Rouge Forum Dispatch: Update from the Consumerist Sparta
October 31st, 2015 / Author: rgibsonAmericans Spent $7 Billion on Halloween. Scary!
We Say Fight Back!
The Separation of the Economic and the Political in Capitalism
by Ellen Meiksins Wood
The intention of Marxism is to provide a theoretical foundation for interpreting the world in order to change it. This is not an empty slogan. It has—or ought to have—a very precise meaning. It means that Marxism seeks a particular kind of knowledge, one which is uniquely capable of illuminating the principles of historical movement and, at least implicitly, the points at which political action can most effectively intervene. This is not to say that the object of Marxist theory is to discover a ‘scientific’ programme or technique of political action. Rather, the purpose is to provide a mode of analysis especially well equipped to explore the terrain on which political action must take place. It can, however, be argued that Marxism since Marx has often lost sight of his theoretical project and its quintessentially political character. In particular, this is so to the extent that Marxists have, in various forms, perpetuated the rigid conceptual separation of the ‘economic’ and the ‘political’ which has served bourgeois ideology so well ever since the classical economists discovered the ‘economy’ in the abstract and began emptying capitalism of its social and political content.
Since, however, these conceptual devices do reflect—albeit in a distorting mirror—an historical reality specific to capitalism, a real differentiation of the ‘economy’, an attempt to rescue them from bourgeois ideology and make them illuminate more than they obscure might begin by reexamining the historical conditions that made such conceptions possible and plausible. The purpose of this reexamination would not be to explain away the ‘fragmentation’ of social life in capitalism, but to understand precisely what it is in the historical nature of capitalism that appears as a differentiation of ‘spheres’—in particular, the ‘economic’ and the ‘political’. It may be possible to interpret this historical ‘fragmentation’ in such a way that the ‘fetishism’ of capitalist categories can be overcome, but without obscuring the historical realities they reflect.
The differentiation of the ‘economic’ and the ‘political’ is, of course, not simply a theoretical but a practical problem. There is perhaps no greater obstacle to socialist practice than the separation of economic and political struggles which has typified modern working class movements. If this obstacle were, as many revolutionary socialists have contemptuously suggested, merely the product of a misguided, ‘underdeveloped’, or ‘false’ consciousness on the part of the working class, it might be easier to overcome. The tenacity of working class ‘economism’, however, derives precisely from its correspondence to the realities of capitalism and the ways in which capitalist appropriation and exploitation actually do divide the arenas of economic and political action, and actually do transform certain essential political issues—struggles over domination and exploitation that historically have been inextricably bound up with political power—into distinctively ‘economic’ issues. This ‘structural’ separation may, indeed, be the most effective defense mechanism available to capital.
If, therefore, the object of Marxist theory is to shed light on the terrain of political action, it can neither ignore these historical realities nor ratify them by entrenching the separation of economics and politics that has served capitalism so well in theory and practice. Instead, it should explain precisely how and in what sense capitalism has driven a wedge between the economic and the political—how and in what sense essentially political issues like the disposition of powers to control production and appropriation, or the allocation of social labour and resources, have been cut off from the political arena and displaced to a separate ‘sphere’.
Karl Marx presented the world in its political aspect, not only in his explicitly political works but even in his most technical economic writings. His critique of political economy was, among other things, intended to reveal the political face of the economy which had been obscured by bourgeois political economists. The fundamental secret of capitalist production disclosed by Marx—the secret that political economy systematically concealed, making it finally incapable of accounting for capitalist accumulation—concerns the social relation and the disposition of power that obtains between the worker and the capitalist to whom he sells his labour-power. This secret has a corollary: that the disposition of power between the individual capitalist and worker has as its condition the political configuration of society as a whole—the balance of class forces and the powers of the state which permit the expropriation of the direct producer, the maintenance of absolute private property for the capitalist, and his control over production and appropriation. In volume 1 of Capital Marx works his way from the commodity form through surplus value to the ‘secret of primitive accumulation’, disclosing at last that the ‘starting point’ of capitalist production ‘. . . is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production’, [1] a process of class struggle and bloody intervention by the state on behalf of the expropriating class. The very structure of the argument suggests that, for Marx, the ultimate secret of capitalist production is…..www.versobooks.com/blogs/2302-ellen-meiksins-wood-the-separation-of-the-economic-and-the-political-in-capitalism
SOAS, University of London has been shut down today. Hundreds of students and staff gathered outside the main building this morning demanding the reinstatement of Sandy Nicoll, Unison branch secretary, after he was suspended yesterday over allegations of gross misconduct.
