Rouge Forum Dispatch: Who is NOT Rioting?
December 8th, 2018 / Author: rgibsonWe Say Fight Back!
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Students blockade schools as French protests spread
About 100 schools under blockade while prime minister meets opposition leaders
The French prime minister, Edouard Philippe, has met opposition party leaders as nationwide protests continue to spread across France, with students blockading about 100 schools.
thousands of masked protesters fought running battles with police and burned cars, buildings and barricades in the most affluent areas of Paris on Saturday, the gilets jaunes – or yellow vests – citizens’ protest movement continued on Monday with peaceful anti-government demonstrations at barricades on roads and at fuel depots across France.
High-school students – who have been protesting against changes to colleges and the university system – also seized on the mood of protest and stepped up their blockades.
About 100 high schools were fully or partially blockaded around the country, including in the southern city of Toulouse and in Créteil in the Paris area.
‘Yellow Vests’: 1,400 arrests and 126 injuries in France as clashes continue
Nearly 1,400 demonstrators were arrested in France on Saturday as tensions rose and police fired tear gas, French authorities said.
More than 974 were placed in police custody as the ‘yellow vest’ protests turned violent for the second week running. www.euronews.com/2018/12/08/paris-is-on-lockdown-as-france-braces-for-a-fourth-week-of-yellow-vest-protests https://www.euronews.com/2018/12/08/paris-is-on-lockdown-as-france-braces-for-a-fourth-week-of-yellow-vest-protests
Acero teachers become first charter school teachers in US history to go on strike
Teachers, counselors and office workers at Acero charter schools in Chicago went on strike Tuesday, the first such strike by charter school teachers in U.S. history.
The 15 Acero schools were closed Tuesday as 500 of their staff members were on strike, affecting about 7,500 students. After seven months, negotiations broke down overnight shortly after midnight.
Acero schools CEO Richard Rodriguez posted a YouTube video after the bargaining was over expressing his disappointment in the decision.
“The sad fact is that interests from outside our community are using our students and our schools as a means to advance their national anti-charter school platform,” Rodriguez said. “They don’t want our schools to succeed because it doesn’t serve their agenda.” abc7chicago.com/education/acero-teachers-become-first-charter-school-teachers-in-us-history-to-go-on-strike/4828253/?fbclid=IwAR2vygyy2iVXXDwxsinpyjiD5s__oSgDF0MEOy7Kx44YeDxpYvBUw1rKdco
SDS, PL, and Adventures in Building a Worker-Student Alliance
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Veterans For Peace is handing this flyer to U.S. troops on Mexican border
Soldiers, you are not alone!
a message from Veterans For Peace
You are not alone if you are thinking WTF am I doing on the U.S. border with Mexico?
You are not alone if you are asking if this is some kind of political stunt.
You are not alone if you wonder what all this concertina wire is for.
Is it even legal to deploy troops on U.S. soil? Against desperate asylum seekers?
You are not alone if you are re-thinking your role in the U.S. military.
No, you are not alone. Many people, in and out of the military, have these very same concerns.
Veterans For Peace certainly does. We believe the deployment of U.S. troops to the border is an illegitimate use of the U.S. military. We believe the Central America caravan poses no threat whatsoever to anyone.
This is no “invasion.” The asylum seekers are traveling in a caravan for their safety from criminal gangs. With their babies and young children, they are fleeing from extreme violence and poverty. They are desperate to keep their families alive. They have every right under both U.S. and international law to seek asylum in the U.S. In fact, we have a special responsibility to help them. For decades the U.S. has been supporting corrupt dictators throughout Latin America, creating the conditions from which these poor people are fleeing. We should be meeting the asylum seekers at the border with open arms, not with concertina wire.
If you decide to follow your conscience and refuse to obey orders that you believe are illegal or immoral, you will not be alone. Veterans For Peace will support you, along with other organizations who have legal resources and know how to organize political support. See below.
If you decide it is time for you to get out of the military, we can put you in touch with counselors who can help you to be honorably discharged.
Most of all, as veterans of multiple wars, we strongly advise you not to do anything that you might regret for the rest of your life, just because you were “following orders.” It is much better to follow your conscience, and do what you know deep down is right. worldbeyondwar.org/veterans-for-peace-is-handing-this-flyer-to-u-s-troops-on-mexican-border/?fbclid=IwAR3nsqHvEyNjVb-NZXErWlHfI04XsvbTJn77sC3iYjyOiCwAmu3QDLxtIfE
The Little Red Schoolhouse
Vacillating Reactionary Diane Ravitch Mourns her Pal: Racist, Sexist, War Criminal G.H. W. Bush
I was invited to join Secretary Lamar Alexander and Deputy Secretary David Kearns (former CEO of Xerox) to brief the President on our progress in promoting voluntary national standards.
I joined the administration in the summer of 1991, which meant that I spent only about 18-19 months in the federal government. The Democrats on the Hill told me that nothing we proposed would be enacted, so I had to settle in to the idea that whatever we accomplished would be done without any new legislation.
To those who think that President George H.W. Bush was the architect of the test-and-punish regime that has afflicted our schools since the passage of NCLB, let me assure you that this is not true. The truth is that he wasn’t very interested in education policy. His field was foreign policy, and he left education to others. If he had one lodestar in education, it was that the federal government should not mandate anything. He understood that the states were in charge. So did Lamar Alexander, who opposed anything that smacked of a “national board of education.”
