Rouge Forum Dispatch: Let’s Turn to the Purpose of “law” in a Capitalist Empire
October 7th, 2018 / Author: rgibsonWe Say Fight Back!
The state is nothing but an instrument of oppression of one class by another–no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy.
Friedrich Engels, preface to Kark Marx, The Civil War in France, 1891
Engels says:
“The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it‘the reality of the ethical idea’, ‘the image and reality of reason’, as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of ‘order’; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state.”
L.A. and Long Beach port truckers and warehouse workers begin strike
Truck drivers and warehouse workers who serve the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach began striking Monday morning in front of warehouses serving the ports, protesting the classification of drivers as independent contractors.
A primary picket line formed at 7 a.m. in front of XPO Logistics Inc. facilities in Commerce and San Diego and an NFI Industries Inc. location in Wilmington, said Barbara Maynard, spokeswoman for the Justice for Port Drivers campaign that is supported by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
By 7:40 a.m., workers were also starting to demonstrate at customer and distributor warehouses, including Toyota’s facility in Long Beach, Puma in Torrance and Amazon in Moreno Valley, Maynard said.
The strike has had no effect so far on cargo flow, said Rachel Campbell, spokeswoman for the Port of Los Angeles. XPO Logistics said it didn’t expect any effect on customers or day-to-day operations.
The strike, which is expected to last through Wednesday, is the 16th by the port truck drivers in the last five years. The union contends that the truck drivers have been wrongly classified as independent contractors, rather than employees, and are not paid the wages they are owed.
Cherry Hill, N.J.-based NFI said in a statement that the Teamsters were “looking to force representation” on drivers who “want to continue to be their own bosses and run their own small businesses.”
“We respect their desire to operate as independent business people and not as employees of our companies or the hundreds of other trucking companies that are currently looking to hire employee drivers,” NFI said in the statement. www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-port-truckers-strike-20181001-story.html
Detroit students strike for safe water on Count Day (capitalist schools count $s)
Two dozen students gathered in a Midtown common room instead of attending classes Wednesday — Michigan’s fall Count Day — to demand safe drinking water throughout the Detroit Public Schools Community District.
The students gathered at Cass Corridor Commons for classes on the impact of lead and copper poisoning, how to test water at home, natural remedies and a history of student activism. The #DoWeCount strike demanded city-wide water testing, support for wraparound services for those with poisoning and the attention of officials to act now. …
In the meantime, schools are using water coolers, which will cost the district $200,000 for the next several months.
The students said they were forced to act on Count Day after their voices weren’t heard at a series of meetings held by Vitti.
“We’re given the runaround, told to be quiet, to stay in our places and to let them work,” said Imani Sharp, 17, a senior at Mumford High School. “We have no problem with the hydration systems if they can show statistics about how they work, and the water coolers aren’t a solution if they’re always empty.”
According to the Michigan Department of Education, students with excused absences on Count Day can still be accounted for within 30 days. Students with unexcused absences who attend school within 10 days also will be counted. The count also applies to suspended students who attend within 45 calendar days of Count Day.
DPSCD receives $7,900 for each student counted
Vets opposing Miramar Air show make bold statement
Veterans protesting Miramar Air Show as ‘Disneyland of War’”
Stanford University to remove slaver Junipero Serra name from buildings, mall
Stanford University announced plans Thursday to remove Fr. Junipero Serra’s name from two buildings and a key mall on campus, but will retain the name of the founder of the California mission system on other campus features.
In a release, the university noted that while Serra was the “founder and clearly identified leader of the California mission system, which played a role in the founding of modern California,” the legacy of the Roman Catholic priest includes the “harmful and violent impacts of the mission system on Native Americans, including through forced labor, forced living arrangements and corporal punishment.”
Stanford plans to change the name of Serra Mall, the pedestrian and bicycle mall at the front of campus that serves as the university’s official address, to “Jane Stanford Way” in honor of the university’s co-founder. The university will soon begin the process of seeking approval from Santa Clara County and the U.S. Postal Service to rename Serra Mall. www.mercurynews.com/2018/09/14/stanford-to-remove-junipero-serra-name-from-buildings-mall/
Shut it Down!