The incident involves an accusation that Sandy had let several students and others through a security barrier in the main building yesterday, who then attempted to occupy the Director Valerie Amos’ office.
All of this is taking place in the context of a management document, leaked at the beginning of the academic term, which ranked all courses at SOAS according flawed methodology, and suggested that a third of these courses be cut. www.counterfire.org/news/18040-the-battle-over-the-future-of-soas
Arundhati Roy: The NGO-ization of Resistance
A hazard facing mass movements is the NGO-ization of resistance. It will be easy to twist what I’m about to say into an indictment of all NGOs. That would be a falsehood. In the murky waters of fake NGOs set up or to siphon off grant money or as tax dodges (in states like Bihar, they are given as dowry), of course, there are NGOs doing valuable work. But it’s important to consider the NGO phenomenon in a broader political context.
In India, for instance, the funded NGO boom began in the late 1980s and 1990s. It coincided with the opening of India’s markets to neoliberalism. At the time, the Indian state, in keeping with the requirements of structural adjustment, was withdrawing funding from rural development, agriculture, energy, transport and public health. As the state abdicated its traditional role, NGOs moved in to work in these very areas. The difference, of course, is that the funds available to them are a minuscule fraction of the actual cut in public spending.
Most large-funded NGOs are financed and patronized by aid and development agencies, which are, in turn, funded by Western governments, the World Bank, the UN and some multinational corporations. Though they may not be the very same agencies, they are certainly part of the same loose, political formation that oversees the neoliberal project and demands the slash in government spending in the first place.
Why should these agencies fund NGOs? Could it be just old-fashioned missionary zeal? Guilt? It’s a little more than that. NGOs give the impression that they are filling the vacuum created by a retreating state. And they are, but in a materially inconsequential way. Their real contribution is that they defuse political anger and dole out as aid or benevolence what people ought to have by right. They alter the public psyche. They turn people into dependent victims and blunt the edges of political resistance. NGOs form a sort of buffer between the sarkar and public. Between Empire and its subjects. They have become the arbitrators, the interpreters, the facilitators. www.towardfreedom.com/33-archives/globalism/3660-arundhati-roy-the-ngo-ization-of-resistance
Processed meats do cause cancer – WHO
Processed meats – such as bacon, sausages and ham – do cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Its report said 50g of processed meat a day – less than two slices of bacon – increased the chance of developing colorectal cancer by 18%.
Meanwhile, it said red meats were “probably carcinogenic” www.bbc.com/news/health-34615621
Death to Capitalism? Visitors to Marx’s Grave Balk at Fee
On a summer visit to the grave of Karl Marx, Ben Gliniecki found that he would have to pay £4, or about $6, to pay respects to the man who sounded the death knell for private property.
Mr. Gliniecki, a Marxist, said no.
“Personally, I think it is disgusting,” the 24-year-old political activist said. “There are no depths of irony, or bad taste, to which capitalists won’t sink if they think they can make money out of it.”
The charity that looks after this cemetery has long taken swipe at a different irony: Karl Marx’s decision to buy a burial plot in a private London graveyard over the then state-provided alternatives. They say their cover fee subsidizes the upkeep of a cemetery where 170,000 other people rest.
The two sides have squabbled since the early 1990s, when the Friends of Highgate Cemetery began charging to fund the conservation of a burial ground whose elaborate gothic tombs and winding paths had fallen into disrepair. Now, the charge is infuriating a new generation of Marxists.
Andrew Young and John Lewis defended Hillbillary
Mexico arrests 4 members of teachers union in Oaxaca state
Mexican authorities said Thursday that federal agents arrested four members of a radical teachers union in the southern state of Oaxaca, which is ground zero for the battle over education in the country.
A statement from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office said the men are suspected of federal crimes related to the violent seizure of a local elections office in the city of Tehuantepec, takeovers of an oil refinery and a petroleum storage and distribution center, vandalism against a military base, and the theft of 10,000 textbooks belonging to the Public Education Department.
Prosecutors said the suspects face possible prison sentences of three to 40 years if convicted.
President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government enacted a reform last year that instituted a system of merit evaluations for teachers and sought to wrest back control over struggling schools. news.yahoo.com/mexico-arrests-4-members-teachers-union-oaxaca-state-162110075.html
The Little Red Schoolhouse
Detroit worst in math, reading scores among big cities (Racism unmentioned)
For a fourth straight time, Detroit students have scored the lowest among big-city districts in math and reading, according to national test results released Wednesday.
