Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

which part? Slaves?

Colorado teachers stage mass sick-out to protest US history curriculum changes  Seventy percent of the teachers at two Colorado schools refused to work as conservative Jefferson County board tries to change courses and teacher contracts—

Two high schools in Colorado canceled classes Monday after dozens of teachers called in sick in protest of a conservative school board’s proposal to change the history curriculum.

This is the second such teacher sick-out in two weeks and comes on the heels of student walk-outs over the issue. At the two high schools where sick-outs were staged, Golden and Jefferson high school in Jefferson County, 73% and 81% of teachers called out, respectively. Unrest is also tied to new teacher evaluations. Negotiations for a new contract between the district and the union broke down last spring.

The board wants to review Advanced Placement US history curriculum, which was recently revised by the College Board, the organization that sets standards for the courses. Some conservative school board members feel that the new curriculum has an overly negative view of US history, and advocate changes.    www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/29/colorado-teachers-us-history-sickout-protest-contracts-jefferson

Charles Cobb: Ferguson: Forgotten Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement – Many images that came out of Ferguson, Mo., last month looked like scenes from Birmingham, Ala., in the 1960s: the gun-wielding police officers, the sign-carrying protesters and the chants demanding equal treatment and human dignity. But that’s where the similarities ended. For all the righteous indignation it inspired, the Ferguson turmoil has become the latest in a series of flash-in-the-pan causes that peter out without inspiring lasting movements for racial justice. As an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Mississippi during the ’60s, what I learned was the importance of organizing at the grass-roots and how even small actions at this level can have national impact. That is why I cannot help but notice that many black leaders, in their efforts to drive change, are ignoring some of the great lessons of the Southern Freedom Movement. – See more at: www.portside.org/2014-09-20/ferguson-forgotten-lessons-civil-rights-movement#sthash.KdBb4gqi.dpuf

Fifty Years Ago

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhFvZRT7Ds0

To the Editor, re: Atlanta Test Cheating Scandal (Atlanta Journal Constitution)   While appalled by the nation-wide test cheating scandals, it is impossible not to note that classroom teachers, who rightly feared for their jobs, face 35 years in prison on conspiracy (RICO) charges while grifting bankers who laundered billions for terrorists and drug cartels were never criminally charged. Instead their banks were fined, big wrist-slaps, and nobody went to jail. Perhaps the greater guilt lies with the likes of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, his boss, and others, who promulgate the test score fetishes, measuring little more than parental income and home language, as gate-keepers to employment and promotion for students and teachers alike. If we consider the teachers to be little more than bank robo-signers, we see the issue in the proper perspective. First graders know what, “No Fair!” is.

Dr Rich Gibson
Emeritus Professor of Education
San Diego State University

Teaching Tool:

full edition online at   www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1979/outline-capital/index.htm

medium.com/war-is-boring/air-force-drone-crews-got-so-demoralized-that-they-booed-their-commander-cfd455fea40f

They’re Baaack! Shining Path suspected  Peruvian officials say suspected Shining Path rebels killed two police officers and wounded a third in an ambush of a convoy transporting ballot boxes for Sunday’s regional and municipal elections.

Police say the attackers opened fire with assault rifles just before dawn Friday on four vehicles carrying 28 police officers near the town of Machente in the southeastern region of Ayacucho.      www.foxnews.com/world/2014/10/03/2-police-killed-in-pre-election-attack-on-ballot-convoy-in-peru-shining-path/

Dangerous Counterstories reviewed here   edrev.info/reviews/rev1298.pdf

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Not one Conspiring Bankster Jailed, but Test Score Cheaters in Atlanta, Teachers, Have a lot to Fear. Hey! Even 1st graders know “No Fair!”  Twelve former teachers and administrators took their seats behind desks in a large downtown Atlanta courtroom on Monday, looking much like pensive students preparing to take tests, as opening statements began in one of the largest and long-awaited schools cheating trials in U.S. history.

The defendants —12 former Atlanta Public Schools employees — are accused of taking part in a criminal conspiracy to inflate students’ scores by modifying and falsely certifying answers in standardized tests and face up to 35 years in prison. 

“This was a conspiracy… a widespread, cleverly disguised conspiracy to illegally inflate test scores and create a false impression of academic success for many students in the Atlanta Public Schools system,” said lead prosecutor, Fani Willis, executive assistant district attorney at Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. “It was done to those students’ detriment.”

