US COIN Fails: No Grand Strategy, No Strategy, Just tactics–kill them all.
We Say Fight Back!
NYU Students Disrupt Appearance by Henry Kissinger
in New York City, students at NYU protested former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at an event organized by the school on Tuesday.
Protester: “Are you telling me that you’re not a war criminal, that you do not deserve to go to jail for the crimes that you have enacted? You deserve to answer to war crimes, to crimes against humanity! You deserve to go to jail and then rot in hell! You have enacted crimes against Chile, against Argentina, against Cambodia, against Vietnam! You are a war criminal, and you deserve to rot!”
Kissinger served as the top foreign policymaker under President Nixon. During his tenure, he led massive bombing campaigns in Cambodia and Laos; prolonged the devastating war in Vietnam; supported death squads and coups in Latin America, including in Chile and Argentina; greenlighted Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths; supported anti-liberation insurgencies in Angola and Mozambique; and supported Pakistan’s genocide in Bangladesh. This is NYU student Madison Kelts, speaking at a protest outside of the building where Kissinger appeared.
Madison Kelts: “During his time as secretary of state and national security adviser, Henry Kissinger perpetrated massive violence, massive crimes, against people in Vietnam, from Laos to Cambodia, illegal secret bombing campaigns. He is an imperialist warmonger who has to answer for—which he has not answered for yet—thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.” www.democracynow.org/2018/10/17/headlines/nyu_students_disrupt_appearance_by_henry_kissinger?fbclid=IwAR34iPZTJjPSej2-xmt1_JIF6tCaLY3opQ-oEvJlldcOaTLm_0FA_9zVqrY
The Little Red Schoolhouse
San Diego State University and the military-university complex
Over the past several decades, universities in San Diego, a major historic naval hub and headquarters for defense contractors since World War II, have developed into key assets for US militarism.
With encouragement from university administrations, the schools act as spaces for recruiting and training students for the highest occupations in the US military and intelligence apparatus. Schools such as San Diego State University (SDSU) and the private University of San Diego (USD) have become regional hubs for military training programs with exclusive benefits afforded to military affiliates.
The Military Ally Program, sponsored and run by the on-campus Joan and Art Barron Veterans Center at SDSU, was created in 2015 to “provide insight into and awareness of the unique cultural and social background of the military community.” Intended to be open to all faculty and students, including off-campus community organizations and businesses, the program hosts a monthly four-hour seminar about “military culture, [presenting] relevant data and demographic models,” to stress the benefits of having the military on campus and in communities. Those who complete the seminar become a part of the “Military Ally network,” receiving a placard to place in their workspace and a lapel pin to wear as visible indicators of their membership.
The Military Ally Program operates with the stated mission to “bridge the civilian-military gap.” In other words, its goal is to make the military a more regular and comfortable presence to the campus population. This thinly veiled indoctrination program sprung up after an influx of veteran students from the wars waged in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Veterans Center on campus was a small-scale operation in 2000, but it now resides in the administrative center of campus and is highly accessible to students affiliated with the military.
The effort to make the military a regular campus presence coincides with a national effort to shore up financial incentives for joining the military at the expense of public education funding. Following the 2008-09 financial crisis, the military saw a significant upsurge in enlistment. As university tuition skyrockets and job prospects dwindle, recruiters prey on low-income students, advertising enlistment as a financially viable option to pay for school. www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/18/sand-o18.html
How LAUSD Lost Over a Half Billion Dollars of Taxpayer’s Money … without Being Reported
In the bumbling world of LAUSD attorneys, LAUSD never pursued almost $600 million paid to contractors which did not go to the projects they were hired to work on despite the protest and formal investigation results by the District’s own Office of the Inspector General Supervising Investigator Bob Williams going back to 2003.
The Los Angeles Times and other local media organizations never reported this either; rather Leslie Dutton’s Full Disclosure did. Had mainstream media reported this, there would have been heated School Board meetings with angry parents complaining of misappropriation of funds and schools’ unfulfilled needs. Instead, The Los Angeles Times and other corporate media allowed LAUSD to get away with this and move on to pursue money losing bogus payroll lawsuits, all the while attempting to pass another bond measure.
With that much missing money, what unknown favors were handed out during the then tenure of Superintendent Roy “Mr. Outsider” Romer (a former Colorado Governor)? “Mr. Outsider” turned out to be the biggest insider, forcing out unsung hero OIG Inspector Don Mullinax who was courageously trying to clean up LAUSD corruption.
As such, the madness has continued since 2009 with LAUSD creating more financial loss with its false payroll debacle lawsuits wherein LAUSD spends far more than it takes in. Though most defendants default, LAUSD rarely pursues recouping these defaults. LAUSD loses money on the payroll lawsuits even with the continued help of LA County Court “judges” such as Elizabeth R. Feffer who recently at a July trial (BC632878) allowed LAUSD, beyond belief, to claim “Breach of Contract”, though for two-years and at trial LAUSD was NOT required to provide the actual UTLA-LAUSD Contract as evidence (despite being opposed by defendants’ Answers and two defense Motions).
