Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fightback!

above photo by Substance’ Kati Gilson

Lessons from the Chicago School Workers Strike This true class war brought to the forefront nearly all of the realities of US schooling today:   *the coming nationally regimented curricula,
*anti-working class high-stakes exams which don’t measure learning but do deepen segregation between teachers and students, and divides each group against itself, merit pay, akin to piece-work bonuses using fudged up science as proofs,
*the vital role of school as a baby-sitting backup for employers,
*the relationship of schooling and cruel poverty,
*the attacks on tenure, seniority, school closures, and, especially, ruthless layoffs in a time when more than 20% of the nation is jobless and 2 million, mostly poorly educated, people are in jail.

Moreover, the strike highlights the unity of the wings of the US ruling class on issues that are absolutely critical to them: mis-education, wars, bailouts, and torture. The direct line from Rahm Emanuel and his appointed school board composed of Chicago’s elites, to Arne Duncan, to Obama, and Mitt Romney heaping praise on the Rahm regime is proof enough.
The courage of Chicago’s school workers also shattered more than three decades of demoralization in the working class.
The strike went far beyond the massive, but hollow, Occupy Wall Street movement in showing without question that this is class war with the government acting as an executive committee and armed weapon of the rich, a real corporate state.  http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=3627&section=Article

Summary of Chicago TU Contract www.ctunet.com/blog/text/Contract_Highlights_2012_09_18.pdf

Quebec Students Strike Wins! The tuition increase that triggered such social strife in Quebec was cancelled Thursday during an action-packed first full day in office for the Parti Quebecois government. The new government repealed the fee hike, by decree, in its first cabinet meeting less than 24 hours after coming to power. Student leaders cheered the news. ‘Together we’ve written a chapter in the history of Quebec,’ said Martine Desjardins, head of the more moderate university student association. ‘It’s a triumph of justice and equity.’  http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Quebec-Student-Protests-Su-in-General_News-120920-560.html

Walmart on Strike A strike among warehouse workers in Southern California has spread to northeastern Illinois, where a group of workers at a distribution center for Walmart goods walked off the job over the weekend.
The walkout by roughly 30 employees of a labor agency in Elwood, Ill., near Joliet, mirrors another strike, begun last week, by another group of 30 warehouse workers in Mira Loma, Calif. Both the Illinois and California facilities handle products headed to Walmart stores throughout the country, although none of the workers in question are directly employed by the retail giant.
The individuals in California went on strike over what they described as unsafe working conditions at the warehouse, while those in Illinois walked out claiming that supervisors had retaliated against them after they brought a list of grievances to management.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/warehouse-workers-strike-illinois_n_1891499.html

Teachers Strike in Australia About 40,000 teachers, principals and support staff went on strike last week in Victoria State, closing more than 400 public schools and threatening more labor actions in coming months, Australia’s ABC News reported.  …Last Wednesday, 15,000 strikers attended a rally in Melbourne, The Age newspaper reported. They demanded raises, fewer short-term contracts and smaller class sizes. Meredith Peace, deputy president of the Australian Education Union, said the stoppages were likely to continue in October and November, The Age reported.   www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/world/europe/british-university-to-fight-ban-on-student-recruitment.html?ref=internationaleducation  Teachers from Roman Catholic schools also joined the strike, closing as many as an additional 60 schools, according to the Independent Education Union. In a separate event, a demonstration was held last Thursday at the University of Ballarat in Victoria to protest education budget cuts, The Age reported

One Hundred Years on–the Free Speech Fight in San Diego (Emma) When I arrived with Ben [Reitman] in Los Angeles in April [1912], San Diego was in the grip of a veritable civil war. The patriots, known as Vigilantes, had converted the city into a battle-field. They beat, clubbed, and killed men and women who still believed in their constitutional rights. Hundreds of them had come to San Diego from every part of the United States to participate in the campaign. They travelled in box cars, on the bumpers, on the roofs of trains, every moment in danger of their lives, yet sustained by the holy quest for freedom of speech, for which their comrades were already filling the jails.   ucblibrary3.berkeley.edu/goldman/Curricula/FreeExpression/sandiego.html

India On Strike Schools, businesses and government offices closed in many parts of India today as protesters blocked roads and trains as part of a one-day nationwide strike against sweeping economic reforms announced by the government last week.
The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and smaller parties from both the political left and right called the strike to protest against a 14 per cent increase in heavily subsidised diesel prices, and a government decision that opens the door to foreign supermarket chains investing in India.
The measures, part of a package of economic reforms aimed at boosting a sharply slowing economy, have triggered a political firestorm. Prime minister Manmohan Singh’s biggest ally, the Trinamool Congress party, said it would pull out of the coalition tomorrow unless the reforms were reversed, raising the risk of an early election.
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) urged Mr Singh not to yield to the pressure, saying the reforms, long demanded by Indian business leaders, were crucial for economic growth. “Good economics seldom makes for good politics,” it said.  http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0920/breaking51.html

