back Avijit Pathak wrote a piece after his interview for promotions in Mainstream and described how the people sitting on the other side of the table behave. He was right and anyone who has appeared in an interview would agree to his observations. The fact is that the two sides of the table in an interview are best instances of how power works within an ‘academic’ realm. Those who have filled up their API forms in Indian universities or other world class places or have filled up Annual Reports to prove their worth would it better today.

It does not matter who knows how much and whether there is a possibility of a dialogic relationship there. Despite all rhetoric of ‘be comfortable’, ‘dont be nervous’, ‘ have some water’ and so on the structure remains that of someone seeking a favour – promotion, job or regularisation – and someone taking a decision whether you should be given that favour or not. It does not matter whether the people on the other side possess even sufficient knowledge on what you are to be tested. (The tragedy is that you are to be ‘tested’; you have to prove your ‘merit’ and ‘ability’ and so on). All this does not begin at the table where many pairs of eyes insatiably await to prove your incompetence with questions like ‘what is sociological about it?; What is the difference between peasant and farmer’; why do you publish from Rawat Publications or Aakar Books because the quality is doubtful and so on? Sometimes they even ask you to explain in a few sentences how Gandhi, Foucault and Marcuse can be critiques of modernity. They might also ask you that ‘why is your article so short in length’? Or ‘ what is the impact factor of the journal you published’? In other words, you can’t escape their predatory nature. They are out there to really ‘test’ you.  againstcapital.wordpress.com/2018/08/10/the-managers-want-to-write-an-obituary-for-higher-education/

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

War Without End

The Pentagon’s failed campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan left a generation of soldiers with little to fight for but one another.

…The governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, each of which the United States spent hundreds of billions of dollars to build and support, are fragile, brutal and uncertain. The nations they struggle to rule harbor large contingents of irregular fighters and terrorists who have been hardened and made savvy, trained by the experience of fighting the American military machine. Much of the infrastructure the United States built with its citizens’ treasure and its troops’ labor lies abandoned. Briefly schools or outposts, many are husks, looted and desolate monuments to forgotten plans. Hundreds of thousands of weapons provided to would-be allies have vanished; an innumerable quantity are on markets or in the hands of Washington’s enemies. Billions of dollars spent creating security partners also deputized pedophiles, torturers and thieves. National police or army units that the Pentagon proclaimed essential to their countries’ futures have disbanded. The Islamic State has sponsored or encouraged terrorist attacks across much of the world — exactly the species of crime the global “war on terror” was supposed to prevent.

Almost two decades after the White House cast American troops as liberators to be welcomed, large swaths of territory where the Pentagon deployed combat forces are under stubborn insurgent influence. Areas once touted as markers of counterinsurgency progress have become no-go zones, regions in which almost no Americans dare tread, save a few journalists and aid workers, or private military contractors or American military and C.I.A. teams.

Across these years, hundreds of thousands of young men and women signed on in good faith and served in the lower and middle ranks. They did not make policy. They lived within it.  www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/magazine/war-afghanistan-iraq-soldiers.html

As the British forces retreated and were massacred only Dr William Brydon, illustrated in this picture, survived (0f 20,000–1842)  www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2299043/Incredible-story-British-soldier-survivor-19th-century-Afghan-conquest–warnings-today-s-military-missions.html

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWbp5hxzXTo

What’s Wrong with the New War Manual? Plenty!

It appears as though we have decided that insurgents are no longer a threat and we would rather fight a near-peer enemy. In the new Army field manual, FM 3-0 Operations, the U.S. Army has apparently decided to forget past lessons learned. FM 3-0 signals a shift in military strategy and a focus back to large-scale ground combat operations against near-peer threats, where belligerents possess technology and capabilities similar to the U.S. military. Essentially, we no longer want to do the “Vietnam or Iraq thing” again.

What’s odd here is we find similarities when comparing the latest FM 3-0, published in October 2017, to FM 100-5 Operations of Army Forces in the Field, published in September 1968 while Gen. William Westmoreland was the Army chief of staff. FM 3-0 resembles the losing strategy Westmoreland used in Vietnam. He sought victory by winning a head-to-head war by “grinding down” the enemy.

