{"id":22280,"date":"2018-12-01T23:33:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T07:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/?p=22280"},"modified":"2018-12-02T19:31:11","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T03:31:11","slug":"rouge-forum-dispatch-dead-presidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/rouge-forum-dispatch-dead-presidents\/","title":{"rendered":"Rouge Forum Dispatch: Dead Presidents!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We Say Fight Back!<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Oakland teachers, without a contract for more than a year, threaten to strike: NEA won’t coordinate Oakland\/UTLA strikes<\/h1>\n

She teaches English and history at Coliseum College Prep Academy in East Oakland, but Becca Rozo-Marsh knows how to do the math.<\/p>\n

She could earn more money by leaving Oakland Unified School District and getting a job in another school district. Even so, Rozo-Marsh wants to continue working in the community where she\u2019s gotten to know the families of her high school students over seven years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there are a lot of teachers that are being forced to leave,\u201d said Rozo-Marsh, who was raised in El Cerrito and graduated from Berkeley High School. \u201cThey want to make the choice to stay, and they can\u2019t afford to live here.\u201d But leaving \u201cdestabilizes our schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oakland pays teachers a starting salary of roughly $46,000, while nearby San Leandro Unified pays $60,000, Hayward Unified pays $61,000 and Fremont Unified pays $65,000, according to the California Department of Education. Differences in the way benefits are offered may mean the amounts can\u2019t be directly compared.\u00a0 www.sfchronicle.com\/bayarea\/otisrtaylorjr\/article\/Oakland-teachers-without-a-contract-for-more-13419865.php?fbclid=IwAR0cCB7mnXVtuas8XcpKHCRetOG1UArY8C3bYAgU6AxasLSR7uR2M5klAXs#photo-15898723<\/a><\/p>\n

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South Africa: NUMSA on Why to Launch an Anti-Capitalist Party<\/h1>\n
We can’t achieve genuine\u00a0equality and freedom when we compromise with capital,” a spokesperson for NUMSA told teleSUR.<\/div>\n
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The National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA), the country’s largest union with over 330,000 members launched its own party earlier this Month. Phakamile Hlubi-Majola, NUMSA spokesperson spoke to teleSUR Thursday to explain the need for a workers’ party with\u00a0an anti-capitalist program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The union announced its decision to launch the Socialist Revolutionary Workers’ Party after it declared itself in open opposition to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party in 2013, over what they call anti-worker “World Bank, and (International Monetary Fund) IMF type of economic policies.”<\/p>\n

“NUMSA was integral to the national liberation movement to defeat apartheid, they fought side by side, together with the ANC… However, in South Africa, more than two decades after that system has been overthrown, the working class majority continues to live in the same conditions that existed during apartheid. More than half the population languishes in poverty… South Africa is one of the most unequal countries of the world, with the wealth of the country owned by three white billionaires,” she denounced.\u00a0 www.telesurenglish.net\/news\/South-Africa-NUMSA-on-Why-to-Launch-an-Anti-Capitalist-Party-20181122-0018.html?fbclid=IwAR0JpKCNj9txZ87dSSSZEOQ-ckzJIUxN-8mon6Hij9iP9xFL8Uir5YxJTEk<\/a><\/p>\n

www.facebook.com\/TheCommonSpace\/videos\/353795531853673\/?t=101<\/a><\/p>\n

The Soldier’s Tale: A Man Who Went to War and Realized His Side Was the Enemy<\/h1>\n

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“I was blindly following orders. I was inflicting violence on the poorest people on earth. How is there any morality in that?”<\/p>\n

The troops live under
\nThe cannon\u2019s thunder
\nFrom Sind to Cooch Behar
\nMoving from place to place
\nWhen they come face to face
\nWith a different breed of fellow
\nWhose skins are black or yellow
\nThey quick as winking chop him into
\nBeefsteak tartar<\/em>
\n\u2014\u201cThe Cannon Song\u201d from \u201cThe Threepenny Opera\u201d<\/p>\n