It was reported to me by attending trial defendants that “judge” Feffer, like a number of “judges” before her, took LAUSD at its word. Consequently, LAUSD in-house attorney Terrye Cheathem testified successfully that the number of hours teachers work is “1635”, rather than the UTLA-LAUSD contract’s correct “1224”. Ms. Cheathem did so orally, NOTHING in writing; thus Feffer believed LAUSD. If LAUSD argued, obviously fraudulently, that teachers work a hyperbolic “1635” annually, then LAUSD proved “overpayment”. Two defendants saw this kangaroo court first-hand and settled. www.citywatchla.com/index.php/2016-01-01-13-17-00/los-angeles/16416-how-lausd-lost-over-a-half-billion-dollars-of-taxpayer-s-money-without-being-reported
Harvard’s Bogus Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Affirmative Action Trial
…here on a big screen are his emails with the university’s fund-raisers, suggesting special consideration for the offspring of big donors, those who have “already committed to a building” or have “an art collection which could conceivably come our way.”
Court documents and trial testimony have introduced Harvard admissions jargon: “tips” are bumps given to applicants, the “dean’s interest list” is a compendium of applicants with clout, and the “Z-list” is a sort of back door into the college for students who are borderline academically. For everyone, the odds are long, as nearly 43,000 applicants sought spots in the Class of 2022 and just 2,024 received letters prompting high-fives and teary phone calls.
Although many selective colleges are known to engage in the same admissions tactics, Harvard’s lawyers lamented in pretrial papers that being forced to produce application materials would be like divulging trade secrets, and would allow students and college counselors to game the process, which is in full swing right now….
There is the special list for those whom the admissions dean has taken an interest in, some of whom are the relatives of wealthy donors. There is the vague “personal” rating, which can lift or hurt an applicant’s chances based on an assessment of character traits and background, from “outstanding” to “bland or somewhat negative or immature” to “questionable personal qualities.” And the trial this week has raised questions about whether unconscious bias affects the process, either on the part of admissions officials or the teachers and counselors who write letters on applicants’ behalf. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/us/harvard-admissions-affirmative-action.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
State wins case on sending money to non-public schools
Michigan’s public schools lost in court today. Multiple public school organizations and the ACLU sued the state over a multi-million dollar budget item.
The lawsuit is over public money going to non-public schools for state mandates; things like safety drills and health requirements. In its opinion, the Michigan Court of Appeals said:
The Legislature may allocate public funds to reimburse nonpublic schools for actual costs incurred in complying with state health, safety, and welfare laws. But only if the action or performance that must be undertaken in order to comply with a health, safety, or welfare mandate (1) is, at most, merely incidental to teaching and providing educational services to private school students (non-instructional in nature), (2) does not constitute a primary function or element necessary for a nonpublic school to exist, operate, and survive, and (3) does not involve or result in excessive religious entanglement.
The case goes back to the Court of Claims to sort out the details. www.michiganradio.org/post/state-wins-case-sending-money-non-public-schools?fbclid=IwAR134PY0b3bSQITWkXd1CY1Dcz_7qe04KiUlj50uQRGGQsE7wTe7qUbdQZ4
Richard Blum, a $100 Million UC Investment, Feinstein Campaign Donations: Business As Usual at UC?
In the fall of 2017, UC regents shifted $100 million worth of university endowment and pension resources into a fund founded by a business associate of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, regent Richard Blum
University of California regents approved a nine-figure investment in a private equity fund run by a major donor to Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose husband sits on the regents’ board. The investment was disclosed just as some of the private equity fund’s overseers and advisers were pumping thousands of dollars of donations into Feinstein’s campaign, according to documents reviewed by Capital & Main.
In the fall of 2017, UC regents decided to shift $100 million worth of university endowment and pension resources into the RISE fund, operated by TPG. That firm was founded by David Bonderman, who has forged extensive business relationships with Feinstein’s husband, regent Richard Blum. Over the past quarter-century, Blum served as a TPG executive, founded a fund overseeing TPG’s Asia business and partnered with TPG on numerous investment deals with his own investment fund, Blum Capital. The $100 million investment was UC’s first investment with TPG.capitalandmain.com/richard-blum-a-100-million-dollar-uc-investment-feinstein-campaign-donations-business-as-usual-at-the-board-of-regents-1015
After-school program that never happened cost San Ysidro School District $276,000
A San Diego woman who touts her connections to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and billionaire philanthropist T. Denny Sanford to promote her after-school programs sold the San Ysidro School District a sports and cheer package that never happened.
And two years later, the district is still trying to recoup the $276,000 it paid upfront.
Tyree Dillingham promised that her Greater San Diego After-School All-Stars would provide a yearlong sports and cheer program for more than 1,600 of San Ysidro’s students. The program was important for a district that serves some of the poorest students in the county.