If you were to compare the two Army field manuals, you would find that they are nearly identical. There are similarities in how we determine and define the following: Combat Power, Phasing, Offensive Operations, Multi-Domain Extended Battlefield (Multi-capable Forces), Conflict Continuum and the Range of Military Operations (Spectrum of War).

Another glaring similarity is how we define “winning” in FM 3-0 – and yes, we do actually define how to win in the Army field manual.

Winning is the achievement of the purpose of an operation and the fulfillment of its objectives. The Army wins when it successfully performs its roles as part of the joint force during operations. It wins when it effectively shapes an OE for combatant commanders, and when it responds rapidly with enough combat power to prevent war thorough deterrence during crisis. When required to fight, the Army’s ability to prevail in ground combat at any scale becomes a decisive factor in breaking the enemy’s will to continue fighting. The Army wins when an enemy is defeated to such a degree that it can no longer effectively resist, and it agrees to cease hostilities on U.S. terms. To ensure that the military results of combat are not temporary, the Army follows through with its unique scope and scale of capabilities to consolidate gains and win enduring outcomes favorable to U.S. interests.

One of the biggest flaws in Westmoreland’s strategy in Vietnam was that he sought to win battles through a war of attrition. He determined success by using the number of enemy kills (i.e. the “body count”). He defined winning as fulfillment of objectives, yet the objectives were never clear in Vietnam. Westmoreland sought victory through the defeat of the enemy to such a degree that the opponent could no longer resist.

So, what’s wrong with FM 3-0? It should be quite obvious. We are essentially using the same failing strategy Westmoreland used in 1968 in Vietnam. What’s wrong with this? Well, we lost Vietnam. For those who argue that we never lost on the battlefield, I will leave you with the following conversation in Hanoi in April 1975,  as related by Harry G. Summers Jr. in On Strategy:

“You know you never defeated us on the battlefield,” said the American colonel. The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment. “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”

Who Is Winning the War in Afghanistan? Depends on Which One

Two wars are convulsing Afghanistan, the war of blood and guts, and the war of truth and lies. Both have been amassing casualties at a remarkable rate recently.

The first is that messy war in which, just in the past week, more than 40 high school students were blown to pieces in their classroom, hundreds of bodies were left abandoned for a week in the streets of Ghazni city or dumped in a river, and two important Afghan Army units were destroyed, almost to the last soldier.

The other is the war in which most of that, according to official accounts, did not happen — or at least was not as bad as it sounded. Not until late on the third day of the Taliban’s assault on Ghazni did President Ashraf Ghani’s aides even inform him of the desperation level there, two government officials said privately; Mr. Ghani himself later confirmed that publicly. By then the Taliban had control of nearly every neighborhood.

Government spokesmen, confronted with a crisis, basically responded by asserting that everything was fine. They repeatedly denied that Taliban fighters were in control of Ghazni. By day six, when the insurgents no longer were in control, official denials converged with the truth.

The American military’s chief spokesman, Lt. Col. Martin L. O’Donnell, insisted there was no big problem — just insurgents looking for “inconsequential headlines.”

Discerning fact from fiction is challenging in any war, of course. But in Afghanistan, where most of the population has known only war, narratives are often total contradictions of one another.  www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/world/asia/afghanistan-war-reflections.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Idiot Wapo–End U.S. support for this misbegotten and unwinnable war–in Yemen–and what of Afghans, Iraqis, Syria, Libya (thanks Hillary)?

ON AUG. 9, an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen struck a bus packed with young boys in the northern village of Dahyan, killing at least 51 people, including 40 children, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. As Saudi spokesmen defend this horrific massacre — one called the bus a “legitimate military target” — Trump administration officials are being pressed by members of Congress and reporters to say whether the bomb that was dropped was supplied by the United States, and whether the plane that dropped it was refueled by the U.S. military under an ongoing support operation.