The soldier\u2019s tale is as old as war. It is told and then forgotten. There are always young men and women ardent for glory, seduced by the power to inflict violence and naive enough to die for the merchants of death. The soldier\u2019s tale is the same, war after war, generation after generation. It is Spenser Rapone\u2019s turn now. The second lieutenant was given an \u201cother than honorable\u201d discharge June 18 after an Army investigation determined that he \u201cwent online to promote a socialist revolution and disparage high-ranking officers\u201d and thereby had engaged in \u201cconduct unbecoming an officer.\u201d Rapone laid bare the lie, although the lie often seems unassailable. We must honor those like him who have the moral courage to speak the truth about war, even if the tidal waves of patriotic propaganda that flood the culture overwhelm the voices of the just.<\/p>\n

Rapone enlisted in the Army in 2010. He attended basic training at Fort Benning, Ga. He graduated from airborne school in February 2011 and became an Army Ranger. He watched as those around him swiftly fetishized their weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rifle is the reification of what it means to be infantrymen,\u201d he said when I reached him by phone in Watertown, N.Y. \u201cYou\u2019re taught that the rifle is an extension of you. It is your life. You have to carry it at all times. The rifle made us warriors dedicated to destroying the enemy in close personal combat. At first, it was almost gleeful. We were a bunch of 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds. We had this instrument of death in our hands. We had power. We could do what 99 percent of our countrymen could not. The weapon changes you.\u00a0 www.commondreams.org\/views\/2018\/06\/25\/soldiers-tale-man-who-went-war-and-realized-his-side-was-enemy?fbclid=IwAR3ImbxuNTeaU3m0KCSuqQzwBjWwk2MTfOsnbjuncLxXHYsHf1KHnEmgXoc<\/a><\/p>\n

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Hundreds of arrests in Paris as \u2018gilets jaunes\u2019 protest turns violent<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"A<\/p>\n

At least 100 people injured in street battles, with cars being torched and shops raided<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has insisted he will \u201cnever accept violence\u201d after central Paris<\/a> saw its worst unrest in a decade on Saturday when thousands of masked protesters fought running battles with police, torched cars, set fires to banks and houses, and burned makeshift barricades on the edges of demonstrations against fuel tax.<\/p>\n

Near the Arc de Triomphe, one of Paris\u2019s best-known monuments, masked men burned barricades, set fire to buildings, smashed fences and torched luxury cars on some of the most expensive streets in the city as riot police fired teargas and water cannon.<\/p>\n

Then, by early evening, rioters spread around Paris in a game of cat and mouse with police. Luxury department stores on Boulevard Haussmann were evacuated as cars were set alight and windows smashed. Near the Louvre, metal grilles were ripped down at the Tuileries Garden where fires were started. On the Place Vend\u00f4me, a hub of luxury jewellery shops and designer stores, rioters smashed windows and built barricades.<\/p>\n

Anti-Macron graffiti was scrawled over the Arc de Triomphe near the tomb of the unknown soldier and protesters burst into the monument smashing up its lower floors before climbing on to the roof.<\/p>\n

\"Riot<\/p>\n

More than 250 people were arrested and at least 100 injured \u2013 including one protester who was in a serious condition on Saturday night \u2013 after the violence erupted on the margins of anti-fuel tax demonstrations held by the citizens\u2019 protest movement known as the gilets jaunes<\/em> (yellow vests).\u00a0 www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/dec\/01\/paris-france-protests-yellow-vests-gilets-jaunes-champs-elysees<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

www.facebook.com\/onrecht.armoede\/videos\/270753746975362\/?t=49<\/a><\/p>\n

The Little Red Schoolhouse<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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End of Semester Bingo<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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by <\/span>Mejdulene\u00a0Shomali<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

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www.mcsweeneys.net\/articles\/end-of-semester-bingo?fbclid=IwAR07_8ZlNI1woDrgf4J7Sm72b3ywBE2R2SvbmgkrOCD8NygKDQJh9cu-dZw<\/a><\/p>\n

Louisiana School Made Headlines for Sending Black Kids to Elite Colleges. Here\u2019s the Reality.<\/span><\/h1>\n

T.M. Landry, a school in small-town Louisiana, has garnered national attention for vaulting its underprivileged black students to elite colleges. But the school cut corners and doctored college applications.<\/p>\n

Bryson Sassau\u2019s application would inspire any college admissions officer.<\/p>\n