The educators — five elementary school teachers, two testing coordinators, an assistant principal, a principal, and three area superintendents — sat stiffly in the Fulton County Superior Court, as Willis laid out the prosecution’s case.    www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-atlanta-schools-cheating-trial-20140929-story.html

L.A. school board authorizes talks on departure agreement with Deasy (of fake degree fame)  The move was made in a specially called closed session Tuesday, but it was not disclosed publicly. No decision was reached on whether an offer would include a buyout, according to several people close to the situation. They declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak about the matter. Members of the board agreed to keep the issue confidential.    www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-deasy-lausd-20141002-story.html

Detroit’s Education “Achievement Authority” –the ACLU View In June of 2011, Gov. Rick Snyder stepped behind a microphone at Detroit’s Renaissance High School to announce the start of a revolutionary new approach to education in Michigan.

The problem of poor academic performance would be addressed in dramatic fashion.

“We do have too many failing schools in our state,” he said. “If you look at us statewide, only 16 percent of our kids are college-ready. That’s absolutely unacceptable.

“We need to focus on a new way of doing things.”

The target would be Michigan’s lowest-performing schools. The bottom 5 percent.

The stakes could not have been higher. As the governor explained it, the future of both the city and the state as a whole would be riding on this experiment in education.

“For Detroit to be successful, it depends on having successful schools. For Michigan to be successful, it depends on having a successful Detroit,” Snyder declared. “So we’re all in this together, and we’re going to make this happen as a team.”

A little more than a year after that speech, the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) opened its doors to students. Instead of taking on the challenge of lifting up all of the state’s low-performing schools, or even a large number of them in different areas, decision-makers — operating in a way that was anything but transparent — decided to have as this experiment’s proving ground 15 Detroit schools.     www.metrotimes.com/detroit/the-eaa-exposed-an-investigative-report/Content?oid=2249513

Michigan Teachers Bribe Dollar Signs (kids) to Show Up On “Count Day” (then hope they stay home)  Prizes for the weirdest hat, dining with mom and dad in school and pizza parties — all are waiting for students who show up for school Wednesday.

These are just some of the lures and rewards school districts across Michigan plan to use to encourage students to attend school on Count Day.

High attendance is crucial for districts because enrollment determines the amount of per-pupil funding the state provides.

Enrollment levels are a blend of two student count days — one on the first Wednesday of October, which accounts for 90 percent of funding, and the other on the second Wednesday in February, which counts for 10 percent.    www.detroitnews.com/story/news/education/2014/09/29/count-day-schools/16463111/

A New Ed Research Shocker!  Affluent spending on education widens wealth gap  Wealthier parents have been stepping up education spending so aggressively that they’re widening the nation’s wealth gap.

When the Great Recession struck in late 2007 and squeezed most family budgets, the top 10 percent of earners — with incomes averaging $253,146 — went in a different direction: They doubled down on their kids’ futures.

Their average education spending per child jumped 35 percent to $5,210 a year during the recession compared with the two preceding years — and they sustained that faster pace through the recovery.

For the remaining 90 percent of households, such spending averaged around a flat $1,000, according to research by Emory University sociologist Sabino Kornrich.

The sums being spent by wealthier parents amount to a kind of calculated investment in their children. Research has linked the additional dollars to increased SAT scores, a greater likelihood of graduating from college and the prospect of future job security and high salaries.     www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/30/education-wealth-gap/16509615/

Arizona teacher shortage “forces” schools to go international Low pay and tough new expectations for teachers have led to a shortage of qualified people willing to take jobs in Arizona’s classrooms. Arizona has approximately 95,000 certified teachers, but only about 52,000 are teaching this year, according to the Arizona Department of Education.

At the start of the summer, Goodsell hired a few recent graduates from out-of-state education colleges.

Next, he began Skyping with high-school math and science teachers in the Philippines who had applied for work visas to teach in the United States.    www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/10/01/arizona-teacher-shortage-international-candidates/16519807/

Philly School Funding Dependant on Promoting Cancer  The Pennsylvania Senate this afternoon approved, 39-11, a long-debated $2-per-pack cigarette tax for Philadelphia to help close the School District’s budget gap. Gov. Corbett promptly announced that he would sign the bill. Signing will take place at 11:30 Wednesday morning. (Read the legislation.)

