We Say Fight Back!

It won’t help us to elect women to offices of power, if they turn around and vote for huge military budgets. This recently happened in the vote for the US National Defense Authorization Act of 2017, the largest “defense” bill in history which passed 89-8 in the Senate.  Of the 21 women senators voting (16 Democrats, 5 Republicans), only one Democrat woman voted against it. That means 15 Democrat women betrayed, and made insecure, women here and around the world. There are approximately 3.8 billion women in the world; 126 million in the U.S. For whom does our feminism stand? By Leslie Dwyer  www.design4peace.com/women-live/

www.facebook.com/marines/videos/10154971127645194/

Volume 9 Number 2 February 1, 2018 ISSN 1920-4125
Memory and Meaning in the Representations of The American War in Vietnam
Fran Shor
Wayne State University

If, as argued by Viet Thanh Nguyen, “all wars are fought twice, the first time on
the battlefield, the second time in memory,” who or what shapes that memory determines,
to a large extent, the meaning of that war for the present.1 Indeed, the Vietnam War,
waged at different levels of engagement by the United States for almost three decades,
remains a battlefield because of the contestation over what is remembered by those who
lived through that time. Certainly, as noted by Christian Appy, “the Vietnam War
compelled millions of citizens to question the once widely held faith that their country is
the greatest force for good in the world, that it always acts to advance democracy and
human rights, that it is superior in both its power and its virtue.”2 Nonetheless, as
memories fade and new representations of the Vietnam War take center stage, that war,
once more, reveals how and why it continues to be a “zone of contested meaning” where
the “power to control memory is…bound up with the power to control the representations
of history.”3
One of the most recent and highly touted representations of the Vietnam War was
the 18-hour, 10-episode PBS documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. In
anticipation of the impact of that series on renewed debate and discussion of the war, I
decided to offer an intensive two-day seminar through a specially designed classroom
program at Wayne State University sponsored by the Society of Active Retirees (SOAR).
Although I planned to offer my own reflections on the war as a scholar of United States
imperialism and anti-war activist and draft resister, I was particularly interested in their
memories and perspectives on the Vietnam War, as mediated by the documentary,
especially since all of the students in the SOAR program were older retirees and would
have lived through the period. Therefore, I developed a questionnaire that requested
basic brief information about age, gender, race/ethnicity, and previous occupation, as well
as what their particular situation was between the years 1965-1973, the period of most
intense combat in and developing protest against the Vietnam War. In order to get some
feedback on their impressions of the documentary and its influence on their own
interpretation of the meaning of the war, I included an open-ended question on how much
of the series they watched and what proved to be the most compelling and controversial
elements for them. Finally, I gave a short quiz that was intended to highlight what I
believed were either gaps in the documentary or under-emphasized components. What
follows are highlights from the aforementioned questionnaire and quiz measured against
my own understanding of the Vietnam War and the flaws in the Burns and Novick
documentary.  ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/current

Some Lessons and Myths of the American War in Vietnam
John Marciano
State University of New York, Cortland

The War Was an Example of Imperialism
The Vietnam War was an example of imperial aggression. According to historian
Michael Parenti, “Imperialism is what empires are all about. Imperialism is what empires do,” as
“one country brings to bear…economic and military power upon another country in order to
expropriate [its] land, labor, natural resources, capital and markets.” Imperialism ultimately
enriches the home country’s dominant class. The process involves “unspeakable repression and
state terror,” and must rely repeatedly “upon armed coercion and repression.” The ultimate aim
of modern U.S. imperialism is “to make the world safe” for multinational corporations. When
discussing imperialism, “the prime unit of analysis should be the economic class rather than the
nation-state.”1
U.S. actions in Vietnam and elsewhere are often described as reflecting “national
interests,” “national security,” or “national defense.” Endless U.S. wars and regime changes,
however, actually represent the class interests of those who own and govern the country. Noam
Chomsky argues that if one wishes to understand imperial wars, therefore, “it is a good idea to
begin by investigating the domestic social structure. Who sets foreign policy? What interest do
these people represent? What is the domestic source of their power?” 2
The United States Committed War Crimes, Including Torture
The war was waged “against the entire Vietnamese population,” designed to terrorize
them into submission. The United States “made South Vietnam a sea of fire as a matter of policy,
turning an entire nation into a target. This is not accidental but intentional and intrinsic to the
U.S.’s strategic and political premises.” In such an attack “against an entire people…barbarism
can be the only consequence of [U.S.] tactics,” conceived and organized by “the true architects
of terror,” the “respected men of manners and conventional views who calculate and act behind
desks and computers rather than in villages in the field.”3The U.S. abuse of Vietnamese civilians
and prisoners of war was strictly prohibited by the Geneva Convention that the United States
signed. U.S. officials and media pundits, however, continue to assert that torture is a violation of
“our values.” This is not true. Torture is as American as apple pie, widely practiced in wars and
prisons.
Washington Lied
The war depended on government lies. Daniel Ellsberg exposed one such lie that had a
profound impact on the eventual course of the conflict: the official story of the Tonkin Gulf crisis
of August 1964. President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara told the public that
the North Vietnamese, for the second time in two days, had attacked U.S. warships on “routine