Five percent of all U.S. workers in K-12 public education walked out on strike this spring. It’s by far the biggest spike in teacher strikes in a quarter-century.
The strikers included educators from North Carolina (123,000), Arizona (81,000), Colorado (63,000), Oklahoma (45,000), West Virginia (35,000), Kentucky (26,000), and Jersey City (3,600).
These figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks “work stoppages” (strikes and lockouts) involving 1,000 or more workers and lasting one or more shifts. The agency gathers its data from public news sources, such as newspapers and the Internet.
The data for January to June of this year show that 376,800 K-12 public educators participated in big strikes. We didn’t include a higher-education strike by 53,000 AFSCME members at the University of California. www.labornotes.org/blogs/2018/10/teacher-strike-wave-numbers
Unionized Judges and Public Defenders Demand Due Process for Immigrants
Why have New York City public defenders been walking out of the courts in the middle of the day to hold spirited demonstrations in support of their clients?
The outcry began last November when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were reported to lurk in the vicinity of the courts, targeting people as they entered or exited court proceedings.
Legal Aid client Genaro Rojas Hernandez was meeting with his lawyer in Brooklyn when ICE agents grabbed him.
The arrest sparked an impromptu walkout by dozens of Legal Aid Society’s public defenders, members of Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2325, to demand that the state agency that runs the courts must stop cooperating with ICE.
Legal and immigrant rights advocates have continued the fight ever since. Two hundred lawyers and allies rallied in March, insisting that ICE presence in public courts can intimidate and prevent New Yorkers from showing up to proceedings and thus interfere with equal access to adequate representation. truthout.org/articles/unionized-judges-and-public-defenders-demand-due-process-for-immigrants/
Scramble The Seawolves- The Latest lies from Corporate Not-so Public Broadcasting about the imperialist wars on Vietnam
www.pbs.org/video/scramble-the-seawolves-yacuzi/
China’s Leaders Confront an Unlikely Foe: Ardent Young Communists
They were exactly what China’s best universities were supposed to produce: young men and women steeped in the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party.
They read Marx, Lenin and Mao and formed student groups to discuss the progress of socialism. They investigated the treatment of the campus proletariat, including janitors, cooks and construction workers. They volunteered to help struggling rural families and dutifully recited the slogans of President Xi Jinping.
Then, after graduation, they attempted to put the party’s stated ideals into action, converging from across China last month on Huizhou, a city in the south, to organize labor unions at nearby factories and stage protests demanding greater protections for workers. www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/world/asia/china-maoists-xi-protests.html?action=click&module=Top+Stories&pgtype=Homepage
The Little Red Schoolhouse
Money battle now favors SoccerCity foes and in capitalist schools, it IS all about the money
Padres scamster John Moores and allies help SDSU option
Since late August, more than $1.7 million has poured into the coffers of forces battling the takeover of city-owned Qualcomm Stadium by SoccerCity, a group of wealthy La Jolla investors who have a friend in San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer but not the city’s political fat cats, including ex-Padres owner John Moores.
On Thursday, September 20 alone, a grand total of $871,000 was raised by two political committees seeking to block SoccerCity, with the bulk of the money, $780,000, provided in two equal payments by Mission Valley development giants Sudberry Properties and H.F. Fenton Company to a committee calling itself Public Land, Public Benefit. That fund is waging a take-no-prisoners campaign against Measure E, SoccerCity’s proposal on November’s ballot.
The balance of the super Thursday cash, $91,000, was anted up for Friends of SDSU, promoting Measure G, a competing ballot proposition that if it beats SoccerCity at the ballot box would turn the former stadium land over to San Diego State University. $25,000 donors to the cause included ex-city manager Jack McGrory, a California State University trustee leading the drive, and Stephen Doyle, ex-president of the San Diego division of Brookfield Homes.
ServiceNow’s Frederic Luddy kicked in $25,000. He and his onetime associate Moores, whose JMI Realty came up with $22,000 for the SDSU backers on September 19, featured prominently in one of the city’s biggest-ever financial meltdowns, the stock scandal at Peregrine Systems. As recounted by Don Bauder in January 2015, JMI Equity owned 49 percent of ServiceNow after it was taken public in mid-2012.
