Photo O' The Day, 30 September

In the interests of full disclosure I should confess that Somerville (MA) is my hometown, and I've spent many an evening in that theater.

Occupy Wall Street: Beyond Bologna

Good piece from the great Linh Dinh.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29258.htm

Occupy Wall Street: Inquiries launched as new pepper-spray video emerges

Text and videos.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29259.htm

Quote O' The Day, 29 September

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not
understand our banking and money system, for if
they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

—Henry Ford

mwanangu tichiri musango

This article is instructive in many ways. The criminality it exposes is all too typical, capitalism is gangsterism, it's larceny disguised as democracy. So nothing new there, but what this piece does reveal is the global dominance of capital, and the specious nature of the information we receive from the bourgeoisie's media and governments.

Reading the global press one would be led to believe that Mugabe has run afoul of the West. Various US and UK heads of state have issued unusually sharp denunciations of his heavy-handedness. But this is all for public consumption as Mugabe is protecting those diamond fields and keeping the revenues which they produce flowing to the global oligarchs. Mugabe the rebel of popular perception? Hardly! Those diamonds are owned by the same people who own the big banks and big pharma and big oil etc., and Mugabe is their chief security guard in Zimbabwe. No doubt the dictator is well compensated by the plutocrats whom he pretends to detest, and who pretend to loathe him.

And the Beijing bourgeoisie? They are part of the loop now too. All of these Chinese companies are owned in part by the Chinese Investment Bank. It in turn is owned in part by guess who. If you are thinking it's the same people who own those diamonds then give yourself a pat on the back.

So as long as capitalism prevails mwanangu tichiri musango. Yes, we are all still in the bush.

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76739

Poster O' The Day, 29 September

Israel And Palestine

The goon and the stooge.

http://www.voltairenet.org/Secret-papers-reveal-slow-death-of

Who's Profiting From America's many wars?

At the top of the list--the Rothschilds. What a shock! If you are surprised that the chief beneficiary of these abominations is a foreign oil company then you still don't get it. Nation-states are the cages in which the international elite corral dissent. They restrain us, not them.

http://www.voltairenet.org/5-Corporate-Brands-Making-a

Al-Jazeera And Propaganda

Great info as usual from Thierry Meyssan.

http://www.voltairenet.org/Wadah-Khanfar-Al-Jazeera-and-the

Veterans Attempt Citizens Arrest of Rumsfeld in Boston

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/veterans-attempt-citizens-arrest-rumsfeld-bo

BS Alert: CIA, Pentagon fight to keep Osama bin Laden death photos secret

Photos and videos of Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden after he was killed in May in a U.S. military/Central Intelligence Agency raid in Pakistan should not be released publicly because they would reveal military and intelligence secrets and could lead to violence against U.S. personnel, the Obama administration argued in papers filed in federal court in Washington late Monday night.

The new filings from the Justice Department provide scant details about the imagery, but CIA National Clandestine Service Director John Bennett wrote that the CIA has "52 unique....photographs and/or videorecordings" depicting bin Laden during or after the May operation. Bennett did not break down the tally further, but said all the imagery is classified "TOP SECRET," meaning that disclosure of the material could lead to "exceptionally grave damage" to U.S. national security.

Exceptionally grave indeed! If they do have video of "Osama" during the alleged assault then Obama, Panetta, and Gates all lied about it, and the official version of the alleged event is inaccurate.



http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0911/CIA_Pentagon_fight_to_keep_Bin_Laden_photos_secret.html

Tyson Settles for $32 Million in Unpaid Meatpacking Wages

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/11993/tyson_settles_for_32_million_in_unpaid_meatpacking_wages/

#15oct, events all over the world

AFRICA
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210209459028846

ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=227511030631636
https://www.facebook.com/notes/democracia-real-ya-buenos-aires/llamado-mundial-para-el-15o-global-revolution/162218203862104

AUSTRIA
Vienna:
http://about.me/vienna15o
https://we.riseup.net/15oktoberwien

BELGIUM
Marches to Brussels
https://www.facebook.com/15mMarchaBruselas
http://www.scoop.it/t/the-marches-to-brussels

BRAZIL
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117904894971979
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=258688750828711
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146385872122731

Salvador:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=275867459106289

Curitiba:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=258777194153031

Bauru:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=162471733830405

São Paulo:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=219577354763943
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=265869633423819
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=173815709361127

Natal:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=282614531753257

Porto Alegre:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=158484344236080
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=247070485334275

Passo Fundo:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123428414425569

Florianópolis:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=270312849659994

Tubarão:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=149415055149282

Londrina
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=102851526490798

Novo Friburgo
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=238261839553540

Pelotas
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197233963679960

Grande ABC
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195095650560793

Sorocaba
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100351233407836

Belo Horizonte
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=193303720739631

Brasilia
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=288392251174437

Goiânia
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=173002856113832

CANADA

Vancouver:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=272031446152373

CZECH REPUBLIC
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=234614883243821

CHILE
Santiago De Chile:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=175627542511650

CROATIA
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=262371393787259
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=255478777808145

DENMARK
Copenhagen:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=232542073445436
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=211694798892033

FINLAND
Helsinki:
http://torillatavataan.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=204736539589123

FRANCE
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=259940157354968

GERMANY
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=157195821014727
http://mifuturoahora.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/weltweite-demonstrationen-am-15-10-um-eine-echte-demokratie-jezt-zu-fordern-global-demonstrations-october-15-to-reclaim-a-real-democracy-now-manifestation-mondial-le-15-10-pour-revindiquer-une-de/

Berlin:
https://www.facebook.com/15.OBerlin
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=165133843555895
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=232296216815231

Bremen:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=250541318309454

Dusseldorf:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=213120432083254

Leipzig:
http://acampadaleipzig.org/blog/15o/

Magdeburg:
http://echte-demokratie-jetzt-magdeburg.blogspot.com/2011/09/aufruf-fur-den-15-oktober-kurze.html?spref=fb

GREECE
http://www.facebook.com/pages/15-Οκτωβρίου-Παγκόσμια-Κινητοποίηση/180122558720575?sk=info
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=263374090346053

HONG KONG
https://www.facebook.com/groups/218465658211879/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/15oct-International-Mobilization-Hong-Kong-globaldemocracy/228122340569736?sk=wall

Ireland
Dublin:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146609778751914
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=233854726654087
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=190859440977423
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=221421807878068

ITALY
Rome:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=214787688565963
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160468200701836

MALAYSIA
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=135086929918140

PORTUGAL
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=249043168441719

Lisboa:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=139031266184168
Porto:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=248068438565331
Coimbra:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=219905621399569
Faro:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180030698736559
Braga:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=236253006420364
Angra Do Heroismo:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=225689044149930

SERBIA
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=185178218220040

SPAIN
http://www.democraciarealya.es/15o/

Madrid:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=217223788318602

Asturias:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=221421807878068

Barcelona:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113049468786838

Benidor:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=286371838040255

Cuenca:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113039248787076

Gran Canaria:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136210796470218

Lanzarote:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=213720322024995

Malaga:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=266702660016109

Mallorca:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=131291706966282

Oviedo:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=221421807878068

Santander:
http://www.15msantander.org/853/movimiento-global-manifestacion-mundial-15-de-octubre/

Santiago De Compostela:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=235381286505568

Sevilla
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=243939695652127

Vigo
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136144836476833

UK
http://pastebin.com/V00tbr01

London:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=263320750352424
http://pastebin.com/XdMr5u3M

USA
http://october2011.org
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=102944746473643

Phoenix:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=289670787716279

San Francisco:
https://www.facebook.com/sftakethestreets

Help us to complete this list with your #15oct event. Leave a comment on 15october.net.

