Happy Labor Day and Back to School Edition
Reminder: Nominations for the Rouge Forum Steering Committee go to Community Coordinator Adam Renner at adamrenner70@gmail.com by September 15th.
Mayday Is the Real Labor Day! Here’s a Fine Poem Anyway:
Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might
Take the wealth that you are making,
It belongs to you by right.
No one will for bread be crying
We’ll have freedom, love and health,
When the grand red flag is flying
In the Workers’ Commonwealth.
-Joe Hill-
and don’t forget to strike on October Seven
Welcome Back to School! Is School Educational?
Little Red Schoolhouse
ABC News “Crisis in the Classroom” with Arne, Michell Rhee, and AFT’s Weingarten Sucking up: abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/
Let’s Leash Arne and Barack: www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/08/29/2010-08-29_lets_unleash_all_data_on_teachers.html
Putting a Noose on the Core (Regimented/Nationalist) Curriculum–States Take Bribe to Push More Tests: The Department of Education on Thursday awarded $330 million to two groups of states to design new standardized tests to replace the end-of-year reading and math exams used over the past decade to measure achievement under the federal No Child Left Behind law. The new tests, which are to be aligned with the common academic standards that nearly 40 states have adopted in recent months, are to be ready for the 2014-15 school year, the department said. www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/education/03testing.html?hpw
In Detroit, School Will Open but Where are the Teachers to Be? Hundreds of teachers without job assignments for the fall converged at a Detroit hotel Monday seeking a classroom spot before students return to school next week.Detroit Public Schools issued layoff notices to about 2,000 teachers earlier this year as it grapples with a $363 million budget deficit and declining enrollment. While some teachers had already been brought back, hundreds without assignments were asked to report to the Hotel St. Regis on Monday, the first day of school for teachers.
www.detnews.com/article/20100831/SCHOOLS/8310344/1026/schools/Anxious-DPS-teachers-await-job-assignments
But Who Gets Laid off And How if, predictably, The Kids Don’t Show Up for the DPS Mess? The “Special Authority” provision of the contract allows the district to protect itself from incurring a deficit in the event student enrollment drops significantly, resulting in the district having more teachers than it needs to staff classrooms. (August 28 DFT post mi.aft.org/dft231/ )
More Corruption in Detroit Schools–a Principal, an Accountant, and a Cop: A former principal, former school accountant and a former police officer will face felony charges in connection with embezzling nearly $150,000 from the Detroit Public Schools, officials announced today. www.freep.com/article/20100831/NEWS01/100831020/1318/Officials-used-DPS-funds-for-mortgage-payments-home-goods-Worthy-says
Connecting the War/Education Lies: As schools began to open for the 2010-11 year, two lies that need to be connected were kept apart in the for-profit media. On August 30, 2010, ABC News “This week,” chaired by Christiane Amanpour offered the usual tripe about educational reform, virtually praising the White House Race to the Top (RaTT) project. Washington D.C.’s school tyrant, Michelle Rhee, joined Obama errand-boy Arne Duncan and the American Federation of Teacher’s boss Randi Weingarten in a celebration of reform under the guise that “We are all in this together for the children.”http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1644§ion=Article
Perpetual War Front
Bill Blum Writing on the Heels of Obamagogue’s Lying Iraq-Exit Speech–Rivers of Blood!: no American should be allowed to forget that the nation of Iraq, the society of Iraq, have been destroyed, ruined, a failed state. The Americans, beginning 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, killed wantonly, tortured … the people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women’s rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives … More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile … The air, soil, water, blood and genes drenched with depleted uranium … the most awful birth defects … unexploded cluster bombs lie in wait for children to pick them up … an army of young Islamic men went to Iraq to fight the American invaders; they left the country more militant, hardened by war, to spread across the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia … a river of blood runs alongside the Euphrates and Tigris … through a country that may never be put back together again. killinghope.org/bblum6/aer85.html
Cindy on the Obamagogue’s Iraq Exit Speech: “Well, first of all, my family lost in a big way,” said Cindy Sheehan, who became perhaps the nation’s most prominent antiwar activist after her son died in Iraq. “We had one of our cherished members, Casey, murdered by the U.S. empire in Iraq.” In her view, “the only winners have been Halliburton, KBR, CACI, Xe, Unocal, BP, Standard Oil, Boeing” and other corporations that profited from the war. “People here in the U.S. who don’t know that they lost have lost big time,” she said. www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/weekinreview/29baker.html?hpw
What We Have Here is a Failure to Protect the Proper Kinds of Corruption: U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan are developing a strategy that would tolerate some corruption in the country but target the most corrosive abuses by more tightly regulating U.S. contracting procedures, according to senior defense officials. American officials here have not spoken publicly about countenancing potentially corrupt local power brokers. Such a stance would run somewhat against the grain of a counterinsurgency doctrine that preaches the importance of building competent governance. But military officials have concluded that the Taliban insurgency is the most pressing threat to stability in Afghanistan and that a sweeping effort to drive Some military and civilian advisers to the U.S.-led command in Kabul have argued for a more comprehensive effort to root out graft and other official abuses, contending that government corruption and ineffectiveness have prompted many Afghans to support the insurgency. “You can’t separate the fight against corruption from the fight against the Taliban,” one of the advisers said. “They are intimately linked.”