Critical Pedagogy and the Constitution of Capitalist Society by Glenn Rikowski … all forms of inequality in capitalist society – class inequality, sexism, racism, discrimination against gay and lesbian people, against disabled people, ageism and differential treat of other social groups – and how all these forms of inequality link to capital accumulation and value production. The content of the allied critical pedagogy indicates how these divisions, these insidious rifts, are embedded aspects of capitalist social life. But it is also indicated how people struggle against these divisions and how unity in difference can become a reality (with examples from contemporary society and history)  http://www.heathwoodpress.com/monthly-guest-article-august-critical-pedagogy-and-the-constitution-of-capitalist-society-by-glenn-rikowski/

Victory for Marikina Strikers On the 18th September 2012 the bosses at Lonmin finally made an offer that was decent and acceptable to the workers. This happened after a long, protracted and deathly strike in which 45 workers died, more than eighty were wounded, more than 279 were arrested and charged for various crimes including murder. This settlement deal embarrasses, first COSATU which had called the demands of the workers unreasonable and unrealisable, also the ruling ANC whose cowardly and murderous policemen shot and killed miners.
The LONMIN wage deal has been finalised without COSATU playing a major role and its leadership including Vavi have expressed disappointment and concern that such a deal will undermine all existing agreements including the Labour Relations Act. The fact that workers chose to go with a union that did not at the time have the majority membership was not fully recognised by management, also completely rejected all the NUM interventions has put COSATU and the government in a fix. While Vavi has acknowledged the fact that the COSATU leadership lifestyle is far removed from that of ordinary members and also they live in opulence while members can hardly make it, he has warned that the agreement that was won by workers and their union, AMCU through struggle, is in fact dangerous and it is precedent setting for all workers who will now reject their unions for upstart unions.
What is meant here is that this particular struggle of workers has opened real possibilities and workers can now dump their subordinating and betraying unions for those who care for the interests of the workers who have set them up.  http://socialistorganizer.org/marikana-settlement-and-its-implications/

The Little Red Schoolhouse

Above: US War Machine and Nationalist Propaganda Weapon does flyover, school children taught to go wild

Shocker–Capital’s always Segregated Schools are More Segregated The nation’s public schools have experienced dramatic re-segregation over the past two decades, a trend that is “systematically linked to unequal educational opportunities” for minority students, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA. In its latest in a series of reports analyzing segregation trends in public schools, “E Pluribus…Separation: Deepening Double Segregation for More Students,” the organization used federal data from the 2009-2010 school year, in comparison to previous trends.  http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/09/report_indicates_significant_r.html

Corruption is Endemic to Capitalist Schooling: Rochester MI Suptd to get Huge buyout for 14 Months work After only 14 months as superintendent of Rochester Community Schools, Fred Clarke is leaving the district. But on his way out the door, he stands to receive a severance package that could top $181,000.
Clarke, who joined the Oakland County district in July 2011, had a four-year contract with a $181,200 annual salary. The contract had no mention of severance, but Clarke signed a new agreement Sept. 5 that included severance.  http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120919/SCHOOLS/209190356/1026/schools/Ex-Rochester-Hills-superintendent-could-get-up-181K-severance

Obamagogue and Education–the WAPO Guide In 31 / 2 years in office, President Obama has set in motion a broad overhaul of public education from kindergarten through high school, largely bypassing Congress and inducing states to adopt landmark changes that none of his predecessors attempted.
He awarded billions of dollars in stimulus funding to states that agreed to promote charter schools, use student test scores to evaluate teachers and embrace other administration-backed policies. And he has effectively rewritten No Child Left Behind, the federal law passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, by excusing states from its requirements if they adopt his measures.
Under Obama’s framework, teachers with weak ratings tied to student achievement could lose their jobs, while high ratings could mean bigger paychecks. And children in 45 states and the District of Columbia will for the first time follow a set of common standards aimed at raising achievement, with a third-grader in Hawaii expected to know the same things as a third-grader in Maine. One result will be that children at all levels will read less   literature and more speeches, journalism and other “informational texts” to prepare for life after graduation  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/rethinking-the-classroom-obamas-overhaul-of-public-education/2012/09/20/a5459346-e171-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_story.html?hpid=z1