patrol in international waters”; that this was clearly a “deliberate” pattern of “naked aggression”;
that the evidence for the second attack, like the first, was “unequivocal”; that the attack had been
“unprovoked”; and that the United States, by responding in order to deter any repetition,
intended no wider war. All of these assurances were untrue.  ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/current

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPT3H8hmYSU&feature=youtu.be

Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, author of “Loaded” on Cspan   www.c-span.org/video/?439316-1/loaded

The Left Has an ‘Intersectionality’ Problem

The US left has a fundamental problem, perhaps the root of most of its other problems. That fundamental problem is that the US left is not organized as or led by any class conscious or class oriented formations. Union membership is somewhere around 5% of the workforce, and major unions have long been captured by the Democratic party. So the US left is composed of the black activists in their boxes, the gender activists in theirs, the immigrants and their friends over here, Latinos over there, the environmentalists in their corners and the rest in their own zones, each and every one doggedly “centering” their own experience, and if we’re lucky “intersecting” now and then.

It’s a recipe for impotence and futility. But this is the US of A, we tell ourselves, where for some reason a class struggle oriented left has not emerged in any of our lifetimes. Adjusting to this toxic reality rather than taking the responsibility for changing it, US leftists have developed a self-deceiving and self-limiting language, a discourse that normalizes a kind of alternate universe in which class analysis is deprecated and discouraged and class struggle taken pretty much off the table. Intersectionality, and its nappy headed stepchild Afro-pessimism are prominent features of the stifling closet in which the US left has locked itself     www.truthdig.com/articles/u-s-intersectionality-problem/

The Little Red Schoolhouse

New SDSU president withheld email from investigators0

UC Davis pay boost linked to Katehi family ties

Newly designated San Diego State University president Adela de la Torre, a key focus of the 2016 investigation into improper influence at the University of California Davis, denied investigators access to her email accounts, according to an August 1, 2016, report prepared for university regents.

The independent review by the Orrick law firm of allegations related to then-Davis-chancellor Linda Katehi cleared Katehi of wrong-doing in engineering a 22.6 percent salary boost for her friend De la Torre, currently vice chancellor of student affairs and campus diversity at UC Davis, where she was paid $313,875 in 2016.

“The investigation team uncovered no evidence suggesting that Chancellor Katehi proposed the pay increase and title change for Dr. de la Torre because Dr. de la Torre employed Chancellor Katehi’s daughter-in-law, or because Dr. de la Torre advised and employed Chancellor Katehi’s son,” says the report.

But the conclusion of the carefully worded document, heavily redacted for public consumption, was accompanied by significant caveats, including the possibility of concealment of evidence.

“Dr. de la Torre provided consent for the investigation team to access her University-issued electronic devices,” says the investigative report,

“However, she declined to provide consent for the investigation team to review email correspondence associated with her UC Davis email accounts and her UC Davis network and cloud files.”

“Accordingly, [UC Office of the President] authorized the investigation team’s nonconsensual access to her UC Davis emails.”

The report continues, “The investigation team received emails from Dr. de la Torre’s Student Affairs email account (the email account established in connection with her role as Vice Chancellor, Student Affairs)….

“However, Dr. de la Torre had previously arranged with UC Davis IT staff to route emails from her faculty email account (the email account established in connection with her position as a UC Davis faculty member) to her personal Gmail account. This is apparently a common practice among some UC Davis faculty.” …

The Sacramento Bee raised questions about De la Torre and her fast-rising salary in April 2016, after then-chancellor Katehi was placed on administrative leave by U.C. president Janet Napolitano during the investigation that ultimately led Katehi to step down.