Lawrence O'Donnell on Police Brutality at Occupy Wall Street

owerful words, albeit an unfortunate distraction from the aim of the protests, which are meant to draw attention not to the crimes of police, but to those of the much bigger bullies in the financial sector, who are once again getting away unpunished and unobserved:

http://roarmag.org/2011/09/msnbc-lawrence-odonnell-on-wall-street-police-brutality/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29

Message from Wangari Maathai - Women Forging a New Security

"The Tree Lady" made this video shortly before she died.



http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/opendemocracy-5050/professor-wangari-maathai-remembered

EGYPT’S MILITARY DICTATORS: FREE MAIKEL NABIL NOW!

http://mahaalaswad.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/egypts-military-dictators-free-maikel-nabil-now/

ILWU Strike Update, September 27

Fresh from their beat down of Tacoma's striking teachers, the state [in this case county, state and federal governments] are now aiming their spears at Longview's striking longshoremen.



Longshore Union Protests ‘Police Brutality’ as President Surrenders

After the September 8 action, police began plucking members out of their homes, off the streets, and out of parking lots. Ten days later, about 35 had been arrested, mostly on misdemeanor trespassing charges. All have been released, and the union is paying their $250 to $500 bail.


“They’re rounding us up like we’re murderers,” said Dan Coffman, president of the Longview local. Five police dragged one union official out of his car by his hair, roughed him up, and slammed him into the back of a squad car. Another member was hauled away while caring for his children, two and seven years old, leaving them to fend for themselves in an empty house. Yet another, a part-time minister, was arrested by police wielding assault rifles.

And when they weren't imperiling children and brandishing weapons, they were concocting tendentious stories:

Union members have shown considerable restraint in the face of a tough situation and constant provocations from police and EGT employees. An EGT worker ran his car into two ILWU members without penalty. A longshore worker allegedly kicked a car that followed, dented it, and was charged with a felony.


The union says allegations that workers held six security guards hostage for four hours were a fabrication of the Longview chief of police. Coffman confronted the chief about the lie.


“He denied he said it and tried to modify his story,” said Leal Sundet, one of four ILWU officers on the union’s coast committee.


The mainstream press latched on, publishing inflammatory pieces decrying the violence. “I’d be surprised if it wasn’t set up purposefully by the PR firm hired by EGT,” Sundet said. “Anything that labor does is portrayed as some kind of act of violence.”


EGT has also hired Special Response Corporation, a security firm based in Maryland that specializes in strikebreaking.

http://labornotes.org/2011/09/longshore-union-protests-police-brutality-president-surrenders



The "manhunt" for ILWU's president ends with the "fugitive" turning himself in.

ILWU International President surrenders to law enforcement with support from East and West Coast longshore leaders

LONGVIEW, WA [September 26, 2011] – Robert McEllrath, President of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, added his voice to the growing chorus calling for an end to police brutality and harassment in Longview by surrendering himself today at 11:00 a.m. to authorities, Cowlitz County Sheriff Mark Nelson and Prosecuting Attorney Susan Baur, at the Cowlitz County Hall of Justice in Kelso, WA. McEllrath waited about 20 minutes and was cited on misdemeanor charges of trespassing in the second degree and blocking or delaying a train, both related to a protest in rural Cowlitz County on Sept. 7. He was released after being cited.

http://www.ilwu.org/?p=3091



The Feds, as usual, are trying to bust the strike:

Feds seek to fine ILWU $293,000 for protests

The costs include:
• Nearly $140,000 in damage and compensation to EGT and $13,000 to BNSF. That includes $80,000 in lost grain for the 9,855 bushels spilled during the event. Damage to a railcar was just over $1,000 and damage to a security vehicle was $1,400. It also includes EGT overtime costs and lawyers fees.
• Just over $76,000 in police overtime costs, including the Cowlitz County sheriff's office, the Longview and Kelso police departments and the Washington State Patrol. (The Kelso estimates also include costs from Sept. 9-10; Cowlitz County included costs from protests in July and said more were forthcoming.)
• About $66,000 in NLRB attorney fees to compile the damage and compensation figures.

http://tdn.com/news/local/article_f1b6a668-e8d2-11e0-a986-001cc4c03286.html



The union counterpunches:

ILWU launches recall effort against sheriff as national president turns himself in

Under Nelson's direction, law enforcement officers flashed lights in union members' homes at night, followed them around to arrest them publicly and needlessly racked up about $30,000 in overtime costs to police the protests, union officials contend.
"Cowlitz County has become a battle zone, and Mark Nelson has some of the blame. Citizens depended on law enforcement to decelerate the situation, which Mark Nelson has failed to do. In fact, his officers have contributed to the turmoil and accelerating the atmosphere of violence in what would have been a peaceful protest," ILWU's Longview-based Local 21 President Dan Coffman and local treasurer Byron Jacobs argue in the recall complaint.
Monday's recall petition follows the union's filing last week of a civil rights lawsuit against Nelson and Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha, alleging excessive use of police force against protesters.

http://tdn.com/news/local/article_e635aa96-e86e-11e0-a290-001cc4c002e0.html

The right-wing press is doing what it can to bust the strike. I'm 51, and I've lived on both coasts, and I can tell you that Frank Blethen's Seattle Times is as unconscionably anti-union as any paper in I've read. I lived in Nevada, where the conservative media is boastfully reactionary, frighteningly so, but even there one does'nt find the preternatural, atavistic hatred for working people one encounters at the Seattle Times. Blethen is a plutocrat's plutocrat, and in no ways adverse to stretching journalistic ethics to their breaking point and beyond. Here he comes to the rescue of his fellow billionaire Warren Buffet's train company.

BNSF investigates tampering along line in SW Wash.

The main BNSF rail line is re-open through southwest Washington, after police and inspectors temporarily shut it down Monday to investigate reports of tampering along the line from north of Vancouver to Chehalis.


Spokesman Gus Melonas says officials have determined that it is safe for all operations through the area. He would not specify how the lines were tampered with, but he says it has been eliminated.

Oh yes, fine work this! The paper doesn't know what happened (or doesn't believe anything did), so it publishes this defamatory rumor. The Seattle Times: no lie is too perverse if it serves the interests of capital.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016326753_apwatraintampering1stld.html



Solidarity from Down Under:

Townsville Community Supports Longview Dockers

“Today we’re gathering in Townsville to show the Longview Dockers that they have the support and solidarity of their brothers and sisters around the world.
“We will not stand idly by and ignore bullying of trade unionists. No one should face threats and intimidation for standing up for basic rights.”
Concerned by EGT’s reluctance to guarantee local jobs, the Dockers were peacefully protesting at railroad tracks in Longview on September 9, blocking a grain train on its way to EGT’s loading facility.
They were then detained by police in riot gear.
The ITF has vowed to support the Longview Dockers in their campaign for justice.
“There’s a crucial principle at stake here. Multinational companies must not feel that they can simply waltz into a community and tear it to pieces,” Mr Summers said.
“We will defend jobs, communities and families wherever and whenever it is necessary.”