…another Moores venture, college athletics business consulting company JMI Sports, has longtime connections to SDSU. The firm hired the university’s former athletic director Jeff Schemmel after he left the school under a shadow in November 2009 regarding the use of state funds to visit a mistress in Alabama. In April of this year, JMI was retained to draw up SDSU’s plans for the school’s Mission Valley stadium project that is now at the center of November’s ballot battle. www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/sep/24/ticker-money-battle-now-favors-soccercity-foes/
Hoaxers Slip Breastaurants and Dog-Park Sex Into Journals
One paper, published in a journal called Sex Roles, said that the author had conducted a two-year study involving “thematic analysis of table dialogue” to uncover the mystery of why heterosexual men like to eat at Hooters.
Another, from a journal of feminist geography, parsed “human reactions to rape culture and queer performativity” at dog parks in Portland, Ore., while a third paper, published in a journal of feminist social work and titled “Our Struggle Is My Struggle,” simply scattered some up-to-date jargon into passages lifted from Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”
Such offerings may or may not have raised eyebrows among the journals’ limited readerships. But this week, they unleashed a cascade of mockery — along with a torrent of debate about ethics of hoaxes, the state of peer review and the excesses of academia — when they were revealed to be part of an elaborate prank aimed squarely at what the authors labeled “grievance studies.”
“Something has gone wrong in the university — especially in certain fields within the humanities,” the three authors of the fake papers wrote in an article in the online journal Areo explaining what they had done. “Scholarship based less upon finding truth and more upon attending to social grievances has become firmly established, if not fully dominant, within these fields.”
Their project quickly drew comparisons to a famous 1996 hoax in which the physicist Alan Sokal got a paper mixing postmodern philosophy with the theory of quantum gravity into a prestigious cultural studies journal.
But while that hoax involved a single article, the new one involved 20 papers, produced every two weeks or so, submitted to various journals over nearly a year.
The authors — Helen Pluckrose, James A. Lindsay and Peter Boghossian — said that four papers had been published; three had been accepted but not yet published; seven were under review and six had been rejected. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/arts/academic-journals-hoax.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Yo Soy SDSU
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The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
Chinese and American warships nearly collide
Tempers are flaring as the South China Sea grows crowded
IT IS getting hard to sail across the South China Sea without bumping into a warship. On September 30th an American destroyer (the USS Decatur, pictured) passed within 50 metres of a Chinese naval vessel which was conducting “unsafe and unprofessional” manoeuvres, according to the Americans. Earlier in the month Japan sent a submarine to conduct drills in the sea for the first time. In August a British warship was confronted there by Chinese ships and jets. And this month ships from Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and Britain will take part in more than two weeks of joint naval drills in the same crowded waters.
The maritime hubbub is an attempt to push back against China’s claim to the entire South China Sea, which other littoral states dispute and which a UN tribunal has rubbished. China wants military vessels and aircraft to notify it before passing through the sea, something America and others would view as an infringement of international norms even if China’s claims had been upheld. To make matters even more fraught, China has reclaimed land around a series of reefs and rocks in the sea to build bases teeming with guns, missiles and radar. Should these constructions be deemed rocks or islands under international law, and rightful Chinese territory, then certain restrictions would apply to military vessels passing within 12 nautical miles. But America and the UN tribunal, among others, consider several of them “low-tide elevations”—shoals, in effect—that do not enjoy the same rights. America and its allies keep sending warships to sail around the sea in ways that demonstrate that they do not accept China’s position. www.economist.com/asia/2018/10/02/chinese-and-american-warships-nearly-collide?cid1=cust/ddnew/email/n/n/2018102n/owned/n/n/ddnew/n/n/n/nNA/Daily_Dispatch/email&etear=dailydispatch&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily_Dispatch&utm_term=2018102
Pence’s China Speech Seen as Portent of ‘New Cold War’
Vice President Mike Pence’s accusations in a stinging speech Thursday warning of a tougher approach toward Beijing may have been familiar to China’s leaders. But until now, such remarks were delivered in private, in fairly decorous terms, and rarely threatened direct action.
