Rouge Forum Dispatch: The Education Agenda as War Agenda!
We Say Fight Back!
Congratulations to Michael Perelman on the Publication of:
“Workers, working conditions, and work itself rarely draw the attention, let alone concern, of employers or economists. Michael Perelman fills the void with this sweeping review of Procrusteanism—the economic institutions and practices that force people to accept the discipline of the market. His account of the degradation of labor gives us a sequel to Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital.” Richard B. Du Boff
30 Arrested in Solidarity with WikiHero Bradley Manning: Hundreds of people joined a rally outside Quantico, chanting “Free Bradley Manning” and holding banners that read “Caution: Whistleblower Torture Zone”. Scuffles broke out when riot police tried to move demonstrators away from an intersection at the base entrance. One of the 35 people arrested was Daniel Ellsberg, a Manning supporter who leaked the so-called Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War in 1971.
Logo Of Daniel Ellsberg’s private High School, Cranbrook
The 79-year-old gave a speech at the rally and was quoted as saying: “I want Bradley Manning’s courage to be contagious.”
A report on the Bradley Manning Support Network website said protesters had tried to march to the Iwo Jima memorial to lay a wreath, but military officers stopped them.
In response the group began a spontaneous sit-in and refused to move, prompting local and military police to make arrests. news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Bradley-Manning-WikiLeaks-Protest-Virginia-Daniel-Ellsberg-Among-35-Arrested-Outside-Quantico-Base/Article/201103315956985
33 Arrested in Albany Protest: Tax the Rich!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtG7WEwecFc
Thirty-three [updated number per State Police] members of the CUNY Professional Staff Congress and other groups will be charged with disorderly conduct following an orderly but rather loud protest that began just after 2 p.m., when a portion of the 150 or so advocates who had been circling the Mural Room filed into the Senate stairway corridor just outside Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office. A sizable contingent of state troopers were waiting to block the closed security door. blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/61613/dozens-arrested-outside-cuomos-office/
The protesters who had elected to be arrested sat down and continued a variety of chants protesting what they characterized as a war on workers, unions, the poor and CUNY. Methodically, troopers crouched down to read a script in which the protesters were informed that they were creating an unsafe blockade, and asked to move to a different spot. All refused, and stood up to have hands secured behind their backs. They were calmly led away to cheers from the rest of the protesters hanging back at the opposite end of the stairwell.
Short Points on Good Teaching: www.susanohanian.org/show_commentaries.php?id=895
The Little Red School House:
Duncan Says Education Agenda not good enough War Agenda:
The nation’s education secretary Arne Duncan said too many teenagers can’t get into the military because they are not academically prepared. He joined military officials on Wednesday in San Diego to focus on the problem.
A new report by Education Trust, a non-profit education advocacy group based in Washington D.C., shows roughly 1 out of 4 high school graduates set on joining the military fail the academic entrance exam.
Duncan says on top of that, roughly 25 percent of students who drop out of high school every year cannot join because they do not have a diploma.
Duncan says the problem affects national security. He wants lawmakers to reform the federal No Child Left Behind Act to improve student performance.
“We have to get better faster than we ever have,” Duncan says. “The problem is not our nation’s children. The challenge, quite frankly, is the adults and educators. We haven’t provided the opportunities (students) need.”
Racism Keeps People Moving Kids in Capitalist Schools: Detroit suburbs are increasingly becoming integrated in neighborhoods, but less so in the classroom.
A Detroit News analysis of U.S. census and state data shows many communities that witnessed large increases in African-American population also saw a striking increase in white students leaving their home towns to attend classes. detnews.com/article/20110324/METRO/103240393
Against Ravitch (again): Nothing significant is going to happen if it takes place behind the leadership of the vacillating reactionary Dianne Ravitch and the union bosses who lionize her richgibson.com/againstravitch.htm
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor:
“Now, when your weapons are dulled, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity … in war, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.” Sun Tzu
Doube Fake Out! It’s the USA! Not Nato! Gadaffi? Not Too Bad! The United States stepped aside to allow NATO to run Libya no-fly operations, but the US military’s enormous strike power remains the real muscle behind the coalition effort. More than 350 aircraft are involved in some capacity. Only slightly more than half belong to the United States.” AFP quoted US Navy Vice Admiral William Gortney as saying on Thursday at a Pentagon briefing.