Amen!



http://www.mua.org.au/news/townsville-community-supports-longview-dockers/



As one might expect, the strike and the police and company reaction have elicited impassioned responses from locals. Here are some links where you wil find letters to the editor.

http://tdn.com/news/opinion/article_75b4334a-e6f8-11e0-a8fe-001cc4c03286.html

http://tdn.com/news/opinion/article_f8e34c3c-e7cb-11e0-846a-001cc4c002e0.html

http://tdn.com/news/opinion/article_ac70e11e-e890-11e0-aa4a-001cc4c03286.html



The longshoremen are combating the union-busting efforts of EGT, the press, and city, county, state, and federal governments. They deserve our support as if capital wins in Longview, if they succeed in breaking a union with a long and proud history, the future will be pretty bleak for labor. And they may be coming to a workplace near you soon.

Noam Chomsky - on Darwinism

More specifically social Darwinism. This video is quite brief but Chomsky hits the nail squarely on its head, and as usual implies more than he says.

Capitalism is more pernicious than even its most ardent detractors imagine. It has subsumed everything, it holds the entirety of human ingenuity captive. It will take generations after the fall of capitalism to fully reckon the economic, political, spiritual, and academic damage it wrought. And likely even longer to recover.

I agree with Chomsky that Kropotkin didn't prove his point, nevertheless, Mutual Aid, The Conquest of Bread, and his Memoirs all made quite an impression on me, and deepened my anarchism.

rough translation by a friend:

Sign:Guard peoples peace freedom democracy

Everyone is responspible for it

I hope the whole media will take my picture and tell

the whole world to log on the web site

And the media spread the news to the whole world

So people around the world understand that

Peace is the the highest ideal for humanity.

Isn't Capitalism Grand

Greece faces austerity strike as default looms

http://www.chron.com/business/article/Greece-faces-austerity-strike-as-default-looms-2188792.php

Bahrain's besieged protesters keep campaign alive

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Hand signals are passed from the rooftop spotters to the street protesters below: Another group of riot police are moving in their direction.
"Wait," one of the rioters on 443 Lane urges. "Wait. OK, now." The gangs send a barrage of stones toward the police squad's white helmets and then scatter over alleyways and race into homes.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jAJEmdy-wPPTPdOA5ZNPwBeUwxeg?docId=43583d9b80b24cca9a859fadc193c089

What Media Coverage Omits about U.S. Hikers Released by Iran

Why does Greenwald believe that the charges against the two are dubious? This article putatively condemns US policy vis-a-vis Iran, but it bolsters the prevailing anti-Iranian propaganda by insisting the detention of the two "hikers" was unwarranted.

I don't know if these two are spies, but Iran is crawling with Western spooks, they very well could be. Greenwald and Democracynow are doing the devil's work by lionizing the two who at best were incredibly reckless.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29220.htm

Kenya's Two Most Famous Women Die Within Weeks Of One Another

Kenya:Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai dies

Maathai was an environmentalist who launched the Green Belt Movement which had an international impact.



http://www.afronline.org/?p=19427



Freedom fighter Wambui Otieno dies aged 75

Wambui was a militant feminist who was arrested by the Brits for organizing a woman's wing of the Mau Mau movement. She wrote a memoir, Mau Mau's Daughter.




http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000041891&cid=4&story=Freedom%20fighter%20Wambui%20Otieno%20dies%20aged%2075



Here is a nice article about her:

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/76636

South Africa

Good piece. Malema might be a demagogue, but this movement is outgrowing the ambitions of political schemers.

http://sacsis.org.za/site/article/755.1

The State And Dissent: How Much Force To Use?

A good rumination on the topic.

http://roarmag.org/2011/09/backlash-why-the-nypd-crackdown-was-a-major-mistake/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29

Pakistani state clamps down on unions and the left

On orders from Washington, no doubt.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26152

Protests In Paris

My French isn't so good, but I think this woman's tone and rectitude translates for itself. She talks about rights and about the rights of the member states of Europe. She talks about Europe's politics lacking a social perspective, about a lack of liberty, about speaking freely in the streets. I didn't get what she said about Spain [anybody help?]

Anyway, it's short and worth a look. They are sitting in front of the stock exchange and are surrounded by police to whom, presumably, she directs her comments.

Poster O' The Day, September 25

[Discovered at richgibson.com/blog]

ILWU Strike Update, September 25

Pretty quiet in Longview this weekend, the heat and humidity have had a tempering effect on what has heretofore been one of the more aggressive action by union workers in decades. Security forces of various types are still ever-so-conspicuously present, but for the moment all is quiet on the Longview Front.

Some of the latest developments:

ILWU files suit alleging police brutality in grain terminal dispute

"The ILWU is filing this lawsuit to stop the abuse of longshore workers and their supporters who are being violently pursued and intentionally prosecuted for exercising their free speech and associational rights,” said ILWU International President Bob McEllrath in a statement. “Longshore workers and their supporters are no longer free to move about their hometown without fear of being ambushed in front of children and families by an overzealous, out-of-control Police Chief and Sheriff. This blatant abuse of authority has to stop."

http://www.katu.com/news/local/130392743.html



A positive result:

EGT driver charged with hit and run — four weeks after incident and one day after ILWU files civil rights lawsuit

Law enforcement officials refused for weeks to take action against the EGT-associated driver who on August 29 was caught on video appearing to have intentionally run down two longshore workers, failed to render aid, failed to report an accident, and left the scene of the accident. On Thursday, September 22, the ILWU filed a civil rights lawsuit for rough treatment of longshore union members, and the next day the county prosecutor’s office finally announced it would charge the EGT driver with two felony charges of hit-and-run. Will EGT’s driver be publically arrested and required to post bail like the longshore workers?

http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/2011/09/egt-worker-charged-finally/



At the heart of the conflict is EGT's decision to hire workers from Operating Engineers local 701. This contemptible action by the multinational, and the even more loathsome cooperation of OE 701, prompted a written response by the ILWU, reproduced here in its entirety:

Dear Brothers and Sisters of IUOE Local 701,

We are the members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).

In 2006, IUOE Local 701 had a labor dispute at the Port of Portland’s Terminal 4. The ILWU refused to cross Local 701′s picket line. We forced several ships to stay idle to help you get the agreement you needed.

Today, a multinational corporation called EGT Development is trying to use Local 701 to undermine the ILWU, and it is hurting your relationships with other unions.

For generations, the ILWU has worked all West Coast docks and grain export terminals. We are constantly honing our safety procedures because grain is very dangerous work. Many of our people have died, including one man who fell to his death in a grain elevator just a couple of years ago in Vancouver.

EGT’s collusion with Local 701 is already hurting your union. Recently, Mark Holliday and Nelda Wilson signed a contract with EGT to take away the work that we do in every other grain export terminal in the Northwest.

The officers at Local 701 will try and make you believe that getting jobs at any cost is a good idea. But already the backlash against 701 has been swift, severe and will be long-lasting unless 701 stops colluding with the employer to undermine another union. Just Google “701″ and “EGT” and you will see that other union members feel betrayed and disgusted that Local 701 is dirtying itself by colluding with EGT against another union. Just last week, the Oregon AFL-CIO Executive Board passed a resolution condemning the actions of Local 701 and called these actions “scab labor.”