Superintendent William Hite said in a tweet that between the cigarette tax and the earlier approval of a 1 percent sales tax surcharge for schools, the District will net more than $170 million “in recurring and predictable revenue instead of one-time funding.”

If it is implemented in October, the cigarette tax is expected to generate $49 million this year for the schools and as much as $80 million annually in future years. The sales tax surcharge provides the District a fixed amount of $120 million annually. The cigarette tax provision expires in 2019, however. Both taxes are on Philadelphia residents only, but they required state approval.     thenotebook.org/taxonomy/term/36

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Obamagogue: “IS??? I thought it was ISill, the JV! Yikes!”  (Fool, you shoulda asked a GI)  President Barack Obama said the United States underestimated the rise of the Islamic State and overestimated the Iraqi military’s ability to fight off the terrorist group in an interview Sunday night on 60 Minutes.

Obama said it was “absolutely true” that the U.S. has made a mistake when it judged both the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISI, and the Iraqi military.

“That’s true,” Obama said in answer to a question by interviewer Steve Kroft. “That’s absolutely true.”  Read more here: www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/09/28/241312_obama-us-underestimated-the-rise.html

US-led jets bomb grain silos in Syria, ‘civilians killed’  US-led coalition airstrikes destroyed grain silos and other targets in parts of northern and eastern Syria dominated by Islamic State, killing civilians while only wounding ISIS fighters, according to an organization monitoring war in Syria.

The overnight bombings hit mills and grain storage facilities in Manbij, a militant-held town in northern Syria. Coalition forces possibly mistook the structures for Islamic State holdings, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Monday.  …

The destruction of grain silos in Manbij only killed civilians, said Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Observatory, which claims to have a network of sources throughout Syria.

“These were the workers at the silos. They provide food for the people,” he said Monday. Abdulrahman could not offer an exact casualty count.     rt.com/usa/191576-syria-coalition-silos-civilians/

10 Myths About Obama’s Latest War  3. The U.S. has no boots on the ground.  The United States already has combat troops in Iraq. A U.S. diplomat acknowledged to me that American spotters in the Kurdish region of Iraq provide coordinates for airstrikes. He said U.S. advisers are armed and would shoot if attacked. If insurgents down an American plane, armed U.S. helicopter teams would go into enemy territory to rescue pilots. By redefining “combat troops,” the U.S. not only wages war in the Middle East, but on the English language.

Just one week into the bombing campaign, Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey said the U.S. might have to introduce ground combat troops into Iraq. The White House quickly disavowed the statement, but leading Democratic and Republican hawks are already pressuring Obama to formally introduce combat troops. As the air war proves incapable of destroying IS, the administration will likely introduce more ground troops, perhaps renaming them “limited, temporary, counterinsurgency advisers.”

4. The U.S. has formed a viable coalition to defeat Islamic State.

President Obama boasted of the formation of a broad coalition that includes Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries, Jordan, Britain, Australia, France and Belgium. Israel remains a silent partner.

But the U.S. remains the main military power and directs the air strikes. Somebody will have to fight IS on the ground, and the coalition allies certainly won’t. In Iraq, the newly formed government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has little support from Sunnis and Kurds, two vital components of any future viable regime. Abadi’s cabinet actually has fewer Sunni ministers than the previous, discredited government of Nouri al-Maliki.

The American alliance with Israel and Sunni-led countries such as Saudi Arabia only angers the Iraqi government, which remains closely allied with Iran. This coalition, like the phony “Coalition of the Willing” in 2003, is doomed from the start.     www.truthdig.com/report/item/10_myths_about_obamas_latest_war_20141001#14124846922741&action=collapse_widget&id=1102073

ISIS War a Financial Windfall for US Arms Makers  The big winner early in the war is Raytheon, who netted a big new Tomahawk cruise missile contract because of all of the missiles the US has been firing into Iraq and Syria.

In the long run, the people who benefit most from the war may not be the ones making the missiles the US fired, however, but rather the companies that made the vehicles the US is trying to destroy.

ISIS’ vehicles are mostly US-made vehicles looted from Iraq, and companies that made them, like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, are eventually going to be paid to buy the Iraqi military a whole new collection of gear to replace what they lost and was eventually destroyed.