The reality is that there was a bipartisan consensus around the ideas of standards-testing-accountability. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and Barack Obama were on the same page. dianeravitch.net/2018/12/05/george-h-w-bush-a-happy-memory-of-my-time-in-d-c/?fbclid=IwAR2g3ckez6vsJvlgfN1vjvgSzEg_1LVu-q7JwJHsi-ifmYhVb5t19flU0gY
Against Quisling Ravitch
Nothing significant is going to happen if it takes place behind the leadership of the vacillating reactionary Dianne Ravitch and the union bosses who lionize her.
Still a patriot, still a nationalist, still god-blessing everything in sight, still favoring the exploitation that is at the root of capital and its state, as well as the empire’s wars, there is a reason why she is hugged by unionite heads like the presidents of the NEA and AFT who allowed the militarization of schooling, helped create the No Child Left Behind Act and its Democratic inheritor, the Race to the Top, who poured millions of dollars and volunteer hours into electing the easily recognized demagogue, Obama, and who now oversee the wreckage of teachers wages, benefits, and their very jobs.
The core issues of our time are:
*US capitalism in a real crisis of finance and industry,
* imperialism (lost and losing two wars and starting a new one),
*growing imperial competition,
*and the now-existing corporate state which is running the schools in its own interests.
The rapid emergence of the US corporate state, a key prop for fascism, taking power in somewhat new garb, but retaining its core aspects, including a government that is in reality an executive committee and armed weapon of the rich. Within that committee they iron out their differences (finance vs industrial capital, for example, and minor differences too—all at play as capital’s values of “me first” meet the need for class rule) then turn on the mass of people with a vengeance, inside and outside the US.
While American public education has always been a myth (forever segregated by class and race, always promoting lies like nationalism), that is especially true now. Some Substance writers have been the most prominent critics of the demolition of whatever there was of public education, and the turn to capitalist schooling–within the corporate state.
What is defensible about the key aspects of capitalist schooling: the regimentation of the curricula and eradication of history, racist and anti-working class high-stakes testing, and militarization in poor or working class areas? richgibson.com/againstravitch.htm
Capital’s School turns students’ lunch debt over to collection agency
In a letter to parents, Raymond Votto Jr., chief operating officer of Cranston Public Schools, said the district has previously tried to collect outstanding lunch bills “without much success.”
“In an effort to reduce our unpaid balance, the District has retained the services of a collection agency. The company is Transworld Systems and they will begin their collection efforts effective January 2, 2019,” the letter said.
Votto said between September 1, 2016 and June 30, 2018, the school district wrote off $95,508. He said the unpaid balance for the current academic year is $45,859.
“The District lunch program cannot continue to lose revenue,” Votto said.
Lunch at a public elementary school in Cranston costs $2.50 per day. For middle school and high school students, it’s $3.25 a day. Votto said parents who owe $20 or more and who haven’t paid off the balance within 60 days will receive a letter from the collection agency starting next year. www.nbc4i.com/news/u-s-world/school-turns-students-lunch-debt-over-to-collection-agency/1645349811?fbclid=IwAR3l8zFhpgz4_wCwFmwoJMp4iUB_KHVMiR1j6FE_eByAQF3FuijxSfGl5o0
Teacher who denied Santa will not return to school
A substitute teacher who told first grade pupils in New Jersey that Santa Claus does not exist will not be returning to the school.
Officials said the educator also debunked the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny to the Cedar Hills School class of six and seven year olds.
Montville Schools Superintendent René Rovtar confirmed the teacher would no longer work in the district.
The substitute teacher’s identity has not been revealed.
Ms Rovtar previously said she was “troubled and disheartened by this incident”.
She explained that she understood the importance of “childhood wonder”, and posted on Twitter to reassure students of her own convictions. www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46462356
C. Wright Mills Award
The deadline to nominate books for the 2018 C. Wright Mills Award is December 15, 2018.
ELIGIBILITY
Nominations are now open for the 2018 C. Wright Mills Award. Members of the Society are encouraged to submit letters of nomination for this prestigious annual award. Self nominations are acceptable. Edited volumes, textbooks, fiction and self-published works are not eligible. Eligible books must be first edition (not a reprint or later edition) and bear a 2018 copyright date. Exceptions may be made for a book bearing a 2017 copyright, but that was not released until 2018 for the first time.
The C. Wright Mills Award, established in 1964, is made annually and carries with it a stipend of $1,000 for the author(s) of the winning book. The deadline for the 2018 award nominations is December 15, 2018. The 2018 award will be presented at the 69th Annual Meeting in New York, NY, August 9-11, 2019.
CRITERIA
C. Wright Mills wrote in The Power Elite that: “Only when mind has an autonomous basis, independent of power, but powerfully related to it, can mind exert its force in the shaping of human affairs. This is democratically possible only when there exists a free and knowledgeable public, to which [people] of knowledge may address themselves, and to which [people] of power are truly responsible.” Consistent with Mills’ dedication to a search for a sophisticated understanding of the individual and society, the award will be given for that book with a 2018 copyright date that most effectively:
1) critically addresses an issue of contemporary public importance,
2) brings to the topic a fresh, imaginative perspective,
3) advances social scientific understanding of the topic,
4) displays a theoretically informed view and empirical orientation,
5) evinces quality in style of writing,
6) explicitly or implicitly contains implications for courses of action
Please submit online nominations, including a cover letter explaining how the nominated book addresses each of the criteria for the award. www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/259/C_Wright_Mills_Award/
VIDEO: Visalia teacher arrested for forcibly cutting kid’s hair in class while singing ‘Star Spangled Banner’
A Visalia high school teacher is in jail after forcibly cutting a student’s hair in class. Video surfaced Wednesday showing 52-year-old Margaret Gieszinger chasing students with scissors between desks while belting out the “Star Spangled Banner” at University Preparatory High School.