A founder of T.M. Landry College Preparatory School described him as a \u201cbright, energetic, compassionate and genuinely well-rounded\u201d student whose alcoholic father had beaten him and his mother and had denied them money for food and shelter. His transcript \u201cspeaks for itself,\u201d the founder, Tracey Landry, wrote, but Mr. Sassau should also be lauded for founding a community service program, the Dry House, to help the children of abusive and alcoholic parents. He took four years of honors English, the application said, was a baseball M.V.P. and earned high honors in the \u201cMathematics Olympiad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The narrative earned Mr. Sassau acceptance to St. John\u2019s University in New York. There was one problem: None of it was true.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just a small piece in a whole fathom of lies,\u201d Mr. Sassau said.<\/p>\n

T.M. Landry has become a viral Cinderella story, a small school run by Michael Landry, a teacher and former salesman, and his wife, Ms. Landry, a nurse, whose predominantly black, working-class students have escaped the rural South for the nation\u2019s most elite colleges. A video of a 16-year-old student opening his Harvard <\/a>acceptance letter last year has been viewed more than eight million times. Other Landry students went on to Yale, Brown, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell and Wesleyan.\u00a0 www.nytimes.com\/2018\/11\/30\/us\/tm-landry-college-prep-black-students.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Learning Curve: San Diego Unified Ranks ‘High’ in Chronic Absenteeism<\/h1>\n

The results for California\u2019s system of ranking schools is out for the 2017-2018 school year, and the San Diego Unified School District came in with a \u201chigh\u201d rate of chronic absenteeism in its schools.<\/p>\n

The era of big data in education is evolving.<\/p>\n

It began in the early 2000s with No Child Left Behind and a focus on high-stakes test scores that could shut down a school or earn its teachers bonuses. But now the old-ranking system, known as the Academic Performance Index or API, is out and a new system, known as the California School Dashboard, is in.<\/p>\n

The new system is arguably more nuanced and holistic, but also less explicit in its ranking of schools from best to worst. This year, for the first time, the dashboard includes a ranking for how many students in a school are chronically absent<\/a>, as first reported by Edsource.<\/p>\n

San Diego Unified School District fared below average for the state. More than one in 10 students missed school 18 or more days in a year, which is the state\u2019s definition of chronically absent. The district\u2019s chronic absentee rate for 2017-18 remained the same as the previous year: 12.4 percent.<\/p>\n

The state average was 11.1 percent last school year.\u00a0 www.voiceofsandiego.org\/topics\/education\/the-learning-curve-san-diego-unified-ranks-high-in-chronic-absenteeism\/?utm_source=Voice+of+San+Diego+Master+List&utm_campaign=e4ae02092a-Learning_Curve&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c2357fd0a3-e4ae02092a-81862829&goal=0_c2357fd0a3-e4ae02092a-81862829<\/a><\/p>\n

India\u2019s Dangerous New Curriculum<\/h2>\n
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From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the Mughal Empire did much to create modern-day India. It consolidated the country into a sovereign political unit, established a secular tradition in law and administration, and built monuments such as the Taj Mahal. The Mughals were originally from Uzbekistan, but over time they became a symbol of the contribution of Muslims to Indian national history. Their lasting influence is evident in some of India\u2019s most famous dishes, such as biryani, and the settings of several of the most beloved Bollywood movies, including Mughal-e-Azam<\/i> (1960), by some estimates the highest-grossing film in Indian history.<\/p>\n

So it was odd, on a visit this spring to a school in the Indian state of Rajasthan, to hear a Muslim teacher, Sana Khan, ask her entirely Muslim eighth-grade social science class, \u201cWas there anything positive about Mughals?\u201d Khan was teaching at the English-medium Saifee Senior Secondary School, whose students are Dawoodi Bohras, a small Islamic sect that has been based in India since the Mughal era, when its leaders faced persecution in the Middle East. Like Jews, Parsis, and Baha\u2019is, the Bohras are a religious minority that found shelter in India\u2019s unusually tolerant culture.<\/p>\n