“I feel that we were taken advantage of,” San Ysidro school board member Marcos Diaz said. “That would be me personally. But even a little bit farther, our children were the ones that were stolen from, if that is the case and if that is what is proven.”
While investigating questions about the after-school contract, inewsource discovered questionable claims Dillingham used in promoting her business online and in Arizona. Some of these claims have since been erased from her website.
In one instance, Dillingham appeared in a photo with Sanford, who lives in La Jolla and made his fortune in credit and banking. He is holding a $28 million check that appeared to be made out to her company.
A spokeswoman for Sanford told inewsource the philanthropist gave $500,000 to Dillingham’s company — not $28 million. The check in the photo with Dillingham and Sanford is dated April 18, 2017, the same day he was photographed giving a $28 million check to the National University System. inewsource.org/2018/10/17/san-ysidro-afterschool-program-never-happened/
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
One of the very few books describing why US COIN fails.
US has limited contact, oversight of Afghan troops and the gear they’ve been given (Sun Tzu: Feed on the Enemy)
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The Defense Department is still struggling to develop an Afghan military that can sustain itself, despite the U.S. having spent nearly $84 billion on Afghan security over the past 17 years, according to a new report.
The Government Accountability Office has found that U.S. advisers almost never interact at the tactical level with conventional Afghan troops. As a result, there is little to no oversight over how well regular Afghan soldiers maintain U.S.-funded equipment.
Advisers do spend significant time with Afghan special operations forces, such as the Afghan Commandos, but those troops are generally better vetted, trained and remain more loyal to the Afghan government.
Conventional Afghan troops, though, make up roughly three-quarters of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, or ANDSF.
Under NATO’s Resolute Support mission, which began in 2015, U.S. and coalition forces do not embed with Afghan conventional forces below the corps and zone levels except in limited circumstances.
nstead, U.S. advisers must rely on Afghan troops to report information, which, according to Pentagon officials who spoke with the GAO, may be unreliable.
“ANDSF reporting is not verified by U.S. officials and can be unreliable in its consistency, comprehensiveness, and credibility, according to DoD officials and SIGAR,” GAO officials said, using the acronym for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. “For example, the ANDSF produce a monthly tracker on vehicle availability, maintenance backlog, repair times, and personnel productivity, but DoD officials told us that the trackers are of questionable accuracy.”
Also at issue is the tendency for U.S.-supplied gear to end up in the hands of Taliban fighters and wind up proudly displayed in propaganda videos. www.militarytimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/10/16/us-has-limited-contact-oversight-of-afghan-troops-and-the-gear-theyve-been-given/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EBB%2010.17.18&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Military%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief
Taliban propaganda showcases US weapons and radios as captured war spoils
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The Taliban have been posting propaganda pictures and videos of war spoils captured on the battlefield.
Since the resurgent group announced the start of Operation Mansouri — the annual spring offensive named after former Taliban leader Mullah Mansour who was killed in a U.S. drone strike last May — Taliban media representatives have been posting photos to social media accounts.
The pictures may depict a trend of sophisticated U.S. military weapons and hardware supplied to the Afghan military falling into Taliban hands. www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2017/08/14/taliban-propaganda-showcases-us-weapons-and-radios-as-captured-war-spoils/
Treason: Retired Navy commander gets 30 months prison for accepting ‘Fat Leonard’ bribes
In an email arranging to hand off proprietary Navy information to the flamboyant contractor Leonard Francis, Navy Cmdr. Troy Amundson described himself as “a small dog just trying to get a bone.”
Later that night, Francis procured the services of several prostitutes from Mongolia for Amundson, prosecutors say, just one in a string of bribes that Francis paid for leaked military data.
On Friday, Amundson was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He joins the ranks of more than a dozen other Navy officials whose military service is now tarnished with felony records for getting cozy with Francis in what has become the worst corruption scandal to hit the Navy in decades.
Amundson, a decorated combat pilot, told the judge that, at the time, he didn’t realize what he was doing was illegal. The ship schedules laying out port visits in Southeast Asia that he passed on to Francis weren’t classified and were regularly given to contractors, his lawyers said.
But the judge disagreed, pointing to the secrecy with which Amundson operated.
“It was calculated. It was deliberate,” U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino told him on Friday. “I think you certainly knew what you were doing, sir. As decorated as you were, it’s hard to fathom why you’d sell out for so little.”
Unlike some other Navy officials who served Francis — nicknamed “Fat Leonard” — and his Glenn Defense Marine Asia contracting company, Amundson didn’t accept any cash bribes. But he had a good time on Francis’ dime: lavish meals, parties, hotel stays and the services of prostitutes. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/courts/sd-me-amundson-sentence-20181019-story.html
Syria’s Long War Will Be Decided in These Three Theaters
A bloody siege looms over Idlib, the U.S. is digging into the east, and conflict between Iran and Israel may put Syria in the crosshairs.