The administration’s response has amounted to a shrug. When journalists questioned a senior U.S. official thisweek, he responded: “Well, what difference does that make? www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/end-us-support-for-this-misbegotten-and-unwinnable-war/2018/08/18/35a1f256-a249-11e8-93e3-24d1703d2a7a_story.html?utm_term=.1e2ffa17f187

UN report: Up to 30,000 Islamic State members in Iraq, Syria

Bomb that killed 40 children in Yemen was supplied by the US (video inside)

The ban was overturned by the Trump administration’s then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in March 2017.   www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/middleeast/us-saudi-yemen-bus-strike-intl/index.html

New indictments, same perks of hotels, booze and sex in ‘Fat Leonard’ Navy bribery scandal 

A federal grand jury in San Diego returned indictments Friday against a retired Navy captain and two retired chief petty officers for their alleged roles in the ever-expanding “Fat Leonard” bribery and fraud case, the worst corruption scandal in the military service’s history. David Williams Haas,…

David Williams Haas, Ricarte Icmat David, and Brooks Alonzo Parks are accused of accepting a variety of now-familiar gifts — cash, fancy meals, hotel-suite parties with prostitutes — in exchange for approving inflated invoices and for steering Navy contracts to the ship-services company run by a Malaysian businessman named Leonard Glenn Francis.

“It feels good living like a KING on an E-6’s salary!!!” Parks wrote in one email to the firm, asking for a suite to use during vacation, according to the indictment.

The trio faces up to 20 years in prison each, according to federal prosecutors, who have now charged 32 people in a case that cost the Navy at least $35 million over two decades. Twenty of the defendants have pleaded guilty.

As of Friday, none of the defendants had appeared in court to enter pleas.

Francis, known as “Fat Leonard” because of his size, pleaded guilty to bribery in 2015 and has been helping investigators unravel the dealings between his Singapore-based maritime company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, and the Navy.

His favorite target appeared to be the Blue Ridge, the flagship overseeing operations in Asia and the Western Pacific for the Navy’s 7th Fleet. More than 15 officers from the ship have been charged in the case, including Haas, 50, a former captain who now lives in Kailua, Hawaii, and, according to his LinkedIn profile, works for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Under investigation since he was suspended in late 2013, Haas is accused in an eight-count indictment of accepting at least $145,000 in bribes from Francis.

They included “lavish parties at five-star hotels and opulent restaurants” in Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines, “the frequent services of prostitutes” — including one two-day party in Tokyo that reportedly cost $75,000 — and a 50th birthday celebration for his wife.

In return, the indictment says, Haas helped steer ships and submarines to ports where Francis’ company provided tugboats, security, food, fuel, trash removal and other services — at one point even using his influence to get the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis routed to Malaysia.

“Love it when my plan falls in place,” Francis e-mailed his staff after he got the news, the indictment states. He billed the Navy $3 million for the carrier visit.

In November 2012, Haas and his second-in-command, Michael Misiewicz, met with Francis at the Ritz-Carlton in Tokyo and allegedly gave him classified information about upcoming ship visits  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/sd-me-bribery-scandal-20180817-story.html

Army Special Forces Soldier Charged With Smuggling Kilos Of Cocaine On Military Aircraft

An Army Special Forces soldier was arrested Monday for smuggling 40 kilos of cocaine into the United States hidden in two backpacks aboard a military aircraft, NBC News reported on Friday.

• Master Sgt. Daniel Gould was taken into custody by Drug Enforcement Administration agents after two military-issue “punch out” bags somehow connected to him were discovered filled with 40 kilos (90 lbs) of cocaine on a U.S. military aircraft bound for Eglin Air Force Base.
• NBC News reports that cocaine was identified after another service member “found the drugs on the plane while it was on the ground in Colombia and reported the discovery.”
• Gould, assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group at Eglin, was already in the United States when the drugs were discovered, according to NBC News, which reported that the Green Beret “used a proxy” to get the bags onto the aircraft.
• “We are aware of recent allegations concerning a U.S. soldier assigned under U.S. Army Special Operations Command for reportedly attempting to smuggle narcotics from Colombia into the U.S.,” Army Special Operations Command spokesman Lt. Col. Robert Bockholt told NBC News. “We are cooperating fully with law enforcement officials concerning this matter.”  taskandpurpose.com/army-special-forces-cocaine-smuggling/

Destroyer executive officer fired for ‘loss of confidence’

Navy Cmdr. Blandino A. Villanueva has been fired as the executive officer of the San Diego-based guided missile destroyer Decatur due to “loss of confidence in ability to lead,” the Navy said Friday.

