Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fight Back!

Above, blast from the past, 1967 SF Strike Poster (thanks Bruce H)

General Strike and Uprisings In Greece

Massive Strike In Britain: Down Tools! Up Industrial Action!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH4d7AAuySk

Labor History: 3 July 1835, Children employed in the silk mills in Paterson, NJ went on strike for the 11 hour day/6 day week. Photo from “With Babies and Banners, the Story of the Women’s Emergency Brigade.”

Even Lord Acton Got it: “The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.”

The Little Red Schoolhouse

San Diego Board, elected by SDEA, votes off 10% of Teachers: Amid confusion over the state’s finances, the San Diego school board on Tuesday adopted a $1.04 billion budget — a grim spending plan that calls for the elimination of more than 750 teaching jobs, and 600 other positions.
The budget — and its $114 million in cost-cutting measures — will go into affect on Friday, kicking off the fiscal year and lean times for the San Diego Unified School District. www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jun/28/sd-school-board-approves-budget-cuts-layoffs/

Video: Sean Ahern and Comrades on Bloomberg’s White Supremacy in NYC Schools: politube.org/show/3231

SDSU Pays 9-27 Coach $1.15 Million to Quit: Long, whose three-year record at SDSU was 9-27, ended up being reassigned to an office job at SDSU doing “projects and analysis” for nearly a year after he was fired as coach. SDSU was required to pay him through 2010 even after he was hired as the offensive coordinator at Kansas in December 2009. After he was fired as coach at SDSU, Long collected $1,154,219 from SDSU, SDSU records show. The $1.43 million owed for the final two years of his SDSU contract was offset by his $350,000 salary at Kansas.    www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jun/25/sdsus-buyout-of-long-cost-21-million/

Michigan Pols Vote to Gut Teacher Tenure: The Legislature ended its first 180 days in session late Thursday, altering teacher tenure rules and passing a bill that caps how much taxpayers can pay on health care for public workers and elected officials — including state lawmakers.
Teachers will be easier to fire and demote under the four-bill package passed by the Senate and swiftly approved by the House over strenuous objections from Democrats and teachers. www.detnews.com/article/20110701/SCHOOLS/107010394/1026/schools/Michigan-Senate-tightens-teacher-tenure

Another Gangster Convicted of $3 Million Stolen  from Detroit Kids:

Sherry Washington, the prominent art gallery owner accused of helping raid more than $3 million from the Detroit Public Schools, was convicted Wednesday in federal court and faces up to 20 years in prison…Seven others have pleaded guilty, including former schools executive Stephen Hill. Defendant Christina Polk-Osumah died last fall.

Washington, 54, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit program fraud, a 10-year felony, and one count of money-laundering conspiracy, a 20-year felony.
Washington was accused of helping raid more than $3 million from the district and sending about $150,000 to Hill in kickbacks, money he spent on cars and a retirement party.

Solidarity Forever

NEA Boss Van Roekel ($465,000 a year plus) Sends Kisses to Obamagogue: “The next 18 months are going to be a toxic political environment, and it is really important for us to help balance the message,” Mr. Van Roekel said. “President Obama has been a champion for education and for the right of middle-class Americans to bargain and have a voice. I think it’s important to support him now.”      online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303763404576420250835015590.html

Jerry Brown DoubleCrosses Farmworkers: A generation ago, Jerry Brown, then the governor, helped shape legislation that gave agriculture workers the right to unionize through a secret ballot system. But late Tuesday night, that same Mr. Brown, the governor again, vetoed a bill that would have made it significantly easier for those workers to unionize.    www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/us/30farm.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=jerry%20brown%20farmworkers&st=cse

UAW Swears “We were Ready to Grovel Again as American Axle says, “So Long, Pard!” UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada said the union was ready to agree to contract changes that would have lowered the company’s total costs for wages and benefits per hourly worker from $45 per hour to $32 per hour.    www.freep.com/article/20110701/BUSINESS0105/110701043/UAW-says-ready-agree-lower-labor-costs-American-Axle-?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