The Syrian civil war has always been devilishly complex, with multiple actors following different scripts, but in the past few months it appeared to be winding down.
The Damascus government now controls 60 percent of the country and the major population centers, the Islamic State has been routed, and the rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are largely cornered in Idlib Province in the country’s northwest. But suddenly the Americans moved the goal posts and — maybe — the Russians have fallen out with the Israelis, the Iranians are digging in their heels, and the Turks are trying to multi-task with a home front in disarray.
So the devil is still very much at work in a war that’s lasted more than seven years, claimed up to 500,000 lives, displaced millions of people, destabilized an already fragile Middle East, and is far from over.
There are at least three theaters in the Syrian war, each with its own complexities: Idlib in the north, the territory east of the Euphrates River, and the region that abuts the southern section of the Golan Heights.
Just sorting out the antagonists is daunting. Turks, Iranians, Americans, and Kurds are the key actors in the east. Russians, Turks, Kurds, and Assad are in a temporary standoff in the north. And Iran, Assad, and Israel are in a faceoff near Golan, a conflict that has suddenly drawn in Moscow.
Idlib
Assad’s goals are straightforward: Reunite the country under the rule of Damascus and begin re-building Syria’s shattered cities. The major roadblock to this is Idlib, the last large concentration of anti-Assad groups, jihadists linked with al-Qaeda, and a modest Turkish occupation force representing Operation Olive Branch. The province, which borders Turkey in the north, is mountainous, and re-taking it promises to be difficult. fpif.org/syrias-long-war-will-be-decided-in-these-three-theaters/
Timeline of United States military operations (year after year)
35 Years on–The Grenada InvasionThe Last Prisoners of the Cold War were Black
On March 13, 1979 a revolution took place in Grenada, the first in an African_Caribbean country, the first in the English_speaking world. The people who made up the revolutionary cadre were young, average age around 27. The uppermost leadership was predominantly middle class, educated abroad. They called themselves the New Jewel Movement (NJM). The revolution, or coup as some called it, was popular, replacing a mad dictator named Eric Gairy who spent much of the tiny country’s (pop 100,000) resources investigating the reason Grenada was a favorite landing point for flying saucers. When I interviewed Gairy in 1996, he told me he was immortal, God. He died in 1997.
Gairy had modeled his rule on a mix of Haitian Papa Doc Duvalier’s thuggery, populist appeals to peasant- workers and small_land_holders, and claims to mystical-sexual powers, a powerful constituency in Grenada. Gairy had been a teacher and union leader, was instrumental in winning Grenada’s independence from Great Britain. Gairy was entrancing but he brooked no opposition and shared with few. His Mongoose gang was implicated in several murders, served as the stick to Gairy’s charm. The educated classes, and many others, were restive. The NJM “revo” of 1979 took 24 hours, the culmination of years of unarmed struggle. It was no mistake that but two people were killed in the revolution. Grenada’s size means that everyone knows nearly everyone. Each death is a personal and collective tragedy. The NJM leadership never fit the bloodthirsty caricature later stamped on them by U.S. officials.
At the time of the uprising, Eric Gairy was in the US visiting with Nazi war criminal (and United Nations Secretary General ) Kurt Waldheim. Gairy simply didn’t return. Maurice Bishop, Jacqueline Creft, Bernard and Phyllis Coard, were among the key New Jewel leaders. Bishop and Coard had been childhood friends.
The NJM leadership were socialists, though their socialism was eclectic__hardly the doctrinaire image the U.S. later created. They borrowed judiciously and won investments from any government they could, from the British to the USSR to Iraq and Cuba (which provided mostly doctors, construction specialists, nurses, and educators). The exacting Brandeis-educated Bernard Coard, leading the financial sector, was recognized throughout the Caribbean as a rare, honest, economist. www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/05/the-last-prisoners-of-the-cold-war-are-black/
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Seeing red: US deficit jumps $779 billion, adding budget pressure
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The U.S. federal government is sliding deeper into the red.
The country’s deficit rose to $779 billion in fiscal 2018, its highest level in six years as Republican-led tax cuts caused the government to borrow more heavily. That represents a jump of 17 percent over last year, the largest figure since 2012, when the U.S. was spending to stimulate its economy.
The higher deficit spending is expected to add downward pressure on future defense budgets. On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump called for government spending to be cut 5 percent across every federal department, and while his prescription for future defense spending was confused, he seemed to suggest a cut from $717 billion in FY19 to $700 billion in FY20.
The U.S. Treasury announced Monday the deficit rose $113 billion over the previous year as government spending outpaced revenues. Receipts were generally flat in FY18, while spending increased 3.2 percent as Congress gave more funds for military and domestic programs.