Detroit Public Schools’ fourth- and eighth-graders lagged students in 20 other districts included in the National Assessment of Educational Progress Trial Urban District Assessment. DPS also ranked lowest in 2009, 2011 and 2013.
Achievement levels on the exam are basic, proficient and advanced. Students who score below basic lack fundamental skills.
In math, 36 percent of DPS fourth-graders achieved at or above basic level, up from 35 percent in 2013, while 27 percent of eighth-graders tested at or above basic, up from 24 percent.
In reading, 27 percent of Detroit fourth-graders tested at or above basic, down from 30 percent in 2013, while 44 percent of eighth-graders were at or above basic, down from 46 percent. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2015/10/28/national-assessment-educational-progress-detroit-math-reading-results/74718372/
University president posed for photo in sombrero, poncho
The University of Louisville apologized to the school’s entire Hispanic community Thursday after a photo surfaced showing President James Ramsey among a group of staffers at a Halloween party dressed in matching stereotypical Mexican costumes.
They wore bushy mustaches and sombreros, and rattled maracas as they posed for the photo. (Ross: “Yes, this is the same idiot who hired and supported former dean, now convicted felon Robert Felner, and worried worried about “letting the Indians get back in control of the reservation.” And Felner gave the fake doctoral degree to John Deasy of LAUSD I-pad fame)
Ross: More bucks than brains: James Ramey and the ruination of the University of Louisville I was recruited to the University of Louisville in 2001 and spent two-and-a-half years on the faculty there as a department chair and distinguished university scholar, which gave me an up close and personal experience with a university administration that’s, as they say where my family’s from, sigogglin. blogs.ubc.ca/ross/2015/10/more-bucks-than-brains-james-ramey-and-the-ruination-of-the-university-of-louisville/
Poor Deasy, Now at Broad, lined his pockets at LAUSD Los Angeles Unified’s former superintendent, John Deasy, collected more than any other employee last year, $439,998, before resigning in October amid controversy over technology fiascoes, including iPads and the record-keeping system known as MiSiS.
Deasy’s salary was included in data obtained Friday, an unprecedented release by the school district. A database created by this news organization allows the public for the first time to search the pay of all 60,982 LAUSD employees by name or job title.
Students and Teachers! The Unasked Question: Why Have School?
Dear Students and School Workers,
Perhaps you can challenge your friends, teachers, and colleagues, or maybe torment the worst one, with a little exercise I use at the beginning of every class: Why have school? Why are we here?
I ask that question in class one, advising students that I will follow it with these:
- What are the main things going on in school?
- What are the main things going on in society?
- What might your answers have to do with each other?
Having done the interactive dialogue frequently, I can usually predict most of the student responses–but never all, and sometimes not the funniest ones.
Part of your task as a real student is to seek answers to the question: Who am I in relation to others, and what shall I therefore do? Asking our key question may help.
One good scenario: you will recapture the view that most very young children have, fairly quickly fogged over by much of schooling: I can understand and change the world.
You might practice the exercise with classmates before school begins.
Fair warning: very few teachers have asked this of themselves. They may be reluctant to do it, even angry you posed the question. But “why are we here?” must be posed and answered in every class. It’s the teacher’s, and your, responsibility to reasonably answer it–beyond “truancy laws.”
At this point, please take perhaps ten minutes to think through, and make some notes about your answers to those questions just above. blogs.ubc.ca/ross/2015/10/students-and-teachers-the-unasked-question-why-have-school/
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
The US cannot combat IS’ grand strategy of a world caliphate as the US cannot say, “People make gods; gods don’t make people. You have bad fairies dancing in your head.”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHXIUppbOQE
Obamagogue Lied–US boots on the ground in Syria
The US is to station troops in Syria to assist in the fight against Isis for the first time, a reversal of President Barack Obama’s opposition to basing US forces in the country.
No more than 50 troops will be sent to offer advice and support to the moderate opposition troops, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said on Friday night. He insisted it was not a combat role.
“There’s no denying the serious risk they will be facing,” Mr Earnest said, “but they are not in a combat mission.” US troops have entered Syria previously for one-off interventions, but this marks the first proper deployment.
Reports said troops will also be dispatched to Irbil in northern Iraq, and that Mr Obama has also authorised deploying A-10s and F-15 aircraft to the Incirlik air base in Turkey.