It was first period inside Gieszinger’s chemistry class and a bizarre chain of events is about to take off. Students say the teacher came into class with a pair of scissors declaring it was hair cut day.
“We think she’s going to try to be funny and be like ‘Oh did you really think I was going to cut his hair?’ But she did cut a hair off, and she started singing the Star Spangled Banner and she was singing it really loudly as she ceremoniously tossed a chunk of hair behind her,” said a student who wanted to remain anonymous. abc30.com/video-visalia-teacher-arrested-for-forcibly-cutting-kids-hair-in-class/4843682/
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
The Remnants of an Army 1879 Elizabeth Butler (Lady Butler) 1846-1933 Presented by Sir Henry Tate 1897 www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N01553%5B/caption%5D
New CENTCOM head on Afghanistan mission: ‘I don’t know how long it will take’
A day after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Monday called for the international community to help end the war in Afghanistan, the incoming head of U.S. Central Command reluctantly acknowledged to lawmakers on Tuesday that he has no idea when U.S. troops may fully withdraw from Afghanistan.
But he insisted the 17-year conflict remains critical to national security, and that the price in both dollars and American lives is still justified.
“What we are doing is preventing the homeland from being attacked,” said Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., the nominee to lead CENTCOM, in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “That’s the clear, tangible effort we can honor (fallen troops) for.”
His comments come on the heels of increased questioning from civilian leaders about the ongoing mission overseas, which topped $45 billion in costs and claimed 14 American lives this year alone. That comes despite coalition forces officially ending combat operations in the country four years ago, and transitioning to a training role.
Lawmakers on the committee noted that despite the work, the Afghan government has actually lost territory in recent years, as Taliban and other insurgent forces reassert themselves in less populated areas.
And McKenzie said that those security forces are still heavily dependent on coalition support for the combat missions they are conducting throughout the country.
“They’re not there yet,” he said. “If we left precipitously right now, they would not be able to successfully defend their country. www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/12/04/new-centcom-head-on-afghanistan-mission-i-dont-know-how-long-it-will-take/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Socialflow+MAR&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR3UXyV4MCWDKxNcR9pdhIIJahwZPGrxnjPYt0ZQ4Huzg45acR_xtCKo98I
Kipling:
The Pentagon is reviewing the special operations community after a series of high-profile scandals
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This fall has been rough for headlines involving special operations troops.
Two Navy SEALs and two Marine Raiders face murder charges in the death of a Green Beret last year in Mali. Meanwhile, a Navy SEAL is under investigation for murdering an Iraqi detainee, and a dozen of his colleagues could be called as witnesses.
Now, after U.S. Special Operations Command has been entrenched in the Global War on Terror for going on two decades, Congress is calling on a Defense Department review of the entire organization, from its operational load to ― notably ― the state of its professionalism and ethics programs.
The most recent National Defense Authorization Act points to “growing congressional concern with misconduct, ethics, and professionalism,” according to a Congressional Research Service report published in late October.
“That review is ongoing right now,” a defense official told Army Times on Wednesday.
Senior leaders within the Army have also taken notice, pushing out guidance ahead of DoD’s official report back to Congress. www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/12/05/the-pentagon-is-reviewing-the-special-operations-community-after-a-series-of-high-profile-scandals
The No. 1 mishap killer of Marines this year: car and motorcycle accidents
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Valuable heart and years of Marine noncommissioned officer experience was taken from the Corps in November, from vehicle accidents that claimed the lives of three Marines.
Two motorcycle accidents and Marine struck by a car resulted in the deaths two Marines assigned to the Corps’ air wings and a drill instructor aboard the recruit depot in San Diego.
The Corps says that car and motorcycle accidents were the No. 1 mishap killer of Marines, accounting for nearly 60 percent of all mishap deaths across the Corps in 2018.
On Nov. 16, Sgt. Gary G. Wilson, a drill instructor at the San Diego recruit depot, was killed when his motorcycle collided with another vehicle.
The California Highway Patrol reported the 33-year-old drill instructor deceased at the scene, a press release said. www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/12/06/the-no-1-killer-of-mishap-killer-of-marines-this-year-car-and-motorcycle-accidents
Investigation blames Air Force and Navy for systemic failures in fatal Marine Corps C-130 crash that killed 16
The horrific KC-130T plane crash that killed 15 Marines and a sailor last summer was caused by a deteriorating propeller blade that was corroded when it entered an Air Force maintenance depot in 2011, but workers there failed to fix it and sent it back to the fleet unrepaired.
This neglect allowed a routine corrosion problem to metastasize into a crack that went undetected for years until a mundane cross-country transport mission ended in flames.
On July 10, 2017, that worn-down blade finally failed and came loose from the propeller 20,000 feet above Mississippi farmland, as the Marine Corps Reserve plane was en route to California under the call sign “Yanky 72.”
It shot into the side of the aging aircraft, one of the last 130Ts still flying, a model set to be retired in the next few years.