“President Trump prioritized making a significant investment in America’s military after years of reductions in military spending undermined our preparedness and national security,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said…
Revenues generally tumbled after December when Trump signed into law $1.5 trillion of tax cuts over the next decade. The tax cuts have caused economic growth to accelerate this year, with Federal Reserve officials anticipating gains of 3.1 percent. But the Trump administration initially promised that the tax cuts would pay for themselves through stronger growth — and there is no sign so far of that happening. www.defensenews.com/smr/federal-budget/2018/10/19/seeing-red-us-deficit-jumps-779-billion-adding-budget-pressure/
Detroit police find 63 fetuses in boxes, freezers of funeral home
Detroit police removed 63 fetuses Friday from a Detroit funeral home, as state inspectors shuttered the facility that is under investigation on allegations of mishandling remains and fraud.
Police raided Perry Funeral Home on Trumbull Ave. Friday afternoon and found 36 fetuses in boxes and an additional 27 fetuses in freezers there, Detroit police chief James Craig said.
“I’m stunned,” Craig said. “My team is stunned. God help those families.”
The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs announced Friday it had suspended the mortuary science licenses of Perry Funeral Home and its director Gary Deak.
The decision to close the facility came after an inspection Friday which uncovered “an imminent threat to the public health and safety,” LARA spokesman Jason Moon said in a press release.
Friday’s grisly discovery is the latest development in a widening investigation into alleged improprieties at local funeral homes.
Craig said earlier Friday law enforcement agencies are considering forming a task force to investigate the issue, specifically targeting improper storage of remains and fraud.
As part of that probe, Detroit police raided another funeral home Friday: Q A Cantrell Funeral Home in Eastpointe, along with a home in Grosse Pointe Woods. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2018/10/19/detroit-police-widening-investigation-into-local-funeral-homes/1698282002/
Federal Deficit Jumps 17 Percent As Tax Cuts Eat Into Government Revenue
The federal deficit ballooned to $779 billion in the just-ended fiscal year — a remarkable tide of red ink for a country not mired in recession or war.
The government is expected to borrow more than a trillion dollars in the coming year, in part to make up for tax receipts that have been slashed by GOP tax cuts.
Corporate tax collections fell by 31 percent in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, despite robust corporate profits. That’s hardly surprising after lawmakers cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21.
Income taxes withheld from individuals grew by 1 percent. Overall tax receipts were flat. As a share of the economy, tax receipts shrank to 16.5 percent of GDP, from 17.2 percent the previous year.
“The president is very much aware of the realities presented by our national debt,” said White House budget director Mick Mulvaney.
He insisted that accelerating economic growth will eventually help fill the deficit hole, though so far there’s little evidence that growth is finding its way to government coffers. www.npr.org/2018/10/16/657790901/federal-deficit-jumps-17-percent-as-tax-cuts-eat-into-government-revenue?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2044&fbclid=IwAR3T6c0Do5ZpwPuDw4cxaCG7FkdiqFpCp2ST-FHe7QtyRa2oLo3_tyFlUNM
Is Fraud Part of the Trump Organization’s Business Model?
What, exactly, is Donald Trump’s business? The Trump Organization is unusual in that it doesn’t appear to do the same thing for very long. It was a builder of apartments for the lower middle class, then a builder of luxury buildings and hotels, then a casino company, and, most recently, a brand-licensing firm, selling its name to anybody who wanted “TRUMP” emblazoned on a building, bottled water, or whatever else. These are wildly different businesses. The way a company raises money, plans projects, and gains profit are entirely different in each of these fields. Middle-class housing, for example, is typically a slow, steady business in which profits come from careful cost control; luxury housing, by contrast, is riskier, with bigger and faster rewards but a higher chance of failure. One hires different sorts of accountants and salespeople and construction managers. Casinos are something else entirely, and licensing is entirely different from any of those other businesses.
It is becoming increasingly clear that, in the language of business schools, the Trump Organization’s core competency is in profiting from misrepresentation and deceit and, potentially, fraud. There are many ways to make money in real estate. The normal way is to identify a need in the market, raise money by convincing lenders or investors that your plan is sound, build the structure, then either profit through ongoing rent or by selling units.
The key variables in such a business are what is known as product-market fit—the accuracy with which a developer understands the housing or commercial needs of a place—and the ability to execute well by keeping costs down without sacrificing the right level of quality. Perhaps more than anything, practitioners of a successful real-estate business obsessively focus on maintaining the ability to borrow money cheaply. The profit on many real-estate projects often comes down to simple math: the cheaper you can borrow money to build, the more money you make. The more trustworthy you are, through a long period of successful projects, the less interest banks will demand on their loans, so the more profit you can make, and the more successful you will be. www.newyorker.com/news/swamp-chronicles/is-fraud-part-of-the-trump-organizations-business-model?mbid=social_facebook&fbclid=IwAR1zrOdsNOR_xqiGoOLq3WU7ParcvlS_ag_PSe1p-sx7tJM3ccpqVSTjqmg
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason
Elizabeth Warren Falls for Trump’s Trap—and Promotes Insidious Ideas About Race
The Trumpian taunt is a trap. A video released by Senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, on Monday demonstrates just how it works.