Capitalism IS Cheating. Test Cheating Everywhere School administrators and state education officials across the country have received complaints about cheating on standardized tests echoing those in Atlanta, but authorities often treat them as isolated or aberrant events, according to a newspaper report.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which in 2009 exposed widespread cheating on achievement tests in Atlanta Public Schools, reported earlier this year that 196 districts nationwide exhibit patterns of suspicious test scores similar to those found in Atlanta. The paper is reporting now that some of those districts have responded the same way Atlanta did: by minimizing, isolating or glossing over improprieties.
The Journal-Constitution said it reviewed about 130 files of cheating investigations in Mobile, Ala., Dallas, Houston, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis and East St. Louis, Ill. — all cities the newspaper identified as having, along with Atlanta, extreme concentrations of suspicious test scores.
In some cases, investigations uncovered wrongdoing and led to punishment for a handful of educators. In others, inquiries glossed over glaring irregularities. Nearly always, officials focused narrowly on a single classroom or, at most, a single school — the approach the Atlanta Public Schools used for years before a scandal over systemic cheating erupted three years ago.
In Mobile, middle-school students taking an achievement test in 2008 discovered that someone had changed their answers from a previous testing day, according to state files. They told the teacher, who told the principal. But according to the state’s report, the principal’s response was “sleep on it.” Two days later, the report says, the principal told the teacher that “we’re going to let the situation rest, and we need to keep quiet.”
Mobile Superintendent Martha Peek, who presides over the largest school district in Alabama, told the newspaper she’d rather have bad scores than illegitimate ones.
“We can fix academic problems,” she said. “You cannot fix problems with integrity.”   www.detroitnews.com/article/20120922/SCHOOLS/209220386/1026/schools/Report-School-districts-gloss-over-cheating-achievement-tests

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ_SaGIPe94

As with the Bin Laden Assassination Lies (not armed, killed while lying wounded, did not hide behind women, not in a million dollar compound) Now the Libya Lies (no mass protest but an organized AQ attack planned well before Muhammed video released, ambassador not guarded by Seals but Mercs) U.S. and Libyan officials are giving significantly different accounts of the gunfire and rocket-propelled grenade attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.
The Obama administration says the assault was a spontaneous local reaction inspired by a demonstration that was taking place at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo against a video made in the United States slurring the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of the Islamic faith. It also contends that the attack grew out of a small protest.
A senior Libyan official says the attack was organized and planned by foreigners – some with links to al Qaida – involved a local Islamic militia, and was timed for the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Moreover, the Libyan official appeared to question whether there was a protest beforehand.
“The way these perpetrators acted and moved, and their choosing a specific date for this so-called demonstration, I think that this leaves us with no doubt that this was pre-planned, pre-determined,” Mohammad Magarief, the head of the Libyan National Congress, the recently elected interim government, said Sunday.
The drastically different versions come as the investigation into the assault still is in its preliminary stages. FBI agents who are to assist their Libyan counterparts have yet to arrive in the North African country, and the Libyan Interior Ministry official who was in charge of the investigation was fired Monday.  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/17/168782/us-libyan-officials-offer-vastly.html

Guard: No protest before attack in Libya A Libyan security guard who said he was at the U.S. consulate here when it was attacked Tuesday night has provided new evidence that the assault on the compound that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was a planned attack by armed Islamists and not the outgrowth of a protest over an online video that mocks Islam and its founder, the Prophet Muhammad.
The guard, interviewed Thursday in the hospital where he is being treated for five shrapnel wounds in one leg and two bullet wounds in the other, said that the consulate area was quiet – “there wasn’t a single ant outside,” he said – until about 9:35 p.m., when as many as 125 armed men descended on the compound from all directions.
The men lobbed grenades into the compound, wounding the guard and knocking him to the ground, then stormed through the facility’s main gate, shouting “God is great” and moving to one of the many villas that make up the consulate compound. He said there had been no warning that an attack was imminent.
“Wouldn’t you expect if there were protesters outside that the Americans would leave?” the guard said.  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/13/168415/no-protest-before-benghazi-attack.html

about 1.5 million children are in Pakistan’s madrassas

Taliban Rising–Blow up $200 million of US Material on Fortified Air Base An audacious Taliban attack on a heavily fortified base in southern Afghanistan did far more damage than initially reported, destroying or severely damaging eight attack jets in the most deAnstructive single strike on Western matériel in the 11-year war, military officials said Sunday.  While other attacks have caused greater loss of life, the assault late Friday at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, one of the largest and best-defended posts in Afghanistan, was troubling to NATO because the attackers were able to penetrate the base, killing two Marines and causing more than $200 million in damage. “We’re saying it’s a very sophisticated attack,” said a military official here. “We’ve lost aircraft in battle, but nothing like this.”
The complex attack, which NATO officials said was conducted by three tightly choreographed teams of militants wearing American Army uniforms, was a reminder that the Taliban remain capable of serious assaults despite the “surge” offensive against them  http://www.nytimes. com/2012/09/17/world/asia/green-on-blue-attacks-in-afghanistan-continue.html?pagewanted=all