But U.S. officials and defense analysts say challenging local power brokers and criminal syndicates, many of which depend on U.S. reconstruction contracts and ties to the Afghan government for support, would likely add to the unrest in Kandahar and produce a higher U.S. casualty rate. “Putting an end to these patronage networks would not come cheaply,” said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised U.S. commanders in Afghanistan.out corruption would create chaos and a governance vacuum that the Taliban could exploit….
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305545.html?hpid=topnews
Karzai: Let’s Rethink Some More, Together–“The experience over the past eight years showed that fighting in Afghan villages has been ineffective and is not achieving anything but killing civilians” Karzai noted, adding that it was necessary to consider a “rethink.”
US (still) Wasting Billions in Iraq: A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children’s hospital goes unused in the south. A $100 million waste water treatment system in Fallujah has cost three times more than projected, yet sewage still runs through the streets. As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds has been wasted — more than 10 percent of the some $50 billion the U.S. has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency. news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100830/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_iraq_us_reconstruction_legacy;_
Stratfor Map on Ethnic Divisions in Iraq: www.stratfor.com/?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=100830b&utm_content=topbanner&elq=b5c998c39a3e499d997ee139855e6c08
War Means Work-San Diego Now Most Militarized County in the USA Getting Ready for China (see the great chart too) : San Diego County’s military payroll is now the largest in the country, reflecting the Defense Department’s decision to shift resources to the West Coast to contend with real and potential threats from China and the Middle East.
The payroll of local active duty personnel increased by $1.3 billion last year to $11.1 billion, pushing the San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos metro area ahead of the huge military complex in Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Newport News, says the Commerce Department. It was the first time since 1986 that the local payroll was bigger than that area of Virginia.
“The shift shows that we’ve gone from worrying about NATO and Russia to worrying about China and Iran,” said Eric Wertheim, author and editor of the Naval Institute’s “Guide to Combat Fleets of the World.” “The fastest route to those areas is from the West Coast, not the East Coast.” www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/aug/30/san-diego-military-payroll-tops-nation/
Meet the New Boss Same as the Old Boss–in Iraq: The United States changed commanders in Iraq Wednesday, beginning the final phase of American military involvement in the country despite political uncertainty and persistent violence. www.latimes.com/news/la-fgw-us-changes-military-commanders,0,7160047
Stratfor–The “Drawdown” in Afghanistan:…with the United States having set a deadline of July 2011 to begin the drawdown of combat forces in Afghanistan — and with many of its NATO allies withdrawing sooner — the Taliban can sense that the end is near. As they wait expectantly for the departure of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan, a look at the history of militancy in Afghanistan provides a bit of a preview of what could follow the U.S. withdrawal. Reproduced with permission of Stratfor. www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100901_militancy_us
There Goes the Economy
Black Unemployment and US: The unemployment rate for Blacks was 16.3% last month. This is according to the latest report on the nation’s employment situation released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its monthly Employment Situation report. This rate increased from July, when unemployment in the Black community stood at 15.6%. For the nation as a whole, unemployment rose slightly to 9.6% in the month of August. Among whites, unemployment was 8.7%; among Latinos, unemployment was 12.0%. Comparable July 2010 figures were 9.5%; 8.6%; and 12.1% respectfully. Overall, total payroll employment fell by 54,000, driven by the loss of 114,000 temporary Census jobs. laborcenter.berkeley.edu/blackworkers/monthly/bwreport_2010-09-03_22.pdf
Institute for Policy Studies–Key Findings
CEO Pay in the Great Recession
• Two years into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, executive pay — after adjusting
for inflation — is still running at double the 1990s CEO pay average, quadruple the 1980s average, and
eight times the average executive pay in the mid-20th century.
