US Intervention in Syria – by Stephen Lendman

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US Intervention in Syria – by Stephen Lendman

Despite genuine popular Middle East/North Africa uprisings, Washington’s dirty hands orchestrated regime change plans in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria as part of its “New Middle East” project.

On November 18, 2006, Middle East analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya’s Global Research article headlined, “Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a ‘New Middle East,’ ” saying:

In June 2006 in Tel Aviv, “US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (first) coin(ed) the term” in place of the former “Greater Middle East” project, a shift in rhetoric only for Washington’s longstanding imperial aims.

The new terminology “coincided with the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean.” During Israel’s summer 2006 Lebanon war, “Prime Minister Olmert and (Rice) informed the international media that a project for a ‘New Middle East’ was being launched in Lebanon,” a plan in the works for years to “creat(e) an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.”

In other words, “constructive chaos” would be used to redraw the region according to US-Israeli “geo-strategic needs and objectives.” The strategy is currently playing out violently in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria, and may erupt anywhere in the region to solidify Washington’s aim for unchallengeable dominance from Morocco to Oman to Syria.

Partnered with Israel, it’s to assure only leaders fully “with the program” are in place. Mostly isn’t good enough, so ones like Mubarak, Gaddafi, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, likely Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh (now damaged goods), and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad are targeted for removal by methods ranging from uprisings to coups, assassinations, or war, perhaps in that order.

Nazemroaya now says Syrian “protesters are being armed and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states via Jordan and Saad Hariri in Lebanon,” besides US and Israeli involvement.

Pack Journalism Goes to War with Washington

America’s pack journalism never met an America imperial initiative it didn’t support and promote, no matter how lawless, mindless, destructive or counterproductive. For example, an April 28 New York Times editorial headlined, “President Assad’s Crackdown,” saying:

He “appears determined to join his father in the ranks of history’s blood-stained dictators, sending his troops and thugs to murder anyone who has the courage to demand political freedom.”

Whether about Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Haiti’s Aristide, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, Venezuela’s Chavez or others for many decades, Times “journalists” and opinion writers have a sordid history of supporting America’s imperial ruthlessness, including perpetual wars killing millions for power, profit, and unchallengeable dominance.

Now Times writers laud Obama for intervening in Libya and trying “to engage Syria….in hopes that Mr. Assad would make the right choice,” meaning get “with the program” by surrendering Syrian sovereignty.

Despite clear evidence of US intervention, Obama “issued a statement condemning the violence and accusing Mr. Assad of seeking Iranian assistance in brutalizing his people. That is a start, but it is not nearly enough.”

War is always a last choice so The Times endorses “international condemnation and tough sanctions, (as well as) asset freezes and travel bans for Mr. Assad and his top supporters and a complete arms embargo.”

However, “Russia and China, as ever, are determined to protect autocrats. That cannot be the last word.”

Times opinions are shamelessly belligerent, one-sided, wrong-headed, and mindless on rule of law issues, including about prohibitions against meddling in the internal affairs of other countries except in self-defense until the Security Council acts.

Instead, the “newspaper of record” remains America’s leading managed news source, backing the worst of Washington’s imperial arrogance and ruthlessness. As a result, it omits inconvenient facts to make its case, including America’s notorious ties to numerous global despots on every continent.

WikiLeaks Released Cables Expose America’s Regime Change Plan

Though widely reported since mid-April, The Times hasn’t acknowledged information (though sketchy) from Washington Post writer Craig Whitlock’s April 17 report headlined, “US secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show,” saying:

Through its Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), “The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel (London-based Barada TV) that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables.”

“Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of (pro-Western) Syrian exiles.”

Funding began at least after the Bush administration cut ties with Damascus in 2005. In April 2009, a diplomatic cable from Damascus said:

“A reassessment of current US-sponsored programming that supports anti-(government) factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive.”

In February 2006, Bush officials announced funding to “accelerate the work of reformers in Syria.” Nonetheless, Barada TV denied receiving money, its news director Malik al-Abdeh saying:

“I’m not aware of anything like that. If your purpose is to smear Barada TV, I don’t want to continue this conversation. That’s all I’m going to give you.