With expectations for a return to runaway military spending, all of the major military contractors are trading near all-time highs on the stock market, with their prices escalating as the war does.    news.antiwar.com/2014/10/03/isis-war-a-financial-windfall-for-us-arms-makers/

To Protect the Opium Fields–Afghanistan Signs Deal Allowing 10,000 U.S. Troops To Remain   Afghanistan has signed a pact with the U.S. to allow about 10,000 troops to remain in the country after the end of the year, when most American forces are to be withdrawn.

The country’s newly inaugurated president, Ashraf Ghani, signed the Bilateral Security Agreement, or BSA, which would leave in place the U.S. troops and a few others from NATO allies to bolster Afghan forces.    www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/09/30/352727918/afghanistan-signs-deal-allowing-10-000-u-s-troops-to-remain

Costs of Obama’s New War in Iraq and Syria Set to Explode, say Analysts  The U.S. government’s new war in Iraq that now also includes Syria has already cost American taxpayers between $780 and $930 million, and could amount to over $1 billion a month if U.S. efforts intensify on the scale demanded by war hawks in Congress, according to a think tank analysis published this week.    www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/01/costs-obamas-new-war-iraq-and-syria-set-explode-say-analysts

Who Lost the Ukraine, again (and why is the National Endowment for Democracy still there?)  Ukraine Army Sees Worst Day Since Truce as Battles Flare  Ukraine’s army suffered its highest casualties since signing a Sept. 5 truce in new clashes with pro-Russian fighters that are threatening to shatter a cease-fire that brought calm to the six-month old conflict.

Nine Ukrainian servicemen were killed in attacks during the last 24 hours, including an assault by a separatist tank on a government armored personnel carrier near the airport of Donetsk, the combat zone’s largest city, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said yesterday. Twenty-seven soldiers were wounded as they repelled two waves of separatists, killing 50, he said.     www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-29/ukraine-army-sees-worst-day-since-truce-as-battles-flare.html

Pentagon Dispatches Counterinsurgency Military Experts to Ukraine  The Pentagon has sent eight counterinsurgency operatives to Kiev in order to share planning tactics and techniques with Ukrainian security forces.

“Military staff will share with the Ukrainians some of the Pentagon’s planning tactics, techniques and procedures while collecting data on the needs of its security forces, according to Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen Lainez. Staff arrived in Kiev, the country’s capital, on Thursday and Friday and are beginning to assess the operations of the Ukraine Ministry of Defense,    en.ria.ru/analysis/20140928/193395216/Pentagon-Dispatches-Counterinsurgency-Military-Experts-to.html

Air Force Drone Crews Got So Demoralized That They Booed Their Commander  For the first decade after its invention, the General Atomics Predator drone was a special weapon. The CIA and the U.S. Air Force possessed just a handful of the 27-foot-long unmanned aerial vehicles, which can fly for 12 hours or more, scanning with cameras—and even firing at targets with lightweight Hellfire missiles.

By 2011, the drone fleet had expanded more than tenfold—and so had the community of pilots, sensor operators, analysts and maintainers that fix and fly the robots and disseminate the resulting video imagery.

The drone air force grew fast—but not fast enough. As demand outstripped supply, the Air Force yanked pilots from the cockpits of their supersonic F-15 and F-16 fighter jets and forced them to sit in trailers in Nevada, from where they steered flimsy robots via satellite.

These involuntary robot operators didn’t get many days off. And they had little chance of ever returning to their beloved fighters. Drone crews became so unhappy that, in one chilling moment in late 2005 or early 2006, a group of Predator operators actually booed their commander.

“They were just so bitter and so angry,” the commander said, according to a redacted U.S. Air Force official history that War Is Boring obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Hillbillary Clinton admits role in Honduran coup aftermath  Clinton admits that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office. “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”

This may not come as a surprise to those who followed the post-coup drama closely. (See my commentary from 2009 on Washington’s role in helping the coup succeed here, here and here.) But the official storyline, which was dutifully accepted by most in the media, was that the Obama administration actually opposed the coup and wanted Zelaya to return to office.

Thank Susan Rice, Hillbillary, and Obamagogue: Is It Too Late For Libya?  Three years after the fall of Muammar al-Qaddafi, Libya is unraveling at a pace and scale few analysts expected, says Mary Fitzgerald, a Tripoli-based journalist. She says the violence which teeters on the brink of civil war, is rooted more in regional, economic, and social cleavages than religious differences. “Libya’s crisis is too often reduced to a narrative of Islamist versus non-Islamist,” she explains. “It’s less an ideological battle than a scramble for power and resources.” Meanwhile, she says that international efforts to stem the crisis, which are often viewed suspiciously in Libya, have achieved little.  …

he United States, which of course helped overthrow Qaddafi in 2011 through NATO air attacks, has evacuated its embassy in Tripoli and is currently focused on defeating ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria. Have the major powers just washed their hands of Libya?