What Warren intended to demonstrate is that she has Native American ancestry, and that she has a genetic test to prove it. She did this because Donald Trump has repeatedly accused her of lying about her heritage and, during a rally last summer, even promised to donate a million dollars to the charity of Warren’s choice if she could produce a genetic test that verified her claims.
In addition to the video, Warren posted a geneticist’s report on her DNA test. It’s worth noting what the report said: not very much. The author of the report—the Stanford University professor Carlos Bustamante, who consults for several DNA-testing services—identifies Warren as a person of European ancestry and writes that more than ninety-five per cent of her genome comes from Europe. A small portion, he writes, appears to point to a distant Native American ancestor, between six and ten generations ago.
It is important to understand that, contrary to the impression created by television and online advertising, a DNA test can never provide definitive information about one’s heritage. Ancestry-testing services deal in correlations: they collect data on genetic markers on the one hand and personal narratives on the other. If all or most of the people who identify as, say, Ashkenazi Jewish have a certain genetic marker, the database will learn to recognize the marker as “Ashkenazi Jewish”; chances are, most Palestinians in this world would have this marker as well, but as long as none of them has used this particular service, the marker will be known as “Jewish.”https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/elizabeth-warren-falls-for-trumps-trap-and-promotes-insidious-ideas-about-race-and-dna?mbid=social_twitter&fbclid=IwAR1PAU0_Xb6yLext_xCdd2W5lp_i_Aw14oc1_pz23Cj612mNjtJtoCLTblE
Republicans Are Adopting the Proud Boys
Before and after the Manhattan brawl, GOP figures defended and promoted the far-right group. It’s a valuable and dangerous bridge between fascism and mainstream politics.
Nine members of the far-right Proud Boys group and three protesters are facing riot and assault charges after a street brawl between them Friday night in New York.
The fight wasn’t a random clash, though: The Proud Boys were in Manhattan thanks to an invite from the Metropolitan Republican Club.
In a speech at the club, which was vandalized before the event, Proud Boys leader Gavin McInnes waved a sword at anti-fascist protesters and celebrated the assassination of a socialist Japanese politician. McInnes, a Vice co-founder who left the company in 2008, dressed up as the Japanese assassin who killed the politician, complete with glasses that made his eyes into a racist caricature of a Japanese person’s eyes.
It was a bizarre event to host at the GOP’s Manhattan clubhouse, but the Metropolitan Republican Club defended McInnes and the Proud Boys after the fight. In a statement released Sunday, the club said McInnes’ speech “was certainly not inciting violence.” www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-are-adopting-the-proud-boys
https://www.c-span.org/video/?451435-2
/american-prison
Gentle reminder
Before our eyes, Italy is becoming a fascist state
For Italy today, almost a century on from Mussolini’s March on Rome, has installed in its capital a government that makes the buffoonish Benito look the very model of statesmanship. It is pursuing policies that are not simply neo-fascistic and cruel, though they are certainly that, but crazy with it.
The latest eccentric proposal from the interior and deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, is to make “ethnic” shops close at 9pm. This is because, in his view, some premises, “almost all managed by foreign citizens”, had “become the haunt of drunks and drug dealers” in the evening.
What’s more, Salvini, who is becoming world-famous as a sort of mini-me Donald Trump, adds that such shops were full of “people who drink beer, whiskey until three in the morning” and who “piss and shit” on the doorstep. www.independent.co.uk/voices/italy-fascist-policies-march-rome-matteo-salvini-donald-trump-a8586711.html?fbclid=IwAR1zRM-4yE4Flc-ORzuF9Vcf_U75ISKcL31VlEViNQdBe-sUwC8yNJiAeU8
What is Fascism ?
1. Fascism is the unchecked rule of a class of the privileged, or relatively rich, in power–a full-scale assault on poor and working people. Parliamentary institutions are usually set aside, or so demeaned as to be meaningless. (The Holocaust was legal). Elites issue direct orders, frequently through a populist leader. Wages, any social safety net, working hour laws, labor laws; all come under legal (and extra-legal) attack. The stick replaces the carrot.
Even between capitalists of the same nation, struggle intensifies.
Fascism in its early stages has been popular among masses of people mystified by nationalism, racism, and sexism. These ideas are key to the construction of fascism. But, “war means work” for some, which may also explain its historical popularity.
Fascism requires and is built on the support of capitalist elites. Henry Ford, the Dulles family, the Catholic Church, and the German Krupps among many others, were early supporters of fascism in the U.S.
Fascism is an element of the modern era, which carries forward elements of feudalism. Fascism has taken the form of state capitalism in Japan, Germany, and in more sophisticated ways, the Soviet Union in the Stalin era. But fascism has also grown in less developed countries, Romania, Bulgaria, most of Eastern Europe, Cambodia, Argentina, Guatemala, Chile; and taken significantly different forms.