America’s National Endowment for Democracy: A Global Regime Change Initiative

Besides covert CIA activities, US-government funded organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and International Republican Institute (IRI) operate as US foreign policy destabilizing instruments. They do it by supporting opposition group regime change efforts in countries like Syria, despite claiming “dedicat(ion) to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world….in more than 90 countries.”

In MENA nations (Middle East/North Africa) alone, NED’s web site lists activities in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait, Morocco, Lebanon, Bahrain, Libya, Sudan, and Syria.

The IRI’s web site includes (destabilizing anti-democratic) initiatives in Afghanistan, Egypt, GCC states, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, and Palestine.

Other US imperial organizations are also regionally active, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), operating contrary to their stated missions.

In January 1996, based on firsthand knowledge, former CIA agent (from 1952 – 1977) Ralph McGehee discussed covert NED efforts in Cuba, China, Russia and Vietnam, saying

The government-funded organization “assumed many of the political action responsibilities of the CIA,” including:

– “efforts to influence foreign journalists;”

– money laundering

– isolating “democratic-minded intellectuals and journalist in the third world;”

– distributing propaganda articles “to regional editors on each continent;”

– “disseminating an attack on people in Jamaica;”

– funding anti-Castro groups in South Florida as well as Radio and TV Marti, airing regime change propaganda;

– anti-communist grants; and

– much more while claiming its mission is “guided by the belief that freedom is a universal human aspiration that can be realized through the development of democratic institutions, procedures and values.”

In a 2005 interview, another former CIA agent (1957 – 1968), Philip Agee, author of “Inside the Company,” explained NED’s origins and covert efforts to destabilize and oust Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, calling efforts “similar to what (went on) in Nicaragua in the 1980s minus the Contra terrorist operations (that) wreaked so much destruction on the Nicaraguan economy.”

Founded in 1982, NED distributes government funds to four other organizations, including the IRI, NDI, Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the AFL-CIO’s American Center for International Labor Solidarity.

In fact, a 2010 Kim Scipes book titled, “AFL-CIO’s Secret War against Developing Country Workers: Solidarity or Sabotage?” discusses its covert anti-worker “labor imperialism,” including regime change initiatives.

Manipulated Popular Uprising in Syria

Since late January, popular uprisings began, suspiciously orchestrated by outside forces to destabilize and oust Assad. In fact, Richard Perle’s 1996 “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” prepared for Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu during his first term, stated:

“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli objective in its own right.”

It added:

“Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An affective approach, and one with which America can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon….”

“Given the nature of the regime in Damascus (much the same today), it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan comprehensive peace and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction programs, and rejecting land for peace deals on the Golan Heights,” Syrian territory colonized by Israel since 1967.

Perle’s report was a destabilization and regime change manifesto, implemented in Iraq, Libya, elsewhere in the region, and now Syria. The strategy includes managed news, funding internal and external dissident groups, and other initiatives to oust leaders like Assad.

On March 30, 2011, Haaretz writer Zvi Bar’el headlined “Why did website linked to Syria regime publish US-Saudi plan to oust Assad?” saying:

“According to the report….the plan was formulated in 2008 by the Saudi national security advisor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Jeffrey Feltman, a veteran US diplomat in the Middle East who was formerly ambassador to Lebanon and is currently the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs.”

Dividing Syria into large cities, towns and villages, the plan involved “establishing five recruitment networks,” using unemployed youths, criminals, other young people, and media efforts “funded by European countries but not” America, as well as a “capital network of businesspeople from the large cities.”

Training included “sniper fire, arson, and murdering in cold blood,” journalists reporting it by hard to monitor satellite phones depicting “human rights activists….demanding not the regime’s fall,” but need for social networks training “as a means for recruitment.”

“After the recruitment and training phases, which would be funded by Saudi Arabia for about $2 billion,” thousands of “activists” would be given communications equipment to begin public actions. “The plan also suggest(ed) igniting ethnic tensions between groups around the country to stir unrest,” including in Damascus “to convince the military leadership to disassociate itself from Assad and establish a new regime.”

“The hoped-for outcome is the establishment of a supreme national council that will run the country and terminate Syria’s relations with Iran and Hezbollah.”

The Jordan-based Dot and Com company was named as the behind the scenes recruiter, a company run by Saudi intelligence under Bandar to destabilize Syria and oust Assad.

