Blogger's Note

Blogger has launched a new interface and it is just awful. The formatting problems have been going on for weeks now and it has become quite tiresome. Consequently, we moved to saveourcola.wordpress.com. Future posts can be found there.

Libya: Connect the Dots-You Get a Giant Dollar Sign

Terrific piece by Russ Baker. http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/06/06/libya-connect-the-dots-you-get-a-giant-dollar-sign/

Photo O' The Day, April 29, 2012

From Cindy's newsletter: FYI: We had scheduled and confirmed an interview with Glenn Greenwald a couple of months back and he just never "showed up" for it and after that would never respond to my producer about what happened. I still think he is a brilliant analyst of the Empire and his slight of the Soapbox won't change that fact, but if anyone knows how to reach him, maybe we can find out what happened?) Cindy likes Castro and Greenwald more than I do, jftr.

Egypt Counterrevolution Update: The elBaradei Charade Deepens.

[Blogger's note: Blogspot has gone to a new interface and it's full of glitches. One problem is that the formatting doesn't work (everything compressed into one paragraph) unless there is a italicized quote. This is inserted for that purpose.]

I have been faithfully reading Zeinobia's Egyptian Chronicles blog since the revolution began, and I have a lot of respect for her reports and her indefatigability, but where elBaradei is concerned she has swallowed the goldfish whole. He is Wall Street's man in Cairo, and this is becoming more apparent every day. He's changed the name of his party from the Revolution Party to the Constitution Party, a diaphanous attempt to de-radicalize Egyptian political discourse. As Zeinobia points out he's bringing in SCAF supporters, and he's talking about merging with other non-revolutionary parties. He's passing himself off as a "liberal", which is bad enough, but his political career reveals him to be neither left nor right but a servant of international capital. A year or so ago I predicted that the Egyptian Revolution would be etiolated [Counterrevolution 101] and that elBaradei would likely be the first president of the bourgeois republic. It is hardly a sure thing as the imperialists have several horses in this race, but at this point it looks like he is their annointed one. http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2012/04/cparty-wish-for-it-all-success-but.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29

Quebec Students Endure Despite Police State Repression

http://networkedblogs.com/wXu5O

A farewell to U.S. factories

Although the absolute number of jobs in American manufacturing was rather constant at about 17 million from 1969 to 2002, manufacturing’s share of jobs continued to decline from about 28% in 1962 to only 9% in 2011.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/farewell-u-factories-021022422.html

India contributes half of world’s measles deaths

GDP soaring but India's children still dying from easily prevented diseases. This is called capitalism. http://bikyamasr.com/67083/india-contributes-half-of-worlds-measles-deaths/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BikyaMasrNews+%28Bikya+Masr+|+Independent+news+for+the+world%29

The Children of Fallujah - Sayef's Story

April 25, 2012 "The Independent" - - For little Sayef, there will be no Arab Spring. He lies, just 14 months old, on a small red blanket cushioned by a cheap mattress on the floor, occasionally crying, his head twice the size it should be, blind and paralysed. Sayeffedin Abdulaziz Mohamed – his full name – has a kind face in his outsized head and they say he smiles when other children visit and when Iraqi families and neighbours come into the room. But he will never know the history of the world around him, never enjoy the freedoms of a new Middle East. He can move only his hands and take only bottled milk because he cannot swallow. He is already almost too heavy for his father to carry. He lives in a prison whose doors will remain forever closed.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31178.htm

Private Prison Corporations Are Modern Day Slave Traders

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31177.htm

"The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present. And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the street believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever."

Federico Garcia Lorca - Spanish Poet and Playwright, killed by fascists early on in the Spanish Revolution.

Happy Sinai Liberation Day 2012

http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2012/04/happy-sinai-liberation-day-2012.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29

Why Isn’t Closing 40 Philadelphia Public Schools National News? Where Is the Black Political Class?

Great piece. http://thetrialbyfire.org/2012/04/25/why-isnt-closing-40-philadelphia-public-schools-national-news-where-is-the-black-political-class/

USA: Occupy’s “precarious” general strike

http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article24875

Protest Time in Tunisia Again

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107504

May Day General Strike Posters

Can be found here, some good, some not. The comments are worth reading. I responded but judging by the tenor of the other comments I'm not sure mine will see the light of day, so I reproduce it here.

My, my, $12 or 13/hr, such largesse Michael. You might be better by measure than most capitalists, but you still live off the labor of others, and that’s exploitation pure and simple. They have a job because you say so. When all the workers own your business and have equal power and rights therein, then and only then will OS’ work be done. That our livelihoods depend on the relative philanthropy of those who expropriate our labor is entirely unacceptable, and I find your self-pitying comments Michael to be condescension of the worst sort.