www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i_d-_fKeGkRtDbuN0jSQIqLX9pVQ
Arab League Turnabout: Stop the Bombing! Moussa said the Arab League’s approval of a no-fly zone on March 12 was based on a desire to prevent Moammar Gaddafi’s air force from attacking civilians and was not designed to embrace the intense bombing and missile attacks—including on Tripoli, the capital, and on Libyan ground forces—that have filled Arab television screens for the last two days.
“What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone,” he said in a statement on the official Middle East News Agency. “And what we want is the protection of civilians and not the shelling of more civilians.”
Moussa’s declaration suggested some of the 22 Arab League members were taken aback by what they have seen and wanted to modify their approval lest they be perceived as accepting outright Western military intervention in Libya. Although the eccentric Gaddafi is widely looked down on in the Arab world, Middle Eastern leaders and their peoples traditionally have risen up in emotional protest at the first sign of Western intervention. www.washingtonpost.com/world/arab-league-condemns-broad-bombing-campaign-in-libya/2011/03/20/AB1pSg1_story.html?hpid=z3
China (not saying “imperialist”) Attacks US Imperial War: “The military attacks on Libya are, following on from the Afghan and Iraq wars, the third time that some countries have launched armed action against sovereign countries,” said a commentary in the Communist Party’s main newspaper, People’s Daily.
“In today’s world where some people with the Cold War mentality are still keen on the use of force, people have reason to express concerns about the effects of the military action,” said the commentary, signed by a name, Zhongsheng, believed to be a pseudonym.
Another Communist-run newspaper, Global Times, which is owned by People’s Daily, had a separate editorial Monday saying Western powers were now trying to take over the “jasmine revolutions” roiling the Middle East.
“The West will not give up their jurisdiction over justice and injustice,” the Global Times editorial said. “They truly believe that they are the world’s custodian and the embodiment of justice. The Jasmine Revolution actually deepens their sense of purpose, and the West cannot bear the prospect that their will might be negated by Gaddafi.”…
Energy-hungry China imports about half of its oil from the Middle East and North Africa, with about 3 percent of that coming from Libya. According to the Ministry of Commerce, China currently has 75 companies doing $18.8 billion worth of business in Libya.
Before the current unrest began, there were some 36,000 Chinese citizens in Libya working on about 50 projects, including construction, drilling and infrastructure, the commerce ministry here said. Most of the Chinese workers were extracted when the violence began. www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-after-abstaining-in-un-vote-criticizes-airstrikes-on-gaddafi-forces/2011/03/21/ABwL4M7_story.html?hpid=z3
3 Days In, Fake Obamagogue Coalition Begins to Unravel: The confusion over the mission, meanwhile, has spread beyond Libya. On Monday, NATO members bickered over whether what began as a relatively straightforward effort aimed at preventing Gaddafi from launching airstrikes against his people had turned into a more punitive action directed at his military forces, according to a European diplomat.
The disputes appear to have delayed U.S. efforts to turn the command of the operation over to NATO in the next few days. As of Monday evening, it remained unclear when responsibility would shift and who would assume it.
France, which has sought to portray itself as being in the vanguard of the operation, has raised concerns that Arab states will not participate in the operation if it is led by NATO. Turkey, which abstained from voting on the U.N. resolution, has said it sees no role for NATO. www.washingtonpost.com/world/amid-libyan-airstrikes-new-rifts-open-in-international-coalition/2011/03/21/ABCavb9_story.html?hpid=z1
Brits Already Split on Purpose of American War: A breach within Britain’s political and military leadership has opened up as David Cameron argued that the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, may be a legitimate target while the chief of the defence staff, Sir David Richards, said he was “absolutely not”.
The clash fed concern on the third day of the air assault that the hastily assembled international alliance is struggling to paper over disagreements about its ultimate war aims, the future role of Nato and the legitimacy of the rebel groups. www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/muammar-gaddafi-david-cameron-libya
Wow! Will Militarized Congress Say “Impeach”? NO???!!!