“De la Torre, an agricultural economist, started at the university in 2011 as a professor earning $167,000,” the paper reported. “She was promoted to interim vice chancellor in August 2012 and was bumped up to $236,000 a year. She was given the title of vice chancellor in August 2013 and got a $7,000 annual bump. In July 2014, her salary increased to $252,800, then to $310,000 in July 2015.”  ”

De la Torre will receive the same $428,645 salary as predecessor Elliot Hirshman, according to published reports.  www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/jan/31/ticker-new-sdsu-president-withheld-email/

 

Monster manse for SDSU’s new prez

Four-car garage, pool, Zen garden part of presidential package

…”The university has purchased a new house for the future President,” Mary Ruth Carleton, the school’s vice president for university relations and development, announced at a September 7 board meeting of the SDSU-controlled Campanile Foundation, which raises money from wealthy alumni to pay for such ventures.

County records show that on September 5, Aztec Shops paid $2.3 million in cash for a sprawling mansion at 4811 Yerba Santa Drive, down the street from the former presidential residence. The seller was attorney Jerome R. Moe, who bought the one-acre estate in May 2015 for $1.36 million, records show.

“Expansive Patios, Courtyards, Lap Pool, Atrium/Zen Garden, 4-car Garage+RV Garage total over 2000 sq. ft. Property is walled, fenced & gated w/ Beautiful Lush Landscaping,” per an online listing for the 6335-square-foot complex.  www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2018/jan/22/ticker-monster-manse-sdsus-new-prez/

Teaching Hard History

Schools are not adequately teaching the history of American slavery, educators are not sufficiently prepared to teach it, textbooks do not have enough material about it, and – as a result – students lack a basic knowledge of the important role it played in shaping the United States and the impact it continues to have on race relations in America….

It is often said that slavery was our country’s original sin, but it is much more than that. Slavery is our country’s origin. It was responsible for the growth of the American colonies, transforming them from far-flung, forgotten outposts of the British Empire to glimmering jewels in the crown of England. And slavery was a driving power behind the new nation’s territorial expansion and industrial maturation, making the United States a powerful force in the Americas and beyond.

Slavery was also our country’s Achilles’ heel, responsible for its near undoing. When the southern states seceded, they did so expressly to preserve slavery. So wholly dependent were white Southerners on the institution that they took up arms against their own to keep African Americans in bondage. They simply could not allow a world in which they did not have absolute authority to control black labor—and to regulate black behavior.

The central role that slavery played in the development of the United States is beyond dispute. And yet, we the people do not like to talk about slavery, or even think about it, much less teach it or learn it. The implications of doing so unnerve us. If the cornerstone of the Confederacy was slavery, then what does that say about those who revere the people who took up arms to keep African Americans in chains? https://www.splcenter.org/20180131/teaching-hard-history?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

‘Michigan State Fought ESPN at Every Turn’ on Info Requests — National Media Writer

Michigan State plays aggressive defense, and not just in sports.

The university, which is looking for a successor to Lou Anna Simon, faces multiple issues as it tries to protect its image from further erosion. In addition to waves from the Larry Nassar fiasco, MSU is buffeted by ESPN reports on its handling of basketball and football players’ misbehavior in past years.

MSU’s hard-line resistance to inquiries from Paula Lavigne of ESPN prompts coverage by Poynter, a national journalism institute.

“Let’s explore how bad her experience with Michigan State has been in coming clean with information about sexual assault allegations against athletes,” chief media writer James Warren says Monday atop an article with the headline at right. He adds:

Following on the heels of Michigan State’s spinelessness in the monstrous Larry Nassar gymnastics case, . . . Lavigne and Nicole Noren broke word Friday on an Outside the Lines episode of a “pattern of widespread denial, inaction and information suppression” of sexual assault allegations against football and basketball players. . . .

All you really need to know is this: Michigan State continually fought release of relevant documents, even redacting names readily disclosed to the network by the East Lansing Police Department. Its conduct was deemed so egregious that it was ordered to pay ESPN’s attorney fees.