Whether or not the plan was implemented, some of its features are now playing out violently across the country. Orchestrated in Washington, it’s to install a totally “with the program” regime, the same war strategy ongoing in Libya.

A Final Comment

On April 28, Russia and China blocked a US-backed UK, French, German and Portugal proposed Security Council resolution condemning Syrian violence. Damascus’ UN ambassador, Bashar Ja’arari, said it failed because several members were fair-minded enough to reject it, knowing Libya’s fate after Resolution 1973, calling only for no-fly zone protection.

UN Undersecretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe reported about 400 deaths so far. Other estimates are higher. Russian, Chinese and Syrian representatives say government security forces killed by armed extremists are among them. According to RT.com:

“Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry had clearly outlined its position: it condemned all those responsible for the deaths of protesters during the clashes with the police. But, it urged (no intervention) in Syria’s internal affairs,” that could easily escalate to Western regime change plans.

Federation Council to the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, Rudik Iskuzhin, believes Syrian intervention may mean Iran is next, saying:

“We very well understand that the hidden motive of all of the recent revolutionary processes is Iran, to which the destabilization in Syria will eventually ricochet. Libya, just like Syria, was an important ally of” Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Western powers and Israel want the alliance subverted.

On April 29, China ruled out force against Syria, Foreign Affairs Ministry Vice-Minister He Yafei saying it “cannot bring a solution to the problem and will only cause a greater humanitarian crisis.” Insisting proposed solutions comply with the UN Charter and international law, he added:

“Any help from the international community has to be constructive in nature, which is conducive to the restoration of stability and public order and ensuring the maintenance of economic and social life.”

American intervention assures “constructive chaos,” the agenda Washington pursues globally, focusing mainly on controlling Eurasia’s enormous wealth and resources. Either one or multiple countries at a time, it includes turning Russia and China into vassal states, a goal neither Beijing or Moscow will tolerate.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Apr 29

America’s Terminal Decline – by Stephen Lendman

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America’s Terminal Decline – by Stephen Lendman

What distinguished experts long knew (timetables aside), the IMF just recognized, saying China’s economy will surpass America’s in 2016. If so, it will signal an end to the “Age of America,” and no wonder after decades of heedless profligacy. More on that below.

The IMF’s 2011 World Economic Outlook shows China overtaking America in five years based on purchasing power parity (PPP) – a criterion for an appropriate exchange rate between currencies as measured by the cost of a representative basket of goods in one country v. another.

IMF’s 2016 PPP GDP estimate:

– China – $18,975.7 trillion

– America – $18,807.5 trillion

In current dollar terms, America retains its lead, but it’s slipping noticeably.

IMF’s 2016 dollar GDP estimate:

– America – $18,807.5 trillion

– China – $11,220.2 trillion

Economic forecasts, of course, vary. Moreover, long-range ones combine extrapolated trends with reasoned judgments. However, as economist Alec Craincross (1911 – 1998) once observed:

“A trend is a trend is a trend. But the question is, will it bend? Will it alter its course through some unforeseen force and come to a premature end?”

Not China’s for over three decades, “growing 17-fold in real (inflation-adjusted) terms since 1980,” according to economist Mark Weisbrot. As a result, it’s been the world’s fastest growth engine, a pace it’s maintained during the current global economic crisis in contrast to America in decline.

Economist Henry HK Liu mostly attributes China’s sucess to its not freely convertible currency, its closed financial market, and its quasi public-private central bank used for economic growth, not bailouts and speculation. In his January 12, 2010 article titled, “China and a New World Economic Order,” he discussed policy initiatives to keep influencing it positively, including:

– avoiding a deregulated market economy;

– prioritizing full employment and rising wages;

– breaking free from dollar hegemony;

– conducting trade based on mutual development; and

– not using “green-tech investment” to stimulate growth.

On August 17, 2009, financial writer Ellen Brown’s article headlined, “China’s Miracle Economy: Have the Chinese Become the World’s Greatest Capitalists?” saying:

China “seems to have decoupled from the rest of the world, preserving an 8% growth rate (now higher) while the rest of the world sinks into the worst recession since the 1930s.”

