Rouge Forum Dispatch: March on Mayday!
We Say Fight Back!
Everything You Need to Know About General Strikes
A general strike is a labor action in which a significant amount of workers from a number of different industries who comprise a majority of the total labor force within a particular city, region, or country come together to take collective action. Organized strikes are generally called by labor union leadership, but they impact more than just those in the union. For example, imagine the scenario if thousands in your town or city — no matter what their job was or whether or not they were in a union — got together and decided to go on strike to protest police brutality, as happened in Oakland, California, in 2011, after Iraq veteran Scott Olsen was critically wounded by local police when they stormed the Occupy Oakland encampment. The community declared a daylong general strike that ultimately saw thousands of people shut down the Port of Oakland (which was more of a symbolic protest, but still it got the job done).
Though the concept has its roots in ancient Rome’s secessio plebis, one of the first modern general strikes took place during the Industrial Revolution in Northern England in 1842, a time of great civil and social unrest, as modern capitalism began to take hold and hierarchical class lines began to be drawn between employers and employees. General strikes played pivotal roles in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Spanish Civil War. And in the U.S., general strikes became almost common during the 19th and early 20th centuries, with examples taking hold in Philadelphia (1835), St. Louis (1877), Chicago (1886), New Orleans (1892), and Seattle (1919), and during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. These large-scale actions were instrumental in securing crucial workers’ rights www.teenvogue.com/story/general-strikes-explained?fbclid=IwAR3NscJlz8ojA9koR2hgGs_wQEuA6tkwn2iDvhnwRTJh2U5ze2ScNgb7IDQ
April 29/30, 1975, the Vietnamese people won and the US ran away. Then “socialism” (really peasant nationalism) betrayed them.
THE URGENCY OF BRINGING JULIAN ASSANGE HOME
This is an abridged version of an address by John Pilger to a rally in Sydney, Australia, to mark Julian Assange’s six years’ confinement in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
The persecution of Julian Assange must end. Or it will end in tragedy.
The Australian government and prime minister Malcolm Turnbull have an historic opportunity to decide which it will be.
They can remain silent, for which history will be unforgiving. Or they can act in the interests of justice and humanity and bring this remarkable Australian citizen home.
Assange does not ask for special treatment. The government has clear diplomatic and moral obligations to protect Australian citizens abroad from gross injustice: in Julian’s case, from a gross miscarriage of justice and the extreme danger that await him should he walk out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London unprotected.
We know from the Chelsea Manning case what he can expect if a US extradition warrant is successful – a United Nations Special Rapporteur called it torture.
I know Julian Assange well; I regard him as a close friend, a person of extraordinary resilience and courage. I have watched a tsunami of lies and smear engulf him, endlessly, vindictively, perfidiously; and I know why they smear him.
In 2008, a plan to destroy both WikiLeaks and Assange was laid out in a top secret document dated 8 March, 2008. The authors were the Cyber Counter-intelligence Assessments Branch of the US Defence Department. They described in detail how important it was to destroy the “feeling of trust” that is WikiLeaks’ “centre of gravity”. johnpilger.com/articles/the-urgency-of-bringing-julian-assange-home
Manning remains jailed for refusing to blow whistle on WikiLeaks
Former U.S. Private Chelsea Manning who leaked classified U.S. military documents which exposed atrocities during the Iraq War has had her appeal against her contempt of court charge denied.
Manning who leaked documents to WikiLeaks had been asked to give evidence against that organizatioon and its founder Julian Assange, in March. When she refused to do so, the judge jailed her for contempt. She has been in prison since.
The three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia on Monday rejected Manning’s lawyer’s arguments that she was being wrongfully held in contempt and should be granted bail at least while the contempt order was appealed.
Critics say she is being subjected to what is, in effect, arbitrary detention in order to compel her to testify against Assange, who himself is now in a London prison awaiting extradition to the United States, after being forcibly dragged out of the Ecuador embassy earlier this month on 11 April, despite the country granting him political asylum. www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/260636468/manning-remains-jailed-for-refusing-to-blow-whistle-on-wikileaks
SC teachers planning May 1 walkout to ‘stand up’ for better pay, school reforms
S.C. teachers are again planning to leave their classrooms and march at the State House after they say their demands for school and pay improvements have fallen on “deaf ears.”