The US will also step up its military assistance to Jordan and Lebanon and will engage in further talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to target Isis’s leaders and networks, an official told Reuters. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-special-forces-being-dispatched-on-to-the-ground-in-syria-a6715151.html
Stars and Stripes:
8 times Obama said there would be no ground troops or no combat mission in Syria
Obama has actually said no boots on the ground repeatedly in 2013, before adjusting his language slightly — but notably — in 2014.
Here’s a recap of how he — and one of his top foreign policy aides — have talked about it, in 10 quotes.www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/8-times-obama-said-there-would-be-no-ground-troops-or-no-combat-mission-in-syria-1.376154
“What do nations care about the cost of war, if by spending a few hundred millions in steel and gunpowder they can gain a thousand millions in diamonds and cocoa?”
― W.E.B. Du Bois
China warns US it could spark war with ‘provocative acts’ in South China Sea “If the United States continues with these kinds of dangerous, provocative acts, there could well be a seriously pressing situation between frontline forces from both sides on the sea and in the air, or even a minor incident that sparks war,” the statement paraphrased Wu as saying.
China has warned the US that its “dangerous and provocative acts” in the South China Sea could lead to “a minor incident that sparks war”.
China’s naval commander, Admiral Wu Shengli, issued the warning to his American counterpart Admiral John Richardson during video conference talks on Thursday aimed at defusing tension in the region, according to a Chinese naval statement. www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/30/us-and-china-agree-to-cooperate-despite-tensions-over-south-china-sea
Russian Ships Near Data Cables Are Too Close for U.S. Comfort
Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.
The issue goes beyond old worries during the Cold War that the Russians would tap into the cables — a task American intelligence agencies also mastered decades ago. The alarm today is deeper: The ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the fiber-optic cables at some of their hardest-to-access locations to halt the instant communications on which the West’s governments, economies and citizens have grown dependent.
While there is no evidence yet of any cable cutting, the concern is part of a growing wariness among senior American and allied military and intelligence officials over the accelerated activity by Russian armed forces around the globe. www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/world/europe/russian-presence-near-undersea-cables-concerns-us.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Third-quarter GDP lands with thud: just 1.5% growth: Stagnation in Industry and Finannce
The U.S. economy cooled off in the third quarter as companies cut back production to prevent a worrisome buildup in inventories, particularly of goods destined for foreign markets.
Gross domestic product — the value of everything a nation produces — rose at a 1.5% annual pace from July through September, the government said T hurs day. The U.S. h
The slowdown stemmed mostly from the biggest drawndown in inventories in three years. Companies also cut spending on structures such as oil platforms and commercial buildings.
Yet even as businesses showed more caution, consumers continued to spend money at steady clip…www.marketwatch.com/story/third-quarter-gdp-lands-with-thud-just-15-growth-2015-10-29
ad grown at a crisp 3.9% rate in the second quarter.
‘Redlining’ Home Loan Discrimination Re-emerges as Concern for Regulators The green welcome sign hangs in the front door of the downtown branch of Hudson City Savings Bank, New Jersey’s largest savings bank. But for years, federal regulators said, its executives did what they could to keep certain customers out.
They steered clear of black and Hispanic neighborhoods as they opened branches across New York and Connecticut, federal officials said. They focused on marketing mortgages in predominantly white sections of suburban New Jersey and Long Island, not here or in Bridgeport, Conn.
The results were stark. In 2014, Hudson approved 1,886 mortgages in the market that includes New Jersey and sections of New York and Connecticut, federal mortgage data show. Only 25 of those loans went to black borrowers.
Hudson, while denying wrongdoing, agreed last month to pay nearly $33 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Justice Department. Federal officials said it was the largest settlement in the history of both departments for redlining, the practice in which banks choke off lending to minority communities. www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/nyregion/hudson-city-bank-settlement.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Obamagogue’s gift to Big Pharma and Insurers, AHA–Price Spike! In Tennessee, the state insurance commissioner approved a 36 percent rate increase for the largest health insurer in the state’s individual marketplace. In Iowa, the commissioner approved rate increases averaging 29 percent for the state’s dominant insurer.
Health insurance consumers logging into HealthCare.gov on Sunday for the first day of the Affordable Care Act’s third open enrollment season may be in for sticker shock, unless they are willing to shop around. Federal officials acknowledged on Friday that many people would need to pick new plans to avoid substantial increases in premiums.