Unlike America to this day, in fact, China keeps credit flowing freely for economic growth, though too much of a good thing itself creates problems; notably bubbles that sooner or later burst.

However, Brown explains that China’s banks “serve public enterprise and trade” because it controls their operations, unlike America’s privatized system serving bankers, not people.

Notably, in fact, Beijing prevented “irresponsible bank speculation and profiteering by keeping a leash on (its) banking sector,” as well as focusing on economic growth and job creation, ignored by Washington policy makers.

It’s worked for over three decades so why not three more or much longer provided greed doesn’t replace good policy, what’s headed America down for decades.

As a result, China consumes record volumes of oil, natural gas, coal, copper, iron ore, and other commodities. It’s also the world’s largest industrial country and producer of gold, rare earth metals, steel, coal, copper, agricultural products, pork, seafood, textiles, electronic products, and more with no end of its growth in sight.

Impressively, China passed Japan in Q II 2010 to become the world’s second largest economy. Heading for number one, perhaps Washington policy makers recall what’s believed Napoleon once advised to: “Let China sleep, for when the dragon awakens, she will shake the world.” IMF analysts apparently took note.

America’s Decline and Fall

In his book titled, “The World in Crisis,” historian Gabriel Kolko believes that America’s decline “began after the Korean War, was continued in relation to Cuba, and was greatly accelerated in Vietnam – but (GW Bush did) much to exacerbate it further.” Obama not only continues Bush policies, he exceeded him with greater recklessness, masquerading as a people’s president while waging war on working Americans.

No wonder Kolko thinks US influence is declining everywhere. The world no longer depends on its economic might. Nations like China, India, Brazil and others grow much faster, and after the Soviet Union collapsed, “the absence of identifiable foes has been a disaster, leaving the US aimless. (So) it picks and chooses enemies” globally in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, and perhaps later China and Russia while other nations increasingly tire of imperial America and its reckless economics counterproductive to their own.

As a result, America’s century of dominance is ending. Immanuel Wallerstein agrees, saying it’s been fading since the 1970s, accelerating post-9/11. In fact, “the economic, political and military factors that contributed to US hegemony are the same (ones) inexorably produc(ing) the coming US decline.”

Chalmers Johnson called it the same dynamic that doomed past empires – “isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy,” combined with growing authoritarianism and loss of personal freedom.

Calling America’s condition dire, he said it’s “too late for mere scattered reforms of our government or bloated military to make much difference.” History is clear. We can choose democracy and survive or continue as present and perish. Clearly the wrong political, social, military, and economic choices were made, heading US hegemony for the ash heap of history.

Nixon’s Council of Economic Advisers chairman, Herb Stein, notably explained, saying, “Things that can’t go on forever, won’t.” Earlier, Johnson said:

The “combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism, and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favor of an imperial presidency. We are on the cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire.”

Moreover, once a nation starts down that path and won’t change, its end time is certain. Only its timing is unknown, perhaps coming faster than expected.

America’s Dollar Hegemony in Decline

Global plans to replace the dollar metaphorically highlight America’s decline, the topic economist Michael Hudson addressed in his June 13, 2009 article titled, “De-Dollarization: Dismantling America’s Financial-Military Empire.”

For decades, America stayed economically dominant because other nations agreed to a Washington controlled WTO/IMF/World Bank/Bank for International Settlements (the Central Bank of Central Banks in Basel) system, using the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Other countries, however, now balk. A June 2009 Yekaterinburg, Russia meeting with top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (led by China and Russia) took the first step to end dollar supremacy, perhaps replacing it eventually with a single global currency or a basket of major ones.

Today, America remains unchallenged militarily, its economic supremacy, however, weakening as it staggers under growing debt, while nations like China, Brazil, India, Russia and others are rising.

In July, 2009, Russian President Medvedev advocated a supranational currency. In September, the UN Conference on Trade and Development proposed an artificial one to replace the dollar. Other alliances, including nine Latin American countries, support a regional currency. China wants its yuan protected, and Russia plans to begin trading in the ruble and local currencies.

Hudson calls the present system a “sinister dynamic (because) the US payment deficit pumps dollars into foreign economies (that have) little option except to buy US (debt) which the Treasury spends on financing an enormous, hostile (global) military build-up,” and its ready-to-unleash-anytime war machine.