We know Local 701′s collusion with EGT is a decision that was made above your head, but you don’t need to stand for it. We are here today to ask you, as union brothers and sisters, to refuse to assist in the union-busting efforts of EGT and to honor our jurisdiction….just as we did in 2006 when IUOE 701 had a labor dispute at Terminal 4.

Someday, you will need to support of other unions to keep your own union job secure. It’s not worth it to sell your union’s credibility and support from other unions forever just for a handful of jobs today.

Remember, solidarity goes both ways!

In 1934, our grandfathers fought and died to form our union. We have supported other unions, including yours, for many decades since that time. An injury to one is an injury to all.

Signed,

Your brothers and sisters of the ILWU

[http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/2011/08/open-letter-to-the-men-and-women-of-operating-engineers-local-701/]



This plea fell on apathetic ears, but the reluctance on the part of the OE elicited this rebuke from the Oregon Building Trades Council:

Whereas, the purpose of a labor union is to leverage the collective power of workers to improve and protect the working conditions and standard of living of working men and women; and

Whereas, the strength of each union and the union movement as a whole depends on the unity of all of the members therein; and

Whereas, OE Local 701 has not only agreed to work in collusion with the employer on the docks at Longview but has also sided with the multinational, union-busting employer in the media against the ILWU longshore collective actions at the Port of Longview;

Therefore, be it resolved that the OBTC state federation Executive Board and its local union affiliates condemn in the strongest way possible the raiding activity of OE Local 701, and finally;

Be it resolved that the OBTC state federation send a letter to OE Local 701 demanding that Local 701 immediately cease and desist from allowing its members to displace ILWU longshoremen at the EGT facility in the Port of Longview.

[http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/2011/09/oregon-state-building-trades-condemns-oe-local-701-for-raiding-at-egt/]



The ILWU Ladies Auxiliary, backed by local radical feminists who understand the importance of this strike, condemned police tactics:

bout 50 women, most of them members of the International Warehouse and Longshore Union's Ladies Auxiliary, staged a protest in West Kelso Saturday afternoon, alleging their members were brutalized by police during a protest at the EGT grain terminal Wednesday.
Nearly a dozen female protesters arrested as they helped block a train carrying grain to the Longview terminal complained of back injury, sprains and strains to their shoulders, said Karin Hogg of Longview, who identified herself as the Ladies Auxiliary vice president. One woman was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, she said.
Hogg noted that security officers employed by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad arrested the women Wednesday, but she said local law enforcement officers watched. "Many of them laughed and they were high-fiving and fist-pumping," Hogg said of the local police.
"We wanted to come out and let everybody know this isn't OK," Hogg said.


Read more: http://tdn.com/news/local/article_41e7df04-e71f-11e0-a311-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1YzzfTA7t

Here are some letters to the local rag:

http://tdn.com/news/opinion/article_3fc59e1a-e633-11e0-82c2-001cc4c002e0.html



The good news is that people are fighting back against capitalism. And better still they are receiving overwhelming support from the people of Longview. In the photo above one cop wears a shirt which reads no Wisconsin here. While his attitude probably doesn't reflect the opinion of most local police who are privately sympathetic, it does represent how far the state is willing to go to blunt any threat to its dominance or the profits and privilege of the class whose interests it serves.

Why Does The State Exist? Answer Below

Oakland museum cancels Palestinian kids' war art

"The pressure was ... well, we were getting calls from constituents that were concerned about the situation," Bell said. "We don't have any political stake in this thing. It just became apparent that we needed to rethink this."

The complaints came from Jewish groups as well as others in the community, board members said.

Museum officials said the exhibit space is in a multiuse area that brings in children as young as 2. While art should "provoke people and generate emotion," the museum couldn't handle the divisive issue in that space, said Hilmon Sorey, the board's chairman.

They need to protect us from Palestinian children. At least they didn't call them anti-Semites.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2011%2F09%2F10%2FBA921L2H5J.DTL

Tacoma Teachers Cave

After meeting with Gregoire the teachers acquiesce and issue comical face-saving statements about mutual compromise. As usual, the bosses got everything they wanted, all that they surrendered was a pay cut which they never had any intention of instituting. Workers lose again.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/09/23/1836093/final-contract-under-review-for.html

Competition, Bankruptcy, and the Decline of the United Auto Workers

Nice piece.

Union leadership has also emphasized the job creation the new contracts will bring, which reportedly will guarantee at least 6,400 jobs will be added or retained for GM workers – most of which will only pay “second tier” wages of $16/hour.

“In these times, in these conditions, to get an agreement of this status is just a miracle job,” said Jerry Gillespie, president of the UAW local 1260 in Warren, Michigan. “This is an agreement that has no concessions in it.”

Miracle? No concessions?

http://thetrialbyfire.org/2011/09/23/competition-bankruptcy-and-the-decline-of-the-united-auto-workers/#respond

Straight from the horses mouth: "Isn't our democracy about the ability to create wealth?"

Seldom is profiteering conflated with democracy quite so bluntly. For capital anyway, democracy means the freedom to exploit the labor of other human beings. About 5.5 minutes in.

Photo O' The Day, September 22: Khaled Said on Berlin’s Wall

Khaled was the young man who filmed, perhaps inadvertently, Egyptian police doing a drug deal. They became aware and took him into custody where he was tortured and killed. The photos of his mutilated body were one of the sparks which set off the revolution. To honor him the Germans put him on The Wall.

Humanitarian Conquest: The Untold Story in Libya: How the West Cooked Up the “People’s Uprising”

Good piece.

http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/08/31/now-that-we%E2%80%99re-celebrating-qaddafi%E2%80%99s-end-can-we-get-a-little-truth/

Socialism Chavista Style

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/20/worlds-tallest-squat-caracas-venezuela

Regulators Weaken Dodd-Frank Draft Regs, Allow More Risk

If you are surprised by this then you still don't get it. And until you do you would do well not to run out of lubricant.

http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/regulators-loosen-limits-on-risk-in-latest-drafts-of-dodd-frank-rules

Counterrevolution Update Egypt, September 21

Egypt's SCAF: Emergency Law in place until June, 2012

"The SCAF did not extend or declare the Emergency Law, which has already in place since June 2010 and endorsed by the Parliament," said General Adel El-Mursi, the head of the Military Judiciary Authority.
He added that what had happened was that Field Marshal Hussein Tanatwi amended some articles of the Emergency Law, applying it on more cases.
"Tantawi practiced his authority according to the constitutional declaration ratified on March 30," el-Mursi said.
The semi-official newspaper Al-Ahram reported Wednesday that the SCAF is looking into a proposal to call for a public referendum on a suitable electoral system and extending the Emergency Law.

The SCAF must be overthrown, otherwise there has been no revolution.

http://213.158.162.45/~egyptian/index.php?action=news&id=21175&title=Egypt's%20SCAF:%20Emergency%20Law%20in%20place%20until%20June,%202012

Photo O' The Day, September 21

Longview (WA) ILWU Strike Update, September 21,

Law enforcement personnel wrestle ILWU Local 21 longshoreman Kelly Muller to the ground as they arrest protesters and try to clear the tracks so a Burlington Northern-Santa Fe grain train can pull in to the EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2011. A dozen officers in riot gear stood guard along the tracks as a grain train finally entered the terminal. International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21 President Dan Coffman says two Longshore officers and about 10 wives and mothers of Longshore workers were arrested. (AP Photo/The Daily News, Bill Wagner)

LONGVIEW, Wash. – Union members upset they are being shut out of work at a grain terminal in Longview tried to block a train from reaching the port on Wednesday morning, a sheriff’s office spokesman said.


Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Grover Laseke said the train was heading for the grain terminal at the Port of Longview when protesters tried to block its path. Several people were arrested for criminal trespass and obstructing a train.


The train eventually arrived at the terminal around 11 a.m. and was unloaded under heavy security.


Two union officers and about 10 of the women were detained, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21 President Dan Coffman said in a statement. Coffman was among those involved despite a judge's repeated orders that the union not block entrance to the site.


The union claims some of the people arrested were hit with pepper spray.

http://www.katu.com/news/local/130289308.html

200 Wash. union workers challenge sheriff to arrest them

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2011-09-16/union-clash-arrest-challenge/50436396/1

Union protesters arrested at Port of Longview, Washington

Ten of the demonstrators, including the wives and mothers of some port workers, were detained on charges of criminal trespass and obstructing a train, said Jerusha Kasch, a spokeswoman for the Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office.


Among those 10 was Dan Coffman, president of the International Longshore Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 21, the union said.


Two more protesters who scuffled with police were pepper-sprayed and arrested on a felony charge of assaulting a police officer, the union and police said.

Note how Reuters union-bashes:

One of those two also faced a felony harassment charge stemming from a September 16 confrontation at the port in which he was accused of threatening to sexually assault a family member of a deputy who was arresting another individual, the sheriff's office said in a statement.


ILWU Local 21 Vice President Jake Whiteside said the confrontation began after about a dozen protesters, nine of them women from the union's "ladies auxiliary," walked out onto the railroad tracks and sat down, prompting police to move in.


"The police were getting rough with an elderly lady they were arresting," and two fellow demonstrators ended up getting pepper-sprayed when they intervened and "let their emotions get the best of them," Whiteside said.

Reading this one might think that Whiteside was confirming the robustly dubious accusation that a longshoreman threatened to rape a cop's relative as the latter was in the act of arresting women strikers. He doesn't in this context nor in any other. He's confirmed that the two did scuffle with police, not that either threatened to rape anybody.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/21/us-longshoremen-arrests-idUSTRE78K7TC20110921



And, as usual, it's not just the the press that's working to undermine the strikers.

Three union members arrested less than 48 hours after Sheriff rejects peaceful surrender at courthouse

LONGVIEW, WA (September 18, 2011) — Cowlitz County Sheriff Mark Nelson on Friday rejected the peaceful surrender of 200 union longshore workers who waited for 45 minutes outside his office, and instead has continued his campaign of pursuing and arresting union members in front of children and families. At least one of the workers arrested today was forced to leave two minors unaccompanied at home while he was led away by law enforcement.


“Sheriff Mark Nelson watched from his office window as 200 union members offered themselves up for peaceful surrender, and instead prefers to waste taxpayer dollars on made-for-TV arrests in front of children,” said Dan Coffman, President of Local 21. “The sheriff’s actions are an unnecessarily heavy-handed and costly handling of misdemeanors for citizens who were exercising their First Amendment rights by peacefully standing on rural railroad tracks on the afternoon of September 7.”


Two hours after standing front and center at the Cowlitz County Hall of Justice offering peaceful arrest on misdemeanor charges, ILWU Local 21 Vice President Jake Whiteside was chased by four law enforcement officers and arrested in a church parking lot, handcuffed and led away in front of several children. Longshoremen Cary Brister and Lowell Lovegren were arrested this morning after having also presented themselves at the courthouse for arrest on Friday.

http://www.ilwu.org/?p=3031



Letter: ‘Sheriff department misrepresents facts’

To get justice, those ILWU members had to hire their own attorney to prosecute the driver. I have to ask you: if your son was walking in the Safeway parking lot and was ran over by someone intentionally, would that person have to hire an attorney to help prosecute the driver? Would law enforcement answer his calls for help? If he were an ILWU member, the answer would be, “Get your own attorney. We have no intentions of answering your call.”


The sheriff department has misrepresented what has happened many times, including saying they were maced by ILWU members when in fact they missed and maced each other. You cannot believe Mark Nelson’s department. I partially blame the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Department for the explosion at the port. If they handled the situation correctly and fairly, the level of frustration would not have reached that point.

http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/2011/09/letter-sheriff-department-misrepresents-facts/




IWW Resolution in Solidarity with ILWU Local 21, Longview, Washington
Posted Sun, 09/18/2011 - 11:03pm by IWW.org Editor
Passed by the IWW General Executive Board, September 18, 2011:

On behalf of our entire union, the General Executive Board of the Industrial Workers of the World salutes you for your strong stance against union busting in the Port of Longview.

Now, the state forces are starting to be used to break your struggle. We think now is not the time to back off. Around the world, from Egypt to Greece, the workers' movement is starting to rise up. The recent struggle against union busting in Wisconsin and your struggle in Longview shows that US workers are fed up too. We think that many thousands of workers throughout the West Coast are prepared to join in with you and show that together, we can put a stop to union busting, regardless of what the courts say.

If this means returning to the methods of the 1930s, including work place occupations and mass pickets that back down to nobody, then so be it.

We in the Industrial Workers of the World will do all in our power to help in your struggle.

Capitalism: Privatization Strategies.

French police detain “over a hundred” indignados in Paris

http://roarmag.org/2011/09/french-police-detain-over-a-hundred-indignados-in-paris/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29

UK complicity in Iran terrors exposed

No surprise here.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/200250.html

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Arrested

Didacticide Update, September 20

Egypt:

Teachers’ strike cancels classes in Egypt

gyptian teachers remained on strike at public schools throughout the country for the fourth straight day on Tuesday, canceling classes in a new academic year that began only this week.

The “boycott” of Egypt’s state schools was called by teachers demanding better employment benefits, wage increases, and greater government investment in a notoriously overburdened educational system.

Many of the protesters said they were disappointed at the apparent lack of reform taking place in Egypt’s schools in the 7 months since the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/the-casbah/teachers%E2%80%99-strike-cancels-classes-egypt



Tuesday's papers: Striking teachers attacked

"Bloody day in teachers' strike," reads the headline in the independent Al-Dostour. The article mentions that numerous striking teachers, who began their strike on the first day of the academic year, were attacked by angry parents across the country on Monday. At Al-Salam Preparatory School in Kafr al-Sheikh Governorate, a teacher was stabbed in the leg with a knife, a retired employee reportedly attacked a school principal in Kafr al-Zayyat, a group of parents angered with the teachers' strike set fire to the educational administration building in the town of Ahnasia in Beni Suef Governorate, and the administrative board of Al-Mustaqbal School in the town of Zeitoun in Cairo Governorate called the police over its striking teachers.

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/497504



Spain:

Madrid Teachers Strike to Protest Austerity

MADRID—High-school teachers in the Spanish capital began a two-day strike Tuesday, disrupting the school days of hundreds of thousands of youths as opposition to sweeping austerity measures hardens ahead of general elections this November.