The blade’s impact set off a cataclysm that killed everyone on board and left the aircraft in three pieces, creating inconsolable heartache for 16 military families and an inferno of wreckage scattered for miles. www.militarytimes.com/2018/12/05/investigation-blames-air-force-and-navy-for-systemic-failures-in-fatal-marine-corps-c-130-crash-that-killed-16/
U.S. Military Says It Has a “Light Footprint” in Africa. These Documents Show a Vast Network of Bases.
The U.S. military has long insisted that it maintains a “light footprint” in Africa, and there have been reports of proposed drawdowns in special operations forces and closures of outposts on the continent, due to a 2017 ambush in Niger and an increasing focus on rivals like China and Russia. But through it all, U.S. Africa Command has fallen short of providing concrete information about its bases on the continent, leaving in question the true scope of the American presence there.
Documents obtained from AFRICOM by The Intercept, via the Freedom of Information Act, however, offer a unique window onto the sprawling network of U.S. military outposts in Africa, including previously undisclosed or unconfirmed sites in hotspots like Libya, Niger, and Somalia. The Pentagon has also told The Intercept that troop reductions in Africa will be modest and phased-in over several years and that no outposts are expected to close as a result of the personnel cuts.
According to a 2018 briefing by AFRICOM science adviser Peter E. Teil, the military’s constellation of bases includes 34 sites scattered across the continent, with high concentrations in the north and west as well as the Horn of Africa. These regions, not surprisingly, have also seen numerous U.S. drone attacks and low-profile commando raids in recent years. For example, Libya — the site of drone and commando missions, but for which President Donald Trump said he saw no U.S. military role just last year — is nonetheless home to three previously undisclosed outposts. theintercept.com/2018/12/01/u-s-military-says-it-has-a-light-footprint-in-africa-these-documents-show-a-vast-network-of-bases/
Microsoft Military Affairs
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The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
US trade deficit rises to highest level since 2008
The U.S. trade deficit rose nearly $1 billion in October, reaching the highest level in a decade as imports outpaced declining exports, according to federal data released Thursday. The gap in value between what the U.S. sells to and buys from foreign nations rose to $55.5 billion in October, the fifth consecutive monthly increase in the country’s trade deficit in goods and services, according to the Commerce Department.
October’s trade deficit was the biggest since the gap reached $60.1 billion in October 2008. The deficit, a crucial focus of President Trump’s protectionist trade agenda, has risen 11.4 percent since October 2017.
Trump has sought massive reductions to the trade deficit, which he uses as a barometer for the fairness of the country’s trade terms with other nations. Economists consider the gap important, but insufficient to paint the full picture of U.S. trade relations.
While the trade deficit reflects the U.S’s heavy reliance on cheaper foreign imports, it fails to consider other trade venues where the country makes a surplus.
Trump has attempted to narrow the deficit through tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods, and has also targeted imported steel and aluminum. China, the European Union, Canada and Mexico have responded with import taxes on U.S. agricultural goods, plunging dozens of family farms into severe financial danger. thehill.com/policy/finance/420028-us-trade-deficit-rises-to-highest-level-since-2008?fbclid=IwAR2rBPUS-GdYMbu_-YFa2iCysRZt0yKIqY8IB7yAyOLHpWEJSdOi5cbs1PA
As California wildfires displace low-income residents in wine country, tech industry continues to bolster Bay Area wealth
California’s booming tech industry continues to pour increasing wealth into the San Francisco Bay Area. But there is evidence that destructive wildfires could worsen some of the inequities that the region has long grappled with.
Data released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau found that while Silicon Valley enjoys some of the nation’s highest incomes, areas of wine country that were devastated by wildfire now have some of the lowest poverty rates in the U.S.
A potential factor in that drop? Homes lost to the 2015 Valley fire forced the poorest residents to leave the Napa area entirely, according to analysts.
“Where it burned in Napa was an area that was not … filled with individuals that are well off,” said Walter Schwarm, demographer at the state Department of Finance. “Natural disaster is a transformative force. Disasters tend to change the makeup of the population.”
The data come as California grapples with a new era of ever more frequent and destructive wildfires — a trend that has collided head-on with a critical lack of housing in many areas of the state.
Most recently, the Camp fire in Butte County displaced tens of thousands of people in and around the town of Paradise, a primarily agricultural area of the Sierra Nevada foothills. Altogether, an unprecedented 21,000 homes across Northern California have been lost in the last 14 months to fire. The disaster has triggered a sharp increase in housing costs as the region struggles to absorb those who were left homeless. Many of those who fled the fire are now facing the prospect of having to leave the area.
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which is conducted every five years, examined nationwide trends in income, poverty and computer and internet use from 2013 to 2017. Among the findings released this week was that four of California’s major metropolitan areas had some of the highest median household incomes in the nation. Three of them are located in the Bay Area. www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-income-poverty-census-20181205-story.html
Qualcomm laying off more workers in San Diego, North Carolina to cut costs
qualcomm continues to shed workers in San Diego and elsewhere as part of a pledge to shave $1 billion in annual costs.
The cellular technology giant confirmed Friday that it was cutting 269 jobs in California and North Carolina. It disclosed the layoffs in Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) notices filed with the employment agencies in both states.
“While this activity impacts a very small percentage of our workforce, we know a workforce reduction of any size affects not only those employees who are part of the reduction, but their families, co-workers and the community,” said a company spokesperson in a statement.
In San Diego, this latest round of layoffs brings the total number of local workers let go by Qualcomm this year to 1,511.
The most recent job cuts are occurring in part at the company’s Qualcomm Life division, which provides wireless connectivity systems for the medical industry.