Moreover, foreign US Treasury buyers may not only be financing their own endangerment, they’re also buying a depreciating asset, what analyst Matthias Chang calls dollar denominated “toilet paper” from a “toilet paper printing press….issu(ing) irredeemable fiat money.”

Why else would world demand for gold and silver be strong. They reflect real value, not paper backed solely by the eroding faith and credit of issuing countries. Buyers clearly lack it in America with good reason. As a result, expect further dollar erosion, decline and perhaps crisis if current selling ahead surges.

No wonder other countries seek a new monetary system to avoid funding America’s deficit and military. BRIC nations (China, Russia, India and Brazil) took the lead. Others are now following, and the weaker the dollar gets, inevitably they’ll be more.

Economist Paul Craig Roberts also believes the dollar’s global reserve currency hegemony won’t last. Sooner or later wholesale dumping will happen when foreign central banks unload them. As a result, import prices will rise enough to make Wal-Mart shoppers “think they have mistakenly gone into Neiman Marcus.”

Domestic prices will also soar “as a growing money supply chases the supply of goods and services still made” domestically. Disruptions will follow. The dollar won’t survive. When it goes America’s trade deficit can’t be financed. Imports will fall sharply. Inflation will rise, and “(p)anic will be the order of the day” because a corporate – government cabal is “strung out on the ecstasy of Empire,” and obsessed with destroying the nation’s middle class to transfer maximum wealth to America’s super-rich already with too much.

A Final Comment

Consider how far America declined and the inevitable consequences. The combination of:

– military Keynesianism;

– permanent wars;

– Washington being corporate occupied territory;

– banker bailouts;

– generous handouts to corporate favorites;

– offshoring the nation’s industrial base;

– neoliberal austerity;

– class warfare, including against unionism;

– systemic corruption;

– increasing repression;

– sham elections; and

– democracy in name only, the best money can buy, made America no longer a model for other nations, the engine of world growth, a fit to live in, or able to prevent its inevitable decline, fall, and replacement by China and perhaps other nations one day.

It’s a sad testimony to a two centuries old experiment that failed because absolute power corrupted too many with it wanting more.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Apr 29

Palestinian Unity Deal Announced – by Stephen Lendman

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Palestinian Unity Deal Announced – by Stephen Lendman

On April 27, the International Middle East Media Center headlined, “Rival Palestinian Factions Reach Reconciliation Agreement,” saying:

Meeting in Cairo, Palestinian media sources announced a Hamas – Fatah reconciliation draft agreement, signaling hope for rapprochement between the two sides.

Both parties agreed to form a transitional government soon. The two delegations, headed by Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal discussed security issues and ways to coordinate forces on both sides. They also chose an election date, but didn’t disclose it.

“A Hamas official (Izzat Ar-Rishiq) reported that all points of differences with Fatah have been overcome….Egyptian sources said that the two parties will be invited into Egypt soon (for an) official signing ceremony.”

Egypt’s official MENA news agency confirmed “a complete understanding after talks on all the points, including the formation of a transitional government with a specific mandate and setting a date for elections.”

Fatah delegation chief Azzam Al-Ahmad confirmed the report, saying both sides agreed to a “government of independents….tasked with preparing for presidential and legislative elections within a year.”

Palestinian factions welcomed the announcement, hoping years of conflict would end. Islamic Jihad’s Khaled Al Batsh said his organization welcomed the development, hoping implementation will begin quickly. He also called for ending West Bank political arrests, saying Palestinian priorities include resistance, unity, independence, the right of return, and Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital.

PLC deputy head Dr. Ahmad Bahar called the agreement historic, thanking Egypt for hosting and moderating important talks.

Dr. Abdul-Aziz Shiqaqi, head of Gaza’s coalition of independent figures, said the deal breaks new ground, offering a new reconciliation phase. Khalil Assaf, representing West Bank independent figures, called the agreement the best and most important development this year.

The Palestinian People Party (PPP) also welcomed the deal, hoping implementation will begin soon, as well as calling for efforts to marshal international support for Palestinian independence with Jerusalem its capital.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reacted sharply, demanding Abbas:

“choose between peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. There cannot be peace with both because Hamas strives to destroy the state of Israel and says so openly. I think that the very idea of reconciliation shows the weakness of the Palestinian Authority and creates the prospect that Hamas could retake control of Judea and Samaria just like it took control of the Gaza Strip.”