AQ Rising all over N. Africa (video  inside) An al-Qaeda affiliate in Northern Africa called for the death of other American ambassadors and envoys in the region, specifically in Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.
For months we have reported on the rise of al-Qaeda linked militant groups in these countries and others in northern Africa and now they are calling for attacks on U.S. embassies. But will these calls to violence lead to more attacks here in the U.S.?  http://outfront.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/19/al-qaeda-in-north-africa-calls-for-death-of-u-s-diplomats/

Libyans: We Warned the Embassy 3 Days Ahead. US: It’s a fluke American diplomats were warned of possible violent unrest in Benghazi three days before the killings of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three members of his team, Libyan security officials say.
The claim came as the country’s interim President, Mohammed el-Megarif, said his government had information that the attack on the US consulate had been planned by an Islamist group with links to al-Qa’ida and with foreigners taking part. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/libya-we-gave-us-threeday-warning-of-benghazi-attack-8145242.html

Cartel Boss Karzai Expels Corrupt Brits and Americans The moves came as part of an effort to “crackdown on nepotism and corruption,” a long-standing issue across Afghanistan, and one which Karzai has unsuccessfully pledged to tackle for years.
The most heavily disputed ouster was Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal, who has been openly backed by British officials, and reportedly they had blocked previous Karzai attempts to remove him.
The British Foreign Ministry issued a statement praising Mangal’s “leadership,” and claiming he was given no reason for his removal. He was replaced by Gen. Ebadi, a top member of the Afghan intelligence service.  http://news.antiwar.com/2012/09/20/karzai-ousts-10-us-british-backed-governors-citing-corruption/

Suicide Bombers Kill 15 Near Mogidishu Palace The restaurant is down the street from the presidential palace, and is said to be a popular spot for both government workers and foreigners. Al-Shabaab is presumed to have carried out the attack, though no public claims to that effect have yet been released.

Egypt–Meet the New Islamist Boss, made possible by the CIA, living in the old boss’ palace “Successive American administrations essentially purchased with American taxpayer money the dislike, if not the hatred, of the peoples of the region,” he said, by backing dictatorial governments over popular opposition and supporting Israel over the Palestinians.
He initially sought to meet with President Obama at the White House during his visit this week, but he received a cool reception, aides to both presidents said. Mindful of the complicated election-year politics of a visit with Egypt’s Islamist leader, Mr. Morsi dropped his request.
His silence in the immediate aftermath of the embassy protest elicited a tense telephone call from Mr. Obama, who also told a television interviewer that at that moment he did not consider Egypt an ally, if not an enemy either. When asked if he considered the United States an ally, Mr. Morsi answered in English, “That depends on your definition of ally,” smiling at his deliberate echo of Mr. Obama. But he said he envisioned the two nations as “real friends.”
Mr. Morsi spoke in an ornate palace that Mr. Mubarak inaugurated three decades ago… www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/world/middleeast/egyptian-leader-mohamed-morsi-spells-out-terms-for-us-arab-ties.html?ref=global-home

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Obamagogue or Mitt the Unfit, Class War will Rage from Top Down Whether it’s Barack Obama or Mitt Romney taking the presidential oath of office in January, someone will have the misfortune of overseeing an economy that looks a lot like the one we have today: low growth, persistently high unemployment, and huge amounts of debt.
Depending on what happens with the “fiscal cliff,” there’s at least a chance the U.S. will be in recession. The mere threat of $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts is already delaying business spending. Yet even if Congress does broker a deal and the worst of the fiscal cliff is postponed, 2013 is shaping up to be a rough year, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Sept. 17 issue.
Big economic forces, both domestic and abroad, are combining to damp growth. Fundamentals such as demographics and household finances that helped spur past recoveries are now slowing things down.
These trends aren’t affected much by policy, so fixing them will be beyond the immediate grasp of an Obama or Romney administration.   ...While growth slows, productivity is climbing. Output per hour rose 2.2 percent in the second quarter of 2012, as businesses squeezed more work from their current staff rather than take on new employees. Over the long haul, productivity gains are good for the economy, but in the medium term, the combination of rising output and falling growth is a bad sign for hiring.
A comparison with the deep recession of the early 1980s highlights the difficulties facing Obama or Romney. By the end of Ronald Reagan’s first year as president, the economy was shrinking at an annual rate of nearly 5 percent. By the end of his second, unemployment had hit 10.6 percent. But in the summer of 1983, GDP was growing at an annual rate of 9.3 percent.   www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-13/presidential-choice-means-little-in-fixing-u-s-economy-in-2013.html