“As part of this activity, Qualcomm has reduced headcount in the 2net platform within Qualcomm Life, which will focus on servicing existing contracts,” the company said.
Qualcomm has been exploring the sale of a majority stake in Qualcomm Life, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke with the Union Tribune in June.
The company planned to retain minority ownership stake in the wholly owned subsidiary. A spokeswoman declined to comment on Friday.
In North Carolina, Qualcomm is making additional job cuts to its Raleigh data center engineer team.
The company has scaled back a previous effort to build chips for powerful computer servers – which would have challenged Intel’s stronghold in the data center semiconductor market.
Qualcomm’s data center business is now concentrated on an existing joint venture in China and on chips to power artificial intelligence and other computing tasks at the edge of 5G wireless networks.
In April, Qualcomm slashed 1,231 jobs in San Diego and another 269 workers in Santa Clara/San Jose. In June the chipmaker let go of 61 employees in San Diego and 241 in North Carolina. And in September Qualcomm laid off 94 workers in San Diego.
Qualcomm promised to reduce expenses as part of its efforts to fend off a hostile takeover from rival chipmaker Broadcom. The move aimed to appease frustrated shareholders who were siding with Broadcom.
In March, the Trump administration derailed Broadcom’s bid over worries that a weakened Qualcomm would cede U.S. technology leadership in upcoming 5G networks to China.
As of Sept. 30, Qualcomm employed 35,400 full-time, part-time and temporary employees globally – including employees added last year when its RF360 joint venture was brought in-house, according to its annual report.
Its workforce decreased by 2,400 during its 2018 fiscal year, mostly due to layoffs under the cost cutting plan.
Qualcomm’s shares ended trading Friday down nearly 2 percent at $55.99 on the Nasdaq exchange. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/technology/sd-fi-qualcomm-newlayoffs-20181207-story.html
Sins of the Fathers
… July, a 62-year-old white man named Frank Earnest, one of the country’s most ardent defenders of Confederate monuments, traveled 200 miles from his Virginia home to Washington, D.C., and got in line at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. You could say he stood out among the throng of visitors, most of them black. At 6-foot-3 and 300 pounds, Frank sported a thatch of chin whiskers straight from a daguerreotype — an ample goatee reminiscent of that of Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett, a rebel hero of his. In the lobby, as he emptied his pockets at a metal detector, I waited for the attendant, a cordial woman, to notice his key fob, bearing the Confederate flag and the legend “Don’t Mess With Dixie.” www.washingtonpost.com/news/magazine/wp/2018/11/28/feature/the-confederacy-was-built-on-slavery-how-can-so-many-southern-whites-still-believe-otherwise/?utm_term=.43862691eac8
www.facebook.com/Murakush/videos/563456420780040/?t=29
Ilitches pulled out of deal to help a homeless shelter move after failing to fulfill other promises
When Detroit taxpayers forked over hundreds of millions of dollars to help the billionaire Ilitch family build a new Red Wings arena, the family made a lot of promise they failed to keep.
Their contractors didn’t hire enough Detroiters; the family let more than a dozen large buildings languish instead of renovating them into apartments; and instead of creating revived pocket neighborhoods, they built parking lots and parking garages.
Today we learned the family walked away from a verbal deal to pay $1.5 million to help a Cass Corridor homeless shelter move into a new and bigger space so that developers tied to the Ilitches could build pricey lofts, The Detroit News reports.
For two years, the family’s Olympia Development had been negotiating with the nonprofit Neighborhood Service Organization to move the agency’s Tumaini Center on Third Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The agency provides numerous services to struggling people.
Under a verbal agreement reached about a year ago, Olympia Development offered to buy the homeless shelter as part of a $1.5 million deal. The money would help the NSO buy a new facility on the east side.
In early November, Olympia Development walked away from the deal. motorcitymuckraker.com/2018/12/04/ilitches-pulled-deal-help-homeless-shelter-move-failing-fulfill-promises/?fbclid=IwAR2lMS1-HAWSLw7fi7s4GhJMpJCy0FEHrF36YKZldn16LF4t5wSDo9Vaf64
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason
www.facebook.com/motorcitymuckraker/videos/667053840358648/?t=96
France: HS Student Supporters of Uprising Rounded Up:
www.facebook.com/philippe.berard.121/videos/2354231101318859/?t=18
Six Detroit-area doctors charged in $500M opioid scheme
Six doctors were charged in an unsealed indictment Thursday with cheating Medicare and Medicaid out of almost $500 million and fueling the nation’s opioid epidemic by illegally prescribing more than 13 million doses of prescription pain medication.
The dollars and drugs involved make the alleged health care fraud conspiracy one of the largest in Michigan history, and one of the largest nationwide.
The scheme was focused within three pain clinics in Macomb County. They are The Pain Center USA in Warren and Eastpointe, and Interventional Pain Center in Warren.
The three clinics were owned and operated by Dr. Rajendra Bothra, 77, of Bloomfield Hills, a surgeon, humanitarian and politician. In 1999, Bothra was presented with the highest civilian honor bestowed in India, known as the Padmashri.
Bothra was cited for humanitarian efforts in India, which included educating people about AIDS, the dangers of tobacco and alcohol, and fundraising efforts for medical equipment.
Bothra’s clinics “sought to bill insurance companies for the maximum number of services and procedures possible with no regard to the patients’ needs,” prosecutors alleged.