Netanyahu also said all necessary measures will be taken to continue Gaza’s siege, including blocking planned humanitarian flotillas.

He and other Israeli officials repeat the same canards, notably with regard to peace, reconciliation, and denying Hamas’ longstanding willingness to recognize Israel in return for Palestinian sovereignty inside pre-1967 borders, just 22% of its original homeland.

In September, it now hopes the UN General Assembly will affirm what Israel for decades spurned, including peace to perpetuate its war agenda based on lies and deception about Hamas threatening its security.

Getting Washington to bogusly declare it a terrorist organization, Western media ignore its legitimacy as Palestine’s democratically elected government, facts conveniently replaced by spurious claims about terrorism. In other words, twisting them to fit policy that includes on-and-off again wars, violence, land theft, severe repression, targeted assassinations, and violation of fundamental international law and standards, as well as core Judaic values, ones Israel long ago abandoned.

On April 27, New York Times writers Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner also covered the story headlining, “Fatah and Hamas Announce Outline of Deal,” saying:

They “create(d) an interim unity government (and agreed to) hold elections within a year, a surprise move that promised to reshape” the regional diplomatic landscape. Perhaps regional uprisings influenced the move. Also, Al Jazeera’s January released Palestine Papers. They revealed covert PA willingness to compromise much in return for little, amounting to de facto complicity and unilateral surrender to Israeli demands, a shameless betrayal like Oslo, what Edward Said called a Palestinian Versailles.

It gives pause about what PA negotiators now have in mind. This time, however, they’re dealing with Hamas, not Israel, but that specter remains powerfully omnipresent in lockstep with its Washington paymaster/partner.

Gaza Al-Azhar University Professor Mkhaimar Abusada believes the PA’s failure to negotiate peace with Israel, as well as anger over a February US Security Council resolution veto against new settlement construction encouraged Fatah to talk.

Hamas representative Moussa Abu Marzouk said:

“We have ended a painful period in the history of the Palestinian people where Palestinian division had prevailed. We gave the occupation a great opportunity to expand the settlements because of this division. Today we turn this page and open a new” one.

Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar said both sides agreed to changes in interim PLO leadership, a tribunal for elections, and a date. Both sides will nominate government members, a 12-judge election tribunal, and an oversight committee to handle security.

On April 27, Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin headlined, “Congress to PA: No US aid if you merge with Hamas,” saying:

Florida Republican House Foreign Affairs chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehiten (a member of America’s extremist far right) signaled ending US aid, repeating Netanyahu’s lies, saying:

“The reported agreement between Fatah and Hamas means that a Foreign Terrorist Organization which has called for the destruction of Israel will be part of the (PA) government. US taxpayer funds should not and must not be used to support those who threaten US security, our interests, and our vital ally, Israel.”

New York Democrat Rep. Gary Ackerman, a notorious pro-Israel supporter, called the deal “a recipe for failure, mixed with violence, leading to disaster,” sounding as extremist as Ros-Lehiten. Other members of both houses concurred, succumbing to Israeli Lobby pressure to go along or face recrimination in 2012. Mindful also of Israeli support, selling their souls the price they pay keep it.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel would only negotiate with a Palestinian unity government that “dismantles (its) terror infrastructures and recognizes Israel as well as past PLO (negotiated) agreements.”

Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, facing indictment for fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and more, said Israel won’t negotiate with the interim government, adding:

“One of the clauses of the agreement is the release of hundreds of Hamas prisoners from Palestinian jails, which would flood the West Bank with armed terrorists, and the IDF must prepare accordingly….This agreement crosses a red line. Hamas has been defined as a terrorist organization….in addition to the fact that it has always been known that no talks can be held with groups calling for Israel’s destruction.”

Israel’s president Shimon Peres said:

“The move, as it stands is a fatal mistake,” nor will Israel negotiate with a “bona fide terrorist organization.” The deal “would lead to a regression and prevent the formation of a Palestinian state.”