Layoff Leaders
• Slashing Jobs Pays: CEOs of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the
economic crisis took home nearly $12 million on average in 2009, 42 percent more than the CEO pay
average at S&P 500 firms as a whole.
• Profit-Employment Disconnect: The overwhelming majority of the layoff-leading firms — 72 percent
— announced their mass layoffs at a time of positive earnings reports. This reflects a broader trend in
Great Recession Corporate America: squeezing workers to boost profits and maintain high CEO pay.
• Golden Parachuter: Fred Hassan of Schering-Plough, by far the highest-paid layoff leader, last year
pocketed nearly $50 million. Hassan received a $33 million getaway gift when his firm merged with
Merck, while 16,000 workers were receiving pink slips. Hassan’s 2009 pay could have covered the average
cost of these workers’ jobless benefits for more than 10 weeks.
• Drug Recaller: Ranking second on the layoff leader list, William Weldon of Johnson & Johnson took
home $25.6 million, more than three times as much as the S&P 500 CEO average, at a time when his
firm was slashing 9,000 jobs and facing charges of drug quality control violations.
• Tax Dodgers: Of the 50 layoff leading companies, only two reported paying corporate income tax in
2009 at the 35 percent statutory rate. Hewlett-Packard, under recently fired CEO Mark Hurd, remitted
$47 million in federal corporate income tax, a mere 2 percent of the company’s reported pretax domestic
net income. HP’s federal tax bill came to just twice CEO Hurd’s $24.2 million pay package.
• Bailout Barons: Five of the 50 top layoff leaders owe their good fortune directly to major taxpayer
bailouts of the financial sector. Of these, American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault took home the
highest 2009 pay, $16.8 million, a sum that included a $5 million cash bonus.
www.ips-dc.org/resources/executive_excess_2010.pdf
San Diego Applauds! No Double Dip Collapse in SD! Why? War Means Work:
A double-dip is not likely this year as San Diego benefits from the huge infusion of military spending. The recovery, while sluggish and protracted, will likely continue through 2010. San Diego is in much better shape than California overall and other nearby areas.
www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/aug/29/no-double-dip-ahead-san-diego-economists-say/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmeHiFZUWtE
U-6 Unemployment at 16.5 %: What is U6 unemployment rate ?
portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp
The U6 unemployment rate counts not only people without work seeking full-time employment (the more familiar U-3 rate), but also counts “marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons.” Note that some of these part-time workers counted as employed by U-3 could be working as little as an hour a week. And the “marginally attached workers” include those who have gotten discouraged and stopped looking, but still want to work. The age considered for this calculation is 16 years and over
Employers Push Health Care Costs Onto Workers: As health care costs continue their relentless climb, companies are increasingly passing on higher premium costs to workers. The shift is occurring, policy analysts and others say, as employers feel more pressure from the weak economy and the threat of even more expensive coverage under the new health care law….Since 2005, while wages have increased just 18 percent, workers’ contributions to premiums have jumped 47 percent, almost twice as fast as the rise in the policy’s overall cost. Workers also increasingly face higher deductibles, forcing them to pay a larger share of their overall medical bills.