Complaints have already started to escalate. Some early advocates of military intervention, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said Obama may have waited too long to help the opposition in Libya.
A contingent of liberal Democrats, normally allied with the president, condemned the use of military force. Some conservatives, as well as foreign policy experts, said Libya is not a vital U.S. interest.
An antiwar group announced plans for protests in Los Angeles, Chicago and nine other cities this week… Robert Danin, a former State Department official who is a Mideast specialist, said he could not imagine how the mission could prove a political winner for Obama.
Americans are likely to worry, he said, that the United States will be stuck with part of the bill for rebuilding Libya. And U.S. officials, he noted, are still unsure whether the anti-Kadafi forces are necessarily pro-America and pro-democracy.
“The politics of this are just bad,” Danin said www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-us-libya-20110322,0,7678106.story
If Yemen Goes: Yemen strategically borders the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and Saudi Arabia. If Saleh is overthrown, civil wars could erupt in both the north and south, the Saudis would be rattled and possibly intervene militarily, Iran would almost surely exploit the chaos and the U.S. would be dealt a major setback in containing Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an entrenched terrorist affiliate…Islamic militants are only part of Yemen’s problems. The secessionist movement in the south, driven by communists, socialists and opportunistic tribesmen, threatens to split the country in half. Since Yemen was stitched back together after the 1994 civil war, the south has sought to break from Saleh. Rebel fighters have their own flag emblazoned on their rifle stocks.
Some analysts suggest that, though still pointed, secessionist talk in the south has been less aggressive during the protests in the capital, Sana. The desires of rebels in both north and south have been temporarily sidelined by the central goal of forcing the president out.
“Once they achieve it, they are going to fight amongst themselves, but not necessarily in the form of a civil war,” said Murad Azzani, a professor at Sana University. www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-yemen-dangers-20110323,0,3343598.story
Syria Shoots its Own! Bomb Syria? At least 10 people have been killed and dozens wounded after Syrian police opened fire on people protesting against the deaths of anti-government demonstrators in Deraa, witnesses say. Hundreds of youths from nearby villages were shot at when they tried to march into the centre of the southern city. A Syrian human rights activist told the BBC that at least 37 had died www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12843905
Bill Blum Reminds us of 56 US Wars, 1940-95
killinghope.org/
Chris Hedges Interviews a Marine Body Bagger: “I am still in contact with most of the people I knew,” she said. “They are not coping. One lives in VA [Veterans Affairs], constantly seeing psychologists and psychiatrists. One was kicked out of the Marines for three DUIs. Another was kicked out of the Marines because he took cocaine. Those who have gotten out are living below the poverty level. And what people do to cope is re-enlist. When they re-enlist they do better. They function. I am the only one who went to school of the 18 Marines in Mortuary Affairs. But I am in counseling at the VA. I have been diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, depression and substance abuse. What separates me from them is that I have a great support system and I found my salvation in my education.
“War is disgusting and horrific,” she said. “It never leaves the people who were involved in it. The damage is far greater than the lists of casualties or cost in dollars. It permeates lifestyles. It infects cultures and people and worldviews. The war is never over for us. The fighting stops. The troops get called back. But the war goes on for those damaged by war.”
Not long ago she received a text message from a Marine she had worked with in Mortuary Affairs after he tried to commit suicide.
“I’ve got $2,000 in the bank,” the message read. “Let’s meet in NYC and go out with a bang.” www.truthdig.com/report/print/the_body_baggers_of_iraq_20110321/
above, barbarized American adults play war
US “Kill Team” Images of Murdered Civilians Published: The United States and NATO are concerned that reactions could be intense to the publication of images documenting killings committed by US soldiers in Afghanistan. The images appeared in the most recent edition of SPIEGEL, which hit the newsstands on Monday. www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,752310,00.html
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already telephoned with her Afghan counterpart to discuss the situation. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon has likewise made contact with officials in Kabul. The case threatens to strain already fragile US-Afghan relations at a time when the two countries are negotiating over the establishment of permanent US military bases in Afghanistan….The suspects are accused of having killed civilians for no reason and then of trying to make it look as though the killings had been acts of self-defense. Some of the accused have said the acts had been tightly scripted.