A Master Marketeer Speaks on the Markets, banksters, Hedges, and More “If Knight blows, six firms follow, and the whole corrupt thing goes up,” he said. “Predator banks and hedge funds run the market for their pleasure — there’s no rational structure, nothing!”  …“The complicity on Wall Street is sickness!” Mr. Lewis says. He fixes you with his laser stare. “If you think the big firms are being honest” — his tone slides streetwise — “well, sweetheart, go think something else!”…He forecast the financial meltdown of 2008 that vaporized Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers. In 2006, he warned a Bear Stearns executive: “Bear is toast. Get out now!”
Lehman Brothers, he notes, certified it was in good health in June 2008 and issued stock, attracting investment, including from the New Jersey Teachers’ Pension and Annuity Fund. Secretly, Lehman was on an intravenous drip, poisoned by bad debt.
“My respect for their brains is too great to think Lehman’s top guys didn’t know they were conveying the cynical impression of health,”………. As for the whirling, three-million-shares-per-second casino of Wall Street? He sees it as rigged. “I would not risk stocks under any circumstances,” he said, “because we don’t know when this thing is going to blow.”……“The criminality is astounding,” he says. “You have a complete confusion between principal and principle.”   www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/nyregion/the-lonely-redemption-of-sandy-lewis-wall-street-provocateur.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&pagewanted=all

Bailed Out Bank of America to Cut 16 thousand Jobs, Close hundreds of Branches A published report says Bank of America is accelerating a cost-cutting plan and aims to eliminate 16,000 jobs by the end of the year.
The cuts are part of a previously announced plan by the bank to cut 30,000 jobs.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/report-bank-of-america-to-accelerate-cost-cutting-plan-and-eliminate-16000-jobs-by-year-end/2012/09/20/485076c6-0325-11e2-9132-f2750cd65f97_story.html

Why Hundreds of Thousands of Teachers will Vote for the Demagogue Who has Abused them The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the numerous branches of industry, in one of the numerous countries, etc., makes it economically possible for them to bribe certain sections of the workers, and for a time a fairly considerable minority of them, and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or given nation against all the others. The intensification of antagonisms between imperialist nations for the division of the world increases this urge. And so there is created that bond between imperialism and opportunism, which revealed itself first and most clearly in Great Britain, owing to the fact that certain features of imperialist development were observable there much earlier than in other countries. Some writers, L. Martov, for example, are prone to wave aside the connection between imperialism and opportunism in the working-class movement—a particularly glaring fact at the present time—by resorting to “official optimism” (à la Kautsky and Huysmans) like the following: the cause of the opponents of capitalism would be hopeless if it were progressive capitalism that led to the increase of opportunism, or, if it were the best-paid workers who were inclined towards opportunism, etc. We must have no illusions about “optimism” of this kind. It is optimism in respect of opportunism; it is optimism which serves to conceal opportunism. As a matter of fact the extraordinary rapidity and the particularly revolting character of the development of opportunism is by no means a guarantee that its victory will be durable: the rapid growth of a painful abscess on a healthy body can only cause it to burst more quickly and thus relieve the body of it. The most dangerous of all in this respect are those who do not wish to understand that the fight against imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism.  http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch10.htm

Hungry, Cold, and In Detroit Means….Hunger has grown sharply since the financial collapse of 2008, although it is felt acutely by a relatively small percentage of the population. In 2007, 12.2 percent of Americans experienced what the Department of Agriculture describes as “low food security,” including 4 percent who fell into the category of very low food security. By 2011, the percentage of those coping with low food security rose to 16.4 percent, and those experiencing very low food security went up to 5.5 percent.
The U.S.D.A. defines “low food security” as a lack of access “at all times to enough nutritious food for an active, healthy life.” It defines “very low food security” as individuals going without or with very little food “at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food.”
Looked at through the calculus of contemporary partisan politics, the U.S.D.A. data demonstrates that in 2011 low food security was a problem for just under one in eight whites — a matter of concern but for many white voters, a virtually invisible issue. Very low food security affects the lives of only one in 24 whites.
For African Americans, low food security is a problem affecting one in four, and one in ten experience very low food security. The percentage of Hispanics who experience low food security is higher than the percentage of blacks, although the percentage of Hispanics suffering very low food security is slightly lower.  http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/is-poverty-a-kind-of-robbery/

Global Warming Produces a New Platform for Imperialist War With Arctic ice melting at record pace, the world’s superpowers are increasingly jockeying for political influence and economic position in outposts like this one, previously regarded as barren wastelands.   At stake are the Arctic’s abundant supplies of oil, gas and minerals that are, thanks to climate change, becoming newly accessible along with increasingly navigable polar shipping shortcuts. This year, China has become a far more aggressive player in this frigid field, experts say, provoking alarm among Western powers.     www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/science/earth/arctic-resources-exposed-by-warming-set-off-competition.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

While the United States, Russia and several nations of the European Union have Arctic territory, China has none, and as a result, has been deploying its wealth and diplomatic clout to secure toeholds in the region.