Yet some of Khan\u2019s students saw only barbarism in the time of their own community\u2019s emergence in India. \u201cIn the medieval era, there were wars and all. It was sectarian,\u201d said a bespectacled girl named Rabab Khan. Rabab and another of her classmates, Qutbuddin Cement, told me that the \u201cglorious\u201d period of Indian history occurred before Muslim rule. \u201cIn ancient times, India was called \u2018the Golden Bird,\u2019\u201d said Qutbuddin. \u201cIndia was a world leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since last year, students at the Saifee School have been using new textbooks published by the Rajasthan government, which is run by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP<\/abbr>) that dominates India\u2019s parliament and state legislatures. The new textbooks promote the BJP<\/abbr>\u2019s political program and ideology. They argue for the veracity of Vedic myths, glorify ancient and medieval Hindu rulers, recast the independence movement as a violent battle led largely by Hindu chauvinists, demand loyalty to the state, and praise the policies of the BJP<\/abbr> prime minister, Narendra Modi. One book reduces over five centuries of rule by a diverse array of Muslim emperors to a single \u201cPeriod of Struggle\u201d and demonizes many of its leading figures.\u00a0 www.nybooks.com\/articles\/2018\/12\/06\/indias-dangerous-new-curriculum\/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Diversity%20Indian%20textbooks%20Uighurs&utm_content=NYR%20Diversity%20Indian%20textbooks%20Uighurs+CID_d2911d3120047d3acf1d12e8f9e7a376&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=Indias%20Dangerous%20New%20Curriculum<\/a><\/p>\n

\"No<\/p>\n

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Don’t be Cannon Fodder<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

www.facebook.com\/VICEAustralia\/videos\/265831534056228\/?t=239<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Introducing<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

How could China catch up with the West?<\/p>\n

It was the autumn of 1984, and on the other side of the world, Ronald Reagan was promising \u201cmorning again in America.\u201d China, meanwhile, was just recovering from decades of political and economic turmoil. There had been progress in the countryside, but more than\u00a0three-quarters of the population<\/a>\u00a0still lived in extreme poverty. The state decided where everyone worked, what every factory made and how much everything cost.<\/p>\n

The students and researchers attending the Academic Symposium of Middle-Aged and Young Economists wanted to unleash market forces but worried about crashing the economy \u2014 and alarming the party bureaucrats and ideologues who controlled it.<\/p>\n

Late one night, they reached a consensus: Factories should meet state quotas but sell anything extra they made at any price they chose. It was a clever, quietly radical proposal to undercut the planned economy \u2014 and it intrigued a young party official in the room who had no background in economics. \u201cAs they were discussing the problem, I didn\u2019t say anything at all,\u201d recalled Xu Jing\u2019an, now 76 and retired. \u201cI was thinking, how do we make this work?\u201d www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2018\/11\/18\/world\/asia\/china-rules.html?tp=i-H43-A3-EN7-2CmY61-1y-2Drab-1c-2CoLeg-16ycLh<\/a><\/p>\n

China aims to defeat the US Air Force without firing a shot. Here\u2019s how.<\/h1>\n

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Chinese airmen march in formation prior to a combat drill with H-6K bombers. (Yang Ruikang\/People’s Republic of China)<\/h4>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n
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A new study highlights China\u2019s growing air power<\/a>, and warns that China is looking to build out its Air Force to the point that the U.S. would not be willing to take it on in direct conflict.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Project Air Force team at Rand Corp. describes an emerging Chinese air force that aims to rival the United States’ own, both technologically and strategically, often by mirroring U.S. military capabilities and doctrine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt is important to recognize that many of the PLA [People\u2019s Liberation Army<\/a>] efforts in the military aerospace sector focus on fielding of specific capabilities in sufficient quantities to deter the United States from entering a conflict; the PLA would vastly prefer deterrence over actual combat operations,\u201d the report reads. \u201cIn this sense, the capabilities competition can be regarded as aimed at defeating the United States without actually fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Copying or innovating their own capabilities are both valid pathways to this goal. However, \u201cthe lower cost and higher speed of the copying and adapting approach appears to have made it a preferred approach whenever available,” the report reads.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Different services prefer different styles, however. The People\u2019s Liberation Army Air Force<\/a>, or PLAAF, tends to copy, while China\u2019s missile and space programs are more frequent innovators.\u00a0 www.airforcetimes.com\/news\/your-air-force\/2018\/11\/29\/china-aims-to-defeat-the-us-air-force-without-firing-a-shot-heres-how\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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A Generation of Widows, Raising Children Who Will Be Forged by Loss<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