Not the least bit humbled, the university even proactively sued ESPN last year on another records request — and again was spurned by a state judicial system that one might have assumed to be reflexively partial to a prominent Michigan institution.   www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/19213/michigan_state_fought_espn_at_every_turn_on_info_requests_–_national_media_writer#.WnZef3xG2ie

 

FBI aware of Nassar allegations while dozens assaulted

At least 40 girls and women said they were molested by a Michigan sports doctor over a 14-month period while the FBI at the same time was aware that Larry Nassar had been accused of molesting gymnasts, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The FBI became aware of Nassar in July 2015 when it was contacted by USA Gymnastics, which trains athletes for the Olympics. But he wasn’t publicly exposed until The Indianapolis Star published allegations by a victim in 2016, The New York Times reported.

In the meantime, Nassar continued to see young female athletes, especially gymnasts, or dancers while working at Michigan State University. USA Gymnastics, where he was a team doctor, cut ties with him in 2015.  www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/02/03/fbi-aware-nassar-allegations-dozens-assaulted/110085934/

MSU Interim President John Engler was dismissive of sexual assault claims as governor

Upon being named interim president of Michigan State University following a massive sexual assault scandal, John Engler offered this assurance Wednesday: “I will move forward as if my own daughters were on this campus and will treat every student as I would my own daughters.”

But as Michigan governor in the 1990s, Engler had a far different response  when a group of women, prison inmates, said they were raped or harassed by male guards. Lawyers for some of the women, federal prosecutors and, eventually, the United Nations battled the Engler Administration for the right to interview state officials as well as prisoners to determine the scope of the problem.

Engler stopped them cold.

In a June 12, 1998 letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Engler wrote that he would not make state prison officials available, saying the U.N.’s interest stemmed from “what I consider to be a baseless lawsuit against the State of Michigan” by the U.S. Justice Department.

“The lawsuit alleges that the state has violated the civil and constitutional rights of women prison inmates…despite extensive efforts on the state’s part to document that the allegations…are without merit,” he wrote.

Engler went on to call the U.N. an “unwitting tool in the Justice Department’s agenda to discredit the State of Michigan in spite of the objective evidence that the State of Michigan has not violated the civil and constitutional rights of women inmates.”  www.bridgemi.com/public-sector/msu-interim-president-john-engler-was-dismissive-sexual-assault-claims-governor

San Ysidro elementary school principal removed from post

The principal of a San Ysidro elementary school was removed from his post earlier this month for reasons that are unclear.

School district officials have divulged few details about the removal of Joel Tapia from his role as the principal of Smythe Elementary School.

San Ysidro School District spokesman Francisco Mata said the matter was a “personnel issue” and Tapia remains employed by the district. He declined to provide other details.

Teachers said Tapia stopped showing up to the Smythe Avenue school on Jan. 16.

At a school board meeting Thursday, dozens of teachers, parents and students turned out to show their support for Tapia. They held signs that read: “Bring back our leader,” “Smythe staff supports Tapia!!” and “We love our principal.”  www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/south-county/sd-se-smythe-principal-20180130-story.html

Study: Racist messages land on campuses in surging numbers

White supremacist groups have targeted college campuses in surging numbers since President Donald Trump’s election, emboldened by political and racial tensions over immigration and other issues, according to a group that monitors extremism and bigotry.

The Anti-Defamation League issued a report Thursday that said racist fliers, banners and stickers were found on college campuses 147 times in fall 2017, a more than threefold increase over the 41 cases reported one year before.

Leaders of the New York-based nonprofit attribute the uptick to a small number of white nationalist groups seeking to recruit members on college campuses that have ramped up their efforts as the nation’s politics grow increasingly polarized.

“Whatever momentum white supremacists felt they had last fall, they certainly are redoubling their efforts,” Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said in an interview.

The league tracked 333 cases since Donald Trump was elected in November 2016. Since then, it has seen increased activity from groups celebrating what Segal called “the divisiveness that was a hallmark of the presidential campaign.”

Dozens of U.S. college campuses have been confronted by far-right groups brandishing racist views over the last year, including an August 2017 rally that drew hundreds of torch-carrying white supremacists to the University of Virginia. Protests there turned deadly the next day, when a car plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters and killed a 32-year-old woman.  www.detroitnews.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/01/colleges-white-supremacists/110015398/

Two senior L.A. school district officials resign amid sexual harassment allegations

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Tillerson warns countries against Chinese investment, Russia engagement

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday warned countries in the Western Hemisphere to beware of Chinese investment, saying it is reminiscent of European colonialism. He also derided Russia for selling weaponry to unfriendly, authoritarian governments in the region.