NEA More than Hugs Bank of America:

UAW VP and Wife Abuse: UAW Vice President General Holiefield will not be charged in a domestic incident Monday involving his wife, but today she filed for a personal protection order against him in Macomb County Circuit Court.    www.freep.com/article/20110630/NEWS04/110630038/UAW-vice-president-won-t-charged-domestic-incident-wife-files-protection-order?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Obamagogue’s Secret Wars: As America draws down its conventional military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is increasingly fighting national security threats in places like Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen through covert operations uniting Pentagon special forces, CIA paramilitary troops, and sophisticated drones, some that can launch powerful missiles while others are small enough to eavesdrop unnoticed in the shadows.

William Blum on Obamagogue’s Endless Wars: If I could publicly ask our beloved president one question, it would be this: “Mr. President, in your short time in office you’ve waged war against six countries — Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. This makes me wonder something. With all due respect: What is wrong with you?”

The American media has done its best to dismiss or ignore Libyan charges that NATO/US missiles have been killing civilians (the people they’re supposedly protecting), at least up until the recent bombing “error” that was too blatant to be covered up. But who in the mainstream media has questioned the NATO/US charges that Libya was targeting and “massacring” Libyan civilians a few months ago, which, we’ve been told, is the reason for the Western powers attacks? Don’t look to Al Jazeera for such questioning. The government of Qatar, which owns the station, has a deep-seated animosity toward Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and was itself a leading purveyor of the Libyan “massacre” stories, as well as playing a military role in the war against Tripoli. Al Jazeera’s reporting on the subject has been so disgraceful I’ve stopped looking at the station.
Alain Juppé, Foreign Minister of France, which has been the leading force behind the attacks on Libya, spoke at the Brookings Institution in Washington on June 7. After his talk he was asked a question from the audience by local activist Ken Meyercord:
“An American observer of events in Libya has commented: ‘The evidence was not persuasive that a large-scale massacre or genocide was either likely or imminent.’ That comment was made by Richard Haass, President of our Council on Foreign Relations. If Mr. Haass is right, and he’s a fairly knowledgeable fellow, then what NATO has done in Libya is attack a country that wasn’t threatening anyone; in other words, aggression. Are you at all concerned that as NATO deals more and more death and destruction on the people of Libya that the International Criminal Court may decide that you and your friends in the Naked Aggression Treaty Organization should be prosecuted rather than Mr. Gaddafi?”    www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28453.htm

Kablooey! Afghan Security Flees as Hotel Hit. Deja Vu Saigon: Mr. Amini said he saw police officers running, too, tightly gripping their own AK-47s as they raced away from the gunmen.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you shoot? Shoot!’ ” he recalled. “But they just said, ‘Get away from them.’ And we all ran together.”
Six hours later, at least 21 people were dead, including the nine suicide bombers who managed to penetrate several rings of security on Tuesday night to carry out the attack. The assault has shaken public confidence in the ability of Afghan forces, especially the police, to assume responsibility for security, even here in the capital. www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/world/asia/30afghanistan.html?_r=1&ref=world

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Why Obamagogue Should Run as a Republican: If Obama chose to run for reelection not as a Democrat but as a moderate Republican, he could bring about two healthy transformations in the American political system. The moderate wing of the Republican Party could be restored. And the Democratic presidential nomination might be opened up to politicians from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party….If he were to run for the Republican nomination, Obama could point out that in the past few years he has already done far more to thwart American liberalism than any of his rivals in the GOP primary have done in their entire careers. He could boast that when liberal economists called for the temporary nationalization of insolvent megabanks, forcing shareholders to swallow their losses and firing their managers, he stood firm and protected Wall Street.
In the area of job creation, too, Obama can honestly tell Republican voters that he never supported massive public works job creation…Eisenhower wound down the Korean War that he inherited from Harry Truman. Obama expanded the Afghan War that he inherited from George W. Bush. In Afghanistan Obama pursued the “surge,” a strategy backed by neoconservatives that will have led to the unnecessary death and crippling of even more Americans before the inevitable U.S. withdrawal.