Hey Admiral Mullen! Really! Why are we in Libya for a Draw?Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, has said the military operation in Libya called for by the UN Security Council is not aimed at regime change – adding that a “stalemate” could well exist, leaving Muammar Gaddafi in power. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/03/201132015244765379.html
The US Afghan Kill Team Completed “Spiritual Fitness”
Griffith: Look closer. A lot of the imagery in the training materials is explicitly Christian. They’ve now removed the part about the Christian flag folding ceremony that included references to the trinity and Jesus Christ and women playing a supporting role to men. ..It most certainly is mandatory, and they even have a disclaimer about how you will be punished by an Article 15 of the Universal Code of Military Justice, if you do not comply.
Yes, it gets worse. At Fort Hood they are building a thirty million dollar Spiritual Fitness Center. Thirty million in tax dollars. In my opinion it’s a mega church being built for a chaplain on the public dime.
Rock the Fort was a big evangelistic rally that went from base to base using a complicated combination of appropriated and non-appropriated government controlled funds. It was billed as a spiritual fitness event, but it was explicitly Evangelical, meaning it was a membership drive. By the time it got to Fort Bragg, Americans United, the ACLU, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation were sending letters and trying to get court injunctions to have the event cancelled.
White House: Ignore those bombs. We’re Not for Regime Change:
mission in Libya, despite a statement earlier in the day that characterized the goal there as “installing a democratic system.”
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, issued a statement acknowledging that President Obama would like to see a democratic government in Libya, but explained that the aim of the U.S. military’s intervention there is not to enact regime change http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/151191-white-house-suggests-regime-change-is-goal-of-libya-mission
Perpetual War in Libya?
The US defense secretary says there is no timeline for the end of the US-led assault on Libya as international opposition to the invasion continues to grow.
During a visit to Cairo, Robert Gates said no one was in a position to predict what would happen in Libya.
Gates also rejected criticism with regards to the air strikes in Libya which have resulted in civilian causalities over the past five days.
However, he predicted that the aerial attacks would be scaled back within days.
Gates also failed to suggest a political solution to the unfolding crisis in the North African country.
“It seems to me that if there is a mediation to be done, if there is a role to be played, it is among the Libyans themselves. This matter at the end of the day is going to have to be settled by Libyans. It’s their country,” he said.
www.presstv.ir/detail/171384.html
Who Are those Guys Anyway? The rebels of eastern Libya have found much to condemn about the police state tactics of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi: deep paranoia, mass detentions, secret prisons and tightly scripted media tours.
But some of those same tactics appear to be creeping into the efforts of the opposition here as it seeks to stamp out lingering loyalty to Kadafi. Rebel forces are detaining anyone suspected of serving or assisting the Kadafi regime, locking them up in the same prisons once used to detain and torture Kadafi’s opponents.
For a month, gangs of young gunmen have roamed the city, rousting Libyan blacks and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa from their homes and holding them for interrogation as suspected mercenaries or government spies.
Over the last several days, the opposition has begun rounding up men accused of fighting as mercenaries for Kadafi’s militias as government forces pushed toward Benghazi. It has launched nightly manhunts for about 8,000 people named as government operatives in secret police files seized after internal security operatives fled in the face of the rebellion that ended Kadafi’s control of eastern Libya last month.
“We know who they are,” said Abdelhafed Ghoga, the chief opposition spokesman. He called them “people with bloodstained hands” and “enemies of the revolution.”
articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/24/world/la-fg-libya-prisoners-20110324
Stratfor on Ideology, Imperialism, the Middle East and Libya:
There are other factors involved, of course. Italy has an interest in Libyan oil, and the United Kingdom was looking for access to the same. But just as Gadhafi was happy to sell the oil, so would any successor regime be; this war was not necessary to guarantee access to oil. NATO politics also played a role. The Germans refused to go with this operation, and that drove the French closer to the Americans and British. There is the Arab League, which supported a no-fly zone (though it did an about-face when it found out that a no-fly zone included bombing things) and offered the opportunity to work with the Arab world.