Before embarking Thursday on a five-nation trip to Latin America, Tillerson said China seeks only to enrich itself with investment and development projects. He said regional governments should protect themselves against “predatory actors that are now showing up in our hemisphere,” specifically mentioning China. He said Chinese investment may look good but comes with a heavy price.

“China, as it does in emerging markets throughout the world, offers the appearance of an attractive path to development, but in reality this often involves trading short-term gains for long-term dependency,” Tillerson said in a speech at the University of Texas.

He said Chinese offers almost always demand the use of imported Chinese labor, large loans and unsustainable debt and ignore human and property rights.

“While this trade has brought benefits, the unfair trading practices used by many Chinese have also harmed these countries’ manufacturing sectors, generating unemployment and lowering wages for workers. Latin America does not need a new imperial power,” he said.

He lamented that China is now the largest trading partner with Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru.  www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/tillerson-warns-countries-against-chinese-investment-russia-engagement

Leaks, feasts and sex parties: How ‘Fat Leonard’ infiltrated the Navy’s floating headquarters in Asia

Between 2006 and 2013, Francis doled out illicit gifts, hosted epicurean feasts and sponsored sex parties for Blue Ridge personnel on at least 45 occasions, according to federal court records and Navy documents obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act.

Officers from the Blue Ridge consumed or pocketed about $1 million in gourmet meals, liquor, cash, vacations, airline tickets, tailored suits, Cuban cigars, luxury watches, cases of beef, designer handbags, antique furniture and concert tickets — and reveled in the attention of an armada of prostitutes, records show.

As the flagship for the Navy’s 7th Fleet, the USS Blue Ridge plays a critical role in national security by overseeing all U.S. maritime operations in Asia and the western Pacific. The venerable warship is the Navy’s second-oldest active-duty vessel and has survived the Vietnam War, the Cold War and tensions with China and North Korea.

But there is one foreign threat against which the Blue Ridge proved utterly defenseless for many years: a 6-foot-3, 350-pound tugboat owner known as “Fat Leonard.”

In a case that ranks as the worst corruption scandal in Navy history, the Justice Department has charged 15 officers and one enlisted sailor who served on the Blue Ridge with taking bribes from or lying about their ties to Leonard Glenn Francis, a Singapore-based tycoon who held lucrative contracts to service Navy ships and submarines in Asian ports.

For the better part of a decade, as part of a massive scam to defraud the Navy, Francis systematically infiltrated the Blue Ridge to a degree that is only now coming into focus, more than four years after the defense contractor’s arrest, according to the documents from federal court and the Navy, as well as interviews with Navy officials and associates of Francis….

Between 2006 and 2013, Francis doled out illicit gifts, hosted epicurean feasts and sponsored sex parties for Blue Ridge personnel on at least 45 occasions, according to federal court records and Navy documents obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act.

Officers from the Blue Ridge consumed or pocketed about $1 million in gourmet meals, liquor, cash, vacations, airline tickets, tailored suits, Cuban cigars, luxury watches, cases of beef, designer handbags, antique furniture and concert tickets — and reveled in the attention of an armada of prostitutes, records show.  (Wapo 2/1/18)

US Navy commander pleads guilty to bribery charge in ‘Fat Leonard’ scandal

In Afghanistan’s Unwinnable War, What’s the Best Loss to Hope For?

 After 16 years of war in Afghanistan, experts have stopped asking what victory looks like and are beginning to consider the spectrum of possible defeats.

All options involve acknowledging the war as failed, American aims as largely unachievable and Afghanistan’s future as only partly salvageable. Their advocates see glimmers of hope barely worth the stomach-turning trade-offs and slim odds of success.

“I don’t think there is any serious analyst of the situation in Afghanistan who believes that the war is winnable,” Laurel Miller, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation, said in a podcast last summer, after leaving her State Department stint as acting special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This may be why, even after thousands have died and over $100 billion has been spent, even after the past two weeks of shocking bloodshed in Kabul, few expect the United States to try anything other than the status quo.

It is a strategy, as Ms. Miller described it, to “prevent the defeat of the Afghan government and prevent military victory by the Taliban” for as long as possible.  www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/afghanistan-war.html

Drugged and robbed Marine colonel being forced to retire

 

A newly discovered document undercuts a key storyline of the anti-Soviet Afghan war of the 1980s – that it was “Charlie Wilson’s War.” A note inside Ronald Reagan’s White House targeted the Texas Democrat as someone “to bring into circle as discrete Hill connection,” Robert Parry reports.