2. Fascism and capitalism are inseparable. There has never been a form of capital that was not built on a fascist base–from early British action against the Chartists to today’s varieties of imperialism. All major capitalist nations have fascist ties.
Hence, while fascism may not be the dominant form of capitalist government, elements of fascist ideology (biological determinism, rabid nationalism, etc.) and fascist organizations (sectors of the police, KKK, skinheads, etc.) are always present. No capitalist government has ever required a revolution to institute fascism.
Fascism does emerge in capitalist crises, the moments when the struggle for production reaches a point when the workers can no longer purchase the products they produce, a crisis of over-production and declining profits and/or an intense battle for cheaper labor, raw materials, and new markets; that is, war.
However, neither war nor capitalist crisis is a pre-condition of fascism; more at www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/What_Is_Fascism_Gibson.html
A Synopsis of Fascism And Social Revolution By R. Palme Dutt (published 1936)
Introduction
Fascism is an inevitable result of capitalism and its decay if the social revolution is delayed.
Chapter 1
Fascism is the logical result of the fact that the form of private ownership of the means of production can progress no further and must create violent crises, stagnation, and decay. Only the social organization of production can sanely organize production, and this can only come through social revolution.
The world available for capitalist exploitation now contracts. Fascism is a further stage of capital in crisis. A massive world army of unemployed people grows, and as this world crisis grows, so does the need of bosses to lower the costs of production. There are but two alternatives, social revolution or destruction. The class struggle now intensifies. .
Chapter 2
After WWI there was a brief period of capitalist stabilization based on (a) the defeat of the world revo (b) the use of social democracy and concessions to workers and © the strength of American capitalism, not hurt by the war and not yet wholly fouled by decay. This was a hollow form of stabilization which could not ·last.
But social democracy masked the class struggle and disorganized workers so they were not ready for the crisis ahead. more at richgibson.com/synopsisfascim.htm
Tomgram: Karen Greenberg, How Guantanamo Set the Stage for the Kavanaugh Hearings
Justice Derailed
Brett Kavanaugh and the Echoes of Gitmo
By Karen J. GreenbergAmid the emotional hubbub over the predictable confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, there has been a largely overlooked casualty: the American judiciary. It’s not the end result alone — his addition to the highest bench in the land where he will sit for life — that promises to damage the country, but the unprofessional, procedurally irresponsible way his circus-like hearings were held that dealt a blow to the possibilities for justice in America, a blow from which it may prove hard to recover.
Senator Susan Collins acknowledged the damage the hearings wrought, even if she misunderstood the cause. Delivering her massively disappointing decision to vote yes on Kavanaugh, Collins reflected on what she saw as the passion that overrode the presumption of innocence and expressed “worry” that such behavior would lead to “a lack of public faith in the judiciary.” Though wrong in blaming the Democrats for those passions, her conclusion was otherwise spot on. This confirmation has underscored and enhanced the fragility of justice in America, at least as a reflection of law, decency, honesty, transparency, and fairness.
Surprising as this derailment of justice might have seemed, it echoed (and may, in fact, have reflected) another long-unspooling twenty-first-century American degradation of justice. The proceedings created to try those terrorism suspects locked away in the offshore detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, pivoted away from many of the country’s legal and moral principles (a subject to which I’ll return).
But as a prelude to understanding the harm that the Kavanaugh confirmation process caused, think for a moment about the fundamental premises underlying the Supreme Court and so the American judiciary. The Founding Fathers envisioned it as a body chaired by judges whose professional responsibility was, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 78, to be “faithful guardians of the Constitution.” Toward that end, the Court was to stand independent from politics and the other two branches of government. That idea of judicial independence was, in the oft-quoted words of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, “one of the crown jewels of our system of government.” www.tomdispatch.com/post/176480/tomgram%3A_karen_greenberg%2C_how_guantanamo_set_the_stage_for_the_kavanaugh_hearings/
It’s apparent that both Kavanaugh and the committee before which he testified betrayed the goals of justice laid out in that foundational period by violating several major elements of judicial reasoning and procedure. In the process, they helped introduce Gitmo-style justice to the American legal system. Below are four ways in which the committee compromised longstanding aspects of American jurisprudence and justice.