The surprise this time for Beijing was the magnitude of alleged offenses piled up in one public indictment, ranging from suspected interference in American politics to China’s stomping on the freedoms of its own people. Nor had the United States ever before told China: “We will not stand down.”
Publicly, China responded with a certain weariness, calling the speech “very ridiculous,” creating “something out of thin air,” but also warning that “no one can stop” the Chinese people from advancing.
Behind closed doors, however, Mr. Pence’s remarks probably left few doubts among China’s leaders that Washington was embarking on a Cold War that would force the country to dig in for a prolonged multifront battle with the United States, analysts said.
The leaders were no doubt angry and embarrassed that the Trump administration went all-out publicly with confrontational language that is considered unacceptable in Chinese culture, which prefers sweet phrases to disguise stern measures.
Some of Mr. Pence’s declarations, like saying Washington’s trade policy most likely caused a 25 percent fall in China’s largest stock exchange in the first nine months of this year, could be dismissed as inaccurate, since trade tensions were one of several factors. Similarly, the claim that the United States “rebuilt China” over the last 25 years could be shrugged off as dubious and unfair.
But it was unmistakably clear that the era of Washington holding out a hand to Beijing to become a “responsible stakeholder” in world affairs alongside the United States — a phrase used in 2005 by Robert B. Zoellick, then the deputy secretary of state — was over.
“This will look like the declaration of a new Cold War, and what China may do is more important than what it will say about Pence’s speech,” said Zhang Baohui, professor of international relations at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/05/world/asia/pence-china-speech-cold-war.html
Chinese armed drones now flying over Mideast battlefields. Here’s why they’re gaining on US drones
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — High above Yemen’s rebel-held city of Hodeida, a drone controlled by Emirati forces hovered as an SUV carrying a top Shiite Houthi rebel official turned onto a small street and stopped, waiting for another vehicle in its convoy to catch up.
Seconds later, the SUV exploded in flames, killing Saleh al-Samad, a top political figure.
The drone that fired that missile in April was not one of the many American aircraft that have been buzzing across the skies of Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan since Sept. 11, 2001. It was Chinese.
Across the Middle East, countries locked out of purchasing U.S.-made drones due to rules over excessive civilian casualties are being wooed by Chinese arms dealers, who are world’s main distributor of armed drones.
“The Chinese product now doesn’t lack technology, it only lacks market share,” said Song Zhongping, a Chinese military analyst and former lecturer at the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force University of Engineering. “And the United States restricting its arms exports is precisely what gives China a great opportunity.”
The sales are helping expand Chinese influence across a region vital to American security interests.
“It’s a hedging strategy and the Chinese will look to benefit from that,” said Douglas Barrie, an airpower specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “I think the Chinese are far less liable to be swayed by concerns over civilian casualties,” he said. www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/10/03/chinese-armed-drones-now-flying-over-mideast-battlefields-heres-why-theyre-gaining-on-us-drones/
As Afghanistan Frays, Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Is Everywhere
A new crop of senior American officials in Afghanistan has been racing to contain a dual crisis on the battlefield and in a potentially explosive election dispute. But it is a different American figure — the mercenary executive Erik D. Prince — who has been the talk of Kabul these days.
More than a year after first laying out his plan to President Trump to privatize the American war in Afghanistan with a cadre of contractors — and a private air force — Mr. Prince, the founder of the Blackwater security firm that became infamous for killing civilians in Iraq, has seemingly been everywhere.
And as he has made his sales pitch directly to a host of influential Afghans, he has frequently been introduced as an adviser to Mr. Trump himself.
Mr. Prince is pushing his plan at a particularly vulnerable time for the country. Afghan security forces are dying at a record number of 30 to 40 a day largely in a defensive posture against a Taliban that has gained territory. The government is beset by repeated political crises as parliamentary elections, delayed for three years, are scheduled for this month. Presidential elections are set for April. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/world/asia/afghanistan-erik-prince-blackwater.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fpolitics&action=click&contentCollection=politics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront
Above, Hessian Mercenaries from American revolutionary war times. Americans, who know so little history they cannot connect cause and effect, forgot to hate mercenaries.