“The damage that opioid distribution has done to our community and to the United States as a whole has been devastating,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said in a statement Thursday. “Healthcare professionals who prey on patients who are addicted to opioids in order to line their pockets is particularly egregious.” www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/macomb-county/2018/12/06/feds-allege-six-detroit-area-doctors-fueled-opioid-crisis-health-care-fraud-conspiracy/2225239002/
www.facebook.com/CTTVbyWJ/videos/215372088866876/?t=32
Zionist Spielberg: More Important To Release Schindler’s List Now Than In 1993; Genocide Follows “Collective Hate”
Filmmaker Steven Spielberg said he believes now is “the most important time” to re-release the Academy-award winning film ‘Schindler’s List’. The prolific director said that now is even more important than in 1993, which was 48 years after the Holocaust.
“I think this is maybe the most important time to re-release this film,” Spielberg said in an interview. “Possibly now is an even more important time to re-release ‘Schindler’s List’ than in 1993 when it was initially released. I think there is more at stake today than even back then.”
‘Schindler’s List,’ the story of Oskar Schindler and the 1,200 Jews he saved, was a critical and box office hit and went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars. The movie is being re-released for its 25th anniversary. There are over 8,500 Schindlerjuden (Schindler’s Jews) alive today.
Spielberg told NBC ‘Nightly News’ anchor Lestor Holt hate has become “less parenthetical today” given the increase of anti-Semitic attacks. In an interview, when asked what he hopes people take away from the film he starkly warned genocide follows “collective hate.”
Against Schindler’s List!
Nationwide free showings of “Schindler’s List,” without big commercial interruptions began in 1997, when the Ford Motor Company sponsored the event. Henry Ford was a fascist, a significant contributor to Nazi coffers and ideology.
This deepened the paradox set up on 24 March, 1994 when the fictional “Schindler’s List” was used by the most popular television news program in the U.S., “60 Minutes”, as proof that the Shoah indeed occurred (in rebuttal to “revisionist historians” who argue that the Shoah is a hoax). The movie is based on a novel, historical fiction drawn on real events.
“Schindler’s List,” opens with no historical background. We are simply in the midst of the construction of the war against the Jews. How did the Nazi’s come to power? Why were they so popular? Who fought back? How was fascism defeated? All of these questions are silenced. Instead, we meet Schindler: Nazi-about to be a hero.
Contrary to the fictional movie, Schindler was no angel of mercy. He was an early volunteer to the fascist movement. He was a Nazi profiteer, never needing to be dragged along. Against the film’s claim, “The list is the ultimate good,” not all of “Schindler’s Jews” were survivors. In one SS sweep, Schindler turned over 700 of them. They were sent to a death camp and killed. This created openings on the famous list. Desperate victims had to bribe their way onto it, paying the accountant Stern. The central belief of the survivors in the film, get on the list and get saved, “the list is life,”is not true.
While Schindler’s munitions factory was mostly dysfunctional, he simply purchased black market munitions and sold them to the Germans, hardly the act of sabotage presented in the film. It is clear that for “his” Jews, Schindler created not only competition when collective resistance was key, but also a false sense of shelter which, in turn, separated them from potential allies and made effective mass resistance less possible.
Schindler did not become a list-maker, an apparent ally of Jews, until after the battle of Stalingrad, the turning point of World War II, when every thinking German knew defeat was at hand. Schindler did not begin to act in earnest until matters were even more desperate for the Nazis, mid-1944, after Nazi Field-Marshall Rommel had committed suicide.
At war’s end, Schindler, disguised as a concentration camp victim and accompanied by friends, fled west–as did many war criminals–fearing arrest by the Soviets. He continued his dissolute womanizing alcoholic life, made yearly trips to Israel to collect accolades and demand money, and died in 1974. At least some of “his” Jews felt the loss of another Nazi was no loss at all. richgibson.com/SchindlerListCrit2001.htm
Swastika painted on Poway home
detectives Monday were investigating the painting of a swastika on the side of a Poway home on Sunday night, several hours following the start of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah.
The incident was reported about 11:20 p.m. by the resident of the home on Ilene Street, in a neighborhood south of Poway Road off Carriage Road, Poway station Lt. Christopher Collier said. Two men were spotted leaving the immediate area, he said. No further descriptions were available.
Collier said some sort of oily substance was spilled on a vehicle in the driveway, but was not ignited.
The incident is being treated as a vandalism/hate crime, he said.
In response to the incident, approximately 80 residents held a “All for One and One for All” candlelight prayer and song vigil Tuesday night at Poway and Community roads. Passing motorists honked in support for the gathering, attended by members of several religious organizations. A member of Chabad of Poway brought a large menorah, which was lit to celebrate the second day of Hanukkah. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/pomerado-news/news/local-news/poway/sd-cm-pow-news-hate-crime-20181203-story.html
Solidarity for Never
Unions: Michigan GOP recertification bill ‘a nightmare’ for workplace
A fast-tracked Senate Republican plan would require Michigan public employee union members to vote every two years on if they want to maintain or disband their union, a move critics argue could cause “chaos” in schools, police and fire departments.
Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, personally sponsored the union election bill and said it would ensure that public-sector workers have the opportunity to “affirm that they still want their union to represent them” by requiring an election every other year.
If less than 50 percent of members vote to recertify, the union certification would be ended. Employee contracts bargained by the union would continue until they expire, except for any provisions related to union responsibilities.