KABUL, Afghanistan \u2014 As evening takes over Kabul, daylight fading to gray, 3-year-old Benyamin senses that his father should be coming home from work about now.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s been months since\u00a0a bombing<\/a>\u00a0killed his \u201cAba,\u201d Sabawoon Kakar, and eight other Afghan journalists. Benyamin cries and nags his mother, Mashal Sadat Kakar: Where is Aba? When is Aba coming home?<\/p>\n

How do you explain death to a 3-year-old? Mrs. Kakar, her baby, Sarfarz, in her arms, tries to distract him with toys. But when Benyamin keeps crying, she takes him to the balcony and points to the brightest star shining through Kabul\u2019s polluted sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cAba is there,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The war in Afghanistan is disproportionately killing young men, and it is leaving behind a generation defined by that loss. Children like Benyamin will have only early memories of their fathers, and the deaths will shape their lives even as true recollections fade. Babies like Sarfarz will have even less, with death taking fathers they will never know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Carrying it all are the tens of thousands of widows the war has created since 2001. Like Mrs. Kakar, they are left to raise families in a country with a dearth of economic opportunity and plagued by a war that kills 50 people a day.\u00a0\u00a0 www.nytimes.com\/2018\/12\/01\/world\/asia\/afghanistan-widows-war.html<\/a><\/p>\n

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Mattis: Cutting defense will not help deficit<\/h1>\n

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Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis on Saturday threw his weight behind an op-ed from two top Republicans calling for greater funding for the Defense Department \u2014 and lining himself against Trump administration guidance to cut fiscal year 2020 defense spending.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cFiscal solvency and strategic solvency can co-exist,\u201d Mattis said at the Reagan National Defense Forum.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a Friday Wall Street Journal editorial titled \u201cDon\u2019t cut military spending, Mr. President,\u201d Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Calif., and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla<\/a>., warned that a smaller defense budget won\u2019t have a major impact on fixing the national deficit, but would have painful repercussions on military equipment and end strength.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cOur top priority is the troops,\u201d the pair wrote. \u201cAny cut in the defense budget would be a senseless step backward.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0Mattis, in his speech Saturday, explicitly cited that op-ed approvingly, especially the idea put forth from the two members that cutting defense spending will not impact the deficit. Instead, major budget cuts \u201cwould be a dangerous disservice to our troops and the American people they serve and protect. We all know that America can afford survival,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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The Pentagon had been preparing for a $733 billion budget for FY20, until a surprise announcement<\/a> by President Donald Trump cut that to $700 billion. Pentagon planners have been scrambling the last few weeks to find ways to make those numbers work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/digital-show-dailies\/reagan-defense-forum\/2018\/12\/01\/mattis-cutting-defense-will-not-help-deficit\/<\/div>\n
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Islamic extremists are now using drones in Nigeria, leader says<\/h1>\n

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Islamic extremists in Nigeria<\/a> have begun using drones, the country\u2019s president says, opening a worrying new front in the region\u2019s nearly decade-long fight<\/a> against Boko Haram and an offshoot linked to the Islamic State.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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President Muhammadu Buhari announced the development during a meeting on Thursday of countries that contribute troops to a multinational force combatting the extremists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This appears to be the first confirmed use of drones by an extremist group in Africa, according to the World of Drones project run by the Washington-based New America think tank. Its section on non-state actors notes that Libyan rebels are reported to have used drones for surveillance in that chaotic North African nation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Deadly attacks against Nigeria’s military are on the rise, with 39 soldiers killed this month alone and another 43 wounded. The extremists’ use of drones for surveillance in the country’s northeast has proven to be a “critical factor” in the resurgence of attacks, the president said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nigeria’s military has its own, armed drones, as the United States and others and others increasingly use them in West Africa’s fight against groups linked to al-Qaida and IS.\u00a0 www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2018\/11\/30\/islamic-extremists-are-now-using-drones-in-nigeria-leader-says\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"No<\/p>\n

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