But, they said, even with a number of companies leaving the marketplace for health insurance under President Obama’s signature health care law, most people around the country will still be able to choose from three or more insurers in 2016….“It really shocks me to see these plans with $5,000 deductibles,” Belinda Greb, 56, of Vida, Ore., said in an interview. “It becomes an area of stress as opposed to making me feel secure.” www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/us/politics/many-may-find-unpleasant-surprise-on-healthcaregov-high-rate-increases.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Chevron: Layoff 7,000 Chevron, the second-largest U.S.-based oil producer, slashed its 2016 capital budget by 25 percent and said it would lay off roughly 10 percent of its workforce, one of the most-drastic reactions to date to the plunge in crude prices.
The price drop has forced Chevron and dozens of its peers to make tough decisions about what projects to fund or not fund in order to offset natural declines at its existing fields.
The choices are that much starker at large international oil giants like Chevron that rely heavily on their massive budgets to fund exploration projects crucial to finding new energy sources. www.cnbc.com/2015/10/30/chevron-to-cut-workforce-by-6000-to-7000.html
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement
countercurrentnews.com/2015/10/police-classroom-video-speak-out/#
How Fed Lawyers Aided Obamagogue in murdering, rather than trying, OBL (while we await word from Sy Hersh)
Weeks before President Obama ordered the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011, four administration lawyers developed rationales intended to overcome any legal obstacles — and made it all but inevitable that Navy SEALs would kill the fugitive Qaeda leader, not capture him.
Stretching sparse precedents, the lawyers worked in intense secrecy. Fearing leaks, the White House would not let them consult aides or even the administration’s top lawyer, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. They did their own research, wrote memos on highly secure laptops and traded drafts hand-delivered by trusted couriers. www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/us/politics/obama-legal-authorization-osama-bin-laden-raid.html
Below: www.businessinsider.com/huge-black-white-gap-in-life-expectancy-in-us-2014-8
Lockdown! Detroit to enforce curfews for minors, gas restrictions
As it has in years past, the city of Detroit will be enforcing emergency curfew and gas container ordinances during the upcoming Halloween period.
The curfew will require that all minors ages 17 and younger be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian (with identification) from 6 p.m. Thursday until 6 a.m. Friday and from 6 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Saturday (Halloween).
During this period, minors will be allowed to travel to and from work, school or training programs, but they are required to carry proof of employment or attendance.
Minors in violation will be ticketed and held until they are picked up by a parent or guardian. The parent or guardian may also receive a parental responsibility violation ticket.
Additionally, a second emergency ordinance prohibits the dispensing of fuel into portable containers in Detroit through midnight Oct. 31. Exceptions to this ordinance include emergency situations for anyone 18 years of age or older…During the 1980s and early 1990s, there typically were between 500 and 800 arson fires in the city during the three-day period. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2015/10/28/detroit-enforce-curfews-minors-gas-restrictions/74730308/
No need to post the child body slam video–its nearly 50 years, or 300 years, on.
Video: Detroit Ruin porn visitors get tour of Packard plant An adventurous crew of 60 urban explorers spent Saturday afternoon wandering the wrecked corridors and dark tunnels of Detroit’s old Packard Plant during a rare, authorized tour of the industrial landmark.
Although the Packard Plant ruins have attracted hundreds of curious trespassers over the years, this weekend’s guided tours were the first sanctioned expeditions since the 40-acre property was bought in late 2013 by Spanish-born developer Fernando Palazuelo, who is attempting an ambitious site redevelopment.www.freep.com/story/news/local/2015/10/24/60-urban-explorers-receive-guided-tour-packard-plant/74539126/
Tony Blair makes qualified apology for Iraq war ahead of Chilcot report–Ooopsie!
Tony Blair has moved to prepare the ground for the publication of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war by offering a qualified apology for the use of misleading intelligence and the failure to prepare for the aftermath of the invasion.
In an interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN, the former British prime minister declined to apologise for the war itself and defended armed intervention in 2003, pointing to the current civil war in Syria to highlight the dangers of inaction.
WHITE folks on dope! (no connection to Afghan poppies)
“Because the demographic of people affected are more white, more middle class, these are parents who are empowered,” said Michael Botticelli, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, better known as the nation’s drug czar. “They know how to call a legislator, they know how to get angry with their insurance company, they know how to advocate. They have been so instrumental in changing the conversation.”
Mr. Botticelli, a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 26 years, speaks to some of these parents regularly.