But it would be a mistake to assume that these passing interests took precedence over the ideological narrative, the genuine belief that it was possible to thread the needle between humanitarianism and imperialism — that it was possible to intervene in Libya on humanitarian grounds without thereby interfering in the internal affairs of the country. The belief that one can take recourse to war to save the lives of the innocent without, in the course of that war, taking even more lives of innocents, also was in play.
The comparison to Iraq is obvious www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110321-libya-west-narrative-democracy?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110322&utm_content=readmore&elq=0385d006246d4a42baa970df3d0c79da
Remember Jordan’s Pretty Queen? This is What she Really Is: Riot police officers stormed a pro-democracy rally here in the Jordanian capital on Friday, leaving one man dead, injuring scores of other people and dispersing with water cannons a 1,000-person tent camp set up the previous day to resemble Tahrir Square in Cairo.www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/world/middleeast/26jordan.html?hp
Don’t Forget the Real Prize, Saudi Arabia, plus that Bahrain base
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU_IvFABWus
The protesters in Bahrain had set up their own tent camp, also modeled on Tahrir Square, for a month in Pearl Square. But the police destroyed it this month and took down the 300-foot sculpture at the square’s center. Tanks and checkpoints have been set up throughout Manama as part of the crackdown, and the strategic island, home to the American Navy’s Fifth Fleet, remains tense.
In eastern Saudi Arabia, several hundred Shiites held sympathy protests for Bahrain, demanding the release of detainees and calling for the removal of Saudi troops from Bahrain, according to the Saudi news agency Rasid. It added that the protesters waved Bahraini flags and held marches in two cities in the province of Qatif. Like the majority Shiites in Bahrain, the Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia has long complained of discrimination.
Why “Odyssey Dawn?” Because it Means Nothing: the monicker has no specific meaning and has nothing to do with Libya, Libyans or the country’s leader, Moammar Gaddafi, according to Eric Elliott, a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/why-is-it-called-operation-odyssey-dawn/2011/03/22/ABLaaFDB_blog.html?hpid=z3
International Economic Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
Detroit Does Mind Vanishing:
Detroit’s population fell to 713,777 in 2010, its lowest level in a century, according to U.S. Census figures released today.
The loss of 237,493 residents since 2000 is a sobering statistical stamp on a decade’s worth of job losses, plant closings and foreclosures in a city that was home to 1.8 million residents in 1950. Detroit’s nearly 25 percent decline in population was the most by far among the top 20 cities. The population of Chicago, by contrast, dropped 6.9 percent. www.detnews.com/article/20110322/METRO/103220399/Census-shocker–Detroit’s-population-falls-to-713-000
GE Lives Better Electrically! The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
Oops! There Goes Portugal (one of the P.I.G.S.) Portugal’s seemingly inexorable slide into an orderly bail-out threatened to become a drawn-out and potentially chaotic process as European leaders warned that Lisbon must pass the recently rejected austerity package before they would consider providing rescue loans. www.ft.com/cms/s/0/057e92d0-5663-11e0-84e9-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Heh9VB5k
New Home Sales Hit Record Low! (always panic early): (Bloomberg) — Purchases of new U.S. homes unexpectedly declined in February to the slowest pace on record and prices dropped to the lowest level since December 2003, adding to evidence the industry is floundering.
Sales decreased 16.9 percent to a 250,000 annual pace, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected a gain to a 290,000 rate, according to the median estimate. The median price fell 8.9 percent from the same month in 2010. washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-LIIK810UQVIS01-760RO3P6GHG6G453HA79PO0T8N
Obamagogue in San Salvador–No Hails to the Chief: 
The purpose of Obama´s visit is ostensibly to support the eradication of poverty, violence and governmental corruption. Yet the President’s own administration is perpetuating these problems (and their natural result, emigration) by following in the footprints of Bill Clinton, both George Bushes, and even Ronald Reagan – who spent billions of dollars wreaking human rights havoc in El Salvador and its neighbors.