The Journal seems to be against the strike...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904106704576582731010022652.html



Australia:

Teachers to strike in defiance of IRC ruling

NSW public school teachers will go on strike tomorrow, defying an order by the Industrial Relations Commission not to undertake industrial action.
Teachers Federation prsident Bob Lipscombe said for the dispute to be resolved, the O'Farrell government would have to repeal the changes it had made to the NSW Industrial Relations Act that limit public sector pay rises to 2.5 per cent each year.
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"Teachers cannot stand by and allow their salaries and working conditions to be cut by unjust laws,'' he said.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/teachers-to-strike-in-defiance-of-irc-ruling-20110907-1jxcc.html



Tacoma:

Tacoma, Washington teachers defy no-strike order

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Striking teachers in Tacoma, Washington, returned to picket lines on Thursday in defiance of a back-to-work order, forcing school officials to cancel classes for 28,000 students for a third straight day.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Bryan Chushcoff had issued a temporary restraining order on Wednesday against the walkout by some 1,900 teachers in a contract dispute over seniority policies, class size and salaries.
The superintendent of Washington state's third largest district has characterized the strike, which began on Tuesday, as illegal.

This is why it is called wage slavery: refusing to work is "illegal".

http://news.yahoo.com/tacoma-washington-teacher-defy-no-strike-order-212053555.html



Illegal and dangerous:

Side effects of the Tacoma teacher strike

While negotiations continue between striking teachers and the Tacoma School District, others are trying to fill the gap created by the cancellation of classes. Tacoma is one of the poorest districts in the state with roughly 60-percent of its students, about 18,000 kids, qualifying for free/reduced meals.
Today the lack of those free meals turned violent when a man showed up at the picket lines outside Stewart Middle School and started elbowing striking teachers. The man, who identified himself as the grandfather of a Tacoma student, said his grandson is going hungry because of the strike. One teacher had to be hospitalized.

http://www.king5.com/community/blogs/education/Side-effects-of-the-Tacoma-teacher-strike-130225378.html

Al-Jazeera Top Officials Resign for fabricating news on Syria

http://www.sana.sy/eng/22/2011/09/20/370553.htm

Is Johann Hari A Spook?

I don't know. You? His version of events, if true, is revealing enough. It takes a lot of nerve to do what he did, is he that brash, or did he feel secure? In any case, falsifying your identity to rewrite Wikipedia entries favorably to oneself and unfavorably to one's enemies is unethical enough that he might get recruited.

Some of the things Hari has written over the years have given me pause, this is giving me some more pause. Western intelligence has infiltrated the media to such a degree now that even the left is riven with spooks.

Anyway, shill or no, what he obviously isn't is a journalist.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-a-personal-apology-2354679.html

Photo O' The Day, September 20

Tacoma Teachers Strike: Students Strike! Day 3 @ District

Africa Must Reject the Land Grabs: Letter to China, India, Harvard, Egypt, Kuwait, et al.

Good piece.

http://www.africaontheblog.com/africa-must-reject-the-land-grabs-letter-to-china-india-harvard-egypt-kuwait-et-al/

World Bank policies "enabling" African land grab

http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-568890

Didacticide Update: The Kenyan Front

http://www.africanews.com/site/Teachers_strike_paralyzes_learning_in_Kenya/list_messages/39676?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Feed:+Africanews-RssNews+(AfricaNews.com+-+RSS+News)

IFC helping Western multinationals exploit Ghana's water crisis

This scheme looks excellent at project inception, with its low maintenance requirement, but five years after handing over to the community, the infrastructure’s maintenance needs vastly increase. Usually the amount required for repairs and maintenance is larger than the revenue generated from the system. Communities at this stage will be at the mercy of market forces who will exploit their misery. The danger of such a move is to open the flood-gates for greedy speculators to begin the race of exploiting unserved rural and urban populations.

This is why they are called banksters.

http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/art-568911

Red Star Over Africa

China’s oil trade with Africa is dominated by an opaque syndicate. Ordinary Africans appear to do badly out of its hugely lucrative deals.

Ah the Beijing Bourgeoisie and neo-imperialism, "It doesn't matter if it's a black cat or a white cat, so long as it catches mice." (Deng Xiaoping)

Interesting piece, worth the time.

http://www.economist.com/node/21525847

The Gang Rape Of Greece Update, September 19

Greece Must Shrink State to Avoid Default: Lenders

Now that they have looted everything they can from a prostrate Greece, they've added new conditions for the promised loans. This is why they are called banksters.

Kudos to CNBC for telling the truth: The new conditions were a result of adverse trends in Euro bond speculation and had nothing to do with anything the Greeks did or didn't do.

International lenders told Greece on Monday it must shrink its public sector and improve tax collection to avoid default within weeks as investors spooked by political setbacks in Europe dumped risky euro zone assets.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44574980

Saudi-backed forces attack Bahrainis

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/200034.html

'Saudi tanks cross border into Yemen'

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/199999.html

Propaganda Alert: Interventionists Ready a Media Lynching For Ron Paul

Scheurer is an "ex" CIA man who has become a fixture on mainstream media as a critic of American foreign policy. His mission is to voice the concerns of the growing anti-Israel lobby and to become its spokesperson. The point is to commandeer the movement and confine all that potentially dangerous resentment that Americans feel within politically acceptable parameters.

First, Ron Paul is not unacceptable to the ruling class. His argument is that we don't have enough capitalism. This is no threat to the powers that be. (In a recent interview he said that in order for America to compete internationally it will have to get its labor costs down. When asked about the adverse effects on working families he said "a lower paying job is better than no job at all." He is a supporter of his son's anti-union bill.) Nobody who is seen as inimical to the interests of capital will ever be allowed anywhere near the levers of power. If he or she is running for office as a Democrat or Republican, he or she is working for Wall Street. It's that simple.

While I have no love for the Jewish race-state, it is preposterous that the US is conducting these wars in the ME on behalf of Israel. International capital is solidifying its control over its sphere of influence in the region, and is expanding into new ME territories. Whatever benefit this might occasion for the Zionazies is entirely incidental. Israel is the creation and servant of capital, not its master, the puppet, not the puppeteer.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29158.htm

Immigrants Tortured By Libyan Rebels

All that CIA training being put to good use.

http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Libya-immigrants-imprisoned-tortured-20110914?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_term=africa&utm_content=news

Photos O' The Day, 19 September

"The crisis is a scam."

"Get mad."

"We won't pay the debt."

http://roarmag.org/2011/09/marchabruselas-and-antibanks-in-paris-in-pictures/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29

Female Circumcision

Indonesian government new manual: How to cut your daughter.

http://mahaalaswad.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/indonesian-government-new-manual-how-to-cut-your-daughter/

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET: livestream from New York

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

The California Grocery Strike, by Rich Gibson

http://clogic.eserver.org/2004/gibson.html

Livestream of #antibanks protests around the world

http://roarmag.org/2011/09/livestream-of-antibanks-protests-around-the-world/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

A poem by Lupe Fiasco for #OCCUPYWALLSTREET

Hey Moneyman the crowd is outside. The past, the future and the now is outside. The teachers and cooks and the drop-outs too. Word on the street is they looking for you…

Hey Moneyman they saying what’s the score? And how much blood have you spilled on the butcher shop floor? Those numbers keep running but what they running into? The crowd is outside and they asking of you…

http://roarmag.org/2011/09/a-poem-by-lupe-fiasco-for-occupywallstreet/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

There's Something About Omar: Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11 by Chaim Kupferberg

This is the best deconstruction of 9/11 I've read, and in general an introduction to black-ops and false-flag operations. This is quite long, but worth the effort. Kupferberg does excellent work here. It will be particularly instructive for unfortunates who still believe that they live in a democracy, or that the government is telling them the truth.