Eisenhower refused to take part in the British, French and Israeli attack on Egypt, during the Suez crisis in 1956. Obama, in contrast, agreed that the U.S. would provide most of the muscle in the Franco-British-American attack on Gadhafi’s regime in Libya.

In committing the U.S. to a third ongoing war in a Muslim country, President Obama lied to the public and trashed the Constitution. The administration lied when it said that the purpose of the Libyan war was only to protect civilians in a few areas of Libya from being massacred by Gadhafi’s forces. Pilots from the U.S. and other NATO countries soon began trying to assassinate the Libyan dictator from the air.   www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/21/lind_obama_republican

Rich Tax Evaders, like Sharks on Blood, Want More $: Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) has cut its income taxes by $7 billion since 2005 by booking roughly half its worldwide profits at a subsidiary at the foot of the Swiss Alps that employs about 100 people.

Now Cisco, the largest maker of networking equipment, wants to save even more — by asking Congress to waive most federal taxes due when multinationals bring such offshore earnings home. Chief Executive Officer John T. Chambers has led the charge for the tax holiday, which would be the second since 2004. He says it would encourage companies to “repatriate” as much as $1 trillion held abroad, spur domestic investment and create jobs.    www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-28/biggest-tax-avoiders-win-most-gaming-1-trillion-u-s-tax-break.html

Yes, the Rich Did Get Richer: The World Wealth Report, released Wednesday, found that last year was not just a good year for the really wealthy. It was also a good year for the merely rich. The number of people with more than $1 million to invest was 10.9 million, up 8.3 percent, while the amount of money they had, $42.7 trillion, had risen by 9.7 percent. (The wealth of this group excludes the value of their primary residences, collectible items and consumable goods.) www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/your-money/25wealth.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

California Guts Welfare (the real minimum wage): Beginning today, families in California’s Welfare to Work program will see an 8 percent reduction in their monthly benefit checks. It’s the result of cuts proposed in March and approved as part of the final state budget signed this week.    www.kpbs.org/news/2011/jul/01/welfare-work-checks-reduced-starting-today/?utm_campaign=todays-news-analysis&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=headline

Canada’s Parliament Seeks to Smash Postal Strike: Canada’s Parliament passed legislation Sunday evening that ordered the country’s 48,000 postal workers back to work. The country has been without mail service since Canada Post locked out its unionized workers on June 15 after a series of rotating strikes organized by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Officials from Canada Post, which is owned by the national government, said that mail service should resume by Tuesday.    www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/business/global/27postal.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

CFR Advice on the Failed Obamagogue Economic Policies: About 80 years ago, Andrew Mellon, the secretary of the U.S. Treasury, assured President Herbert Hoover that the best way to get the economy growing again was for the government to get out of the way and let the Great Depression run its natural course. “Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” he famously advised. “It will purge the rottenness out of the system. People will work harder, live a more moral life . . . and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.” The breathtaking belief in both laissez faire and social Darwinism is, depending on one’s point of view, either quaint or chilling.

But it is apparently not dead. Mellon’s ideas live on, starting with his admonition to “liquidate real estate,” which the country has followed to a tee by refusing to adopt serious measures that might have limited the wave of foreclosures. Stop artificially stimulating the economy by monetary or fiscal policy, policymakers are told. Stop regulating it; indeed, roll back previously enacted financial and health-care regulations. Stop “debasing the currency” with inflationary monetary policy. All this was terrible advice when Mellon gave it to Hoover. It remains terrible advice today. www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67969/alan-s-blinder/americas-weak-recovery?page=2

The Emergence of Fascism as a Mass Popular Movement:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOPhd9LCJPQ