Michigan law already allows public workers to push for union decertification if a majority of members want to do so, said Julie Rowe of the Michigan chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. Mandatory recertification votes would create “unnecessary turmoil in public workplaces,” she said . www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/12/05/michigan-gop-union-certification-nightmare/2214226002/
Coppers vs Firefighters
The Detroit police chief warned the president of the firefighters union last week through television cameras to “stay in his lane” after the union boss complained of dangerously poor response times by police.
We were all left to wonder what that meant. Now we know.
Internal Affairs detectives requested Mike Nevin, the president of the Detroit Firefighters Association to present himself on Wednesday to be read his rights on possible obstruction of justice charges. The union boss, through his lawyer, politely told the police to kiss his ass.
Nevin’s lawyer calls it a political hit-and-run worthy of Nixon Administration dirty tricks.
“The police are trying to silence a public servant who is blowing the whistle,” said attorney Mike Rataj. “The brass is lying about response times and my client is trying to protect his members and the public.”
Stranded on the street
It all began last week when Nevin called out Chief of Police James Craig as a showboat in a patent leather cap after four firefighters were stranded in the middle of an active homicide scene with no police available after midnight Nov. 23. [Background is here.]
“He tells you the people are safe,” Nevin said then. “It’s bullshit. Take it from me: we don’t have enough police to protect emergency workers much less the public. And that’s not the cops’ fault. That’s management’s fault. He can dance in as many videos as he wants to. It doesn’t change the facts on the streets.” (Watch YouTube video.)
The chief struck back with a menacing little TV sound bite pointed at Nevin: “Stay in your lane.”
Now, Internal Affairs investigators, who report directly to Chief Craig, have opened a highly unusual criminal investigation into a public safety union president who is not suspected of stealing or accepting bribes. Internal Affairs does not comment on ongoing cases. www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/21160/leduff_a_political_hit_and_run_union_boss_could_be_charged
Spy versus Spy
When the FBI Spent Decades Hunting for a Soviet Spy on Its Staff
A tip provided by a double-agent for the KGB set off one of the most self-destructive mole hunts in FBI history
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Kulak was taking a huge risk simply by entering the FBI office. The building was on East 69th Street at the corner of Third Avenue—just three blocks from the Soviet U.N. mission on Park Avenue at 68th Street, which provided cover for dozens of KGB agents. “Aren’t you worried they may be watching the FBI building?” an FBI agent asked.
“No,” Kulak replied. “All of our people are out covering a meeting with your guy, Dick.”
Your guy, Dick.
The Russian was clearly saying that the KGB had a mole inside the FBI. With those three words, he set off an earthquake inside the bureau that reverberated for decades—and remains unsettled even now.
Kulak became the FBI’s Bureau Source 10, with the code name FEDORA. (Behind his back, agents called him Fatso.) The FBI assigned the code name UNSUB Dick, “UNSUB” being the term for “unknown subject,” to the mole that Kulak said was hidden inside the bureau.
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Kulak had scarcely left the FBI building that evening before the bureau launched a mole hunt that “shook the foundations of the bureau,” says David Major, who spent 24 years as an FBI counterintelligence agent and was the first bureau official assigned to the National Security Council in the White House. Over the course of three decades, hundreds of agents’ careers fell under the shadow of the investigation.
In terms of corrosive effect, Major cites only one comparable event in U.S. intelligence history: the notorious mole hunt James Jesus Angleton conducted within the CIA, which paralyzed the agency’s Soviet operations and destroyed or damaged the careers of as many as 50 loyal CIA officers between 1961 and 1974, when Angleton was fired. “You know how Angleton ripped apart the agency,” Major, who retired from the FBI in 1994, told me. “Well, the same thing happened to the bureau. Dick ripped the bureau apart. But it never became public.”
I first learned of UNSUB Dick while researching my 2002 book, Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI’s Robert Hanssen Betrayed America. When I approached Major back then about the hunt for Dick, he replied, “You make my hair stand on end when you say that name. How do you know about UNSUB Dick?” and declined to discuss the matter any further. But with the passage of time, Major—and several others—recently agreed to talk about it.
Read more: www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-the-fbi-spent-decades-hunting-for-a-soviet-spy-on-its-staff-15561/#v1Y5bmC7OZU1ZaPL.99Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! bit.ly/1cGUiGv
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The Magical Mystery Tour
Names of 11 predator priests will be kept secret, Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules
The names of 11 priests cited in the bombshell Pennsylvania grand jury report on child sex abuse will be kept secret to protect their reputations, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Monday.
The grand jury report, released in mid-August after a two-year investigation, identified credible records of more than 1,000 children being abused by 301 priests in six of the eight Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania. The 11 priests were kept anonymous because they contested the allegations against them as false. The Supreme Court decision said identifying these priests would raise due process issues. news.vice.com/en_us/article/7xyw5y/names-of-11-predator-priests-will-be-kept-secret-pennsylvania-supreme-court-rules?utm_medium=vicenewsfacebook&fbclid=IwAR2sh-RSjYMucw-iDfoLC-3pCLdleU1-dMZemxA9oPSzcuh7zLoq6q3db2s
L.A. Archdiocese reveals list of 54 clergy accused of abusing children
For the first time in a decade, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on Thursday updated its list of clergy accused of molesting children, addressing renewed outcry about how the Catholic Church responds to abuse allegations.
“We owe it to the victim-survivors to be fully transparent in listing the names of those who perpetrate this abuse,” Archbishop Jose H. Gomez said in a statement in releasing the list of 54 names.