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KUP310A.html

Bangladesh farmers cash in on kidneys

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MI17Df01.html

Global Nato and the Recolonisation of Africa - Lessons From the Libyan Intervention By Horace Campbell

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29143.htm

The Big One is Coming Strikes Rattle California Hospitals

California nurses pour into their September 14-16 NNU national convention in San Francisco chanting "Strike!, Strike!, Strike!"

http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/the-big-one/

FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical’

September 15, 2011 "Wired" - -The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.”

At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more “devout” a Muslim, the more likely he is to be “violent.” Those destructive tendencies cannot be reversed, an FBI instructional presentation adds: “Any war against non-believers is justified” under Muslim law; a “moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.”

No doubt the trainees are receiving expert exegesis from the ecclesiastical scholars over in Quantico.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29131.htm

Photo O' The Day, September 15

Cornel West interviews Frances Fox Piven

Two of my favorite people.

http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/3076/west_piven_interview_9_15_11/

Libertarian Paradise

New York Times Runs PR for Bank of America’s Headcount-Cutting Profiteers

It might behoove a publication that styles itself as the newspaper of record to do some basic fact checking rather than take dictation from parties with an obvious axe to grind and publish it as news.

I’m going to give the disgraceful New York Times story, “Outsiders’ Ideas Help Bank of America Cut Jobs and Costs” a long form treatment, not only because it may help readers recognize PR masquerading as news, but also because the bits of this story that the Times didn’t bother to probe help illuminate how the retail banking industry became predatory and how some of the mechanisms to transfer wealth to people at the very top are well hidden from the great unwashed public. Thus, this post is a companion piece to our piece today on the rise in poverty and continuing destruction of the middle class in the US.

America is a democracy; Obama is a socialist; free markets will take us out of this recession; taxes are job-killers; we have a free press; NYT is anti-establishment; it's all of a piece.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/new-york-times-runs-pr-for-bank-headcount-cutting-profiteers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

Egyptian Military Dictatorship Cracks The Whip

They've already postponed elections once, now they are gerrymandering districts. And, as usual, they are taking measures to "maintain order."

http://bikyamasr.com/42199/egypts-military-looking-to-change-electoral-laws/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BikyaMasrNews+%28Bikya+Masr+|+Independent+news+for+the+world%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

Record Number Of Americans In Poverty

http://www.countercurrents.org/kishore140911.htm

Millions in Britain move to strike

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=26065

Photo O' The Day, September 14

Governor Scotty McNuggets of Wisconsin.

Don't know about you , but I hear the theme music from Jeopardy playing in my head whenever I see his picture.

Ten Years On, Sick Ground Zero Workers Still Without Proper Care

This weekend, the public will mourn a site of loss, recasting the painful memories and haunting fears that still hover over the aftermath at Ground Zero. But the people who worked and breathed that tragedy in the days and months following September 11 won't be at the primary commemoration ceremony for the families of victims. The Mayor's decision to limit the attendees by excluding the 9/11 first responders is an unnerving metaphor for an unhealed scar of 9/11. Many of the rescue and recovery workers who labored at Ground Zero have been plagued by a metastasizing medical crisis, aggravated by chronic political failure.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/11931/ten_years_on_sick_ground_zero_workers_still_without_proper_care/

No Firemen at Ground Zero This 9/11? Mayor Bloomberg says there's just not enough room to include them.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904716604576546661793655324.html

Labor in High School Textbooks: Bias, Neglect, and Invisibility

Good piece, good links.

Many of the textbook companies are linked directly to Wall Street. McGraw-Hill, the largest, is Standard & Poor's. J D Power & Associates, and Platt's, among others. This is from their website:

Overview

The McGraw-Hill Companies is driving the financial services, education and business information markets through leading brands such as Standard & Poor's, McGraw-Hill Education and J.D. Power and Associates.

McGraw-Hill aligns with three enduring global needs:

* the need for Capital
* the need for Knowledge
* the need for Transparency


These are the foundations necessary to foster economic growth and to allow individuals, markets and societies to reach their full potential.

The reason they avoid or obscure labor history is that they cannot possibly do the subject justice without revealing just how mercilessly destructive capitalism is, which, as we see above, is not in their interests. The government, media and school system is there for management perception. Capitalism couldn't survive a day if the truth were told.

http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/labor-in-high-school-textbooks-bias-neglect-and-invisibility/

Cairo: Battering down another brick in the wall

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The AWTWNS packet for the week of 12 September 2011 contains one article. It may be reproduced or used in any way, in whole or in part, as long as it is credited.



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Cairo: Battering down another brick in the wall



12 September 2011. A World to Win News Service. Thousands of youth assaulted the Israeli embassy in Cairo on 9 September. To the rhythm of drumbeats and enthusiastic chants, they used a lamp post to batter a hole in the wall of concrete and metal around the building. Several dozen succeeded in entering the compound, where they tore down the Israeli flag and replaced it with the Egyptian and Palestinian banners, and began tossing Hebrew diplomatic documents to the crowd below.



The regime had put up the protective structure following another anti-Israel protest a few weeks ago, when Israeli soldiers killed six Egyptian border guards. This time the youth did what the Egyptian government had failed to do the last time despite its promises – effectively expelling the Israeli ambassador, who fled along with more than 80 other diplomatic personnel evacuated by Israeli military jets screaming away across the Cairo sky.



Earlier that afternoon, tens of thousands of demonstrators had gathered in Tahrir Square following Friday prayers in the first such major action in a month, for what was billed as a protest to "Correct the path of the revolution." The organizers represented a broad coalition of groups that call themselves secular and revolutionary. The gathering was opposed by most of the main political parties, who have been arguing that the goal now should be to reach national consensus rather than engage in disruptive protests. Following this turn by many forces over the past months, the continuing Tahrir Square occupation dwindled and was forcibly dispersed by the security forces at the beginning of August. The weekly Tahrir Square demonstrations were put on hold during Ramadan. The military and their friends seemed to have seized the initiative away from the angry youth who had set the terms during the January revolt that toppled Mubarak.



But this apparent stability was challenged in mid-August when Israeli soldiers shot the Egyptian border guards in circumstances that neither government has seen fit to fully clarify. There had been a raid on the Israeli Red Sea town of Eilat that killed six Israeli civilians and two soldiers. Israel responded by bombing Gaza, far away on the Mediterranean side of the peninsula, and by the killings on the Egyptian side of the border. Perhaps they mistook the guards for the attackers, a claim that Israeli authorities at first asserted and then dropped. Perhaps it was a demonstration of strength, or a warning to the Egyptian government that it would have to pay for any failure to protect Israeli security. Tel Aviv's unexpected refusal to apologize seems to have been a violent reminder to the Egyptian military that it had better not forget why the US so lavishly funded and nurtured it for three decades – to implement American interests, including protecting Israel.



This created a very difficult situation for the Supreme Armed Forces Council to which Mubarak turned over power when he resigned 11 February. The question of standing up to Israel has often played a critical role in Egyptian politics.



The nationalist upsurge that began in the late 1940s held the British puppet King Farouk responsible when Israeli armed forces easily crushed the Egyptian military in the 1948 war. The Free Officers Movement that overthrew the king and brought Gamal Nasser to power in 1952 was rooted in that moment. Certainly the prestige gained when Egypt (with US support behind the scenes) beat back the combined attack by Israel, the UK and France in 1956 following Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal was a hugely important factor in allowing the Egyptian military to claim that it represented the whole nation. In turn, Egypt's ignominious defeat in the 1967 war marked the decline in Nasser's ability to mobilize the Egyptian people.