Ousted Air Force Mobility Wing Commander Accepts Plea Deal In Sexual Assault Case
A former Scott Air Force Base commander took a plea deal following an investigation into sexual misconduct accusations against him, base officials confirmed Monday.
Col. John Howard agreed to accept discipline without a military trial in a process known as “non-judicial punishment proceedings.”
Howard’s discipline includes a reprimand and forfeiture of $5,420 per monthly pay period for two months. Howard was still on active duty as of Monday at Scott Air Force Base, but was not in a command position, according to Capt. Ryan DeCamp, a spokesman for the 18th Air Force.
Howard will keep his colonel rank while on active duty, but that could change when he applies for retirement. An officer who has received non-judicial punishment must go through an officer-grade determination process, DeCamp said. This will determine if he retires as a colonel or if he is demoted to a lower rank, which would come with lower retirement pay. taskandpurpose.com/air-force-mobility-wing-sexual-assault/?bsft_eid=84147d9c-0e0c-4afc-a55d-6073a249a29f&bsft_pid=3fe0062e-79e4-4065-ab49-352b2d79a967&utm_campaign=tp_daily_tuesday_pm&utm_source=blueshift&utm_medium=email&utm_content=tp_daily_pm_ricks&bsft_clkid=a2f2bce9-ab23-4544-8da6-729ae701eef6&bsft_uid=7c674a6c-ae11-4ec4-84f1-aef0c34e44e5&bsft_mid=6f3b3884-9388-48b2-8b11-7976053f4c96&bsft_pp=3
U.S. General Considered Nuclear Response in Vietnam War, Cables Show
In one of the darkest moments of the Vietnam War, the top American military commander in Saigon activated a plan in 1968 to move nuclear weapons to South Vietnam until he was overruled by President Lyndon B. Johnson, according to recently declassified documents cited in a new history of wartime presidential decisions.
The documents reveal a long-secret set of preparations by the commander, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, to have nuclear weapons at hand should American forces find themselves on the brink of defeat at Khe Sanh, one of the fiercest battles of the war.
With the approval of the American commander in the Pacific, General Westmoreland had put together a secret operation, code-named Fracture Jaw, that included moving nuclear weapons into South Vietnam so that they could be used on short notice against North Vietnamese troops.
Johnson’s national security adviser, Walt W. Rostow, alerted the president in a memorandum on White House stationery.
…
… the president’s fear was “a wider war” in which the Chinese would enter the fray, as they had in Korea in 1950.
…The incident has echoes for modern times. It was only 14 months ago that President Trump was threatening the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea — which, unlike North Vietnam at the time, possesses its own small nuclear arsenal.
There have been other moments when presidents had to consider, or bluff about, using atomic weapons. The most famous was the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the closest that the United States and the Soviet Union came to nuclear conflict. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/world/asia/vietnam-war-nuclear-weapons.html
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Forbes 400 2018: A New Number One And A Record-Breaking Year For America’s Richest People
Members of The Forbes 400 class of 2018: In N Out Burger’s Lynsi Snyder; SHI International’s Thai Lee; Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos; and Jack Dorsey, CEO of both Twitter and Square.Forbes, Getty Images
Buoyed in part by a strong stock market, the 400 wealthiest Americans delivered yet another record-breaking year. The minimum net worth needed to join this elite club climbed to $2.1 billion, $100 million more than last year and the highest to date. The group’s total net worth rose to $2.9 trillion, a record high and 7% more than in 2017. The average net worth of a list member: $7.2 billion, up from $6.7 billion last year. That average is boosted by those at the very top of the list: half of the total wealth is held by the 45 richest people in the country.
For the first time since 1994, there is a new No. 1: Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who broke Bill Gates’ 24 year run at the top. Bezos is also the first person to appear in the ranks with a fortune of more than $100 billion –he clocked in at $160 billion. Bezos was also the biggest gainer on this year’s list: his fortune rose $78.5 billion since last year, thanks to the more than 100% runup in the price of Amazon stock, the biggest one year gain since we’ve been tracking fortunes. Gates, now ranked No. 2, trails Bezos by a notable $63 billion. The top 10 richest on the list are together worth nearly $730 billion, up from $610 billion in 2017. At these lofty heights, more than a third of the nation’s billionaires, a record 204, weren’t wealthy enough to crack the club.