Current U.S. policy on Central America reflects more continuity than change, particularly with regard to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the 2009 military coup in Honduras that forced then-president Manual (“Mel”) Zelaya out of office and into exile.
Next door in Honduras, President Obama initially opposed the army’s overthrow of Zelaya as a threat to democracy throughout the region. But now his administration has become the leading ally and cheerleader for Zelaya’s conservative successor, de-facto President Porfirio Lobo. Hillary Clinton’s State Department is campaigning for re-admission of Honduras to the Organization of American States, which strongly condemned the ouster of Zelaya.
Since the military coup 21 months ago, and Lobo’s tainted election in November, 2009, the U.S. has built two new military bases in Honduras and increased its training of local police. Meanwhile, nearly all sectors of Honduran society — union organizers, farmers and teachers, women and young people, gays, journalists, political activists — have faced violent repression under Lobo’s corrupt regime. With its worsening record of murders, disappearances and rabid resistance to land reform, Honduras is beginning to look more and more like El Salvador before it slipped into full-scale civil warfare three decades ago, with the U.S. backing the wrong side then and now.www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=9012
Empires’ Youth: Educated. Jobless. Frustrated. Rebellious?
About one-fourth of Egyptian workers under 25 are unemployed, a statistic that is often cited as a reason for the revolution there. In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January an official unemployment rate of 21 percent for workers ages 16 to 24.
My generation was taught that all we needed to succeed was an education and hard work. Tell that to my friend from high school who studied Chinese and international relations at a top-tier college. He had the misfortune to graduate in the class of 2009, and could find paid work only as a lifeguard and a personal trainer. Unpaid internships at research institutes led to nothing. After more than a year he moved back in with his parents.
Millions of college graduates in rich nations could tell similar stories. In Italy, Portugal and Spain, about one-fourth of college graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed. In the United States, the official unemployment rate for this group is 11.2 percent, but for college graduates 25 and over it is only 4.5 percent. www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/opinion/21klein.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y
The World Bank Advises Jobless Youth: It’s Your fault.
The financial scam of the century – In 2010 we added 600,000 millionaires while 5,000,000 people were added to the food stamp program. Wealthy derive profits from stocks while middle class hold most of their net worth in housing…the top 1 percent that control 42 percent of all financial wealth. foreclosureblues.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/the-financial-scam-of-the-century-–-in-2010-we-added-600000-millionaires-while-5000000-people-were-added-to-the-food-stamp-program-wealthy-derive-profits-from-stocks-while-middle-class-hol/
Emerging Fascism as a Popular Movement:
Obamagogue vs Miranda (Miranda Loses Again): The Obama administration has created a new policy that allows investigators to waive Miranda warnings for domestic-terror suspects, even when there is not an “immediate threat,” a report said Thursday.
The rule was revealed by an FBI memorandum obtained by The Wall Street Journal. It says that in “exceptional cases,” investigators can hold suspects without informing them of their rights.
The policy applies where investigators “conclude that continued unwarned interrogation is necessary to collect valuable and timely intelligence not related to any immediate threat.” www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/24/obama-curtails-miranda-rights-for-american-terrorism-suspects/
Say, Egypt! About that “Revolution” A leading rights group says the Egyptian army arrested, tortured and forced women to take “virginity tests” during protests earlier this month.
Amnesty International is calling on the authorities in Cairo to investigate.
It says at least 18 female protesters were arrested after army officers cleared Tahrir Square on 9 March. It says they were then beaten, given electric shocks and strip searched. The army denies the allegations. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12854391
Even US Courts Say Big Bro is Watching You (not me!):
Fearing that a powerful U.S. spy agency is listening in, a group of activists and journalists – including Canadian Naomi Klein – has persuaded a New York appeals court that it is reasonable to assume their phone and e-mail conversations are being monitored.
The ruling finds that new U.S. surveillance laws are so broad as to compel certain professionals to protect their sensitive conversations. Otherwise, their dialogues with sources – such as radicals, dissidents and alleged terrorists overseas – might well be overheard. ..The plaintiffs have good reason to believe that their communications, in particular, will fall within the scope of the broad surveillance that they can assume the government will conduct,” reads the ruling from the Second Circuit appeals court in New York.