Egypt's relative success in regaining its soil occupied by Israel in the 1973 war gave Nasser's successor Anwar Sadat the nationalist reputation he used to enter into negotiations with Israel and eventually sign a peace treaty – and this war also demonstrated that the US was fully reasserting its dominance when Washington warned that it would not hesitate to use its full strength, even nuclear weapons, to prevent Israel's definitive defeat. Sadat, who had unleashed Islamic fundamentalist forces against the communists and others, was himself killed by Islamics for capitulating to Israel.



While his successor as head of the military regime, Hosni Mubarak, went even further in working with Israel against the Palestinian people (for instance, in helping Israel blockade Gaza), he, too, portrayed himself as a military hero in the wars against Israel – which is the main argument against punishing him used by his supporters today. In fact, military rule and the central role of the Egyptian army in economic and political life, and these generals' autocratic rule and violent repression, were all justified as necessary to withstand Israel. Mubarak's claim that the peace treaty was necessary so that Egyptians could take care of their own interests found some echo, but now, especially, many Egyptians see a link between his subservience to the US and its Israeli outpost and all the ways the Egyptian people suffered under his rule.



The new military regime headed by Mubarak's Field Marshall (army chief) Hussein Tantawi (also portrayed as a hero in the wars against Israel) is acutely aware that critical sections of the people would rather die than accept an Egypt as it had become under Mubarak. How they have handled the killing of the border guards is a good example of how they've hoped to deal with the contradiction between a critical sector of the people's aspirations for change and the fact that the junta mainly represents the continuity of the old regime and above all of the ruling classes.



At first regime spokesmen announced that it would expel the Israeli ambassador if the Zionists did not apologize, but then fell silent when Israel called their bluff. Probably this was because Israel saw any concession to Egyptian national pride as dangerous, not because it fears the Egyptian regime but because it is afraid that such concessions, even if desperately needed for the regime's legitimacy, might embolden ordinary Egyptians to push the military harder.



When, during the 18 August Cairo demonstration against Israel, a young man managed to get into the diplomatic compound, tear down the Israeli flag and replace it with Egyptian and Palestinian ones, "Flagman", as millions called him with admiration, became a national hero. The regime tried to co-opt his act by awarding him an apartment and a job, but at the same time it built the protective wall around the embassy and warned that further disorder would not be allowed.



One of the main demands of the 9 September demonstration was that the military drop the three-decades-old emergency rule that has allowed it to ban demonstrations and arrest people without charges or bring them before military tribunals. Since the fall of Mubarak, the new regime has been arresting and imprisoning people on a scale unseen during the Mubarak years – nearly 12,000 prosecutions since February. Further, although the extent is not clear, there were definitely slogans denouncing Tantawi as an American puppet because his regime had been forced to accept Israeli humiliation . The slogan "The people want a new revolution" was also reportedly heard.



Yet it seems that the military was not anxious to tangle with the protesters when they were so numerous, a pattern that has been seen repeatedly over the last few months. After the Tahrir Square rally a part of the crowd headed for the Giza district a few kilometres away. Supporters of a football team whose members have been victimized by the police played a vocal role. Among the groups on the breakaway march were the highly visible "pro-democracy" April 6 Youth Movement, according to a spokesperson. Other organizations that later denounced the attack on the embassy included the pan-Arabist Karama Party and the Freedom and Justice Party formed for electoral purposes by the Muslim Brotherhood. A well-known Salafist preacher said it was right to take down the wall but wrong to attack the embassy.



A number of Western commentators, especially in the Israeli media, unashamedly nostalgic for the most hated man in Egypt, complained that the regime seemed to be avoiding a confrontation that night. Mubarak, they said, would not have hesitated to have his tanks open fire right away. There may be some truth to that, but why? Not because today's generals are any more concerned with the people's welfare or more nationalist. Killing demonstrators to protect Israeli interests is exactly what the regime does not want to do as it struggles for legitimacy. And many Egyptians themselves are different now than how they were under Mubarak – they have come to believe that serious change is possible, and they are willing to risk their lives for it. It's not clear what could have stopped the thousands of young men (and a few women) who stormed through the Giza District.



As an activist said in her live Tweet, "Today we toppled an Israeli separation wall!" By comparing this wall to the one the Zionists erected to imprison Palestinians on the West Bank, many people seem to have been expressing the way they see the connection between American domination of the Middle East, the centrality of Israel in that and the way that they feel they and all of Egypt have been kept imprisoned by this situation. The crowd was euphoric when the first few dozen protesters broke into the compound. Then came events that underlined the truth of exactly what the protesters were denouncing.



Articles in the Israeli press claim that top Egyptian officials avoided taking phone calls from their Zionist counterparts. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was following the situation in real time, rang up US President Barack Obama. Describing the conversation, Netanyahu said, "I asked for his help. This was a decisive and fateful moment. He said, 'I will do everything I can.' And so he did. He used every considerable means and influence of the United States to help us. We owe him a special debt of gratitude."



As another Egyptian blogger pointed out, it is a supreme irony that Obama, who never said a word when Israel flaunted international law by attacking the Turkish relief ship bound for Gaza and killing nine passengers, and who remained silent while Israel illegally bombed and assaulted Gaza in 2008-09, felt it necessary to warn Egypt that it was required by its international treaty obligations to protect the Israeli embassy. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the top American officials who got in touch with their Egyptian colleagues warned of "consequences" if the attack on the embassy was not stopped.



During the night the Egyptian regime moved in tanks, armoured cars and soldiers to reinforce the police. The assault on the embassy turned into a battle between youth and police. At least three protesters were killed and more than a thousand injured in the fighting between youth hurling rocks and setting vehicles on fire, and security forces who tear gassed, charged and tried to run over them. Protesters threatened the nearby Saudi Arabian embassy, chanting "Saudi Arabia and Mubarak are one hand!" They also defaced a security forces headquarters.



Meanwhile, demonstrations were also going on in Luxor and other Upper Egypt cities.



By morning, Egyptian commandos managed to free the few Israeli embassy personnel left behind in a fortified room. The police arrested dozens of people throughout the night, and many more the next day – about 130 so far. They raided the Al Jazeera offices and shut down its Egyptian broadcasting service that often features protest footage. Armoured cars and troop carriers filled the square around the embassy. Above all, instead of dropping emergency rule as the demonstrators demanded and the generals had promised, the junta announced that it would revive the law's powers to ban demonstrations and send civilians before military tribunals on an even more massive scale. Those arrested for protesting martial law would be tried under martial law.



Yet a blogger wrote the next day, "This is the first time I haven't been depressed since the referendum" (in February, when the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood teamed up to win a high percentage of popular participation in an electoral exercise whose subtext was that street politics have come to an end and the country's future will be decided by the elections scheduled for November). It remains to be seen how long the initiative youth have snatched back will remain in their hands. Surely the regime's counter-attack is very serious. But the military has been forced to do exactly what it has been trying to avoid: to reveal a bit of its ultimate capitulation, willing or not, to American and Israeli interests, even against its own short-term interests, and its determination to put a violent end to the very process of popular revolt that it claims to represent. These are not factors in the regime's favour.

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