US Allies, Khmer Rouge, War Crimes Trial Botched (and Bush? Obama? Cheney? Biden?) As a U.N.-backed Cambodian tribunal opens Monday to try former Khmer Rouge leaders charged with genocide, critics accuse the Cambodian government of meddling and the United Nations of failing to uphold the court’s independence.
Standing trial are the four highest-ranking surviving former Khmer Rouge leaders: head of state Khieu Samphan, 79; Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, 85; his wife, Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirith, 79; and the revolution’s chief ideologue, Nuon Chea, 84. They face multiple charges that include war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Magical Mystery Tour

Advantages of  Every Religious Jihadist or Crusader? Powerful Ideology. Commitment. Passion. Weaknesses: People make gods. Gods don’t make people. Inevitable inequality and corruption. Passion is not strategy nor class consciousness. These are also the reasons the US is losing.

Norcal Bishop, Overseer of Rapist Priests, Quits: The Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Bishop Daniel Walsh of Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa.
Deirdre Frontczak, a spokeswoman for the diocese, said Walsh was very tired and had been seeking to hand over his responsibilities for about two years. His resignation, effective yesterday, comes a year short of his mandatory retirement at age 75, Frontczak said. ..The diocese has been hit with several lawsuits under Walsh’s tenure involving alleged child sex abuse by former priests.

In 2006, Walsh was threatened with criminal charges for failing to report accusations of misconduct against the Rev. Xavier Ochoa for five days after the priest admitted the abuses to Walsh. Authorities said the delay allowed Ochoa time to flee to Mexico before he could be arrested.

Bad Bishop William Montgomery Brown:

“In other words, we bishops who claimed to be the successors of St. Peter were not such at all because we did not hope with him for a new earth wherein righteousness might dwell. We were sure we favored righteousness, but we saw no reason why it might not dwell in this world of capitalism in which one class thrived upon the poverty and misery of another class. We were entirely above such material considerations.
This was especially true of the bishops. Sometimes a clergyman of lower rank saw red and began to call for an entirely new earth, but we seldom made a bishop out of preachers like that. The workers might listen to him but the capitalists might not care to pay his salary. Not that we intended to give consideration to such materialistic factors, but our attitude was so helpful to the class which profited from the status quo that the status quo usually reciprocated by keeping us in funds.”     www.anglocatholicsocialism.org/episcopus.html

Worst Thing in the History of the World

Counterfeit Chinese CP Celebrates its Personal Wealth: The organization that has ruled China since Mao Zedong’s forces won a civil war in 1949 added 1.24 million university students as members last year, an 8.2 percent increase from 2009. Founded 90 years ago today to build a socialist Utopia for the laboring classes, the party has become a ticket to elite jobs in government and state-owned businesses that offer security, power and a path to wealth.
“I joined because it’ll help when looking for jobs,” said Ling, a 24-year-old student at Beijing’s Renmin University who declined to be identified by her full name because of concern that she faces retribution from the government. “Getting a government job is so hard, but if I got an offer I’d definitely jump for it. My second choice would be state-owned    www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-30/communists-embrace-in-the-black-over-red-book-as-party-turns-90.html

No Bail For Lotto Millionaire Killer: A Michigan lottery millionaire was denied release from jail today in response to a rare request for bond while awaiting trial next year on charges of first-degree premeditated murder for the shooting death of his daughter’s landlord.
Freddie Young, 62, of Detroit is accused of shooting Greg McNicol, 45, during a May 7 argument over unpaid rent — just three months after the U.S. Postal worker hit a $46.5 million jackpot with his 13-member lottery club. After taxes, an even split would have amounted to $1.57 million.    www.detnews.com/article/20110701/METRO01/107010417/1409/Michigan-lotto-winner-to-stay-in-jail-on-murder-charge

What Americans Do in the Most Militarized County in the USA

Best Thing in History of World

Detroit Fed of Teachers Discovers June 31 st. Extends Work Week