Through public rhetoric and behind the scenes pressure, including through the Israeli Lobby, Israel is going all out to prevent reconciliation, a unity government, peace, and UN General Assembly recognition of an independent Palestine within 1967 borders this September.

Instead it plans to stay belligerent, choose violence over diplomacy, continue settlement construction, keep Gaza blockaded, launch air attacks with powerful weapons, make regular incursions into Palestinian communities targeting nonviolent civilians, and effectively reign daily terror on Palestine like it’s done for over six decades, blaming victims of its own crimes, still with world community support.

As a result, it’s for Palestinians to pursue their own agenda until one day liberated and free. A unity government and UN membership are important steps toward it.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Apr 28

Vermonts Gets Single-Payer Health Care! (Who is Next?)

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Vermont Gets Health Care Right

Politics

Apr 272011

When Barack Obama announced a few months back that he would waive the ACA for any state that could do better, many on the left thought he was caving in to the Republicans, giving them their way again. I called that one right and credited him for putting the onus on Republicans, showing them up, because they would be unable to do better without a public option or single payer care. I knew that Republicans would not go there, but Vermont has done just that. http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/?p=4692

In a historic vote on Tuesday, the Vermont Legislature created the enabling legislation for a first-in-the-nation universal health care system. The state Senate approved the visionary plan for a single-payer system in a 21-9 vote after four hours of debate. The split was largely along party lines.

Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, campaigned on a promise to create a single-payer system in Vermont that would contain health care costs and give all of the state’s residents universal access to medical care. On Tuesday, Shumlin made good on the first step toward fulfilling that promise, and just five hours after the Senate vote, he marked the legislative victory in an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

The Shumlin administration was heavily involved in drafting the bill, H.202, though by the time the legislation reached final passage it had changed somewhat from its original incarnation, which was based in part on recommendations from Professor William Hsiao, the renowned Harvard economist who created a single payer system for Taiwan.

The legislation sets the state’s health care system on a new trajectory. Instead of continuing to use an insurance model for covering the cost of care, the bill moves the state toward an integrated payment system that would be controlled by a quasi judicial board and administered by a third party entity. The system would be funded through a broad-based tax.

The universal health care system would be implemented in 2014, if it clears 10 very high hurdles, including the receipt of a federal waiver. Otherwise it wouldn’t kick in until 2017… [emphasis added]

You come home to discover your house is on fire so you call 911. The operator asks who carries your fire department insurance, and you tell her you have none. She asks why, and you tell her you couldn’t afford to pay it. She reminds you that, under the Republican plan, you could have gotten a fire department voucher. You explain that, due to preexisting climate conditions, your voucher would cover only a small part of the cost. She sighs, says she is sorry that there is nothing she can do to help you. You watch your home burn to the ground.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? What makes it ridiculous is that we have single payer fire department care. What I just described is what would happen of the Republican approach to Medicare were applied to fire department care. People would not stand fore that because they know fire protection is too important to privatize. Given that truth, it makes no sense to leave health care to companies for whom profit trumps health every time.

Kudos to Vermont!

Apr 28

Detroit: By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) fights back against school closures and the new Jim Crow

By DannyNo Comments

As I have reported for the blog, Daily Censored, Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit was occupied by members of BAMN, students and teachers in an effort to stop its closure. You can see more about the direct action at www.dailycensored.com.

Here is the latest update on the issue:

UPDATE: The students and their teacher returned to school yesterday for the first time since the occupation, and so far, thanks in large part to the protection provided by the segment on the Rachel Maddow show, no disciplinary action has been taken against them.

More coverage of the Detroit school occupation:

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/23/6517421-more-about-the-catherine-ferguson-academy

http://www.thomhartmann.com/bigpicture/thom-hartmann-pregnant-teens-dragged-jail-fighting-back-gov-snyder

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-3

http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=6582&pfstyle=wp

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/19/968307/-EFM-Takeover-Of-Detroit-Schools:Teen-Mothers-Arrested,-Children-taken-Into-Temporary-Custody

Apr 25

USA’s Human Rights Record (Hyprocrisy of ‘Democracy’)

By No Comments

Human Rights Record of the United States in 2010

The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2010 on April 8, 2011. As in previous years, the reports are full of distortions and accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China. However, the United States turned a blind eye to its own terrible human rights situation and seldom mentioned it. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2010 is prepared to urge the United States to face up to its own human rights issues.

