Warren Buffet's Odisha (aka Orissa) Land Grab Update, 22 August

Face to Face: A Talk With Anti POSCO PPSS Leader Abhay Sahoo

(Musab Iqbal, Chief Editor of newzfirst traveled to very heart of resistance in Odisha to understand the overlapping phenomena of resistance and development. He interviewed the leader of anti POSCO PPSS Abhay Sahoo, a man who architected this movement from ground zero and lead it through its all tough time. Lived a period in underground, jailed for months and now confined to a small home of PPSS worker in Jagdishpur village far from his native village to shape and lead the movement.)

http://www.countercurrents.org/iqbal220811.htm

Tar Sands Action: Bill McKibben's Statement from Jail

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/654346/tar_sands_action%3A_bill_mckibben%27s_statement_from_jail/

Was plane carrying UN Secretary General shot down in 1961?

Well I guess the wacko conspiracy theorists were right after all.

In addition to the list of his enemies presented in the article, he had also run afoul of the Israelis, whose occupation of Palestine he likened to the imperialist powers colonization of Africa.

Once again, yesterday's conspiracy theory becomes today's conspiracy fact.

http://inteldaily.com/2011/08/was-plane-carrying-un-secretary-general-shot-down-in-1961/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inteldaily%2Ffeeds+%28Inteldaily.com%29

Rape Case Against Strauss-Kahn Dismissed by State Prosecutors

The farce is officially over. They wanted him out at the IMF and didn't have the votes to do it, so they recruited/blackmailed/terrorized an immigrant into claiming rape.

At the top of the economic food chain, where the oligarchs live, there is complete lawlessness. They own this planet, and they act like it.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/08/22/39176.htm

CIA Disputes Secrecy Oaths in Drug Experimentation Case

"This record makes clear that plaintiffs have never seriously pursued their 'secrecy oath' claim against the CIA," Justice Department attorney Kimberly Herb wrote for the CIA. "Due to the absence of allegations concerning the CIA with regard to this sole remaining claim and plaintiffs' own admissions that they do not have specific facts to support it, the CIA has repeatedly asked plaintiffs to voluntarily withdraw the claim."

The desperation with which the CIA is fighting its disclosure obligations is a measure of how bad Project Paperclip really was.

Anyone still laboring under the delusion that the US government operates on behalf of the American people, or even feels some responsibility toward us, will find liberation in researching the history of American intelligence. It is not a pretty story.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/08/19/39136.htm

Fed Secretly Loaned $1.2 Trillion in Public Money to Wall St. Firms: report

It's called plutocracy.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28911.htm

Tunisian & Egyptian Women Place Hope in their Revolutions

Nice piece.

http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2011/08/20/tunisian-egyptian-women-place-hope-in-their-revolutions/

Photo O' the Day, 21 August

From the protests in Chile. "We struggle/fight for the students, we study for the struggle."

Poster O' The Day, 21 August

Being Elected To Congress Continues To Be A Pretty Good Wealth Maximization Strategy

http://dealbreaker.com/2011/08/being-elected-to-congress-continues-to-be-a-pretty-good-wealth-maximization-strategy/

Hucksterism Alert: Separating Fact from Fantasy in Bolivia (Book Review of From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia, by Jeffrey Webber)

I do not know who Fuentes is so I will not accuse him of being one of Morales' palace historians, he may just be a run-of-the-mill, true-believer apologist, but his critique seems more than a bit tendentious.

I've read Webber's book and I agree with his assessment of Morales. Chavez, Correa, and the Bolivian have been in power for some time now and each is experiencing a decline in support due to their inability to deliver on the Bolivarian agenda. Morales has stopped peasants from taking over large estates, and prevented workers from seizing factories and mines. Morales whines that if these expropriations occur a coup will result and Bolivia will be delivered into the hands of capital. Webber demolishes these arguments in his book.

I'm not going to bother to deconstruct Fuentes' entire piece (it's not worth it), but one contention was so preposterous as to demand some attention. He says Bolivia isn't ready for revolution because of the absence of a large proletariat. Revolutions have been made with a much smaller industrial labor force than Bolivia enjoys. What proletariat it does have is highly class conscious, and they are joined by a large, broadly radicalized, revolutionary peasantry. The laboring classes of Bolivia have ousted a succession of rightist governments, established a people's assembly, and are by far the country's most important political faction. They are also, lest we forget, the same impressive folks who treated us to one of history's great uprisings in Cochabamba. It is just absurd to say the conditions for socialism do not exist in Bolivia. In fact Bolivians are clamoring for radical change, and it is precisely these revolutionaries who put Morales in power, and these are the same people who now criticize him.