Handy Enemies List–the Forbes 400 www.forbes.com/forbes-400/#page:1_sort:0_direction:asc_search:_filter:All%20industries_filter:All%20states_filter:All%20categories

American Air Sends Layoff Notices to Eleven Thousand American Airlines is sending layoff warning notices to more than 11,000 employees, although a spokesman said the company expects job losses to be closer to 4,400.
The notices went out to mechanics and ground workers whose jobs will be affected as American goes through a bankruptcy reorganization.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/business/american-airlines-notifies-thousands-of-possible-layoffs.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

How Bosses Think “The owners can basically be viewed as the ranch, and the players, me included, are the cattle,” Devellano said. “The owners own the ranch and allow the players to eat there. That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it will be forever. And the owners simply aren’t going to let a union push them around. It’s not going to happen.”   www.detroitnews.com/article/20120922/SPORTS0103/209220376/Red-Wings-fined-over-comments-by-Jimmy-Devellano?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9URgSaqrps

Miners who Fought and Died to Win a Raise vs the Socialfascist Mandellaites Sign Contract Striking platinum miners in South Africa signed a wage deal late Tuesday that ended a bloody five-week strike at a mine run by Lonmin, a London-based company, that had spread to other parts of the industry.  The agreement for the company’s 28,000 miners ended the strike but did not resolve the widespread anger over inequality in South Africa and the government’s failure to address high unemployment and poverty.
Lonmin agreed to pay $1,385 a month to rock drill operators who had been demanding a take-home wage of $1,560.
The deal includes a payment of $250 for miners who persisted with the no-work, no-pay strike, said Bishop Joe Seoka of the Anglican Church, a member of the negotiating team and head of the South African Council of Churches.
More than 40 people have died since the strike began.   www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/world/africa/striking-platinum-miners-sign-deal-in-south-africa.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

The Emergence of Fascism as a mass Popular Movement

The banner at an Chinese Audi dealership reads, “Even if the whole of China is covered with tombs, [we] must kill all Japanese; even if no grass grows in China….”

Fast and Furiously Running Guns for the Cartels, and the Cover up – Fourteen federal law enforcement officials — from field agents in Arizona to top managers in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Justice Department in Washington — created a “significant danger to public safety” under Operation Fast and Furious, an investigative report found.
Those officials still employed were referred for possible job discipline for carrying out the gun-trafficking operation that saturated the Southwest border with more than 2,000 illegally purchased firearms.
Less than an hour after the findings were announced Wednesday by the Justice Department inspector general’s office, two of the individuals — Kenneth Melson, the former head of the ATF, and Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Jacob Weinstein — announced they were stepping down.  http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-justice-department-fast-and-furious-report-20120919,0,305599.story

Judge Says Obamagogue Can Indefinitely Detain Americans A federal appeals court judge granted the government’s request to suspend a federal judge’s ruling last week that permanently enjoined a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) empowering the government to indefinitely detain suspects in the “war on terror,” even American citizens. “In effect,” Gosztola continues, “the government is arguing for the power to make the decision to detain a person and put them in prison without having any body whatsoever question their power to do so because the country is in a state of perpetual war. It is essentially an argument for the power to be able to populate internment camps whenever necessary.”  The Act improperly authorizes that civilians in the United States be detained indefinitely by the military, that they be tried by military commission or military court and that they may be subject to removal to other jurisdictions in violation of the Amendments V and VI of the Constitution.”
And, “The Act fails to give reasonable notice of the acts and conduct that will render a person liable to military detention and is overbroad thereby chilling and impinging upon protexted expressive and associative acts.”     http://news.antiwar.com/2012/09/18/judge-grants-obama-doj-request-to-suspend-case-against-ndaa/

above, Barbarized Oakland Raider Spectaculites

The Saps Will Go Wild Sunday, for Football, the Game where Hardly Anything Happens According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406.html

Italy Convicts 23 for fascista Renditions–to be tortured in then Friendly Egypt Italy’s highest criminal court on Wednesday upheld the convictions of 23 Americans found guilty of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from a Milanese street and transferring him to a country where torture was permitted. The court of cassation’s ruling is the final appeal in the world’s first judicial review of the CIA practice of abducting terror suspects and transferring them to third countries, a practice also known as extraordinary rendition.
The 23 Americans were all convicted in absentia following a trial that lasted over three years. The verdict paves the way for the Italian govrnment to seek redress and could put the Americans at risk of arrest if they travel to Europe.
“It went badly. It went very badly,” lawyer Alessia Sorgato told the Associated Press. “Now they will ask for extradition.”
Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was kidnapped while walking to noon prayers at a Milan mosque on 17 February 2003. He had been under investigation in Italy for allegedly recruiting jihadi fighters. Prosecutors claimed CIA operatives snatched him with the help of two Italian intelligence officers, drove him to Aviano Air Force base, and then flew him to a Nato base in Germany en route to Cairo, Egypt. When Nasr emerged from an Egyptian prison four years later, he claimed he had been tortured.
Among those whose conviction was upheld Wednesday was US Air Force Colonel Joseph Romano, who was in charge of Aviano AF base security www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/20/italy-rendition-convictions-americans