The commander of Carrier Strike Group 3, Rear Adm. Michael A. Wettlaufer, relieved Villanueva on Wednesday. The relief was not tied to one specific incident, according to Navy spokesman Cmdr. Patrick Evans.  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/military/sd-me-navy-firing-20180817-story.html

Trump parade: Rained upon.

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

JPMorgan thinks Jamie Dimon’s services are worth $30 million a year, the most in a decade

Jamie Dimon didn’t need to jump on the 1,000% bitcoin rally last year to make a decent buck. JPMorgan compensated its CEO $29.5 million in 2017, a 5% increase on the previous year. It’s the most since 2007 when Dimon received a staggering $50 million….

JPMorgan is the US’s biggest bank—and one of its most profitable. This year could be even better for Dimon and his pay packet thanks to tax cuts passed into law at the end of last year. In 2017, $28 million of Dimon’s pay was for a “strong performance in 2017 and through the cycle,” the regulatory filing said.

The bank said were it not for a $2.4 billion tax charge in the fourth quarter, it would have be able to report a record profit for the year. Looking ahead, Dimon expects lower corporate taxes to benefit the bank to the tune of $3.4 billion. He also said the tax gains would lead to higher wages and better benefits for employees.

Then again, assuming Dimon claims residency in New York City, his take-home pay may shrink because he’s gonna be hit with those drastic new limits on deducting local, state, and property taxes from his federal taxes. Assuming, of course, he itemizes.  qz.com/1183937/jpmorgan-paid-ceo-jamie-dimon-30-million-last-year-the-most-in-a-decade/

CEO compensation surges dramatically while average workers get no significant pay raise

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason

Morning Report: Out of Space, ICE Is Turning to Border Patrol to Detain Migrants

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has turned to Border Patrol to help them hold immigrants awaiting their criminal proceedings under zero tolerance.

ICE has been trying to prioritize bed space in the Otay Mesa Detention Center with immigrants who have bonded out of criminal custody, but are still awaiting their trials. But due to the large number of people coming into the agency’s custody under the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy – up to 40 or 50 people a day at times – ICE is turning to Border Patrol to temporarily hold some detainees, reports VOSD’s Maya Srikrishnan.

This arrangement has criminal defense attorneys raising alarms. The attorneys say that Border Patrol facilities aren’t equipped to hold people long-term. They cite a lack of access to medical care, hygiene – like showers, toothbrushes and clean clothes – and inability to access their legal counsel while they’re going through criminal proceedings.  www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/morning-report-out-of-space-ice-is-turning-to-border-patrol-to-detain-migrants/?utm_source=Voice+of+San+Diego+Master+List&utm_campaign=11a88c3547-Morning_Report&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c2357fd0a3-11a88c3547-81862829&goal=0_c2357fd0a3-11a88c3547-81862829

Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

Now available:

www.pbs.org/video/documenting-hate-charlottesville-25ks-iob3fi/

Solidarity for Never

Mandela/ANC Betrayal: Children Die in Pit Toilets, South Africa to Fix School Sanitation

Nelson Mandela with puppet master Joe Slovo

Under pressure from education activists and the courts, South Africa’s government announced on Tuesday that it would tackle a crippling sanitation backlog in schools, where two children recently drowned in pit toilets, the only facilities available for hundreds of thousands of children across the country.

The initiative, known as Sanitation Appropriate for Education, would “spare generations of young South Africans the indignity, discomfort and danger of using pit latrines and other unsafe facilities in our schools,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa at a kickoff in Pretoria, calling the lack of school sanitation facilities an “emergency.”

But education activists said the announcement was long overdue and not nearly enough to solve a crisis that has been brewing for years.

Nearly 4,000 schools nationally are equipped only with pit toilets, according to government figures. In the Eastern Cape, South Africa’s poorest province, one in four public schools have no other options for students to relieve themselves.