The biggest gainer in percentage terms is Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and payments firm Square. His fortune jumped a staggering 186% from last year to $6.3 billion, propelled primarily by a runup in Square’s stock price.
The biggest loser versus last year’s list was George Soros, whose net worth fell to $8.3 billion this year from $23 billion. The reason: in late 2017, Forbes learned that Soros had shifted $18 billion of his fortune to his charitable Open Society Foundations. (Forbes does not count assets in charitable foundations as part of someone’s net worth.)
Donald Trump’s ranking dropped 11 spots to No. 259 on the list, down from No. 248 last year, even as his net worth remained the same from last year at $3.1 billion. www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2018/10/03/forbes-400-2018-a-new-number-one-and-a-record-breaking-year-for-americas-richest-people/#b3162eb60b7c
Ford is not in crisis, not in crisis, not….
When Ford Motor was celebrating the 100th anniversary of its Rouge industrial complex last week, its chairman, William C. Ford Jr., offered an optimistic outlook for the years ahead.
The company is still solidly profitable, he said, and while it is losing money overseas, it is working on a solution. Furthermore, he praised the ability and leadership of Ford’s chief executive, Jim Hackett, who he said was doing “a really good job.”
“I don’t think it’s even close to a crisis,” he said.
Not everyone shares his confidence.
The automaker’s bottom line is weakening despite record sales of its pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. In August, its credit rating was cut to one level above junk status. And Ford’s stock price has fallen to its lowest point since 2009, when the United States economy was in a deep recession.
“The foundation of Ford — the trucks — is still healthy, but there are concerns about whether Ford has prepared for tomorrow and the future,” said Karl Brauer, executive publisher of the auto information providers Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. “Ford hasn’t been effective enough in convincing investors that they are.”
In the latest move to cut costs, Ford is reorganizing its worldwide salaried work force of 70,000 with the goal of having a leaner staff by the second quarter of 2019. The move, outlined to employees on Thursday, is likely to eliminate several thousand jobs, said Karen Hampton, a company spokeswoman. www.nytimes.com/2018/10/05/business/ford-motor-cars.html
Canadian economy facing deep-rooted problems as wages stagnate, household debt mounts
The tough economic work may only just be starting for Justin Trudeau after Canada struck a last-minute deal to be included in the new NAFTA.
Wages are barely keeping up with the cost of living, business executives complain they can’t compete and households are carrying record levels of debt that will weigh down the expansion.
Trade peace with the U.S. means attention now turns to more deep-seated problems clouding the economic outlook. Pressure is growing on the Canadian prime minister to act starting with a budget update in coming weeks, with potential implications on a range of policies from how quickly he reduces deficits to the scope of planned corporate tax cuts heading into an election year.
The concern, however, is there may be few short-term fixes, leaving the economy mired in a cycle of low growth and stagnating incomes for years to come. business.financialpost.com/news/economy/canadian-economy-facing-deep-rooted-problems-as-wages-stagnate-household-debt-mounts
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason
Former vice mayor of China’s Lyuliang City sentenced to death for corruption (Xi clamping down)
Zhang Zhongsheng, former vice mayor of Lyuliang City in north China’s Shanxi Province, was sentenced to death on Wednesday for taking bribes, the Intermediate People’s Court of Linfen in Shanxi Province said.
According to the court, Zhang received bribes in cash and property worth a total of 1.04 billion yuan (165 million US dollars) from 1997 to 2013. Apart from being sentenced to death, Zhang has also been deprived of all his political rights for life and all of his properties are forfeited. news.cgtn.com/news/3151444d316b7a6333566d54/share_p.html
Interpol asks China for information on its missing president
Interpol said Saturday it has made a formal request to China for information about the agency’s missing president, a senior Chinese security official who seemingly vanished while on a trip home.
The Lyon-based international police agency said it used law enforcement channels to submit its request to China about the status of Meng Hongwei. Its statement said the agency “looks forward to an official response from China’s authorities to address concerns over the president’s well-being,” www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-world/sns-bc-eu–france-interpol-president-20181006-story.html
Why Canadian cities didn’t suffer as Detroit did
Jason Hackworth, a professor of urban geography at the University of Toronto, gave a guest lecture at the University of Michigan recently to pose a provocative question: “Why is there no Detroit in Canada?”