Solidarity For Never

In the Midst of the Chicago Strike (which NEA’s RA voted to Support), NEA’s Boss, Dennis Van Roekel ($465000 a year and an expense account) bussed the Country, Hugging Arne Duncan U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel were greeted by an atrium full of students Tuesday at Emporia State University.
Duncan and his leadership team stopped in Emporia as part of a tour that is crisscrossing the country from Sept. 12 to 21 for various events aimed to promote the secretary’s Education Drives America campaign.  http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2012/sep/19/education-secretary-speaks-concerns-prospective-ed/

September 22, 1919: The Great Steel Strike (til January) smashed by government troops, the law, and AFL-CIO Betrayals. Joe Rudiak: Well, my father was blacklisted in 1919. There was seven of us, at least six of us at that time, six children. We lived in the 1919 steel strikes. He was blacklisted on account of, he was a stool pigeon. I was telling you that he was a very frank person. He couldn’t read and write. And with his background that he had in Europe—he worked in the coal industry and the oil industry, the toughest jobs. And he when he came into this country he didn’t know the danger of saying the word “union.” So these steel companies had, we found out they supported taverns, beer gardens. And there was conversation of your know, different things going on and my father I guess he was asked, “How do you feel about the union and all that?” And he stood up and he says, “I’m 100% for it!” And then he was blacklisted.
Peter Gotlieb: And that was during the steel strike in 1919?
Rudiak: And then the steel strike came along and we were thrown out of the company house. And with the help of his friends that were union minded and all that, they built us a house..  http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/106/

Union Boss Charged With Stealing About a Mil Hector Lopez, the former president of Local 8a-28a, which represents metal polishers, sign painters and other tradespeople, set up an elaborate money-laundering operation involving several companies that funneled secret payments to him, according to a 29-page indictment that was unsealed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.
In the most serious kickback scheme, Mr. Lopez, 54, is accused of accepting $740,000 over a seven-year period in exchange for guaranteeing one company the contract to administer the union’s benefits fund. The indictment did not name Mr. Lopez’s alleged accomplices or the names of the companies involved.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/nyregion/hector-lopez-ex-chief-of-queens-union-indicted-in-kickback-scheme.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

While Class War was Raging in Chicago, NEA Members had a nice chat about Ability Grouping……. In my many years of teaching I never found that grouping students by ability was especially helpful. I observed “Special Education” classes for the intellectually disabled from its inception in Virginia in the very early 70s until its near extinction and replacement by inclusion in the late 90s. There may have been benefit for sereverly disabled students but the mild and moderate individuals probably did not get enough benefit to offset the stigma of the label recevied as a result of being segregated into a separate classroom.   public-groups.nea.org/discussion/topic/show/562942?page=1#message_850530

Spy Versus Spy

US Hired Brit Mercs to Defend Libyan Embassy and lied about that too The State Department signed a six-figure deal with a British firm to protect the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya just four months before a sustained attack on the compound killed four U.S. nationals inside.
Contrary to Friday’s claim by State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland that “at no time did we contract with a private security firm in Libya,” the department inked a contract for “security guards and patrol services” on May 3 for $387,413.68. An extension option brought the tab for protecting the consulate to $783,000. The contract lists only “foreign security awardees” as its recipient.
The State Department confirmed to Danger Room on Monday that the firm was Blue Mountain, a British company that provides “close protection; maritime security; surveillance and investigative services; and high risk static guarding and asset protection,” according to its website. Blue Mountain says it has “recently operated in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, the Caribbean and across Europe” and has worked in Libya for several months since last year’s war.  http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/contractors-benghazi

Russia Kicks Out USAID (CIA) Russia has ordered the United States to end its financial support for a wide range of pro-democracy groups, human rights organizations and other civil society programs operating in the country, in an aggressive step by the Kremlin to halt what it has come to view as thinly veiled American meddling in the country’s internal affairs, and backing for some opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/world/europe/russia-demands-us-end-pro-democracy-work.html?ref=global-home