The grassroots S.C. teachers’ group SCforED — which has amassed a Facebook following of more than 24,000 since its inception a year ago — is organizing the protest on May 1, almost a year after teachers marched on the State House to demand higher pay.
As of late Monday, 408 people had registered to march, but it is anyone’s guess how many teachers will stay home from their classrooms that day.
“After nearly a year of engaging with policy makers, we have reached a point where educator voices have fallen on deaf ears,” SCforED wrote in an official statement. “This inaction continues to compound the current issues of teacher recruitment and retention.”
The protest is planned as S.C. lawmakers run out of time to pass proposed reforms to improve South Carolina’s dismal public school system.
Teachers are set to receive at least a 4% pay raise next year, and lawmakers are working on a plan to give them a daily 30-minute break and eliminate at least three state-required social studies and science tests.
But other proposed improvements likely won’t pass this year, and teachers have bemoaned that a sweeping education reform bill passed by the House was written without their input and ignores major problems for teachers and schools. That bill has stalled in the Senate, which has instead pitched a teacher raise and smaller, piecemeal reforms. Read more here: www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article229541844.html?fbclid=IwAR2XUu7jTsGecjYz5kb8BJjNiDvmfDR5N9UM_H8nIaZFOIyAeRfdWQKr2Eo#storylink=cpy
www.facebook.com/CritcalCritique/videos/475721739838534/?t=66
Why ADOS “Reparationists” Oppose Free Tuition and Student Debt Forgiveness
The thing to know here is that black people, specifically black women have the highest ratio of student debt to gross income, and the highest ratio of student debt to net wealth, and are routinely charged higher, more predatory interest rates than anybody else. In terms of income and wealth, student debt helps black women more than anybody else, and when you help women you help families. The problem ADOS has with helping black women and families is that student debt forgiveness will also help millions of non-black families as well, many or most of whom possess higher incomes and more wealth, and hence lower ratios of student debt to income and student debt to wealth than blacks. If free college and student debt forgiveness for everybody helps non-blacks, Carnell and Moore say, it just perpetuates the black-white wealth gap, it ain’t reparations and it ain’t part of what they call “a black agenda.” …
The Wall Street Journal, the New Republic, Bloomberg, Forbes, CNN and the like are not afraid of us talking up racial disparities and reparations because they know that talk is a dead end, it’s got us nowhere the last thirty years, they know it leads nowhere. What they’re afraid of is that we’ll talk about class differences, class based organizing and class struggle, both within our black communities and in the broader polity. They know what we ought to know, that only treating these things as class problems will get us the popular majorities we need to solve them and ultimately to end the rule of the rich. blackagendareport.com/why-ados-reparationists-oppose-free-tuition-and-student-debt-forgiveness
On this day, 23 April 1971, nearly 1,000 Vietnam War veterans returned their combat medals to the government. The Vietnam Vets had planned to return the medals in body bags but authorities erected a fence around the Capitol building so the veterans threw their medals over it. Some of the Vets, before tossing their medals, dedicated them to comrades – both American and Vietnamese – who had died in battle. More info about this in our podcast about GI resistance to the Vietnam war: www.facebook.com/
Asia’s longest-fighting communist guerrillas – in pictures
The fight for communism is alive in the mountains of the Philippines, where the New People’s Army is celebrating 50 years since it took up arms. The armed wing of the Communist party of the Philippines is the oldest fighting communist guerrilla force in Asia
The Little Red Schoolhouse
www.facebook.com/SupportBlackGroupEconomicsNow/videos/796459544087170/?t=56
As long as capital and empire exist, their schools will be segregated: San Francisco Had an Ambitious Plan to Tackle School Segregation. It Made It Worse.
“Our current system is broken,” said Stevon Cook, president of the district Board of Education, which, late last year, passed a resolution to overhaul the process. “We’ve inadvertently made the schools more segregated.”
For decades, the education mantra from presidential campaign trails to local school board elections has been the same: Your ZIP code should not determine the quality of your school. Few cities have gone further in trying to make that ideal a reality than San Francisco.