Paris Commune Addresses The Soldiers Of Versailles' Army

In short it appeals to them to defect. It says that "like us you are proletarians" and the monarchists and shouldn't be allowed "the right to drink our blood as they drink our sweat." It finishes by exhorting "come to us, brothers, we welcome you with open arms."

Bangladesh labor leader murdered two weeks after international rights victory

Weeks after winning a major commitment from American clothing giant Phillips-Van Heusen to improve labor conditions in the garment factories of Bangladesh, one of the leaders of the workers’ movement has been found murdered, his body showing evidence of brutal torture. Aminul Islam, a head of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) and the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation, disappeared from the country’s main textile center of Ashulia on Wednesday after receiving a call from a worker requesting assistance. « His legs had severe torture marks including a hole made by a sharp object. All his toes were broken, » the local police chief told AFP.

http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article24839

India tests long-range missile capable of striking China’s cities

WW3 on the way. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/indi-a24.shtml

Photo O' The Day, Egypt revolution graffiti

http://bikyamasr.com/66903/photo-of-the-day-egypt-revolution-graffiti/

Quebec student strike contines

Photo, text and quick video. http://blogs.ubc.ca/workplace/2012/04/quebec-student-strike-contines/

Jailed for $280: The return of debtors’ prisons

Although the U.S. abolished debtors’ prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don’t pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff’s deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP. Under the law, debtors aren’t arrested for nonpayment, but rather for failing to respond to court hearings, pay legal fines, or otherwise showing “contempt of court” in connection with a creditor lawsuit. That loophole has lawmakers in the Illinois House of Representatives concerned enough to pass a bill in March that would make it illegal to send residents of the state to jail if they can’t pay a debt. The measure awaits action in the senate. “Creditors have been manipulating the court system to extract money from the unemployed, veterans, even seniors who rely solely on their benefits to get by each month,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said last month in a statement voicing support for the legislation. “Too many people have been thrown in jail simply because they’re too poor to pay their debts. We cannot allow these illegal abuses to continue.”

In the old days debtor prison inmates were given the option of indentured servitude--slavery--for a term shorter than their sentence. We are not likely to see the return of this outrage as nowadays inmates do forced labor so there is no incentive for capital to offer a reduced period of incarceration. http://thetrialbyfire.org/2012/04/23/jailed-for-280-the-return-of-debtors-prisons/

Egypt ElBaradei wants 5 million members in his new party

ElBaradei isn't the only Trojan Horse in the race, he's just one of them.

His new party is called "The Revolution". It could better be called The Counterrevolution.

The idea that EB is a revolutionary is just a joke. He was international capital's top nuclear cop. His organization, the IAEA, was an extension of the intelligence apparati of Western imperialism. His party takes a "get tough" line with Israel, but one of the IAEA's task was to protect Israel's nuclear monopoly in the Mideast.

Unfortunately, all the major parties are under the control of the military junta, even the one's whose candidates were recently decertified.

Yes, including the Brotherhood, who have been the loyal opposition posing as disloyal for decades. The ruling class always seeks to dominate both ends of the political spectrum, thus compressing nascent resistance within an organization under their secret control. In the US, capital destroyed both the anarchist and Marxist movements but kept the Communist Party alive as a snare. Freedom of Information requests revealed that a majority of the CPUSA leadership and a goodly percentage of its membership were working for the FBI. The old joke back in the day was that you could always tell who worked for the Bureau because they always paid their dues on time.

http://bikyamasr.com/66826/elbaradei-wants-5-million-members-his-new-party/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BikyaMasrNews+%28Bikya+Masr+|+Independent+news+for+the+world%29

Mitt Romney, American Parasite

This is called capitalism.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31153.htm

Election 2012, Who's Your Daddy?

Financial ‘Reform’ Failure: Chase, Bank Of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs Now 30% Bigger; Control Assests Equal To 56% Of U.S. Economy

The collapse of '08 was a scam. It was a controlled demolition designed to move wealth up the food chain to four or so richest families--and it succeeded.

What you will read here is no accident.

http://theoldspeakjournal.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/financial-reform-failure-chase-bank-of-america-citigroup-wells-fargo-goldman-sachs-now-30-bigger-control-assests-equal-to-56-of-u-s-economy/

Discovered here

Didacticide Update, The Tennessee Front

Tennessee has now passed a law permitting teachers to present students with alternatives to well-known scientific principles.