Ed Wilson Finally Dead He claimed to own 100 corporations in the United States and Europe, many of them real and many of them shells. He had an apartment in Geneva; a hunting lodge in England; a seaside villa in Tripoli, Libya; a town house in Washington; and real estate in North Carolina, Lebanon and Mexico. He entertained congressmen, generals and Central Intelligence Agency bigwigs at his 2,338-acre estate in Northern Virginia.
He showered minks on his mistress, whom he called “Wonder Woman.” He owned three private planes and bragged that he knew flight attendants on the Concorde by name.
His preferred habitat was a hall of mirrors. His business empire existed as a cover for espionage, but it also made him a lot of money. He had the advantage of being able to call the Internal Revenue Service and use national security jargon to get the details on a potential customer. And if the I.R.S. questioned his own tax filings, he terminated the discussion by saying he was a C.I.A. operative on a covert mission.
“Being in the C.I.A. was like putting on a magic coat that forever made him invisible and invincible,” Peter Maas wrote in “Manhunt,” his 1986 book about Mr. Wilson.
For Mr. Wilson, who died on Sept. 10 in Seattle at 84, the adventure collapsed with his arrest in 1982 on charges of selling Libya 20 tons of powerful explosives.
Over the next two years, he was tried in four federal cases in four different courts, accused of, among other things, smuggling arms and plotting to murder his wife. He was sentenced to a total of 52 years in prison. He served 22 of them, mostly in solitary confinement. Then the dagger of fate took a strange twist.
After studying thousands of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Mr. Wilson and his lawyer went back to court and demolished the government’s case.
Mr. Wilson’s sole defense was that he had been working for the C.I.A., serving his country, when he sold the explosives to Libya.  The prosecution’s case had rested on an affidavit by the C.I.A.’s third-ranking official denying that Mr. Wilson had been working for the agency at the time. An hour after being read the affidavit, a jury found Mr. Wilson guilty.
Two decades later, the evidence Mr. Wilson had collected convinced a federal judge in Houston, Lynn H. Hughes, that he had in fact been working for the agency and that the C.I.A. had lied.
“Because the government knowingly used false evidence against him and suppressed favorable evidence, his conviction will be vacated,”  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/us/edwin-p-wilson-cia-operative-with-cloak-and-dagger-life-dies-at-84.html?pagewanted=2&ref=global-home

The Magical Mystery Tour

Turk Islamists Jail their own Military Leaders (not a good idea with Syria Spilling over–ask Stalin) A Turkish court convicted 330 military officers, including three former top commanders, and sentenced them to prison terms of as long as 20 years on Friday after a trial in which they were accused of a wide-ranging plot to overthrow the government nearly a decade ago. Thirty-four were acquitted.  The former head of the land forces, Gen. Cetin Dogan; the former commander of the navy, Adm. Ozden Ornek; and the former commander of the air force, Gen. Ibrahim Firtina, all received 20 years, though those terms were reduced from life in prison because the plot was never carried out.   www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/world/europe/turkish-court-convicts-330-military-officers-in-coup-plot-trial.html?ref=global-home

Indiana Pastor Busted for Teen A former northwest Indiana pastor was charged in federal court today with taking a minor across state lines in and has signed a plea agreement, prosecutors announced.
Jack A. Schaap, of Crete, and Dyer, Ind., was charged in a criminal information in U.S. District Court in Hammond, Ind., according a news release from the district’s U.S. attorney’s office.
The FBI had confirmed last month that it was investigating whether Schaap, the former pastor of an Indiana megachurch, broke any laws during a relationship with a girl who was 17 last month that led to his ouster from First Baptist Church in Hammond.  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-former-indiana-pastor-jack-schaap-indicted-signs-federal-plea-deal-in-relationship-with-teen-20120918,0,1481697.story

Beware of Crazed Amish With Scissors An Amish leader and 15 followers were convicted Thursday in Cleveland of federal hate crimes in connection with the forcible cutting of the hair and beards of religious rivals last fall.  Samuel J. Mullet Sr., a bishop for a group of Amish in Bergholz, Ohio, was convicted on seven of the nine charges against him, according to Reuters. In addition to being convicted of conspiring to violate the Matthew Shepard-James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Mullet was convicted of concealing or attempting to conceal evidence and making false statements to the FBI.
Though Mullet was not present for any of the attacks on nine Amish men and women between September and November last year, prosecutors allege he was the mastermind behind the effort.

above, Sam Mullet (yes, Mullett) Amish Scissor Mastermind 

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

14 year old killed during robbery of Detroit  gas station A 14-year-old boy was fatally shot as he fled from a gas station robbery in Detroit on Wednesday night, according to police.
Police released images this morning of three people wanted for questioning in the shooting, which occurred in a gas station in the 2400 block of Grand Boulevard at 9:30 p.m.
According to police, the boy was in the gas station when the suspects entered and announced a robbery. The boy ran, and the robbers started firing shots, fatally wounding the boy, police said.

So Long

White Folk For generations of Americans, it was a given that children would live longer than their parents. But there is now mounting evidence that this enduring trend has reversed itself for the country’s least-educated whites, an increasingly troubled group whose life expectancy has fallen by four years since 1990.   www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-less-educated-whites-in-us-is-shrinking.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120921

Among those whose conviction was upheld Wednesday was US Air Force Colonel Joseph Romano, who was in charge of Aviano AF base security www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/20/italy-rendition-convictions-americans