The recent drownings have cast a harsh spotlight on the governing African National Congress. The party took power in 1994 promising both to roll out essential services and to overhaul education for South Africa’s black majority, who were denied opportunities for social, economic and political progress during apartheid.  www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/world/africa/south-africa-school-toilets.html

FCA-UAW conspiracy ran deeper, longer, lawyer says

A vast conspiracy designed to corrupt contract negotiations between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and the United Auto Workers started long before the automaker’s former labor negotiator, Alphons Iacobelli, got involved, his lawyer said Monday.

A sentencing memo filed in federal court Monday indicates more Fiat Chrysler executives were involved in the $4.5 million conspiracy but does not publicly identify who, if anyone, orchestrated the conspiracy or ordered illegal payments. The filing suggests Iacobelli is fulfilling his obligation to cooperate with an ongoing FBI investigation.

Iacobelli, 59, of Rochester Hills faces up to eight years in federal prison when sentenced Aug. 27 for his role in the scandal. Iacobelli pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to violate the Labor Management Relations Act and one count of subscribing a false tax return.

An eight-year prison sentence would be unwarranted and unjust because Iacobelli is not responsible for all of the misconduct involving Fiat Chrysler executives and UAW officials, defense lawyer David DuMouchel wrote Monday.

“The corruption that is the focus of this case did not begin with Al Iacobelli. The practices that form the backbone of this case did not begin with Al Iacobelli. The system of corruption that has been exposed here did not begin with Al Iacobelli,” DuMouchel wrote. “Mr. Iacobelli’s hope is that such practices — which did not originate with him — nor for that matter the others who have been convicted here — will end with him.”  www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/chrysler/2018/08/13/fca-uaw-conspiracy-ran-deeper-longer-lawyer-says/981325002/

I am one of five people primarily responsible for the creation of what is now the largest local in the UAW, Local 6000, Michigan state workers, not auto. We, in the State Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) led a militant, honest, battle rooted primarily in the reality that workers and bosses have only contradictory interests. We seized buildings, fought cops, went to jail, got fired time and again.

We fought, not only for ourselves, but against welfare cuts, reduced mental health services, and against imperialist wars. Our Marxist study groups involved hundreds of working people and youth, first in Michigan and later around the U.S. Over time, we were picked off by the state, permanently fired, and replaced by a ring of opportunists who back the UAW line of “partners in production,” a profitable fiction for both the company and the union which led directly to the current second-tier forms of corruption. The UAW cannot be reformed. It needs to be destroyed by rank and file action, work councils in auto and out, for direct action on the job and against the UAW Quisling conspiracies. RG

Counterfeit Unionism in the Empire

by Rich Gibson

Cop-union boss Norman Seabrook found guilty of bribery (most cops are “unionized”

Former city jail-officers union boss Norman Seabrook was found guilty Wednesday of bribery — less than a year after his first trial ended in a hung jury.

Seabrook, 58, faces up to 40 years in prison when he is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 30.

A jury of nine women and three men found Seabrook, the once powerful head of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, guilty on two counts, including honest-services wire fraud and conspiracy.

The conviction is a huge win for the feds, who have been racking up corruption convictions this year, including the retrials of former Albany political leaders Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos, former Cuomo aide Joe Percoco and Cuomo’s “economic guru” Alain Kaloyeros.

“Seabrook’s conviction marks the fifth major public-corruption conviction by our office in the last five months,” said Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman…

Seabrook was convicted of funneling $20 million of union funds into troubled hedge fund Platinum Partners in exchange for cash.

At one point, he transferred $5 million of the union’s operating funds — used to pay for office rent and salaries — without the union’s knowledge, witnesses said.  nypost.com/2018/08/15/norman-seabrook-found-guilty-of-bribery/

The P 9 Mural by Mike Alewitz

Spy versus Spy

The Iraqi Spy Who Infiltrated ISIS

Capt. Harith al-Sudani’s wife, Raghad Chaloob, center, and their three children, Riyam, Rawan and Muamal, atop their home in Baghdad.Credit

The Magical Mystery Tour

Report Reveals Widespread Sexual Abuse By Over 300 Priests In Pennsylvania

A long-awaited grand jury investigation into clergy sexual abuse in Pennsylvania was released Tuesday in an interim, redacted form. The report detailed decades of alleged misconduct and cover-ups in six of the state’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses.