Many Libyans have that perception and regularly complain that international actors did not engage enough in the crucial aftermath of Qaddafi’s ousting.    www.cfr.org/libya/too-late-libya/p33548

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Frauding Flagstar Bank fined, No Rico Charges, no trials, nobody goes to jail (see Atlanta teachers above)  Troy-based Flagstar Bank was ordered to pay $37.5 million in damages to mortgage customers and in fines Monday for mishandling requests for loan modifications and, in some cases, illegally foreclosing on homes.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined the bank $10 million and ordered it to pay $27.5 million to victims for illegally blocking borrowers’ attempts to save their homes. Flagstar agreed to the settlement without admitting guilt.

“Because of Flagstar’s illegal actions and unacceptable delays, struggling homeowners lost the opportunity to save their homes,” Richard Cordray, director of the bureau, said in a statement. “Today’s action signals a new era of enforcement to protect consumers against the cost of servicer runarounds.”   www.detroitnews.com/story/business/real-estate/2014/09/29/flagstar-fined-million-illegal-foreclosures/16430761/

Labor Force Participation Falls To Its Lowest Rate Since 1978  On the one hand, America is aging, and the baby boomers are beginning to retire. That leads to a natural demographic decline in the participation rate.

On the other hand, the US is coming out of the worst recession it has faced in decades, and the participation rate dropped much more sharply since 2008. The cyclical effects from the recession may also be a big factor in the declining participation rate.
Read more: www.businessinsider.com/labor-force-participation-rate-september-2014-2014-10#ixzz3FFVzE5Fi

Obamagogue’s False Jobs Recovery Even as the U.S. economy reached a milestone in May with employment exceeding the prerecession peak, 29 of 50 states have yet to match that accomplishment, according to Labor Department data compiled by Bloomberg. New Mexico, for instance, still had 4 percent fewer employed workers, ranking among the bottom 10 percent of states.

“This is not like any other recovery,” said John Herrmann, director of U.S. rate strategy at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities USA Inc., who tracks the gross domestic products of states. “There is a tremendous disparity, not a uniform recovery at all, with the performance of the economy much more skewed on a regional basis.”

The weakest jobs rebound has been in the states central to the 2002-2006 housing bubble and the subsequent price collapse.

Nevada, Arizona and Florida are among those furthest from their peak employment during the December 2007-June 2009 downturn. Those states, along with five others — Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio — remain more than 50,000 positions short of that level.   ….Yet the regional woes are far broader: New Jersey has been hurt by the loss of casino and pharmaceutical industry positions, New Mexico by U.S. government defense cutbacks, Alabama by weakness in manufacturing, and Michigan by a loss in auto jobs    www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-30/job-woes-linger-in-29-states-as-u-s-recovers-unevenly.html

Who Lost the Banks? Hackers’ Attack Cracked 10 Financial Firms in Major Assault  The huge cyberattack on JPMorgan Chase that touched more than 83 million households and businesses was one of the most serious computer intrusions into an American corporation. But it could have been much worse.

Questions over who the hackers are and the approach of their attack concern government and industry officials. Also troubling is that about nine other financial institutions — a number that has not been previously reported — were also infiltrated by the same group of overseas hackers, according to people briefed on the matter. The hackers are thought to be operating from Russia and appear to have at least loose connections with officials of the Russian government, the people briefed on the matter said.    dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/hackers-attack-cracked-10-banks-in-major-assault/?emc=edit_th_20141004&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=2254121

White Aristocrat Judge, recolonizing Detroit, Orders More Water Shutoffs U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes on Monday refused to block the city from shutting off water to delinquent customers for six months, saying there is no right to free water and Detroit can’t afford to lose the revenue.

Rhodes’s order served as a stinging rejection of arguments made by thousands of protesters who staged rallies last summer fighting shutoffs and argued that there is a fundamental right to water service.