Official Washington’s conventional wisdom about Afghanistan derives to a dangerous degree from a Hollywood movie, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” which depicted the anti-Soviet war of the 1980s as a fight pitting good “freedom fighters” vs. evil “occupiers” and which blamed Afghanistan’s later descent into chaos on feckless U.S. politicians quitting as soon as Soviet troops left in 1989.

The Tom Hanks movie also pushed the theme that the war was really the pet project of a maverick Democratic congressman from Texas, Charlie Wilson, who fell in love with the Afghan mujahedeen after falling in love with a glamorous Texas oil woman, Joanne Herring, who was committed to their anti-communist cause.

However, “Charlie Wilson’s War” – like many Hollywood films – took extraordinary license with the facts, presenting many of the war’s core elements incorrectly. That in itself might not be a serious problem, except that key U.S. policymakers have cited these mythical “facts” as lessons to guide the current U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan.

The degree to which Ronald Reagan’s White House saw Wilson as more puppet than puppet-master is underscored by a newly discovered document at Reagan’s presidential library in Simi Valley, California. I found the document in the files of former CIA propaganda chief Walter Raymond Jr., who in the 1980s oversaw the selling of U.S. interventions in Central America and Afghanistan from his office at the National Security Council.

The handwritten note to Raymond appears to be initialed by then-National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane and instructs Raymond to recruit Wilson into the Reagan administration’s effort to drum up more Afghan war money for the fiscal 1985 budget. The note reads:

“Walt, Go see Charlie Wilson (D-TX). Seek to bring him into circle as discrete Hill connection. He can be very helpful in getting money. M.” (The notation may have used the wrong adjective, possibly intending ”discreet,” meaning circumspect and suggesting a secretive role, not “discrete,” meaning separate and distinct.)

Raymond appears to have followed up those instructions, as Wilson began to play a bigger and bigger role in unleashing the great Afghan spending spree of 1985 and as Raymond asserted himself behind the scenes on how the war should be sold to the American people.   www.globalresearch.ca/hollywoods-dangerous-afghan-illusion-charlie-wilsons-war/5331107

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN4Sn5u_pK0

Blackouts and Flashpoints 2018

 

 

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Stocks Fall to End a Bad Week, and a Boom Begins to Look Shaky (Fizzle before Pop?)

Investors have spent much of the last year shrugging off geopolitical and economic risks, from the threat of nuclear conflict with North Korea to a potential trade war with China. Instead, they have focused on the strength of the United States economy, driven by banner corporate profits and President Trump’s push to lower taxes and reduce regulation.

The optimism helped lift stock markets ever higher, extending the boom into its ninth year.

Now, investors are suddenly skittish.

On Friday, stocks tumbled by more than 2 percent, propelling the market to its worst week in two years.

The immediate catalyst was the jobs report, which showed the strong United States economy might finally be translating into rising wages for American workers — a sign that higher inflation could be around the corner. But what is really worrying investors is that the fuel behind this stock market boom, namely cheap money from global central banks, may disappear sooner than they thought.

In recent weeks, the shift in sentiment has played out across the world’s largest financial markets. As stocks have sold off, Treasury yields have surged. The dollar has slumped.  www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/business/stock-market-interest-rates.html

 

Dow Plunges 666 Points as Rate Angst Sinks Bonds: Markets Wrap

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled 666 points in the biggest plunge since June 2016, as the worsening bond rout stirred angst that the Federal Reserve will accelerate its rate-hike schedule.

Solid jobs data that underscored the strength of the economy sent bond bulls scurrying and rattled equity investors who haven’t seen a week this bad in two years. The tandem selling accelerated after Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan suggested officials may need to hike more than three times this year to cool the advance. The 10-year Treasury yield popped above 2.85 percent for the first time since January 2014.

“Yields have risen, inflation evidence is rising rather broadly. It’s that combo of factors that’s starting to mount,” Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Leuthold Weeden, said by phone. “And then you get a report, and that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and that’s kind of what we got into today.”   There was nowhere to hide on the stock market, with all 11 S&P 500 sectors lower.   www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/asia-stocks-to-slide-as-tech-stumbles-bonds-drop-markets-wrap

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement and The War on Reason

Of the 690,000 undocumented immigrants now facing an uncertain future as Congress and President Trump wrangle over the DACA program are about 8,800 school teachers.