Their efforts also include lobbying statehouses, holding rallies and starting nonprofit organizations, making these mothers and fathers part of a growing backlash against the harsh tactics of traditional drug enforcement. These days, in rare bipartisan or even nonpartisan agreement, punishment is out and compassion is in.
The presidential candidates of both parties are now talking about the drug epidemic, with Hillary Rodham Clinton hosting forums on the issue as Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina tell their own stories of loss while calling for more care and empathy. www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/us/heroin-war-on-drugs-parents.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Solidarity for Never
Photo of Jessie Sharkey, Vp of the Chicago Teachers Union and ISO hack, in hugfest with Democrat governer Pat Quinn
U.A.W. Leaders Approve Proposed Sellout G.M. Contract Leaders of the United Automobile Workers approved a tentative four-year deal with General Motors that includes a more lucrative signing bonus than what Fiat Chrysler workers were given, and $1.9 billion in new investments that will retain or create 3,300 jobs at a dozen G.M. sites.
Wages will be the same as in the Fiat Chrysler contract, which was ratified last week. Entry-level G.M. workers would, over as many as eight years, achieve wage parity with their veteran counterparts. Senior workers would get raises increasing their hourly pay to about $29 an hour.
It is unclear when hourly workers will begin voting on the contract, which covers more than 52,000 employees. www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/business/uaw-leaders-approve-proposed-gm-contract.html?emc=edit_tnt_20151029&nlid=2254121&tntemail0=y&_r=0
GM and Chrysler workers spit on the life and death sacrifices their grandparents made and throw away their children’s futures as they ratify more concession contracts.
The Torment and Demise of the United Auto Workers Union as Performed by
the Auto Bosses, the Labor Leaders, Counterfeit Radicals, Fictional Revolutionaries,
and All Those Who Know They Are Not Innocent Either clogic.eserver.org/2006/gibson.html
Striking East St. Louis teachers, school board OK deal
A teachers’ strike that has kept students out of the classrooms of a southwestern Illinois school district for a month ended Friday when the opposing sides accepted a proposed contract.
The deal ends a strike in East St. Louis that began Oct. 1, leaving more than 6,000 students out of school in a poor black community of about 27,000 residents across the Mississippi River from St. Louis….
Under the contract, teachers will get an average pay increase of about $12,800 over four years. However, Superintendent Art Culver said a change in the schedule of step increases for teacher salaries will save the district about $40 million over 20 years.
“I’m very satisfied,” Culver said. “No. 1, our kids are back in the classroom.” www.detroitnews.com/story/news/2015/10/30/striking-east-st-louis-teachers-ok-deal/74910854/
Spy versus Spy
A U.S. appeals court on Thursday refused to immediately halt the government’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records during a “transition” period to a new federal scheme that bans the controversial anti-terrorism surveillance.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said it would not disturb Congress’ decision to provide a 180-day period for an “orderly transition” to a new, targeted surveillance system from the sweeping National Security Agency program that the court found illegal on May 7.
“An abrupt end to the program would be contrary to the public interest in effective surveillance of terrorist threats, and Congress thus provided a 180-day transition period,” Circuit Judge Gerard Lynch wrote for a three-judge panel. “Under the circumstances, we will defer to that reasonable decision.”
The NSA program collected “metadata” such as phone numbers dialed and call durations, but not call contents. It was first disclosed in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/29/us-usa-security-nsa-idUSKCN0SN1VI20151029
Edward Snowden: EU parliament votes to ‘drop any criminal charges’ against whistle-blower The European parliament voted to lift criminal charges against American whistle-blower Edward Snowden on Thursday.
In an incredibly close vote, EU MEPs said he should be granted protection as a “human rights defender” in a move that was celebrated as a “chance to move forward” by Mr Snowden from Russia. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/edward-snowden-eu-parliament-votes-to-drop-any-criminal-charges-against-whistle-blower-a6713771.html
The Magical Mystery Tour
November 1, 1950 – Pope Pius XII claims papal infallibility when he formally defines the dogma of the Assumption of Mary.
Much more fun with the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Devout Catholic
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
The Alan Lomax Sound Archive Now Online: Features 17,000 Blues & Folk Recordings
Devil take my master research.culturalequity.org/get-audio-detailed-recording.do?recordingId=22943
The Alan Lomax Sound Archive Now Online: Features 17,000 Blues & Folk Recordings
control+ and happy halloween 
So Long