That is, in a nation where industrial decline was often as common as in the American heartland, why don’t Canadian cities show the same level of blight and abandonment as we see in Detroit and Flint and in other post-industrial U.S. cities?
The question looms as more than academic interest. Our two nations and their economies share so much in common. Of special note in Detroit, there’s the cross-border network of plants and suppliers that defines the modern auto industry.
If Canada somehow figured out how to avoid the devastation that factory shutdowns and job losses wreaked on U.S. cities like Detroit, it would be nice to know how they did it.
Hackworth’s research showed it was not the loss of factory jobs alone….
The more he looked, the more one big difference between Canada and the United States emerged: It came down to race. Put simply, U.S. cities tend to have large black and other non-white populations and Canadian cities do not www.freep.com/story/money/business/john-gallagher/2018/09/28/detroit-blight-race-canada/1442875002/?fb_comment_id=2023512624354702_2023818134324151&comment_id=2023818134324151#f3bcc30e5c55556
Solidarity for Never
The (hated + unionized) Yanquis Crossed a Hotel Strike Picket Line in Boston (plunk Judge)
As Boston hotel cleaners, cooks, servers, and other employees chanted and marched their way through day two of their historic strike on Thursday, they spotted some infamous guests walking through their picket line at the Ritz-Carlton: The New York Yankees.
Workers at seven of the city’s Marriott-run hotels who are calling for more stable schedules, a living wage, and more on-the-j0b protections, have been on strike since Wednesday morning. They spent Thursday appearing outside the entrances to the hotels chanting “Don’t check in! Check out!” and urging potential guests to stay elsewhere until the hotel company meets their demands.
But that message, it seems, was lost on the Yankees. Video obtained by Boston shows several players, including outfielder Brett Gardner and pitcher Dellin Betances, rolling their suitcases past the protest as workers paced, waved signs, and played the drums on overturned buckets.
twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1047958089578815489
www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2018/10/04/yankees-crossed-boston-hotel-workers-picket-line/
Why The LAUSD Superintendent’s Calendar Matters To The School District’s Strike-Ready Teachers (UTLA delay, delay, delay)
In the middle of a tense contract fight that could end in the first teachers’ strike in Los Angeles since 1989, the district’s teachers union went on the offensive this week with L.A. Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner.
The union, United Teachers Los Angeles, obtained a copy of Beutner’s official schedule and on Wednesday released an analysis highlighting the number of meetings Beutner took at exclusive restaurants or in private clubs. The union also raised the question of whether he used an LAUSD credit card to pay for his pricey meals.
But UTLA’s 30,000-plus members may be more interested in whom Beutner was meeting.
KPCC/LAist got a copy of the superintendent’s calendar Wednesday. You can peruse it below.
A union analysis showed the LAUSD superintendent held at least 11 meetings with top charter school supporters, advocates and operatives during his first four months on the job — including meeting billionaire philanthropist and political donor Eli Broad.
That’s potentially an alarm bell for LAUSD teachers. That’s because some teachers fear Beutner might be willing to increase the number of students enrolled in charter schools.
Why do they care? Because more students enrolled in charter schools could mean less money for traditional campuses, which could undermine district finances and, in turn, the power of the teachers union. www.laist.com/2018/10/04/beutner_calendar_utla_strike.php
Teamsters union rejects UPS contract–sellout gangster labor bosses will impose it anyway.
After weeks of back and forth, the Teamsters union has rejected a proposed contract with UPS.
The deal would affect 280,000 workers nationwide, including 10,000 in Louisville.
The contract would add full-time jobs and increase starting wages, but critics are concerned a new class of drivers would make lower wages with fewer rights.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Teamsters consider the contract ratified even though it was defeated.
Under the union’s rules, a contract needs to be rejected by two-thirds of ballots when fewer than 50 percent of members cast a vote.