The real possibility that they’ll be deported if the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is allowed to expire has put enormous stress on them.

Maria Rocha, a teacher in San Antonio, Texas, says it’s gut wrenching, but she’s trying not to show it in front of her third-graders. Rocha has been teaching at KIPP Esperanza Dual-Language Academy for three years.

It’s even harder, she says, because some of her students are also at risk of being deported.  www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/01/29/579682676/nearly-9-000-daca-teachers-face-an-uncertain-future

Solidarity for Never

FCA training funds used for UAW exec’s pricey ‘14 party

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV executive Alphons Iacobelli approved spending more than $30,000 in worker training funds on a party for former UAW Vice President Norwood Jewell, a bash that included “ultra-premium” liquor and strolling models who lit labor leaders’ cigars, The Detroit News has learned.

The training funds covered the $7,000 cigar purchase and a $3,000 tab for wine in bottles with custom labels that featured Jewell’s name, sources told The News. The party is described by federal prosecutors as an example of a cozy relationship between the automaker and UAW leaders designed to corrupt the bargaining process and implementation of a contract for thousands of workers.

The News learned new details about the party Thursday and discovered that Jewell and his former administrative assistant, Nancy Johnson, have hired prominent, white-collar defense lawyers amid a widening federal investigation. Jewell, 60, of Davison has hired Chicago attorney Joseph Duffy, whose client list includes a former adviser to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, while Johnson has hired Detroit lawyer Harold Gurewitz, who defended ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

The party, meanwhile, was detailed in Iacobelli’s plea deal with federal prosecutors last week that offered new allegations about more than $1.5 million in illegal benefits paid to UAW leaders and employees to influence negotiations in the automaker’s favor. Jewell is not identified by name in the plea deal but multiple sources confirmed the party was held in his honor in August 2014, less than a year before the start of contract negotiations and more than a year before the UAW reached a tentative deal with the automaker that its members ultimately rejected.

Prosecutors also alleged that an unnamed Fiat Chrysler executive gave a custom-made Italian watch to Jewell’s predecessor, the late General Holiefield, in February 2010. The government likely disclosed the party and the Italian watch in a strategic move to pressure Jewell and the unnamed Fiat Chrysler executive, said Wayne State University law professor and former federal prosecutor Peter Henning.  www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/chrysler/2018/02/01/feds-eye-pricey-party-honoring-embattled-uaw-leader/110026950/

Autoworkers sue UAW, FCA: We want our union dues back. You scammed us

In the wake of a growing FBI corruption probe, the UAW and Fiat Chrysler have a new legal headache: A proposed class-action lawsuit filed by autoworkers who claim they were duped and scammed by their own union.

The plaintiffs claim that a years-long scheme involving auto executives paying bribes to union bosses cheated them out of “hundreds of millions of dollars” in union dues that were “wasted on tainted bargaining.” They want to recover their dues, claiming the UAW leaders, who were supposed to be looking out for their interests, were instead in cahoots with Fiat Chrysler execs who “paid bribes to executives of the UAW to take FCA-friendly positions.”

“The conspiracy … has resulted in tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in union dues not being used for the intended purpose: bargaining for the benefit of the union members,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit, which seeks class action status on behalf of tens of thousands of UAW members, was filed by three union members who work at FCA.

It was filed on Friday in U.S. District Court — the same day that UAW President Dennis Williams sent a letter to the union rank-and-file insisting the bargaining process was not corrupted as a result of the bribery scheme.  www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2018/01/29/fca-uaw-corruption-union-dues/1075362001/

Counterfeit Unionism in the Empire

…Labor bosses at all levels are the nearest and most vulnerable of workers’ enemies. Rather than “move unions to the left,” better, “demolish the labor quislings, take their treasuries, seize their buildings, as we build a mass class conscious movement to transcend the system of capital.”

Why does that make better sense?

Since the Industrial Workers of the World (a grand vision but fatally flawed practice) were nearly demolished in the Palmer Raids of 1919, American unionism has been a false flag operation: not what most people think of as unionism.