www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/business/03insure.html?ref=health
The 25 Companies that Slashed 700,000 Jobs:
General Motors, 107,357, outsourcer
Citigroup, 73,056 , outsourcer
Hewlett-Packard, 47,540, outsourcer
Circuit City Stores, 41,495
Merrill Lynch, 40,650, outsourcer (BoA)
Verizon Wireless, 39,000, outsourcer
Pfizer, 31,771, outsourcer
Merck & Co., 24,400, outsourcer
Lehman Brothers, 23,340
Caterpillar, 23,024, outsourcer
JPMorgan Chase, 22,852, outsourcer
Starbucks, 21,316
AT&T, 18,401, outsourcer
Alcoa, 17,655, outsourcer
Dow Chemical, 17,530, outsourcer
DuPont, 17,000, outsourcer
Berkshire Hathaway, 16,900, unknown
Ford Motor, 15,912, outsourcer
KB Toys, 15,100
United States Postal Service, 15,000
DHL Express USA, 14,900
Sprint Nextel, 14,500, outsourcer
Sun Microsystems, 14,000, outsourcer
Boeing, 13,715, outsourcer
Chrysler, 13,672, outsourcer
www.economicpopulist.org/content/25-companies-responsible-700000-lost-jobs
War And Money Marching Together: Karzai and Brother Demand US Bank Bailout: As depositors thronged branches of Afghanistan’s biggest bank, President Hamid Karzai told Afghans on Thursday not to panic shortly after his brother, a major shareholder in the beleaguered Kabul Bank, called for intervention by the United States to head off a financial meltdown…Kabul Bank has scores of branches across Afghanistan and holds the accounts of key Afghan government agencies. It was also a big contributor to President Karzai’s fraud-tainted election campaign last year. The collapse of the bank would probably spread panic throughout the country’s fledgling financial sector and wipe out nine years of effort by the United States to establish a sound Afghan banking system, seen as essential to the establishment of a functioning economy
Emerging Fascism Front:
72 Dead in Mexico: These latest victims come from the ranks of the human beings considered superfluous to an economic system that drives them from their homes and communities to seek work in the United States, despite the risks. Unprotected by the Mexican government–despite numerous reports of these kind of extortion kidnappings over the past few years–and criminalized by a U.S. society that welcomes their labor and rejects their humanity, they continue to travel north because they can´t find work in their countries.
americasmexico.blogspot.com/2010/08/this-week-in-mexico-72-migrants.html
The Heavens Weep
In its Contradictory Battle With Nature, How does Capital “Win?”
Gulf Oil Rig Explosion Part II
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h35H1KrXbM
Spy vs Spy:
CIA Paying Off Karzai’s Pals: The CIA is making secret payments to multiple members of President Hamid Karzai’s administration, in part to maintain sources of information in a government in which the Afghan leader is often seen as having a limited grasp of developments, according to current and former U.S. officials…The CIA has continued the payments despite concerns that it is backing corrupt officials and underminingA prominent Afghan with knowledge of the inner workings of the palace said it operates a fund that rewards political allies with money that flows in from the Iranian government and foreign intelligence services as well as prominent Afghan companies eager to curry favor with Karzai. The source said the fund distributes $10 million to $50 million a year.
A U.S. official said Turkey and Saudi Arabia are among the other countries funneling money into Afghanistan. efforts to wean Afghans’ dependence on secret sources of income and graft…Washington Post
Wiesenthal and Mossad: Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor who gained worldwide fame for decades as a one-man Nazi-hunting operation, was in fact frequently on the payroll of the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, a new biography asserts. The assertion, based on numerous documents and interviews with three people said to be Mr. Wiesenthal’s Mossad handlers, punctures not only a widely held belief about how he operated; it also suggests a need to re-evaluate the standard view that the Israeli government took no interest in tracking down Nazis until the 1960 capture in Argentina of Adolf Eichmann, and little thereafter.
www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/world/middleeast/03wiesenthal.html?hpw
Brit Spy– Dead In Duffle Bag: Remembered by school mates as a “maths genius”, Mr Williams was on a one-year secondment to MI6 from GCHQ, the government’s “listening post” in Cheltenham, Glos, where he worked for almost a decade. His position regularly took him to the US where he liaised with the National Security Agency and the CIA and he is also reported to have made a number of visits to Afghanistan. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7975014/British-spy-found-dead-in-bath-was-padlocked-into-sports-bag.html
Solidarity Forever:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO468Cx1Xo4&feature=related
UAW’s King Gushes Over Obamagogue’s Thug, Emanuel While Rahm Says, “Fuck the UAW”
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel at one point declared “F— the UAW” during internal administration debates about the bailout. “If it wasn’t for Rahm Emanuel,… if it wasn’t for President Obama and the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, we wouldn’t have an auto industry. Millions of more people would be out of work today,” King said during an interview Friday morning on CNBC, a financial news cable channel.
“They have done nothing but to help the middle class in America. I appreciate the Obama administration. I appreciate what they have done for workers in general.”
www.detnews.com/article/20100903/AUTO01/9030441/UAW-president-defends-Obama-staff–despite-comments-in-Rattner-s-book
We Say Fight Back!