“There is no such right or law,” Rhodes said.    www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2014/09/29/bankruptcy-judge-expected-rule-water-shut-offs/16414323/

The NY Fed: A confidential report and a fired examiner’s hidden recorder penetrate the cloistered world of Wall Street’s top regulator — and its history of deference to banks.  …his 27-page report laid bare a culture ruled by groupthink, where managers used consensus decision-making and layers of vetting to water down findings. Examiners feared to speak up lest they make a mistake or contradict higher-ups. Excessive secrecy stymied action and empowered gatekeepers, who used their authority to protect the banks they supervised.

“Our review of lessons learned from the crisis reveals a culture that is too risk-averse to respond quickly and flexibly to new challenges,” the report stated. “A number of people believe that supervisors paid excessive deference to banks, and as a result they were less aggressive in finding issues or in following up on them in a forceful way.”

One New York Fed employee, a supervisor, described his experience in terms of “regulatory capture,” the phrase commonly used to describe a situation where banks co-opt regulators. Beim included the remark in a footnote. “Within three weeks on the job, I saw the capture set in,” the manager stated.    www.propublica.org/article/carmen-segarras-secret-recordings-from-inside-new-york-fed

Assassin GM Murdered People for Money–Deaths Tied to Flawed General Motors Ignition Rise to 23  General Motors has acknowledged that some of its engineers knew about the problem for more than a decade before the company disclosed it publicly this year and began recalling 2.6 million cars.    www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/business/deaths-tied-to-flawed-general-motors-ignition-rise-to-23-as-compensation-offers-go-out.html

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

above, the Wall of Fire entertainment at the Mira Mara Marine Air Show. 700,000 people attended the show this year, holding babies aloft to witness the fabulous wall of fire. The explosive: Napalm. What fun for Americans! 

Bodies Are Found Close to Where Missing Students Clashed With Police in Mexico  The authorities found clandestine graves containing several bodies Saturday near a southern Mexico town where students at a teachers college clashed with the police a week ago, leaving several people dead and up to 43 students missing. Witnesses said many of them were last seen being carried off by officers.

A tip led the authorities to the spot near a hill outside Iguala, about 100 miles south of Mexico City in Guerrero State, one of the poorest and most violence-prone in the country as organized crime groups have battled for power.

State officials speaking to reporters Saturday night declined to say how many bodies were found or whether they were the missing students, but they said DNA analysis and other tests were being conducted to identify the remains.

Officials were bracing for the prospect of one of the largest massacres in recent years of convulsive violence mostly related to

The students disappeared after a chaotic bout of violence, in which local police officers opened fire on them as, depending on the account, they either collected donations for school or sought to hijack buses, as they have commonly done for transportation.    www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/world/americas/bodies-are-found-close-to-where-missing-students-clashed-with-police-in-mexico.html

Obama Deported a Record 438,421 People Last Year  The Obama administration deported a record 438,421 people last year, the highest number of annual deportations in US history, according to official figures published by the Department of Homeland Security Wednesday.

The Obama White House has already deported more people than any other presidency, based on projections for 2014. In Obama’s six years in office, he has deported more people than Bush in his entire eight-year tenure, and more than twice as many people as Clinton.    www.globalresearch.ca/obama-deported-a-record-438421-people-last-year/5406036

Solidarity for Never

Above, the IWWs Mr Block

NEA’s Bosses Cannot Figure out where schools in super-exploited areas might be so they are asking you to search for them   Do you know a school where we must fight inequity?
Tell Your Story Here

Every student should have access to great public schools. That’s the principle at the core of everything the National Education Association does. Some students have a robust education in well-resourced, safe schools. That education will prepare them to graduate ready for college or careers. That’s our wish for each and every child—regardless of race, color, ethnicity, income level or where they live. It’s why we—as educators—do what we do.

Many children have an entirely different experience, their schools aren’t safe and their curriculum is outdated and not as rigorous. Far too often, those children—the ones missing out on the best—attend schools in less affluent neighborhoods and with students who are overwhelmingly minority.

Sound familiar?

We want every educator, principal, parent, and community leader to share their stories, because all students, regardless of where they live or how much money their parents make should have great public schools. Far too often, too many children attend under resourced schools and pay the price by missing out on key ingredients to build their potential and prepare them for success.