A Quasi-Courtroom
Through it all, both supporters and opponents of Kavanaugh claimed that his congressional hearings did not constitute the equivalent of a courthouse. Not true. Throughout those proceedings, the Senate was, in fact, turned into a quasi-courthouse in which legislators could pick and choose just which kinds of procedures they cared to use, while conveniently banishing or ignoring others. www.tomdispatch.com/post/176480/tomgram%3A_karen_greenberg%2C_how_guantanamo_set_the_stage_for_the_kavanaugh_hearings/
NYTIMES VIDEO ON LIBERAL TAKE ON FASCISM: www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000006154922/fascism-leaders-america-trump.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Solidarity for Never
Spy versus Spy
Felix Smith, Who Piloted Covert CIA Flights Over Asia, carrying heroin in illegal wars, Is Dead at 100
The airline also provided tactical assistance to the colonial French as early as 1950 in their war against the Viet Minh, the Communist-supported group seeking independence for Vietnam; helped airlift refugees fleeing North Vietnam after the French were vanquished in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu; and engaged in other clandestine operations in North Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/obituaries/felix-smith-dead.html
Police spies infiltrated UK leftwing groups for decades
Police deployed 24 undercover officers to infiltrate a small leftwing political party over a 37-year period, the Guardian can reveal.
The police spies infiltrated the Socialist Workers party (SWP) almost continuously between 1970 and 2007, often with more than one undercover officer embedded within the party.
Four of them deceived women into sexual relationships while using their fake identities. One spy met one of his wives during his deployment and had a child with her.
About one-third of the total number of undercover officers embedded in political organisations that have so far been publicly identified infiltrated the SWP, a Trotskyite party of a few thousand members that advocates the abolition of capitalism through revolutionary means.
The scale of the infiltration of the SWP – far larger than any other political organisation – is revealed in a database compiled following investigations by the Guardian and the Undercover Research Group, a network of activists that scrutinises police espionage.
The database lists 124 groups that have been spied on by undercover police officers since 1968.
The next-biggest infiltration of a specific organisation was against the campaign opposing the Vietnam war, which was penetrated by nine undercover officers between 1968 and 1972. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/15/undercover-police-spies-infiltrated-uk-leftwing-groups-for-decades
The Magical Mystery Tour
Catholic Dioceses in Pennsylvania Face Federal Inquiry Into Sexual Abuse
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania accused of covering up sex abuse for decades, a significant escalation in scrutiny of the church.
The inquiry is believed to be the first statewide investigation by the federal government of the church’s sex abuse problems. And it comes two months after the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office released an explosive grand jury report charging that bishops and other church leaders had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 people over a period of more than 70 years.
Seven of the eight dioceses in the state, Philadelphia, Erie, Harrisburg, Scranton, Pittsburgh, Greensburg and Allentown all said they had received federal grand jury subpoenas from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania requesting documents. The eighth, Altoona-Johnstown, did not respond to a request for comment. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/us/church-sex-abuse-investigation-pennsylvania.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Below, Facebook video on Priest abuse (just copy and paste)
www.facebook.com/cdscratch/videos/751670201703751/?t=42
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
The Horseface Chronicles (The Level of Discourse in the USA)
Try to think of something worse than Trump’s “unexpressed thoughts.”
So, Donald Trump called Stormy Daniels “Horseface.” Truly, I thought that after the first two or three or 12 incidents of comparing women to animals, he’d have figured out it was a bad plan.
Nah. One of the things we have learned about our president over the last few years is that he never recognizes a bad plan.
Trump once sent me a marked-up copy of a column I’d written about him, with an arrow pointing to my picture and the inscription “face of a pig.” There was also a note about my being “a dog and a liar.”..
Naturally there was a Stormy response. (“In addition to his … umm … shortcomings, he has demonstrated his incompetence, hatred of women and lack of self control on Twitter AGAIN! And perhaps a penchant for bestiality. Game on, Tiny.”)
I believe I speak for all of America when I say that having Donald Trump as president is bad enough without having to think about his genitals. Really, this is way, way worse than previous revelations that Lyndon Johnson called his “Jumbo” and Warren Harding’s was “Jerry.” www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/opinion/trump-horseface-stormy-daniels-tweet.html
Hillary Clinton’s Master Class in Distraction
Unfortunately, it took Mrs. Clinton less than a week to come up with an even juicier midterm gift for Trump & Company. In a sit-down with “CBS Sunday Morning,” she was asked several pointed questions about her husband’s Oval Office dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.
To be fair, she was asked the questions. But her reaction was to point out that Ms. Lewinsky had been an adult at the time of the affair — as though that technical legality, when the president of the United States was getting busy with an intern who was young enough to be his daughter, was all that mattered. Mrs. Clinton then pivoted to demand why no one was investigating the myriad accusations of sexual harassment and assault against the current occupant of the White House.
President Trump being a pig and an alleged sexual predator in no way excuses Bill Clinton from being a pig and an alleged sexual predator. In fact, by declining to re-examine her own husband’s acts, Mrs. Clinton only makes it easier for Mr. Trump’s defenders to ignore the current president’s. (Juanita Broaddrick’s accusation that she was raped by Mr. Clinton in 1978 can be revisited in a recent episode of the Slate podcast “Slow Burn.”) www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/opinion/hillary-clintons-master-class-in-distraction.html
www.facebook.com/CaidynBennett/videos/110058786566847/?t=61
So Long
We remember Colin Ross