*Every major labor leader in the US adopts the corporate-state view of unity of Labor Bosses, Government, and Corporations in the national interest. These are hardly “labor” unions in the strict sense of the word. They are the empire’s unions. I assume the connections of labor and US intelligence are fairly well known and do not need to be explained. They are the unions of what now is, surely, the US corporate state.  www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/23/counterfeit-unionism-in-the-empire/

 

How the Labor Movement Is Thinking Ahead to a Post-Trump World (back to the black hole in the voting booth)

The American labor movement, over the past four decades, has had two golden opportunities to shift the balance of power between workers and bosses — first in 1978, with unified Democratic control of Washington, and again in 2009. Both times, the unions came close and fell short, leading, in no small part, to the precarious situation labor finds itself in today.

Just over 10 percent of workers are unionized, down from 35 percent in the mid 1950s. Potentially, though, a wave of Democratic victories in 2018 and 2020 could give labor groups one last chance to turn things around. With an eye toward that moment, labor’s leading strategists are coming together to build a program that avoids the mistakes of the last two rounds…

In the meantime, labor is sliding backward. The Supreme Court will issue a decision later this year that could severely weaken public sector unions, and President Donald Trump’s National Labor Relations Board is doing its very best to overturn critical pro-worker decisions issued during the Obama era. And, because the basic structure of the National Labor Relations Act hasn’t changed much since it was first established in 1935, employers have had decades to develop new legal strategies to weaken the law; their strategies include forced arbitration and misclassifying workers as independent contractors. theintercept.com/2018/01/21/labor-movement-us-unions/

Spy versus Spy

Russian jet flies within 5 feet of US Navy plane, Pentagon says

www.facebook.com/navytimes/videos/10156149021087490/

FBI Warns Republican Memo Could Undermine Faith In Massive, Unaccountable Government Secret Agencies

WASHINGTON—Stressing that such an action would be highly reckless, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Thursday that releasing the “Nunes Memo” could potentially undermine faith in the massive, unaccountable government secret agencies of the United States. “Making this memo public will almost certainly impede our ability to conduct clandestine activities operating outside any legal or judicial system on an international scale,” said Wray, noting that it was essential that mutual trust exist between the American people and the vast, mysterious cabal given free rein to use any tactics necessary to conduct surveillance on U.S. citizens or subvert religious and political groups. “If we take away the people’s faith in this shadowy monolith exempt from any consequences, all that’s left is an extensive network of rogue, unelected intelligence officers carrying out extrajudicial missions for a variety of subjective, and occasionally personal, reasons.” At press time, Wray confirmed the massive, unaccountable government secret agencies were unaware of any wrongdoing for violating constitutional rights.  politics.theonion.com/fbi-warns-republican-memo-could-undermine-faith-in-mass-1822639681

Russian Court Extends Detention Of Norwegian Spying Suspect

The Magical Mystery Tour

Pastor accused of sexual healing

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

www.facebook.com/DailyCaller/videos/10154263180156770/

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www.facebook.com/simonscat/videos/10155421039384523/

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www.facebook.com/CurbedDetroit/videos/1725782797444551/

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www.facebook.com/910amsuperstation/videos/2213946215499244/

So Long

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Robert Parry, Investigative Reporter in Washington, Dies at 68

Robert Parry, a tenacious investigative reporter and author who exposed details of the Reagan administration’s secret support for Nicaraguan rebels in the 1980s, died on Saturday in Arlington, Va. He was 68.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his wife, Diane Duston.

Mr. Parry won the George Polk Award for national reporting in 1984 for his disclosures that the Central Intelligence Agency had provided an assassination manual to the so-called contras, the right-wing insurgents who were seeking to topple the socialist government in Nicaragua. Mr. Parry was part of an Associated Press investigative team based in Washington when he broke the story.

For that reporting, he was also named a finalist for the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

In 1985, Mr. Parry broke news of the involvement of Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, a deputy director of the National Security Council, in a covert operation to support the contras with proceeds from clandestine arms sales to Iran. Congress had banned such support. The weapons had been sold to Iran to speed the release of American hostages in Lebanon.

In 2015, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard awarded Mr. Parry the I. F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence. Last year, he received the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, named for a 20th-century war correspondent and presented by a trust set up in her name.

Mr. Parry complained that some articles on the Iran-contra scandal, including those he wrote for The A.P. with a colleague, Brian Barger, had been watered down or even withheld because his bosses had been meeting with Colonel North to negotiate the release of Terry Anderson, an A.P. reporter who was being held hostage during Lebanon’s civil war. A.P. executives denied the accusations.  www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/obituaries/robert-parry-investigative-reporter-dies.html