But as education leaders from New York to Dallas to San Antonio vow to integrate schools, and as presidential candidates like Joseph R. Biden Jr. are being asked to answer for their records on school segregation, San Francisco’s ambitious plan offers a cautionary tale. www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/san-francisco-school-segregation.html?searchResultPosition=5
Michael Feinberg, a Founder of KIPP Schools, Is Fired After Misconduct Claims
KIPP, one of the country’s largest and most successful charter school chains, dismissed its co-founder on Thursday after an investigation found credible a claim that he had sexually abused a student some two decades ago, according to a letter sent to the school community.
The co-founder, Michael Feinberg, was accused last spring of sexually abusing a minor female student in Houston in the late 1990s, according to someone with close knowledge of the case who was not authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified. An outside investigation found her claim credible after interviewing the student and her mother, who both gave the same sequence of events.
Mr. Feinberg denies the accusation, his lawyer, Christopher L. Tritico, said.
Investigators also uncovered evidence that Mr. Feinberg had sexually harassed two KIPP employees. One case, in 2004, led to a financial settlement, the letter said; the other could not be corroborated because the woman involved would not cooperate, but the letter found it to be credible. www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/us/kipp-sexual-misconduct-michael-feinberg.html?fbclid=IwAR1Ank0KaZHyPufkfrcAl7iXaijhWCELUc-JxJQmfju0HE9Jt3SxlPL7FRQ
The capitalist university: Built on admissions scandals
On March 12, 2019, the public learned that several prominent U.S. universities had admitted at least 50 students based solely on bribes made by their parents. A seven-year investigation by the FBI nicknamed “Operation Varsity Blues” concluded that well-respected institutions such as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Southern California all participated in fraudulent admissions actives. More than a dozen administrators and coaches have since been fired and indicted, while high-profile parents such as Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman, and Jane Buckingham face indictments and other legal actions (1).
The blatant illegality of the scandal is shocking. Yet the crimes also speak to the larger and systemic issues of inequality and exclusion that lie at the base of higher education in the United States, which has always favored the wealthy and elite. The U.S.’s post-secondary institutions are riddled with corruption, racism, and practices that benefit the super-rich and the ruling class. Like so many institutions in the U.S., higher education has a long and complex history of serving the interests of the rich. At the same time, a history of curricular and pedagogical subversion and resistance that accompanied the expansion of the university system. liberationschool.org/the-capitalist-university/?fbclid=IwAR3IpafN4JwEC1sPxc3iuUAwHHcT7Jw3P15L15g9zKw8MmzyzwAiQnsRPHo
High school forbids senior from wearing his Native American garb to graduation
Like many high school seniors, Tvli Birdshead is excited to graduate this spring. But the 18-year-old has mixed feelings about the upcoming ceremony.
The Chickasaw Nation member was hoping to sport a few tokens of his Native American heritage on graduation day — including an honor cord from his tribe, and a beaded cap and feather — but school officials at Latta High School in Ada, Oklahoma said it violated the dress code.
Latta High School principal Stan Cochran informed Birdshead’s mother, Taloa Birdshead, that her son could wear his honor cord at a baccalaureate service but not for the graduation ceremony, and she knew then that they would also object to his beaded cap and eagle feather. www.today.com/style/latta-high-school-won-t-let-tvli-birdshead-wear-native-t152454?fbclid=IwAR3XmpM8dAjrndtdlYWoodRbwQ_sx0c2oH1JCaC_bImqqfjMbbeCUWEHKGg
Most Teachers Don’t Teach Climate Change; 4 In 5 Parents Wish They Did
More than 80% of parents in the U.S. support the teaching of climate change. And that support crosses political divides, according to the results of an exclusive new NPR/Ipsos poll: Whether they have children or not, two-thirds of Republicans and 9 in 10 Democrats agree that the subject needs to be taught in school.
A separate poll of teachers found that they are even more supportive, in theory — 86% agree that climate change should be taught.
These polls are among the first to gauge public and teacher opinion on how climate change should be taught to the generation that in the coming years will face its intensifying consequences: children. www.npr.org/2019/04/22/714262267/most-teachers-dont-teach-climate-change-4-in-5-parents-wish-they-did?fbclid=IwAR2_ip8yzkDvJp9KI5mc6tILmSo8bwkIbn5eq9hIc4EXfTigaEH7Kp7EdeM
In court bombshell, witness says he paid football players at Michigan, other schools
Former Pittsburgh-based financial adviser Marty Blazer, testifying for the government in the second trial that stems from the federal investigation into college-basketball corruption, offered stunning claims Tuesday that he also paid football players at a number of schools, including Michigan, between 2000-13.
Blazer, a key witness in the federal investigation who has cooperated for years providing evidence of assistant basketball coaches and players who took cash bribes, already has pleaded guilty to five counts related to, among others, securities and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and false statements.
He did not offer specifics in court in New York regarding names of football players at several schools that also include Penn State, Pitt, Notre Dame, Alabama and North Carolina, several news outlets reported Tuesday.
According to a report from Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, Blazer said he would pay college football players from $100 to $3,000 per month, usually in a cash payment and sometimes by Western Union via a player’s friend or family member. www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverines/2019/04/23/court-bombshell-witness-says-he-paid-football-players-michigan-other-schools/3554671002/
County sends violation notices to SDSU, contractors over noxious odors
San Diego County issued violation notices Friday to San Diego State University and its contractors for releasing volatile chemicals that students and faculty said caused nausea, headaches and nosebleeds.
Complaints led the university to close the Professional Studies and Fine Arts building last month, six weeks after it was notified of the problems. The county’s investigation lasted little more than a week and was prompted by an inewsource question about odors from chemicals used during a roof repair project.
The county’s Air Pollution Control District sent notices to SDSU, Sylvester Roofing and Tremco Roofing & Building Maintenance. They found violations of the California Health & Safety Code and district regulations.
The violations describe, “Discharging from a source, quantities of air contaminants or other material which cause injury, detriment, nuisance or annoyance to any considerable number of persons.
“Specifically …” the violations read, “the release of coal tar pitch volatiles into the building.” inewsource.org/2019/04/02/san-diego-county-sdsu-violation-odors/?fbclid=IwAR3QWQqZmQV-USkGVnckFzu1E-MbMmOSHGJwUdOVsHh33I9nlBSvnhQeikg
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
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China kicks off showcase of military might
CHINA SHOWING LATEST MILITARY HARDWARE
China’s first aircraft carrier will take part in a naval review Tuesday marking the People’s Republic navy’s 70th anniversary, joined by latest-generation nuclear submarines, destroyers and fighter jets.
Deputy navy commander Qiu Yanpeng said Saturday that 32 Chinese vessels and 39 warplanes will take part in the event, including some making their first public appearances.
The review is part of a major public relations drive by the Chinese military amid rising concerns over its activities in the South China Sea and other parts of the Indo-Pacific region.
The event off the coast of the northern port city of Qingdao will feature submarines, destroyers, frigates, landing ships, auxiliary ships and the aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/04/22/china-kicks-of-showcase-of-military-might/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EBB%2004.23.19&utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Military%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief
IS conflict: Coalition strikes on Raqqa ‘killed 1,600 civilians’
More than 1,600 civilians were killed in US-led coalition air and artillery strikes during the offensive to oust the Islamic State group from the Syrian city of Raqqa in 2017, activists say.
Amnesty International and monitoring group Airwars said they had carried out investigations at 200 strike locations and identified 1,000 of the victims.
They urged the coalition to “end almost two years of denial” about such deaths.
The coalition says there were 180 civilian casualties in its campaign.
Commanders say all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties were taken in those cases and that the decisions to strike complied with the law of armed conflict. www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48044115
Fewer Americans want to serve in the military. Cue Pentagon panic
Donald Trump’s three-quarters-of-a-trillion-dollar defense budget request submitted to Congress last month contains a dirty secret, one that should make us all think twice about perpetual war and public support for it.
The youth of America don’t want to serve in the military any more.
The situation has become so dire that just to maintain America’s ground forces – the army and Marine Corps – the two services are resorting to unprecedented pay raises, bonuses and socialist trappings.
And things are going to get worse. This year, for the first time ever, Americans born after 11 September 2001 will be able to enlist in the armed forces. It’s a sobering reminder both of how long we’ve been at war but also how distant those very wars have become from America’s youth. And yet official military polling shows that fewer and fewer young Americans consider the military as a career or as a transitional step – only some 12.5% – the lowest number in a decade.
The 12.5% is bracing, but based on a complex math that balances losses from deaths and injuries, retirements, attrition and discharges, the army and Marine Corps only needs about 100,000 recruits to maintain current force levels. That’s just 2.4% of the 4.2 million Americans who will celebrate their 18th birthday this year. And yet the military is looking at its third or fourth year in a row where it will struggle to even find these numbers. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/10/fewer-americans-serve-military-pentagon-panic?fbclid=IwAR16_NcaqayL18JjI0dLaDl6IX0oRVj1UajLpnwIPAn_sdznZoYZbr6Eg3Q
Navy SEALs Were Warned Against Reporting Their Chief for War Crimes
Stabbing a defenseless teenage captive to death. Picking off a school-age girl and an old man from a sniper’s roost. Indiscriminately spraying neighborhoods with rockets and machine-gun fire.
Navy SEAL commandos from Team 7’s Alpha Platoon said they had seen their highly decorated platoon chief commit shocking acts in Iraq. And they had spoken up, repeatedly. But their frustration grew as months passed and they saw no sign of official action.
Tired of being brushed off, seven members of the platoon called a private meeting with their troop commander in March 2018 at Naval Base Coronado near San Diego. According to a confidential Navy criminal investigation report obtained by The New York Times, they gave him the bloody details and asked for a formal investigation.
But instead of launching an investigation that day, the troop commander and his senior enlisted aide — both longtime comrades of the accused platoon leader, Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher — warned the seven platoon members that speaking out could cost them and others their careers, according to the report. www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html
‘Where is justice?’ Vietnam demands Monsanto pay victims of US Agent Orange chemical warfare
The Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) has written a letter to a US court asking that it restart a class-action lawsuit by Agent Orange victims against American chemical firms, including Monsanto, which the Eastern District Court of New York dismissed in 2004, claiming a “lack of evidence” and asserting that “herbicide spraying.. did not constitute a war crime pre-1975.”
Citing two recent court rulings in San Francisco, where Monsanto’s Roundup was found responsible for health damages and the company was ordered to pay millions of dollars in compensation, VAVA asserted that it is time for the company to take responsibility for supplying the US military with Agent Orange during the brutal chemical warfare campaign (1961-1971) against Viet Cong guerilla fighters in which 12 million gallons of herbicide were used.
Dioxin, a highly toxic element of Agent Orange, has been linked to major health problems such as birth defects, cancers other deadly diseases. Stressing that Vietnam currently has more than 4.8 million Agent Orange victims, the letter asked for justice for people with hideous deformities. www.rt.com/news/457053-vietnam-agent-orange-justice-monsanto/?fbclid=IwAR1cVGTTS0hcikVhveLWqSgAixfYicykVLla3uuM3T03I75xUYa4VP4ZA7M
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
.JPG "Maria Mejia, left, and others join in a fast-food workers’ protest demanding a $15 minimum wage and better working conditions in Miami in 2014.")
Miami-Dade’s tale of two cities: 30 billionaires and the economic inequality of Colombia
A new report draws a stark picture of economic inequality in the Miami metro area, where 30 full-time resident billionaires — one of the highest concentrations in the world — occupy the top of the pyramid atop deep and widespread poverty, a small and shrinking middle class and a large workforce dependent on poorly paid service jobs.
Miami does enjoy a gleaming new downtown skyline and a thriving economy, but its prosperity is far from equally shared, the report concludes. Titled “Toward a More Inclusive Region,” it’s co-authored by noted urbanist Richard Florida for the Miami Urban Future Initiative think tank at Florida International University.
In fact, by a standard measure of economic inequality, Miami-Dade County has the second-biggest gap in the nation between the haves and the have-nots, with only New York rating worse, the report says. The Miami metro’s score on the Gini coefficient for inequality places it on a par with Panama and Colombia.
“Even more than New York, Miami is really a tale of two cities,” said Florida, who co-authored the report with New York University professor Steven Pedigo, in an interview. “It has attracted the richest people in the world, and more of them are coming. But it also has an economy based on tourism and hospitality and service, which is generating some of the lowest wages in the United States. So it’s by definition one of the most unequal economies in the nation.”Read more here: www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article229441144.html?fbclid=IwAR2euMYTuDiQty-iZXyJ_vwwLSFgJbq-iCMjBEUtrwPbaXHkL8CmtabcuPo#storylink=cpy
Biden Boasts Strong Support From Unions, Union Busters
Joe Biden is a “true supporter of working people” with “strong ties to organized labor.” And his “working-class brand” just might be the Democratic Party’s “best chance of bringing union members — not necessarily the leadership but the rank and file — back into the Democratic fold.”
Or so early reports on Biden’s nascent candidacy would suggest. The Democratic front-runner will officially kick off his campaign on Monday at the Teamsters Local 249 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with United Steelworkers president Leo Gerard at his side — and a crowd of steelworkers decked out in “their USW gear” cheering him on. Meanwhile, the International Association of Fire Fighters is preparing “an organized effort to boost Biden in the early-voting states.”
But before Biden calls on the workers of western Pennsylvania to unite, he plans to show solidarity with the forgotten men and women of the union-busting and telecom-lobbying industries.
On Thursday night in Philadelphia, Comcast’s chief lobbyist David Cohen will host a high-dollar fundraiser for Biden’s campaign. Former Governor Ed Rendell and the “top lobbyists and lawyers in Pennsylvania” will be in attendance; among those lawyers will be a “longtime Biden ally” named Stephen Cozen. nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/biden-boasts-strong-early-support-from-unions-union-busters.html?fbclid=IwAR2xkKUWOp6GyVMi7kcj82SmWzguBd7hcsC6mnQRyw_LbCZm9n3LwEveC18
Morgan Stanley to Pay California $150 Million Over Mortgage Crisis Claims
More than a decade after the mortgage crisis blew a hole in the United States economy, banks and prosecutors are still sorting out the tab for the damage.
The latest reckoning came on Thursday, when Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $150 million to settle claims by the State of California that it misled investors about the risks of mortgage-backed securities sold to two state pension funds for teachers and public employees.
The case was the last remaining government lawsuit against the bank over issues related to the financial crisis, according to Mark Lake, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley. In the agreement, which included no admission of wrongdoing, Morgan Stanley denied the state’s accusations.
Banks have paid more than $240 billion in fines and penalties for their actions during the crisis, according to a tally kept by the investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/business/morgan-stanley-california-settlement.html
Disney heiress calls CEO Bob Iger’s $65.6-million pay package ‘insane’
Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger’s compensation has a major critic who shares the founder’s name.
Philanthropist and documentarian Abigail Disney, who is grandniece of Walt Disney and granddaughter of co-founder Roy O. Disney, sharply rebuked Iger’s most recent pay package as “insane,” both at an event last week hosted by the publication Fast Company and in a thread of tweets she posted Sunday.
The heiress, who is not involved with Burbank-based Disney’s business and owns a small number of shares, described Iger’s compensation as an example of companies giving lavish rewards to top executives instead of improving the lot of lower-wage workers, including theme park workers.
The New York resident cited a recent Equilar study that said Iger’s $65.6-million compensation in fiscal 2018 was more than 1,400 times that of the median Disney employee. www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-abigail-disney-bob-iger-pay-insane-20190422-story.html
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason
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US relationship with international court crashes under Trump
America’s long-running reluctant relationship with the International Criminal Court came to a crashing halt on Monday as decades of U.S. suspicions about the tribunal and its global jurisdiction spilled into open hostility, amid threats of sanctions if it investigates U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
National security adviser John Bolton denounced the legitimacy of The Hague-based court, which was created in 2002 to prosecute war crimes and crimes of humanity and genocide in areas where perpetrators might not otherwise face justice. It has 123 state parties that recognize its jurisdiction.
Bolton’s speech, on the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, came as an ICC judge was expected to soon announce a decision on a request from prosecutors to formally open an investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by Afghan national security forces, Taliban and Haqqani network militants, and U.S. forces and intelligence in Afghanistan since May 2003. The accusations against U.S. personnel include torture and illegal imprisonment. www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2018/09/10/us-relationship-with-international-court-crashes-under-trump/
UN waters down rape resolution to appease US’s hardline abortion stance
Measure on sexual violence in conflict passes after Trump administration threatened to veto document over references to reproductive health
The UN has backed a resolution on combatting rape in conflict but excluded references in the text to sexual and reproductive health, after vehement opposition from the US.
The resolution passed by the security council on Tuesday after a three-hour debate and a weekend of fierce negotiations on the language among member states that threatened to derail the process.
The vote was carried 13 votes in favour. China and Russia abstained. On Monday, the US had threatened to veto the resolution but it is understood that last minute concessions on Tuesday morning got the US on side.
Other omissions included calls for a working group to review progress on ending sexual violence.
The UK backed the resolution, but expressed regret about the omission on reproductive healthcare. www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/apr/23/un-resolution-passes-trump-us-veto-threat-abortion-language-removed
Saudi Arabia: 37 put to death in shocking execution spree
The execution of 37 people convicted on “terrorism” charges marks an alarming escalation in Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty, said Amnesty International today. Among those put to death was a young man who was convicted of a crime that took place while he was under the age of 18.
“Today’s mass execution is a chilling demonstration of the Saudi Arabian authorities callous disregard for human life. It is also yet another gruesome indication of how the death penalty is being used as a political tool to crush dissent from within the country’s Shi’a minority,” said Lynn Maalouf Middle East Research Director at Amnesty International.
Sweeping review finds racist attitudes among white Detroit cops and commanders
Posted By Steve Neavling on Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 2:50 PM
- DPD Facebook page
- Chief James Craig addresses the media.
A sweeping examination of racism in the Detroit Police Department’s 6th precinct uncovered disturbing attitudes among the predominantly white afternoon shift.
The probe was launched in response to a Snapchat video in which two white officers in late January mocked a 23-year-old black woman whose car had been towed. As the officers, Gary Steele and Michael Garrison, ordered Ariel Moore to walk home in frigid temperatures, Steele said “priceless” and “bye Felicia,” with captions that read, ”What black girl magic looks like” and “celebrating Black History Month.” Garrison referred to the woman’s journey home as a “walk of shame.” Both officers were fired.
Calling the video “deeply concerning,” Chief James Craig ordered an environmental audit to determine whether the racism was part of the culture of the 6th Precinct on the city’s west side. www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2019/04/24/sweeping-review-finds-racist-attitudes-among-white-detroit-cops-and-commanders?fbclid=IwAR3Sc0DoM0GtQHpVQnmzYuqFSUzLUo2o1BV3-jvZE-rd8LueLHOFgf3Ch-0
Solidarity for Never
www.facebook.com/berniesanders/videos/1019252341610280/?t=39
Quisling millionaire Weingarten Joins Hillbillary’s fishhook.
UAW bribery probe focuses on trinket deals
Detroit — Federal agents are investigating whether leaders of the United Auto Workers received kickbacks after giving business executives contracts to produce union-branded clothes and trinkets, four sources told The Detroit News.
Approximately 10 promotions company executives have been subpoenaed to produce documents sought by a federal grand jury, two sources told The News. The subpoenas mark another phase of a federal corruption investigation and could lead to more criminal charges in a case that has yielded eight convictions, including former vice presidents of the UAW and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
The subpoenas are part of a broader investigation into whether UAW officials received money or things of value directly or through their tax-exempt nonprofits and help explain the government’s interest in UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada and her predecessor, Joe Ashton. Ashton resigned from the board of General Motors Co. in December 2017, one month after The News reported investigators probing corruption within the U.S. auto industry were interested in him and Estrada. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2019/04/24/federal-corruption-investigation-uaw-focuses-trinket-deals/2806274002/
Spy versus Spy
Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State
In Ecuador, cameras capture footage to be examined by police and domestic intelligence. The surveillance system’s origin: China.
The squat gray building in Ecuador’s capital commands a sweeping view of the city’s sparkling sprawl, from the high-rises at the base of the Andean valley to the pastel neighborhoods that spill up its mountainsides.
The police who work inside are looking elsewhere. They spend their days poring over computer screens, watching footage that comes in from 4,300 cameras across the country.
The high-powered cameras send what they see to 16 monitoring centers in Ecuador that employ more than 3,000 people. Armed with joysticks, the police control the cameras and scan the streets for drug deals, muggings and murders. If they spy something, they zoom in.
This voyeur’s paradise is made with technology from what is fast becoming the global capital of surveillance: China.
The Magical Mystery Tour
Inside the Boy Scouts’ ‘Perversion Files’
Los Angeles Times reporters spent a year delving into confidential files on suspected sexual abusers — files that had been locked away for decades by the Boy Scouts of America. What follows is a series of groundbreaking stories on the files, along with the most comprehensive database of the cases ever published, including 1,900 files and 3,100 case summaries spanning 1947 through 2005. Explore the database and map: www.latimes.com/la-me-boy-scouts-perversion-files-full-coverage-storygallery.html
Suspended Catholic priest gets two years for sexual assault of teen
SAGINAW, MI – The Rev. Robert J. “Father Bob” DeLand Jr. was ordered to serve a minimum of two years in prison in connection with the sexual assault of a teen.
Saginaw Circuit Judge Darnell Jackson handed down the sentence Thursday, April 25 on the charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct that carries a possible sentence of 15 years in prison.
DeLand, 72, who is suspended from his longtime job as a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw, pleaded no contest in March to three charges – second-degree criminal sexual conduct, gross indecency between two males, and manufacturing or distributing an imitation controlled substance. www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/04/catholic-priest-gets-two-years-for-sexual-assault-of-teen.html
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
Happy Birthday Dude!
Leader of self-styled U.S. citizen border patrol attacked in jail
Larry Hopkins, 69, whose group of self-styled citizen border cops drew condemnation from civil liberties advocates, suffered broken ribs in the beating by fellow inmates on Tuesday at the Dona Ana County Detention Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico, according to his attorney, Kelly O’Connell.
Hopkins was arrested on Saturday by the FBI on an outstanding warrant accusing him of being a felon in illegal possession of firearms, a charge dating back to a 2017 search of his home.
The detention facility, about 200 miles south of Albuquerque, confirmed that Hopkins was “the alleged victim” of a Tuesday night attack and said the incident was under investigation. www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-militia/leader-of-u-s-border-armed-militia-group-attacked-in-jail-attorney-idUSKCN1S01L3?fbclid=IwAR0Wnmgif1qBh5zw511xZBebgI_Wrg6pTyA4wjruRMQS7v3-XZMvdt88To0
The WannaCry Hero Deserves a Pardon, Not a Conviction
In May 2017, a cyberattack called WannaCry infected hundreds of thousands of computers across 150 countries. Among the victims: FedEx, the French carmaker Renault, the Russian Interior Ministry and Britain’s National Health Service. The effect on the health service was particularly devastating: ambulances were diverted, patient records were inaccessible, surgical procedures were canceled, telephone calls could not be received.
In the midst of all of this, Marcus Hutchins, then a 22-year-old British security researcher, stumbled upon a “kill switch” in the WannaCry code — and slammed the brakes on a global crisis. “The kill switch is why the U.S. hasn’t been touched so far,” one expert told The Times then. www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/opinion/marcus-hutchins-wannacry.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
www.facebook.com/fox5sandiego/videos/584385285374081/?t=22
Searchable PDF Version of Special Counsel Mueller’s Report on 2016 Russia Meddling
Students create 3D crosswalk to force drivers to slow down at their school
The striped lined of the crosswalk look like floating blocks in the middle of the road.Hoping to encourage drivers to slow down around their school, two elementary school students came up with the brilliant idea of creating a three-dimensional crosswalk.
Fourth grader Eric Dobson and his third-grade partner, Isa, proposed the idea of painting a 3D optical illusion crosswalk near the Brooks Elementary School in Medford, Massachusetts. www.whas11.com/article/news/nation-world/students-create-3d-crosswalk-to-force-drivers-to-slow-down-at-their-school/417-8e65398f-c0e9-4433-9092-808d6b9477b2?fbclid=IwAR3x2hVwkKQ1Bp_fBBEi-JhlyhKLyb9lFKWU5xwoE-XCe4dIHyXyVUpet9o
So Long
Gordon Newton, considered one of Detroit’s greatest visual artists, has died
One of Detroit’s greatest artistic talents has passed away.
Few artists captured the city’s rugged identity in their work as thoughtfully and creatively as artist Gordon Newton, who passed away in his southwest Detroit home from natural causes earlier this month at the age of 71.
His death was confirmed to the Free Press by his nephew Martin Vanamerongen, who says the family is making funeral arrangements. Known to friends and family as Gordie, Newton is survived by his two brothers, Ross and Brad Newton….Newton would become, in many ways, the poster child and beating heart of Detroit’s Cass Corridor arts movement — a do-it-yourself, proto-punk rock era of literature, music and visual art that drew the attention of the broader art world to the Motor City in a way likely not equaled before or since. www.freep.com/story/entertainment/arts/2019/04/24/gordon-newton-artist-death-obituary-detroit-cass-corridor/3567770002/