“On March 1, 2004, I arrived in Al Qa’im, Iraq, at Forward Operating Base Tiger, to replace the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Six years later, on August 23, 2010, I worked with a group of anarchists and other activists to block their busses as they attempted to deploy to Iraq yet again.”
If I had a Trillion Youth Video Contest: The money that is being spent on the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reached $1 trillion on May 30, 2010. This money could be spent in our communities on many things that now face cuts, like after school programs, art and music programs, and summer jobs.
You can help us spread the word. The American Friends Service Committee and National Priorities Project are sponsoring a youth video project to help young people (13-23) enter the cost of war discussion. Share your ideas about what you would do – for yourself, your family and your community – with $1 trillion by making a short (1-3 minute) video by November 30, 2010.
If you are age 13-23 or if you work with youth or in schools, this is a chance to get involved in making a video with the theme “If I Had a Trillion Dollars!”. You can download all the materials you need to participate on the right side of this page. The videos already submitted for this project are available on our YouTube channel. afsc.org/action/if-i-had-trillion-dollars-youth-video-contest
Magical Mystery Tour:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnVOK42o4E0
Glenn Beck! Show Us Your UnderWear! We Need Something To Worship! Wait! Maybe Not, Anyway! Many people confuse the words “secret” and “sacred”. While something that is secret is hidden from the world, something that is sacred means that is special or has some religious significance. Mormon garments (underwear) aren’t secret. You can ask any mormon missionary or member of the LDS church about them. They are, however, sacred. They remind members of the church that they have chosen to be obedient to the commandments of the Lord. www.mormon-underwear.com/underwear_faq.html#secret
So You Got Raped? This Guy Needs a Retirement Nest egg: The former leader of Belgium’s Roman Catholic Church urged a victim of serial sexual abuse by a bishop to keep silent for a year, until the bishop – the victim’s own uncle – could retire, according to tapes made by the victim last April and published over the weekend in two Belgian newspapers…The victim responded: “He has dragged my whole life through the mud, from 5 until 18 years old,” and asks, “Why do you feel sorry for him and not for me?” www.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/world/europe/30belgium.html?hp
The Unfortunate Level of Debate in the 21st Century: Stephen Hawking Says God is Unnecessary
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ71YmL_-o0
Worst Thing in the History of the World:
Obamagogue Redecorates While Cutting Food Stamps: When he arrived for work at the White House in January of last year, the president said he thought the office was fine and saw no need for new furnishings. And when he unveiled his budget the next month, Mr. Obama cautioned that the government would have to make hard choices about spending. “There are times where you can afford to redecorate your house,” the president said then, “and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding its foundation.” www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/us/01oval.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=oval%20office&st=cse
Not Perky News: Man Lets Wife Be Eaten Alive By Maggots: A grand jury has indicted a Cincinnati man for allegedly not www.freep.com/article/20100903/NEWS07/100903061/taking care of his bedridden wife and allowing her to be eaten by maggots while alive.
Best Thing in the History of the World
Jesse Jackson’s SUV Stripped in Detroit During Bogus March for Green Jobs: Add Jesse Jackson’s ride to prominent vehicles being stripped in Detroit. Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked by criminals this week, Detroit’s Channel 7 reports that the Reverend’s Caddy Escalade SUV was stolen and stripped of its wheels while he was in town last weekend with the UAW’s militant President Bob King leading the “Jobs, Justice, and Peace” march promoting government-funded green jobs. Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs. detnews.com/article/20100903/MIVIEW/100903001
Biden Flees to Mexico: On Tuesday, the Senate received a postcard of topless women wearing green, red, and white bikini bottoms from Biden. A personal message apologized for his extended absence and provided contact information and instructions to call his buddy Blaze if they needed a tiebreaking vote. www.theonion.com/articles/biden-to-cool-his-heels-in-mexico-for-a-while,17996/
Botox: “Mistakes Were Made” Worth $600 Million:
www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/business/02allergan.html?scp=2&sq=botox&st=cse
Never Forget:
Thanks to Ken, Barb, Matt, Cheri, Danielle, Amber, Steve, Adam, Wayne, Gina, Candace, Erin, Doug, Joe, Peter M, Donna P, Bill, Greg, Craig, Faith, Richard, Arturo, Edgar, Ruben, Marisol, and Crystal.
And So Long, King Bisquit:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEjmVySgzpw
Good luck to us, every one.
r