Maine–Where America’s Day Begins (unless they’re workers)
Maine’s Artisan-phobic Gov Hates Art with Workers in It
Worst Thing in History of the World:
Doc Whole Stole $3 mil from Detroit Kids is Oxy dealer Too!
Dr Washington pleaded guilty earlier this month to charges stemming from a federal case in which she and others are accused of raiding more than $3 million from the cash-strapped district. Sentencing is set for July 26.
In the Detroit schools corruption case, Washington, her sister Sherry Washington and others were charged with submitting fraudulently inflated invoices, pocketing the cash and spending money on cars and a lavish party.
www.detnews.com/article/20110321/METRO/103210414/Southfield-doctor-in-DPS-case-also-accused-of-drug-dealing–Medicare-fraud
Most Fun of the Week:
September 11, 2012:
In accepting the Dempublican Presidential nomination, Barack Hussein Romney gave utterance to the immortal words that defined the destiny of the Millennial generation:
“Four wars and eleven years ago, your fathers brought down a foreign nation, an action conceived in lies and dedicated to the premise that all enemies are created equal.
Now we are engaged in wars of choice, testing whether this nation, or any nation so foolish as we, can long endure the cost, in blood and treasure. The brave men, who unlike their leaders, have struggled in war, have suffered more than we ever will. The world will (we hope!) little note nor long remember the excuses we gave, like WMD, for starting these wars. It is rather for us, the draft-dodging, to be dedicated to making the world safe for democracy (at gunpoint if necessary), or whatever cause we so ignobly advance as an excuse for continuing to send them to fight. We highly resolve that these wars have been fought for our gain, so that the world may experience a new birth of serfdom, and that government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich shall not perish from the earth.” by Ssgt. L.C.
Spy versus Spy:
Remember the Brit Plot to Kill Lenin? It was Real! New evidence has emerged to suggest the legendary ‘Lockhart plot’ could be true – implicating the British Government at the highest levels. ..Lockhart had been sent to Russia in bid to stop the Bolsheviks siding with the Germans towards the end of the First World War.
The story of his plot has been taught in Soviet schools and was even illustrated in films – although the British have always claimed this was anti-West propaganda.
But in a telegram sent in the summer of 1918, Lockhart appears to discuss the possibility of an assassination with Lord Curzon, who was then a member of the British War Cabinet. Revealing his support for a local opponent of the Bolsheviks called Savinkov, he discusses Britain’s involvement in the plot.
Solidarity Forever: 
King of UAW Prepares Members for More Concessions: Union members have to temper their expectations at the bargaining table because a steady decline in membership has eaten away at their power, the head of the United Auto Workers union said Tuesday. ..The UAW alone has seen its membership fall from 1.5 million in 1979 to approximately 320,000 today.
Meanwhile, the overall unionization rate in the United States fell to 11.9 percent last year as the number of workers belonging to unions declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million.
In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, and there were 17.7 million union workers.
Auto workers made major concessions in recent years as the Detroit Three struggled with a steady loss of market share to Asian competitors and the deepest economic downturn in decades forced General Motors and Chrysler into government-backed restructuring under bankruptcy protection.
The UAW has little hope of reversing one major concession which set up a two-tier system of wages in which new hires are paid at half the starting wage, King warned members.
“I don’t think we can get there (this year) on two tier,” he said. news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110322/ts_alt_afp/usautolaboruaw_20110322212429
Organized Decay inside the Empire: Reagan Silenced (audio)
The Heavens Weep
Don’t let Kids Drink Tokyo Water (nor anyone else): Officials in Toyko have warned that children under the age of one should not drink tap water because of radiation levels in the city’s supplies.
Iodine levels in some areas are twice the recommended safe level.
The BBC’s Chris Hogg in Tokyo said that news of the water pollution would come as a blow to the Japanese government, but would not spark panic.
The authorities have also imposed new restrictions on food from areas affected by leaks from the Fukushima nuclear plant. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12828387
So Long Pinetop: