Rouge Forum Dispatch: Truth as a Use Value.
We Say Fight Back!
Charles Cobb, author of “This Non-Violent Stuff Will Get You Killed,” on the Panthers’ era: In the late 1960s and into the 70s, the Black Panther Party and a handful of small black organizations not withstanding, national black leadership mainly appealed for money from white people holding various positions of power and organized loud “black” conferences and caucuses that seemed more boast than commitment.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CncLhhHLwvs
Charles Cobb Interviewed re: “This Non-Violent Stuff will Get You Killed” (video too) CONWAY: You know, when we last talked, we were talking about the NAACP kind of, like, supporting your organizing efforts and so on, and you had mentioned Robert Williams. And so you told me a little bit about Robert Williams. And I’m wondering. You said, this book here is how guns made the civil rights movement pop possible. But as I was reading, I see that you also says that the story is much more than guns; it’s about community organizing. What did you mean?
COBB: I mean just that. Guns, firstly, to give you the shortest answer, guns kept us alive, which meant that guns helped enable us to organize at the grassroots in local communities across the Black Belt itself. I think the missed point, the missed lesson of Southern movement is that more than a movement of mass protest and public spaces led by charismatic leaders, what really defines the movement in the South, certainly in the 1960s–and, I would argue, going all the way back to the days of slavery and slave revolts–is grassroots organizing in rural communities. If you think about it, slaves were not organizing protest marches on the auction blocks. Slaves were not having sit-ins at the plantation manor dining room table seeking a seat at the table. What were they doing? They were organizing something: a revolt, the ways and means of escape, the ways and means of survival, sabotage, assassination. The organizing tradition is a deep tradition in the black community. therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13132
Teachable Moment Coming on February 21: 167 Years Since Communist Manifesto Out
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
Full Archive of I.F. Stone’s Weekly www.unzmag.net/Pub/IFStonesWeekly/
Congratulations on the Publication of
Over 100 School Workers Pepper Sprayed + Arrested for protesting for secular education
More than 100 people were detained Dec. 20 following a police crackdown on a demonstration in central Ankara organized by a teachers’ union. The demonstrators gathered in the morning in the Turkish capitol’s Tandoğan Square upon a call from teachers’ union Eğitim-İş to demand “Respect to Secular Education and Labor.”
Police used pepper spray, water cannons and tear gas to disperse the teachers when a group reportedly insisted on marching towards Kızılay.
Some fear that this could be threatened by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who founded the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party. He has recently made statements on education, which some have interpreted as a signal that he is planning to bring more religion into the classrooms.
Last year, Turkey’s parliament lifted a long-standing ban on Islamic headscarves in the civil service and this past September, it removed a ban on female students wearing them in high schools.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D-nkTwz9vQ
Steelworkers Strike Spreads (how will USW contain it?) U.S. oil workers at two BP Plc plants in the Midwest are joining the biggest strike at refineries across the nation since 1980 as negotiations on a new labor contract were suspended until next week.
Workers at BP’s Whiting refinery in Indiana and the Toledo plant in Ohio that it co-owns with Husky Energy Inc. notified management that they’ll be joining the strike at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, Scott Dean a spokesman for BP, said by e-mail Friday. The United Steelworkers, which represents 30,000 U.S. oil workers, has suspended negotiations with Royal Dutch Shell Plc, bargaining on behalf of employers, until next week.
The nine U.S. plants on strike and the two refineries headed for a walkout together total about 13 percent of the country’s refining capacity. It’s the first national strike by U.S. oil workers since 1980, when a work stoppage lasted three months. A full strike of USW members, employed at more than 200 U.S. refineries, fuel terminals, pipelines and chemical plants, would threaten to disrupt 64 percent of U.S. fuel output. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-07/u-s-oil-workers-strike-expands-to-bp-plants-with-talks-on-hold
Teachable Moment and More BS About Vietnam as the Anniversary approaches: Rory Kennedy (yes, those Kennedy’s) on the last days of Vietnam (nice footage, wrong outlook)
video.pbs.org/video/2365417082/
The Little Red Schoolhouse
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGXsMCBvyIc
Shirley Willihnganz, the University of Louisville provost who hired “notorious ed school dean” Robert Felner has stepped down from her $342,694 a year position and will return to the faculty after a sabbatical.
Willihnganz told the Louisville Courier-Journal that the “Felner episode” was the biggest regret of her 13 years as a top administrator at U of L.
Willihnganz hired Felner as dean of the U of L College of Education and Human Development in 2003. Felner’s deanship has been described by some as a “reign of terror” because of his abusive treatment of staff, faculty, students and alumni.
Despite dozens of grievances filed against Felner and a faculty vote of no-confidence, Willihnganz and her boss, university president James Ramsey, were dismissive of complaints and vigorously defended him. Ultimately, Willihnganz was “forced to apologize” to the faculty, saying “mostly what I think I want to say is people have been hurt and something very bad happened, and as provost I feel like I am ultimately responsible for that.”
In addition to his well documented abusive behavior, Felner was also engaged in criminal activity while working for the U of L and under Willihnganz’s supervision.
In 2010, Felner was sentenced 63 months in federal prison for a scheme that bilked $2.3 million of US Department of Education money from U of L and the University of Rhode Island. nblo.gs/13b5Kg
Former Principal in Drug/Gun Bust Still Working in San Diego Schools A San Diego Unified principal who was arrested in 2013 for possession of a stolen, loaded gun; hydrocodone; meth; marijuana and an open bottle of vodka in her car is still working for the school district.
Rachel Escobedo, 47, was placed on paid administrative leave at the time of her 2013 arrest, but NBC 7 Investigates has learned she’s since gone back to work as a central office resource teacher.www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Rachel-Escobedo-Principal-In-Drug-Gun-Case-Still-Working-At-SD-Unified–290997691.html
The San Ysidro School District is suing former Superintendent Manuel Paul to recover more than $200,000 in severance pay he received before pleading guilty to state and federal corruption charges.The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in San Diego Superior Court, seeks the return of $211,347.42 paid to Paul in 2013 when he stepped down from the schools chief position amid allegations of corruption.
Paul is serving a two-month sentence at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego for the federal crime.
Citing the advice of counsel, a majority of trustees voted in June 2013 to release Paul from his contract rather than fire him. At the time, he was indicted on a state corruption charge in connection with the “pay-to-play” scandal that swept through three South County school districts. He pleaded guilty to filing a false document in that case.
But Paul was also the subject of a federal investigation. He eventually was charged with deprivation of benefit for political contribution for taking $2,500 cash in 2010 from a contractor who wanted to do business with the district.
Paul pleaded guilty to the federal charge Aug. 20. He was sentenced to two months in prison and fined $5,000.
The prison sentence, handed down Jan. 13 by Magistrate Judge William V. Gallo, took Paul by surprise. The plea bargain did not include time in custody. Gallo went for prison time, saying it was warranted because of Paul’s “shameful” conduct and the abuse of trust — something the judge called “a mortal sin.”
“This is the right move for the board, and the right move for the community in terms of seeking justice,” board President Antonio Martinez said Friday. “It’s something long overdue.” sandiegouniontribune.ca.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=60aed1185&pSetup=sandiegouniontribune#.VNYvdwQ0AVY.facebook
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
“I was an American Sniper, not like Kyle” The movie tells the story of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, said to have 160 confirmed kills, which would make him the most lethal American military member in history. He first shared his story in a memoir, which became the basis for Clint Eastwood’s film adaptation. Kyle views the occupation of Iraq as necessary to stop terrorists from coming to the mainland and attacking the U.S.; he sees the Iraqis as “savages” and attacks any critical thought about the overall mission and the military’s ability to accomplish it.
This portrayal is not unrealistic. My unit had plenty of soldiers who thought like that. When you are sacrificing so much, it’s tempting to believe so strongly in the “noble cause,” a belief that gets hardened by the fatigue of multiple tours and whatever is going on at home. But viewing the war only through his eyes gives us too narrow a frame.
During my combat tour I never saw the Iraqis as “savages.” They were a friendly culture who believed in hospitality, and were sometimes positive to a fault. The people are proud of their history, education system and national identity. I have listened to children share old-soul wisdom, and I have watched adults laugh and play with the naiveté of schoolboys. I met some incredible Iraqis during and after my deployment, and it is shameful to know that the movie has furthered ignorance that might put them in danger.
Unlike Chris Kyle, who claimed his PTSD came from the inability to save more service members, most of the damage to my mental health was what I call “moral injury,” which is becoming a popular term in many veteran circles.
As a sniper I was not usually the victim of a traumatic event, but the perpetrator of violence and death. My actions in combat would have been more acceptable to me if I could cloak myself in the belief that the whole mission was for a greater good. Instead, I watched as the purpose of the mission slowly unraveled.
I served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. During that time, we started to realize there were no weapons of mass destruction, the 9/11 commission report determined that Iraq was not involved in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, false sovereignty was given to Iraq by Paul Bremer, the atrocities at Abu Ghraib were exposed, and the Battle of Fallujah was waged.
The destruction I took part in suddenly intersected with news that our reasons for waging war were untrue. The despicable conduct of those at Abu Ghraib was made more unforgivable by the honorable interactions I had with Iraqi civilians, and, together, it fueled the post-traumatic stress I struggle with today .www.salon.com/2015/02/01/i_was_an_american_sniper_and_chris_kyle%E2%80%99s_war_was_not_my_war/
Ray McGovern to War Criminal and Skank Herder Petraeus Speaking of Rumsfeld, you and I know him as your partner in some very serious crimes, relating to the illegal invasion of Iraq and the horrific violence that followed as well as the slaughter of so many innocent people in Afghanistan. For over a decade, I have closely observed your behavior and consider it nothing short of a media miracle that most Americans believe your worst sin to be that of adultery.
Since denial can be a very strong motivation, let me refresh your memory and remind you of the bad companions you fell in with. I am reminded of the egregious ways in which you did Rumsfeld’s bidding – winning promotions and richly undeserved fame by condoning the unspeakable – torture, for example.
Your third star came when you were dispatched to Iraq in June 2004, committed to carrying out Rumsfeld’s instructions to encourage Shia-on-Sunni torture and other human rights crimes. The all-too-predictable chickens are now coming home to roost from that unconscionably stupid attempt to defeat Sunni opponents of the U.S. occupation through such ignoble means – those chickens being what we now call ISIL or ISIS or simply the Islamic State.
What amazes me is that the Teflon is still clinging to you and Rumsfeld, given the bedlam in that entire area today. You’re not even held to account for the performance of the tens of thousands of the Iraqi troops that you crowed about having trained and equipped so well. They dropped their weapons and ran away early last year when the ragtag militants of ISIL attacked.
Back in April 2004 when the graphic photos of torture at Abu Ghraib in Iraq were revealed, Rumsfeld claimed he was shocked, even though the International Red Cross had been complaining about abuses there for more than a year before the revelations.
The Senate Armed Services Committee eventually concluded without dissent, in a major investigative report on Dec. 11, 2008, that Rumsfeld bore direct responsibility for the abuses committed by interrogators at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other military prisons.
The Committee added that the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib “was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own” but grew out of interrogation policies approved by Mr. Rumsfeld and other top officials, who “conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.”
Four years before the Senate report, in May 2004, Gen. Antonio Taguba came close to revealing precisely that, when he led the Pentagon’s first (and only honest) investigation of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Rumsfeld promptly fired him. Yet, throughout all this scandal and mayhem, you were maneuvering your way up the high-command ladder without any indication that you were objecting to any of this. consortiumnews.com/2015/02/03/a-pointed-letter-to-gen-petraeus/
Petreaus, Jill Kelly, and the Degenerate Top Brass Judging from her e-mails, Jill Kelley was star-struck by the big-name military commanders rotating between the war zones in the Middle East and her home town of Tampa. And they were equally smitten with her.
“Everyone thinks you’re a RockStar!” Kelley gushed in a 2012 e-mail to Marine Gen. James N. Mattis, then commander of all U.S. military forces in the Middle East. “We agreed how amazing it must be that you’re single-handedly re-writing history,” she added, recalling how she had sung the general’s praises to several foreign ambassadors at the Republican National Convention that August in Tampa.
After another social event, she wrote a similar mash note to Mattis’s deputy, Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward. “What a Leader you were to these heads of State,” she enthused. “You ROCK!!!”
In late 2012, Kelley’s talent as a Tampa hostess and her knack for charming men in uniform indirectly triggered one of the most embarrassing national security scandals of the past decade. Among other casualties, the fallout led to the forced resignation of CIA Director David H. Petraeus — a former four-star Army general — and the early retirement of Marine Gen. John Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Kelley’s chumminess with Petraeus and the military brass had attracted the notice of the spymaster’s biographer and mistress, Paula Broadwell. She bad-mouthed Kelley in anonymous e-mails to military officials and others, according to federal investigators and a lawsuit filed by Kelley. The FBI got involved. Petraeus quit in disgrace. Allen retired.
The case still has not been entirely resolved. The Justice Department is deciding whether to charge Petraeus with leaking classified material to his lover. He has denied doing so.
Replied Harward: “YOU ROCK MORE!” www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/jill-kelley-e-mails-depict-a-striving-tampa-socialite-and-a-smitten-military-brass/2015/02/03/ef8cb06c-a800-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html?hpid=z1
AfricaCom: Two, Three, (yes, Four) Many Wars to Lose Still US Africa Command (AFRICOM) head General David Rodriguez called for a large-scale US-led “counterinsurgency” campaign against groups in West Africa during remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC last week.
Rodriguez’s statements are part of a coordinated campaign by the US to massively expand its military operations in the resource-rich region, as it combats the influence of China and other powers.
The US should prepare for operations in at least four West African countries as part of a “huge international and multinational” response aimed at forces affiliated with Boko Haram, Rodriguez said.
AFRICOM is already preparing an “across the board response to the threat,” Rodriguez said.
Echoing recent comments from US Secretary of State John Kerry during his visit to Lagos, Nigera that the US is ready to “do more” militarily in Nigeria, Rodriguez called on the Nigerian government to “let us help more and more.” www.globalresearch.ca/us-africom-commander-calls-for-huge-military-campaign-in-west-africa/5429010
Snitch Fat Leonard on How He Corrupted the Navy Brass “Fat” Leonard Francis, the contractor at the center of the ever-widening Navy bribery scandal, appears to be cooperating with federal investigators and was key in securing criminal charges against yet another official who was arrested Tuesday.
Paul Simpkins, 60, a former Department of Defense official who once oversaw Navy contracts in Southeast Asia, was arrested in Haymarket, Va., and pleaded not guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit bribery in federal court later in the afternoon.
Simpkins is the highest-ranking civilian to be implicated in the kickback scheme involving cash, prostitutes and high-class travel, believed to be one of the biggest in Navy history.
The complaint, filed Monday in San Diego federal court, says authorities received information implicating Simpkins from a “confidential witness” who has pleaded guilty in the case and is cooperating in an apparent attempt to get a reduced sentence. While the witness is unnamed, a footnote says his only criminal history is a firearms-related conviction about 30 years ago in a foreign country.
That description matches Francis, who pleaded guilty last month and was convicted in Malaysia about 30 years ago of possessing two guns and ammunition without a license.
The witnesses’ accounts were backed up with documentation, Cordell DeLaPena, a special agent with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, wrote in court documents.
Simpkins held a supervisory role over Navy contracts from 2005 to 2007 and lived in Singapore. The city is also where Francis ran his Glenn Defense Marine Asia company, which provides services such as food, fuel and waste removal to visiting Navy ships around Southeast Asia.
According to the complaint, Simpkins met with Francis in 2006 and offered to use his influence to steer Navy contracts toward Francis’ company in exchange for money. A deal was hammered out in several meetings at a Singapore hotel bar, the complaint states.
Simpkins rejected a $50,000 bribe and ultimately accepted several hundred thousand dollars in cash, as well as hotel rooms, prostitutes and airfare www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/feb/03/fat-leonard-witness-bribery-simpkins-arrest
Fatty is on the right. Other fatty unknown navy brass
Guilty pleas since the scheme first became public in 2013
• Leonard Glenn Francis, the Singapore-based contractor at the center of the scheme, pleaded guilty to bribery, conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States. His company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, which has contracted with Navy vessels for 25 years, pleaded guilty to the same charges. Francis remains in federal custody without bond.
• John Beliveau II, a supervisory special agent at the Naval Criminal Intelligence Service, admitted to giving Francis secret information about the military’s investigation into the bribes.
• Alex Wisidagama, Francis’ cousin and an executive in his company, admitted his role in overbilling the Navy some $20 million for services.
• Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dan Layug, who worked as a logistics specialist at a U.S. base in Yokosuka, Japan, admitted to passing on information to Francis.
• Edmond Aruffo, a retired Navy lieutenant commander who then went to work for Francis, admitted to conspiring with others in 2009 and 2010 to defraud the Navy by agreeing to submit inflated invoices.
All are awaiting sentencing.
That Big Secret About the Saudi Connection to 9/11/2001
A still-classified section of the investigation by congressional intelligence committees into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has taken on an almost mythic quality over the past 13 years — 28 pages that examine crucial support given the hijackers and that by all accounts implicate prominent Saudis in financing terrorism.
Now new claims by Zacarias Moussaoui, a convicted former member of Al Qaeda, that he had high-level contact with officials of the Saudi government in the prelude to Sept. 11 have brought renewed attention to the inquiry’s withheld findings, which lawmakers and relatives of those killed in the attacks have tried unsuccessfully to declassify.
“I think it is the right thing to do,” said Representative Stephen F. Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts and an author of a bipartisan resolution encouraging President Obama to declassify the section. “Let’s put it out there.” www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/us/claims-against-saudis-cast-new-light-on-secret-pages-of-9-11-report.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
A top Army official confirmed to Congress on Tuesday that hundreds of wounded warriors at three Texas treatment centers had been harassed and abused by staff who considered them “slackers.” Col. Chris Toner, head of the Army Transition Command, acknowledged that there had been a pattern of “disrespect, harassment and belittlement of soldiers” at Warrior Transition Units (WTUs) at Fort Bliss, Fort Hood and the Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas from 2009-2013.
Toner singled out abuses at the WTU at Fort Bliss during a hearing before the House Armed Services’ subcommittee on military personnel.
“There were challenges at Fort Bliss without a shadow of a doubt,” Toner said.
The abuses were limited to the 2009-20013 time frame, Toner said, and he was now “confident that we have the programs going in the right direction” at Hood, Bliss and Brooke.
The mistreatment of wounded warriors at Texas bases was first reported in a joint investigation by NBC 5 and the Dallas Morning News relying on Freedom of Information Act documents detailing the official complaints of soldiers and others involved in the WTU programs.
The documents quoted Dr. Stephen Saul, a psychiatrist hired to train staff at Fort Hood’s WTU, as saying that many leaders at Fort Hood lacked an understanding of mental health issues and refused to believe that post-traumatic stress disorder was real.
Those suffering from PTSD were told to “man-up and move on,” Stahl said. “The idea is that you’re weak, you’re cowardly, you’re worthless, you’re not strong and it’s your fault.”
The result was that those with PTSD would doubt the worth of the treatment prescribed, Stahl said. m.military.com/daily-news/2015/02/04/wounded-warriors-treated-as-slackers-at-hood-bliss-and-brooke.html?ESRC=army-a.nl
The Monarch of Jordan, CIA torture center described in Guantanamo Diary
Obamagogue to Send $1 Billion to Jordanian Torturers to fight the other barbarians Fresh off the death of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasaesbeh, the State Department has announced that they are planning to almost triple foreign aid to Jordan in response, tacking on another $1 billion per year.
The US had been sending Jordan $660 million per year, and the State Department says the “unprecedented strains” caused by the war with ISIS necessitates the increase.
Though they are presenting the situation as a calamity that they need to save Jordan from with more funding, US officials have made clear virtually from the moment the Kasaesbeh video broke that they hoped it would force Jordan into a more aggressive war policy. news.antiwar.com/2015/02/04/us-announces-another-1-billion-in-aid-for-jordans-isis-war/
National Security Doc Shows US Drive For World Rule The document’s introduction lists eight “top strategic risks to our interests.” Four of them are traditional security issues—attacks on the US homeland, on US citizens or allies, weapons of mass destruction, and the collapse of failing states—but defined so generally that they could apply to any country in the world.
The other four strategic risks are worth quoting: “global economic crisis or widespread economic slowdown”; “severe global infectious disease outbreaks”; “climate change”; and “major energy market disruptions.” This has considerable significance: the US government now regards virtually any form of economic, social or environmental disruption as a strategic security issue potentially justifying American military intervention.
The introduction also includes a call for Congress to end limits on military spending that have been part of “sequestration,” a shift that has also been included in Obama’s recently proposed budget.
The introduction concludes by stating the principal shift in the orientation of US foreign policy from Bush to Obama (without referring to the previous administration):
“This strategy eschews orienting our entire foreign policy around a single threat or region. It establishes instead a diversified and balanced set of priorities appropriate for the world’s leading global power with interests in every part of an increasingly interconnected world.”
In other words, instead of the Bush administration’s obsessive focus on the Middle East, under Obama the entire world is the field of action for American bullying www.globalresearch.ca/national-security-strategy-document-affirms-us-drive-for-world-domination/5430114
Audio Tapes: Hillbillary’s Fine plan to Go to War On Libya (going so well) www.washingtontimes.com/listen-tapes-libya-clinton/
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
Detroit: The Great Divide: Rich and Poor/White and Black There, in the middle of the road, at the very point where Detroit morphs into Grosse Pointe Park, was a large, opulently decorated Christmas tree. Next to it, a collection of just over half a dozen smaller trees stood, taking up the rest of the width of the street.
The street had been sectioned off. They could not drive through. “We’d heard about it on the news, but it’s something else to see it in real life,” Rice said with some bewilderment. “To me it says: “Detroiters stay out! Don’t come in. You are not welcome here,” Williams said.
The couple may not have been crossing international boundaries, but they did try to cross the increasingly visible line dividing Detroit and its collection of suburbs – one of the most shocking in America.
What they were witnessing for the first time was the latest installation in a succession of barriers erected over the course of 2014 by Grosse Pointe Park at the very point where Kercheval Avenue, a formerly busy commercial thoroughfare, goes from Detroit into the more opulent suburb. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/03/detroit-apartheid-city-surburbs-grosse-pointe?CMP=share_btn_tw#comment-47060442
Sweetheart Dean for Standard and Poors and nobody goes to jail (and it’s deductible) The $1.37 billion penalty is the product of negotiation.
The penalty is large enough to wipe out S.&P.’s operating profit for a year. But it also falls far short of the $3.2 billion that the government demanded after S.&P. initially refused to settle.
S.&P.’s decision to fight the Justice Department’s case caught Wall Street and Washington by surprise. Nearly every financial institution that faces a Justice Department lawsuit eventually settles.
Such outcomes — $1 billion is now a floor, not a ceiling for a settlement — have led Wall Street lawyers to criticize what they call a government shakedown. And yet, some lawmakers complain that the civil lawsuits are a slap on the wrist for companies that helped ignite the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Not one top executive at S.&P., or any major Wall Street firm, was charged criminally for the misdeeds during the era. dealbook.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/s-p-announces-1-37-billion-settlement-with-prosecutors/
Billionaires’ Football Chargers Seek to Loot America’s Finest City The U-T editorialized today (January 31) that the task force on the Chargers stadium is “packed with the right mix of expertise.” Of course it is “packed” — just as all the other task forces and special committees are “packed” with corporate-welfare boosters. The task force’s job is to shift as much of the burden as possible on to taxpayers and steer the profits to the private sector — socialization of the risk and privatization of the gain.
This time, though, the task force is looking at problems that appear insuperable. For example, San Diego is not only a small market (17th largest in the nation), it is a financially squeezed one.
In recent years, the National Football League’s attendance focus has been on the affluent. Teams want to make their money on luxury suites and seats and personal seat licenses. The last time I checked, the Chargers had ditched the idea of personal seat licenses. There isn’t the wealth in this market. Also, the team will not make the kind of money other teams do on luxury suites and seats. How many biotech executives will fete their friends in a Chargers box? www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2015/jan/31/ticker-chargers-stadium-task-force-packed/
Detroit On Fire. 220 Buildings burn in January as Recolonization speeds along In Detroit, fires are a serious menace, burning neighborhood cores and chasing out longtime residents. The city’s disastrous budget decisions over the past three decades have left the fire department with a skeleton crew of firefighters and a frail fleet of routinely malfunctioning rigs.
This year we are tracking every structure fire in Detroit – more than 3,000, if the past few years are any indication. The project, Detroit on Fire, will provide an unflinching look at a crisis that has been largely ignored by the media and neglected by politicians.
In January, fires broke out in 205 houses, 10 commercial buildings, seven apartments, two churches and a school. Two people were killed and several more injured, including two firefighters.
Click here to see the full list of January fires.
About half of the fires were suspicious, but most will never be investigated because the arson unit is vastly outmatched by arsonists who burn down buildings for insurance, revenge, thrills, scrap metal or blight removal. motorcitymuckraker.com/2015/02/05/detroit-on-fire-220-houses-buildings-burn-in-january-fire-rigs-malfunction/
The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/03/detroit-apartheid-city-surburbs-grosse-pointe?CMP=share_btn_tw#comment-47060442www.orangeburgmassacre.com/
Robert Macfarquhar: Whither China?
Q.A party without ideology: Is that a sustainable model?
That’s a very powerful doctrine, if you believe in it. Without any such doctrine, he has coursed to this very negative policy of trying to keep-out-the-enemy doctrine. It’s much better if you’re closed in the armor of your own doctrine than if you just have the old apparatus of the Great Firewall in order to keep out the enemy doctrine.
Barbarism Rising: Murdering Captives on All Sides Lieutenant Kasasbeh’s tormentors had apparently burned him alive inside a cage, a killing that was soon described as the most brutal in the group’s bloody history. Jordan responded rapidly, executing Sajida al-Rishawi, who was convicted after attempting a suicide bombing, and Ziad al-Karbouli, a top lieutenant of Al Qaeda in Iraq, before dawn on Wednesday, according to the official news agency Petra. www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/world/middleeast/isis-said-to-burn-captive-jordanian-pilot-to-death-in-new-video.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Barbarism Rising: CIA Prison/Torture Site Executes 2 for One burned, crowds go wild on all sides Jordan executed two prisoners early Wednesday morning to avenge the burning alive of a Jordanian fighter pilot in a move that seemed likely to thrust the usually peaceful country into the front lines of the battle against the Islamic State.
Jordanian state television said one of the executed prisoners was Sajida al Rishawi, the 44-year-old Iraqi woman whose release the Islamic State had demanded in return for the life of a Japanese hostage killed last week. The other was Ziad al-Karbouli, a jihadist who once worked with Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the Jordanian who founded al Qaida in Iraq, the organization that was the precursor to the Islamic State.
Government spokesman Mohammed al Momani announced in Amman that the two prisoners had been executed at dawn. Both Karbouli and Rishawi had been in prison for nearly a decade.
Jordan had announced that it would move quickly to avenge the murder of Lt. Moaz al Kasasbeh whose horrific execution was made public Tuesday by an Islamic State video that showed him being led to a cage in the desert, doused with gasoline and set alight. more here: www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/02/03/255316/islamic-state-burns-jordanian.html#emlnl=Morning_Newsletter#storylink=cpy
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXlqwiQg1sM
Gibson is an officer in the Buffalo Teachers Federation. Not clear why he didn’t resist the copper.
War Criminal Redux: Kissinger and the Argentine Dirty War Only a few months ago, Henry Kissinger was dancing with Stephen Colbert in a funny bit on the latter’s Comedy Central show. But for years, the former secretary of state has sidestepped judgment for his complicity in horrific human rights abuses abroad, and a new memo has emerged that provides clear evidence that in 1976 Kissinger gave Argentina’s neo-fascist military junta the “green light” for the dirty war it was conducting against civilian and militant leftists that resulted in the disappearance—that is, deaths—of an estimated 30,000 people.
In April 1977, Patt Derian, a onetime civil rights activist whom President Jimmy Carter had recently appointed assistant secretary of state for human rights, met with the US ambassador in Buenos Aires, Robert Hill. A memo recording that conversation has been unearthed by Martin Edwin Andersen, who in 1987 first reported that Kissinger had told the Argentine generals to proceed with their terror campaign against leftists (whom the junta routinely referred to as “terrorists”) www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/01/new-memo-kissinger-gave-green-light-argentina-dirty-war
www.youtube.com/watch?v=78ZeqS49pkM
Frontline Documentary on Fascism and Thomas Drake www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/the-frontline-interview-thomas-drake/
Solidarity for Never
NEA’s Boss, Eskelsen, Has that Special Glow of Self After Reading American Enterprise Institute “Book” : Finally someone (besides me) is talking about the power and authority of teachers! As educators, we have to reject the suggestion that ‘You can’t do that.’ Push back, come up with your own ideas, and 96.4 percent of the time, you’ll find that you can do important things to improve schools. Such are the cage-busters. hepg.org/hep-home/books/the-cage-busting-teacher
Spy versus Spy
So Long, One-eyed CIA WatchDog All of those interviewed anonymously by McClatchy for this story, who included former colleagues, asked not to be identified because their perspective conflicts with the official portrayal of Buckley’s tenure promoted publicly by the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Their contention is that the former House Intelligence Committee staffer raised expectations that he would be an aggressive and independent watchdog but failed to deliver at a time of crisis.
After Buckley’s inquiry found that CIA employees had improperly monitored the committee’s work on its torture inquiry, a panel set up by the agency attacked his conclusions as inaccurate and recommended that no one be punished.
Buckley, meanwhile, began responding to queries from a potential employer as early as June, even though the Senate monitoring investigation wasn’t finalized until July.
“He split the baby,” said one former colleague. “He delivered half measures. He enraged the agency but let down the reformers. Those at the agency think he went too far, yet he didn’t deliver the goods when it came to accountability.” more here: www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/02/02/255243/departure-of-cias-top-watchdog.html#emlnl=Morning_Newsletter#storylink=cpy
The Magical Mystery Tour
Opening Prayer Rant at Tennessee Senate I pray for the people of Tennessee who have been so downtrodden by the wicked courts from on high that they have been subject to tyrannical judiciary. And I pray that you would save Tennessee from the edicts of Washington DC that would go against the plain wishes of the people of Tennessee, particularly pertaining to the 9th and 10th Amendment.
I pray that you would sanctify this state, that it would be holy and would be a leader among the other states. That they would see that there is a God that lives, that you love the people of Tennessee. That you gave your life that we might be saved from our sins. I pray that you would forgive the many sins of carelessness or lethargy or desperation. The compromises.
Oh lord save Tennessee for Jesus sake, and I pray that your will would be done that you would be our coverage, that we would not be forced into these edicts from Washington DC or any other quarter, but let the people know that our coverage is the same as with Moses and the children of Israel when they went through the wilderness with only the divine providence of almighty God.
So I pray that everywhere there are meetings, and there is considerations and deliberations, that you would give these men and women who have been elected, give them the backbone and the remembrance of the Tennessee Declaration of Rights, Article 1, Section 2 — we are ordered to resist arbitrary power. www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/03/1362064/-Christian-minister-opens-Tennessee-Senate-with-prayer-to-end-Medicaid-expansion#
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
Gordie Howe Makes First Public Appearance Since Stroke Not even five months removed from what family members termed a “significant” stroke, Gordie Howe made his first public appearance. Mr. Hockey made the trip from Lubbock, Texas, to his native Saskatchewan, where he was honored at the Kinsmen Sports Celebrity Dinner Friday night. www.cbssports.com/nhl/eye-on-hockey/25061412/look-gordie-howe-makes-first-public-appearance-since-stroke
www.youtube.com/user/UnitedStatesNavy
So Long