The roughly 900-page report, thought to be the most comprehensive of its kind, paints a horrid portrait of activity that occurred in the dioceses of Scranton, Allentown, Harrisburg, Greensburg, Erie and Pittsburgh, implicating 300 “predator priests” statewide who committed “criminal and/or morally reprehensible conduct.”

One priest in the Diocese of Harrisburg abused five sisters in a single family. Another, in the Diocese of Greensburg, impregnated a 17-year-old girl, married her, then divorced her months later.

A priest in the Diocese of Erie admitted to assaulting at least a dozen boys, yet was later thanked by the bishop for “all that you have done for God’s people.”

The grand jury said it reviewed a half-million pages of internal church documents and “secret archives” that were readily available to bishops. It found credible allegations by more than 1,000 victims, adding, “We believe that the real number … is in the thousands.”

The findings revealed a pattern of abuse that occurred in hundreds of parishes in 54 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties going back at least 80 years. It detailed how fellow clergy members conducted shoddy investigations into sexual abuse allegations and how bishops often sided with abusive priests.

“The pattern was abuse, deny and cover up,” said Attorney General Josh Shapiro at a press conference in Harrisburg on Tuesday, who described a “systematic cover-up” and a “failure of law enforcement.”

The report counted 41 “predator priests” in the Diocese of Erie, 37 in Allentown, 20 in Greensburg, 45 in Harrisburg, 99 in Pittsburgh, and 59 in Scranton.  www.npr.org/2018/08/14/636855561/report-reveals-widespread-sexual-abuse-by-over-300-priests-in-pa

Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Scandal: 7 Excerpts From the Grand Jury Report

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The grand jury report about Catholic priest abuse in Pennsylvania shows the church is a criminal syndicate

It is time to face the horrible truth: The Catholic church is a pedophile ring.

According to the grand jury report of six dioceses in Pennsylvania, over a period of 70 years, 300 priests abused over 1,000 children in Pennsylvania and church officials repeatedly covered it up. The release of the report is a searing indictment of the filth that has existed in the Catholic church.

Sexual abuse has been institutionalized, routinized and tolerated by the church hierarchy for decades. If you think this statement is hyperbole, consider that the grand jury report includes, but is by no means limited to, the case of a ring of pedophile priests in Pittsburgh, who raped their male victims, took pornographic pictures of them and marked them by giving them gold crosses to wear so that they could be easily recognized by other abusers.

At an emotional news conference Tuesday, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro stood before some of the victims of the abuse in the six Pennsylvania dioceses (which include Pittsburgh and the state capital Harrisburg). Announcing the report, Shapiro said that, for the first time, “we can begin to understand the systematic coverup of church officials.”

The report was written by 23 grand jurors wrote over the course of two years, and is very clear about how the authorities of the church protected the clergy while further abusing victims with payoffs, silencing and attempts to denigrate their character. Two cardinals, Cardinal Wuerl and the now-deceased Cardinal Bevilacqua (who also figured prominently in the Philadelphia grand jury report), are among those who disciplined but moved around clergy who sexually abused children.

While this report covers only six dioceses in Pennsylvania (there are eight in total, but the archdioceses of Philadelphia and the diocese of Altoona-Johnston were the subject of three previous grand jury investigations), it is breathtakingly horrific in documenting the scope of sexual abuse of children. It chronicles in detail how the Catholic hierarchy from the diocese to the Vatican worked not only mitigate the church’s legal exposure, but to maintain strategies to “avoid scandal.”  www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/grand-jury-report-about-catholic-priest-abuse-pennsylvania-shows-church-ncna900906

Editor, NY Times

Re: Catholic Church Abuse

I have 5 things to say. People make gods; gods don’t make people. No god should need a building, a nation, nor a bank. No god should need interpreters demanding alms and threatening hell. If your god tells you to kill people, perhaps you worship a devil and, having abandoned reason, tests in practice, you would have no way to tell. If your god has been protecting rapists through the work of interlopers, your god is weak and worthless. One more: Try the Flying Spaghetti Monster if you must worship.

www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/videos/206797616858211/?t=40

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Dogfight in the Ruling class, torturer John Brennan: President Trump’s Claims of No Collusion Are Hogwash (and the proof is where?)

Mr. Trump’s claims of no collusion are, in a word, hogwash.

The only questions that remain are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy, and how many members of “Trump Incorporated” attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets. A jury is about to deliberate bank and tax fraud charges against one of those people, Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman. And the campaign’s former deputy chairman, Rick Gates, has pleaded guilty to financial fraud and lying to investigators.  www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/opinion/john-brennan-trump-russia-collusion-security-clearance.html

Sy Hersh discusses his book “Reporter,” killing OBL, and more (video)

www.c-span.org/video/?446997-1/reporter

In Praise of Karel Capek

Two things keep Karel Capek’s “War With the Newts” from getting the recognition it deserves: its cover and its title. The best translation’s cover design, black text on teal, has all the panache of a dishwasher manual. And the title evokes spacesuit-clad heroes racing around cheap sets, firing laser guns at unscary animatronic lizards.

Forget all that.

“War With the Newts,” published in 1936, is a funny, bizarre, dystopian masterpiece, and Capek deserves a place on the Mount Rushmore of authorial seers, right alongside George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Margaret Atwood. To the extent that Capek is remembered today, it is largely by crossword puzzlers who know that he invented the word “robot” (and even this is dubious: Capek credits the term to his brother).

The book starts out on a remote island in the Indian Ocean, where a dissolute sea captain named Van Toch discovers a race of large and oddly intelligent newts. They stand about 4 feet tall, have small and dexterous hands, and, most important, eat oysters. That means, for Van Toch’s purposes: easy access to pearls….

Capek, who was Czech, wrote the book in the 1930s, so you might reasonably conclude — watching the newts sweep to global power — that he had fascism on his mind. He was in fact an avowed anti-fascist — in his politics, and in his funny, rueful war-weariness, he belongs to the lineage of Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut.  www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/books/in-praise-of-karel-capek.html

Former Oklahoma state senator admits to child sex trafficking while in office

Former Oklahoma state Sen. Ralph Shortey has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors months after investigators uncovered a secret life that they say involved child pornography and a rendezvous with a 17-year-old boy he had met through Craigslist’s personal ads.

Shortey, a Republican who resigned last spring amid allegations that he had solicited sex from the teen, will plead guilty to a child sex trafficking charge, his attorney, Ed Blau, said. Prosecutors will drop three child pornography charges as part of the plea deal.

“After looking at all the evidence and case law and statutes and everything else, we just felt that this would give him the best opportunity to come out with the best outcome possible,” Blau told The Washington Post. “It would’ve been an extraordinarily difficult case to win a trial.” www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/11/20/former-oklahoma-state-senator-admits-to-child-sex-trafficking-while-in-office/?utm_term=.2699ee3b216d

So Long

World acclaimed Marxist thinker Samir Amin dies

He authored many books including The Liberal Virus 2003, A life Looking Forward 2006, Accumulation on a World Scale 1970 and Capitalism in the age of globalization 1997.

In an interview with Ahram Online in 2012 Samir Amin said that he believes that “this neo-liberal phase is in state of collapse. It doesn’t mean that capitalism is collapsing; but that its current form is collapsing and we’re entering a new phase. It has to adapt, and whether the new system will be biased to the ruling class or the masses, is still be revealed.”

He also said that “We should not just look at the Muslim Brotherhood as a political Islamist power but as a backward movement that rejects workers movements and social justice, preferring to talk about charity as a form to ensure their control over the people.  The Islamists accept the policies of dependency under the guise of open market and private ownership rights; they openly accepted the American role in the region and the USA support for Israel, including the Camp David agreements.” english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/18/309519/Books/World-acclaimed-Marxist-thinker-Samir-Amin-dies.aspx