Are the students in your public school missing out on key resources essential to providing them with a quality and comprehensive education due to discrimination? If so, we want to hear about it!    www.nea.org/equity

Glen Ford: Eric Holder’s Damnable Legacy: Impunity for the Rich and the Death of Due Process   Eric Holder and his boss have done incalculable damage to the life prospects of Black people.” Nevertheless, African Americans are eager to give high marks to a man who has demolished due process and the rule of law and given the white filthy rich impunity from prosecution. Holder has also “helped set the stage for a new wave of assaults on urban Blacks and their electoral rights as a class” through his assent to disenfranchisement of Detroit.    blackagendareport.com/node/14445

UAW Preps to Sell Out Big Three Workers Again The new president of the United Auto Workers is moving to restructure the union as it gears up for one of its toughest challenges in years: next fall’s critical labor talks with U.S. automakers as it seeks pay raises for veteran workers and more equitable wages for newer workers.

“We’re shaking it up a little bit. We’re actually restructuring internally,” Dennis Williams told The Detroit News in his first wide-ranging interview since taking office in June. “We know we have a lot to do — but we don’t want to put so much on our plate that we can’t achieve nothing.”

The Detroit union wants to convince U.S. automakers — who made $14.4 billion in profits last year — to agree to significant improvements in compensation, including for older workers who haven’t had a raise since 2007. Williams is under heavy pressure to bridge the gap with newer employees known as “Tier 2” workers who earn significantly less than veteran employees — and get less in the way of benefits, including no defined-benefit pensions.    www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2014/10/02/uaw-readies-big-three-contract-showdowns/16569363/

Spy versus Spy

How the FBI and the Weathermen (like Billy Ayers) Destroyed the biggest and most powerful student movement in the History of the US, on the eve of the biggest outpouring of student activism: Those in SDS at the time were not oblivious to the measures being leveled against them, though the full scope was beyond their purview. As Mark Rudd recalled in an interview with Truthout, “We knew we were being infiltrated and surveilled, but it didn’t slow us down at all – except for the problem of finding a place to hold the convention.” He does feel, however, the revelations of the Bureau’s role in fomenting a schism, “confirms my view that our faction in its hyperradicalism was unwittingly doing the job of the FBI for them.”    truth-out.org/news/item/26558-the-fbi-and-the-shattering-of-students-for-a-democratic-society#14123102207481&action=collapse_widget&id=4634724

The National Endowment for Democracy (CIA) is Aflutter over Hong Kong “Protests”  The “Occupy Central” protests in Hong Kong continue on – destabilizing the small southern Chinese island famous as an international hub for corporate-financier interests, and before that, the colonial ambitions of the British Empire. Those interests have been conspiring for years to peel the island away from Beijing after it was begrudgingly returned to China in the late 1990′s, and use it as a springboard to further destabilize mainland China.

Behind the so-called “Occupy Central” protests, which masquerade as a “pro-democracy” movement seeking “universal suffrage” and “full democracy,” is a deep and insidious network of foreign financial, political, and media support. Prominent among them is the US State Department and its National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as well as NED’s subsidiary, the National Democratic Institute (NDI).    www.globalresearch.ca/us-openly-approves-hong-kong-chaos-it-created/5405387

The Magical Mystery Tour

Vatican Consolidates its Blessed Parchments Hustle For many Roman Catholics, it has been a tradition to mark momentous life events — marriages, baptisms, milestone birthdays and anniversaries — with a special Vatican keepsake: a personalized Papal Blessing on parchment. Yet in recent days, curses — not blessings — have been heard on the streets around the Vatican, after dozens of souvenir shops and calligraphy studios that had for decades produced the apostolic benedictions for the church were told that, as of Jan. 1, the Vatican would be making all the parchments itself.

The decision was motivated by a “desire to return to the origins” of the Papal Blessings: to raise funds for the pope’s personal charitable donations to the poor, and to ensure that the Vatican’s Office of Papal Charities, the Elemosineria Apostolica, “has sufficient resources” to be even more charitable, the Vatican explained in a letter sent to the parchment sellers this year.    www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/a-papal-decision-leaves-some-feeling-less-than-charitable.html

How Religion Hates Women–Islamic State extremists have herded hundreds of women to be given to its fighters in Syria as a reward or sold as sex slaves and have summarily executed women in professions, according to the United Nations.

About 500 women and girls of the Yezidi and Christian minority communities were given to Islamic State fighters or trafficked for sale in markets in Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, according to a report published today by the UN mission in Iraq and the world body’s human-rights office in Geneva.    www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-02/islamic-state-sells-women-as-sex-slaves-un-says.html

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World