Anyway, here's the article. It should have a warning label on it like a pack of cigarettes.

http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2011/08/separating-fact-from-fantasy-in-bolivia.html

"Goldman Sachs Is Far Too Important For Criminal Charges, Could Threaten U.S. Financial System": Brad Hintz

Not honor but solidarity among thieves, Wall Street circles the wagons around Goldman Sachs.

PM Cameron History Of Vandalism Update

So, Boris, rioters make you angry. What about your Bullingdon pal?

When a member of Oxford's notorious Bullingdon Club hurled a pot plant through a restaurant window, he was maintaining a tradition going back generations. It was what Evelyn Waugh called "the sound of the English county families baying for broken glass".

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, the Chancellor, George Osborne, and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, were some of the best-known members of the club – an elite dining society notorious for its drunken excesses. It has a tradition of "omerta", a code of silence, among its members.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/so-boris-rioters-make-you-angry-what-about-your-bullingdon-pal-2341385.html

Nothin Like The Face Of A Kid Slaving In A Cocoa Grove Update, 21 August

Hershey Guest Worker Scandal Result of Lax Govt. Oversight: Immigration Expert

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/11847/hershey_guest_worker_scandal_result_of_lax_govt._oversight_immigration/

Seattle Anarchist Book Fair Update

We need a bigger venue.

Great fair. It wasn't just the large turnout that was so heartening, but the throngs of young people, particularly women, that I found encouraging. The future is in good hands.

It's a shame the weather didn't cooperate. It was sweltering hot and a goodly number were sweaty and sticky. I observed a few anarchists raising their arms to afford comrades some comparative stink analysis.

I think it would be an outstanding idea if the tables pooled their donations. Many would like to contribute to each group but don't have enough money.

And that coffee tasted as though it came from the composter.

But what a great fair! What an inspiration--lots of bright, young people determined to turn this world into one fit for human habitation. Their militant optimism made me want to live forever.

Good books, bad libations, great company, radical conversation, endless comradery, unabashed mutual affection and armpit sniffing, what more could one hope for.

$360M lost to insurgents, criminals in Afghanistan

Without an enemy there can be no war and no war profits, and no excuse to remain. The West is in Afghanistan to protect that oil pipeline, they cannot let the Taliban disappear.

This is no mistake.

http://hosted2.ap.org/IDMOS/e0478123c3cf489bb836130ffdbd2b5f/Article_2011-08-16-US-Afghanistan-Corruption/id-62e41f31647a4cd2b7d207b60f81b389

South Africa’s Municipal Workers go on Strike

South African council workers started a strike to demand an 18 percent pay increase, said Tahir Sema, a spokesman for the South African Municipal Workers’ Union.
More than 200,000 employees in the municipal and water industries will stop working today, Sema said by phone from Johannesburg. The South African Local Government Association, which represents 278 councils across the country, said yesterday it can’t afford the pay rise demanded by labor unions. South Africa’s annual inflation was 5 percent in June.
“There are no meetings with the employers scheduled today or any time soon,” Sema said. “If they come to us with a reasonable offer and are prepared to meet with us, we’re prepared to call off the strike.”
Strikes have affected South Africa’s petroleum, mining and chemical industries in the last month

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-15/municipal-workers-in-south-africa-strike-over-18-salary-increase-dispute.html

[Story and quoted text from http://www.richgibson.com/blog/]

Wiil California Grocery Workers STRIKE again? Don’t make the same mistakes

The southern California grocery strike involving 70,000 United Food And Commercial Workers members from October 2003 to March 2004 was one of the most significant actions the U.S. labor movement took in the last twenty years.
What happened? The workers lost, betrayed by their union leaders. This defeat was devastating, setting up a spiral of attacks on the lives of people who must work to live, particularly on the minimal health benefits that a few working people still have. The old labor saw, “An injury to one just goes before an injury to all,” is already felt in teacher-union contract negotiations.
Could this have been won? Yes, it could, but not within the confines of the law, and not in the confines of the structures of the unions, not within the philosophy of the “labor movement”

UAW workers seek end to two-tier wage structure

Dozens of angry and flustered auto industry workers gathered in Detroit Saturday to call for an end to the two-tier wage structure becoming prevalent at U.S. automaker plants.
The pay inequality is causing divisiveness on the factory floor and pitting membership against each other at a time when workers need to present a unified front in fighting more concession during this year's round of contract talks, these UAW-represented workers say.
The event, organized by dissident group Auto Worker Caravan, drew about 50 attendees to St. John Baptist Church off Woodward Avenue, some from as far away as Indiana and Ohio.


From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110813/AUTO01/108130405/UAW-workers-seek-end-to-two-tier-wage-structure#ixzz1Vcva65im

Verizon Strike Update, 20 August