In case there is any doubt as to what the real function of the schools are--to create a docile, unreflective, apathetic populace who will not interfere in the machinations of capital--this case should clear it up. Normally one might be pleased the schools are encouraging students to tackle controversial subjects, to think critically about accepted norms and conventional wisdom, but look at what they list as topics for consideration:

...the only examples the legislation gives of “controversial” theories are “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”

Whose agenda is this?

http://whowhatwhy.com/2012/04/16/tennessee-decides-it-is-not-backward-enough/

Quote O' The Day, April 22, 2012

There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror — that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

Mark Twain on the French Revolution, from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

New York City Democrats propose phony “living wage” bill

I yield the floor to Lilly Tomlin for one of my favorite quotes:

No matter how cynical I get I can never keep up.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/apr2012/quin-a21.shtml

Egypt Tantawi meets with US CENTCOM delegation in Cairo

http://bikyamasr.com/66704/egypt-tantawi-meets-with-us-centcom-delegation-in-cairo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BikyaMasrNews+%28Bikya+Masr+|+Independent+news+for+the+world%29

Audio: Michigan Unions Challenge Payroll Dues Deduction Ban In Federal Court,

http://www.laborradio.org/

Caveat Emptor: Mass rally in Paris for radical left presidential candidate

Here we go again. If you think you can vote your way to justice then think again. The largest and strongest partner in the Front is the France's communist party. Their history is nothing short of squalid. In the 30s, 60s, and 90s they were responsible for saving bourgeois governments from worker rebellions. It, like so many communist parties around the world, has been clandestinely taken over by capital and serves its interests.

Anger is running higher than usual these days and the ruling class has brought forth this Trojan Horse to run the electoral ruse yet again. Melenchon may very well be legitimate (well it's possible), but if his Front actually threatens to win he will be co-opted or marginalized one way or another.

I yield the floor to Emma Goldman:

If voting changed anything they would make it illegal.

For real progress to be made, government must be dismantled and democracy take its place.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=28234
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=28234

Rhode Island Pension Cuts Set Chilling Precedents

http://labornotes.org/2012/04/rhode-island-pension-cuts-set-chilling-precedents

Government Misinformation Campaign Targets Reporter

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31133.htm

Egyptian Electoral commission upholds ban on 10 presidential candidates

Military dictators appoint the electoral commission, and the electoral commission decides who can run.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/36/122/39510/Presidential-elections-/Presidential-elections-news/Electoral-commission-upholds-ban-on--presidential-.aspx

World Bank Supports Harmful Water Corporations, Report Finds

http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=107441

Wikiganda Alert: The Psy-op Moves To The Small Screen.

As for me, I'm waiting for the musical.

For those of you who are still deluded to think the US wouldn't shoot this guy if he was what he claims to be, Agent Assange's new TV show should do the trick. Here we see the empire's factotum doing his duty.

We should recall that our fair-haired boy made a deal with Zion not to release any "documents" which would be detrimental for Israel. This alone should suffice to reveal who he is and what he's doing. Agent Assange has not been at all averse to publishing documents that were compromising to the governments of Israel's neighbors (Egypt, Tunisia, Syria et al), yet he refrains from anything which would hinder the racist, fascist, genocidal regime in Tel Aviv in its conquest of Palestine. One can only wonder as to motive but one thing is clear: It is not justice that concerns him.

Roots Of Occupy: The Battle In Seattle, 1999

http://www.countercurrents.org/mickeyz180412.htm

Quote O' The Day, 18 April, 2012

Let each man say what he deems truth, and let truth itself be commended unto God!

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Single Mother Falsely Accused of Endangering Her Children at Occupy Oakland

http://occupyca.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/single-mother-falsely-accused-of-endangering-her-children-at-occupy-oakland/

Gulf of Mexico seafood deformities alarm scientists

http://thetrialbyfire.org/2012/04/18/gulf-seafood-deformities-alarm-scientists/

Video: Marx on the Paris Commune: That is Socialism

Class Warfare On Two Fronts: From Afghanistan To Middle America, The Untold Story Of Sgt. Bales

Good piece.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/mark-ames/42642/class-warfare-on-two-fronts-from-afghanistan-to-middle-america-the-untold-story-of-sgt-bales

Quote O' The Day, 17 April, 2012

So long as we have industrial feudalism, politics will be the shadow cast by business over society.

John Dewey on Capitalism

Video Of Photos Of The Paris Commune Of 1871

Mario Vaccarino, Union Boss Thought Killed by Mafia, Actually Slain by an Ex-Cop

http://pugetsoundanarchists.org/node/1565

Poster O' The Day, 16 April, 2012: May Day General Strike

Discovered here.

Why the FCC Fined Google Just 68 Seconds in Profits

http://www.propublica.org/article/why-the-fcc-fined-google-just-68-seconds-in-profits