Of the members who voted last night, 54.3 percent opposed the five-year contract. www.wlky.com/article/teamsters-union-rejects-ups-contract/23625422
Spy versus Spy
A hard to find classic:
The Magical Mystery Tour
www.facebook.com/xcartier.walker/videos/681474875549623/?t=4
Vatican’s handling of sexual misconduct complaints about ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick reveals a lot about the Catholic Church
In November 2000, a Manhattan priest got fed up with the secrets he knew about a star archbishop named Theodore McCarrick and decided to tell the Vatican.
For years, the Rev. Boniface Ramsey had heard from seminarians that McCarrick was pressuring them to sleep in his bed. The students told him they weren’t being touched, but still, he felt, it was totally inappropriate and irresponsible behavior — especially for the newly named archbishop of Washington.
Ramsey called the Vatican’s then-U.S. ambassador, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, who implored the priest to write the allegation so it could be sent up the chain in Rome. “Send the letter!” Montalvo demanded, Ramsey recalls.
He never heard back from Montalvo, and Ramsey has since destroyed his copy of the 2000 letter, he said.
“I thought of it as secret and somehow even sacred — something not to be divulged,” Ramsey told The Washington Post. It wasn’t the concept of a cleric occasionally “slipping up” with their celibacy vow that shocked Ramsey, who believes that’s common. It was the repeated and nonconsensual nature of the McCarrick allegations.
Since Pope Francis suspended McCarrick this summer for allegedly groping an altar boy and multiple clerics have been accused of covering for McCarrick, a spotlight has been trained on the only place with the authority to oversee a cardinal: the Vatican. www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/10/01/how-vatican-handled-reports-theodore-mccarricks-alleged-sexual-misconduct-what-it-says-about-catholic-church/?utm_term=.7dc1b6d92278
Bishop McElroy opens listening tour for local Catholics amid ongoing sex-abuse scandal
Parishioners at a Catholic church in University City got the first opportunity Monday night to tell Bishop Robert McElroy how they feel about the ongoing scandal involving sexual abuse by priests.
They didn’t seem happy.
The session drew an overflow crowd of 335 people to the parish hall at Our Mother of Confidence church. Seven other “time to listen” sessions are scheduled in the coming weeks.
In his opening remarks, McElroy said, “We are in a terribly wrenching moment in the life of our church,” and he encouraged the parishioners to help point the way forward.
But he quickly ran into rough waters — and some booing — from audience members who felt he was downplaying the abuse case of recently resigned Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and mischaracterized a scathing letter by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano that accused higher-ups in the church of protecting McCarrick.
“More cover-up,” one of the audience members said out loud.
Many of the questions from parishioners were heated. Several asked when bishops would be held accountable for failing to root out and remove abusive clergy. “We have no confidence that the bishops can police themselves,” one woman said. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/religion/sd-me-bishop-listens-20180928-story.html#
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The Ghoul is coming to Detroit! Get Ready!
Saturday, Ghoultober, 27, 2018.
The Redford Theater, 17360 Lahser Rd.,
Detroit, MI 48219
313-537-2560
So Long
George Schmidt: Substance
George’s life of love and service: Sharon Schmidt
George Neil Schmidt’s life of fighting injustice, with organizing with soldiers against the Vietnam War, then working in public education, unions and journalism over the next five decades to improve the lives of others, was also filled with his deep love of family and friends and an intense calling to serve humanity.
He served many thousands of people, including students in some of Chicago’s poorest schools, who received his inspired teaching of literature and writing; workers, who saw their salaries, conditions and voices strengthened through George’s union work, as he served as delegate, mentor, consultant and researcher; and readers of his reports and commentary in Substance and other publications, who found true stories and analysis that never would have been told by corporate media.
He was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on Sept. 28, 1946, and died in his home in Chicago on Sept. 17, 2018, at age 71. He was my husband of 20 years, and the father of Daniel Cornelius Schmidt (29), Samuel George Schmidt (17) and Joshua Griffin Schmidt (14).
Although George had some tough times, including chronic back pain that began in his late 50s, he was grateful for all the years of his life, which was filled with love. He honored his parents, admired his siblings, enjoyed his three sons and appreciated me. He was rich with friends. George was a social person, who worked best within a staff of people, a regular for post-meeting gatherings and Friday nights at the bar. More: www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=6958§ion=Article