For nearly two decades, the archdiocese has been roiled by allegations that onetime church leaders mishandled priest abuse cases, sometimes moving clergy suspected of wrongdoing to other parishes rather than punishing them and informing law enforcement. The L.A. Archdiocese paid a record $740 million in various settlements to victims and had vowed to better protect its church members. Gomez succeeded longtime Cardinal Roger Mahony, who faced strong criticism for his handling of the scandal.
Advocates for abuse victims said the action was largely symbolic and that there was much more the church could be doing to better protect children and help victims. They also noted that the California Catholic Conference spent more than $86,000 to fight a bill — vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown in October — that would have given survivors of childhood sexual assault more time to sue those who failed to stop their abuse.
The decision to disclose names of accused clergy has been made by bishops across the United States after the release in August of a Pennsylvania report, which revealed a decades-long cover-up of child sex abuse involving more than 1,000 victims and hundreds of priests. Dioceses in San Diego, San Jose, Orange County and San Bernardino have also released names of accused clergy this year.
Of the 54 names, previously undisclosed by L.A. church leaders, the vast majority were clergy members accused of wrongdoing before 2008, the last time the archdiocese updated the list. Twenty-seven are dead. …
The revised list extends the roster of alleged predator priests established by a landmark legal case concluded 11 years ago. In July 2007, the diocese agreed to pay $660 million to settle claims of sexual abuse perpetrated by more than 220 priests, teachers and other church employees.
In this latest iteration of its report, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles decided to broaden its standard for which names could be disclosed. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/california/la-me-ln-archdioecese-accused-priest-list-20181206-story.html
Our Lady of Guadalupe parade fills downtown
Sage filled the air, colorful costumes adorned the crowd and traditional Mexican music blasted over speakers downtown Sunday as more than 1,000 people filled the streets in the annual procession to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe.
For more than 40 years, the procession has been a fixture in San Diego, although the routes often change. This year, the participants started at San Diego City College, walked down B Street and up Third Avenue to Saint Joseph Cathedral.
Mexican flags were wrapped around vehicles and most participants wore colorful clothing, especially women with embroidered traditional Mexican dresses. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/religion/sd-me-guadalupe-parade-20181202-story.html
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
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Curtains for the Clintons
…I’m looking around Scotiabank Arena, the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and it’s a depressing sight. It’s two-for-the-price-of-one in half the arena. The hockey rink is half curtained off, but even with that, organizers are scrambling at the last minute to cordon off more sections behind thick black curtains, they say due to a lack of sales. I paid $177 weeks in advance. (I passed on the pricey meet-and-greet option.) On the day of the event, some unsold tickets are slashed to single digits.
I get reassigned to another section as the Clintons’ audience space shrinks. But even with all the herding, I’m still looking at large swaths of empty seats — and I cringe at the thought that the Clintons will look out and see that, too. It was only four years ago, after all, that Canadians were clamoring to buy tickets to see the woman who seemed headed for history.
It’s a sad contrast with the sold-out boffo book tour of Michelle Obama, who’s getting a lot more personal for the premium prices. But introspection has never been within the Clintons’ range.
I can’t fathom why the Clintons would make like aging rock stars and go on a tour of Canada and the U.S. at a moment when Democrats are hoping to break the stranglehold of their cloistered, superannuated leadership and exult in a mosaic of exciting new faces.
What is the point? It’s not inspirational. It’s not for charity. They’re not raising awareness about a cause, like Al Gore with global warming. They’re only raising awareness about the Clintons.
It can’t be the money at this point. Have they even spent all the Goldman gold yet? Do they want to swim in their cash like Scrooge McDuck? www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/opinion/sunday/hillary-bill-clinton-tour.html
So Long
A Brief History of Everything That Happened Because of George H.W. Bush’s Insecurity
He was called a wimp. He overcompensated. People went to jail and died.
It’s become fashionable in some circles this week to denounce the newly buried George. H.W. Bush as a war criminal, but that seems gratuitous. After all, from a technical standpoint, what American president isn’t a war criminal? It’s probably a short list.
Thanks to the invasion(s) of Iraq, the bombing of civilians in places like Cambodia and Laos, Guantanamo Bay/torture, the overthrow of numerous democratically elected foreign regime, and support of repressive states like Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, “war criminal” is kind of a weak accusation to throw at a commander-in-chief.
We’ve had a few presidents that would have proudly tattooed the term on their pecs or had it emblazoned on their limo flags. In this sense, George H.W. “Poppy” Bush didn’t particularly stand out, compared to his son least of all.
If anything, the defining characteristic of the elder Bush is that he didn’t really have one — at least, not as a politician. There’s evidence that as a Navy pilot he showed considerable bravery and ingenuity. He came from a generation when children of the very rich still fought in the wars their parents arranged to enter, and Poppy flew real combat planes by the age of 19, escaping probable death by cannibalism in one remarkable episode.
He also supposedly had a legit 11 handicap, which isn’t bad for a president. Only Jack Kennedy and, oddly enough, Donald Trump are said to have better scores. (Trump is actually a crack golfer despite an even-for-presidents bad rep for cheating.)
For most of his political life, George Herbert Walker Bush was basically the unimaginative proxy for other powerful interests. He was always the front man for the fellas at the club, be it Skull and Bones or the CIA (he retains the dubious distinction of being the only spy head to become president). He excelled in this brute-behind-the-scenes role.
But once fashioning himself as something other than Ronald Reagan’s wingman, politics demanded he offer the national public glimpses of his personality. Sadly, he was president before he found out he didn’t really have one. www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/george-h-w-bush-wimp-766076/amp/