I. On Life, Property and Personal Security

The United States reports the world’s highest incidence of violent crimes, and its people’s lives, properties and personal security are not duly protected.

Every year, one out of every five people is a victim of a crime in the United States. No other nation on earth has a rate that is higher. In 2009, an estimated 4.3 million violent crimes, 15.6 million property crimes and 133,000 personal thefts were committed against U.S. residents aged 12 or older, and the violent crime rate was 17.1 victimizations per 1,000 persons, according to a report published by the U.S. Department of Justice on October 13, 2010 (Criminal Victimization 2009, U.S. Department of Justice, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov). The crime rate surged in many cities in the United States. St. Louis in Missouri reported more than 2,070 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, making it the nation’s most dangerous city (The Associated Press, November 22, 2010). Detroit residents experienced more than 15,000 violent crimes each year, which means the city has 1,600 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. The United States’ four big cities – Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York – reported increases in murders in 2010 from the previous year (USA Today, December 5, 2010). Twenty-five murder cases occurred in Los Angeles County in a week from March 29 to April 4, 2010; and in the first half of 2010, 373 people were killed in murders in Los Angeles County (www.lapdonline.org). As of November 11, New York City saw 464 homicide cases, up 16 percent from the 400 reported at the same time last year (The Washington Post, November 12, 2010).

The United States exercised lax control on the already rampant gun ownership. Reuters reported on November 10, 2010 that the United States ranks first in the world in terms of the number of privately-owned guns. Some 90 million people own an estimated 200 million guns in the United States, which has a population of about 300 million. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled on June 28, 2010 that the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives Americans the right to bear arms that can not be violated by state and local governments, thus extending the Americans’ rights to own a gun for self-defense purposes to the entire country (The Washington Post, June 29, 2010). Four U.S. states – Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia and Virginia – allow loaded guns in bars. And 18 other states allow weapons in restaurants that serve alcohol (The New York Times, October 3, 2010). Tennessee has nearly 300,000 handgun permit holders. The Washington Times reported on June 7, 2010 that in November 2008, a total of 450,000 more people in the United States purchased firearms than had bought them in November 2007. This was a more than 10-fold increase, compared with the change in sales from November 2007 over November 2006. From November 2008 to October 2009, almost 2.5 million more people bought guns than had done so in the preceding 12 months (The Washington Times, June 7, 2010). The frequent campus shootings in colleges in the United States came to the spotlight in recent years. The United Kingdom’s Daily Telegraph reported on February 21, 2011 that a new law that looks certain to pass through the legislature in Texas, the United States, would allow half a million students and teachers in its 38 public colleges to carry guns on campus. It would become only the second state, after Utah, to enforce such a rule.

The United States had high incidence of gun-related blood-shed crimes. Statistics showed there were 12,000 gun murders a year in the United States (The New York Times, September 26, 2010). Figures released by the U.S. Department of Justice on October 13, 2010 showed weapons were used in 22 percent of all violent crimes in the United States in 2009, and about 47 percent of robberies were committed with arms (www.ojp.usdoj.gov, October 13, 2010). On March 30, 2010, five men killed four people and seriously injured five others in a deadly drive-by shooting (The Washington Post, April 27, 2010). In April, six separate shootings occurred overnight, leaving 16 total people shot, two fatally (www.myfoxchicago.com). On April 3, a deadly shooting at a restaurant in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, left four people dead and two others wounded (www.nbclosangeles.com, April 4, 2010). One person was killed and 21 others wounded in separate shootings around Chicago roughly between May 29 and 30 (www.chicagobreakingnews.com, May 30, 2010). In June, 52 people were shot at a weekend in Chicago (www.huffingtonpost.com, June 21, 2010). Three police officers were shot dead by assailants in the three months from May to July (Chicago Tribune, July 19, 2010). A total of 303 people were shot and 33 of them were killed in Chicago in the 31 days of July in 2010. Between November 5 and 8, four people were killed and at least five others injured in separate shootings in Oakland (World Journal, November 11, 2010). On November 30, a 15-year-old boy in Marinette County, Wisconsin, took his teacher and 24 classmates hostage at gunpoint (abcNews, November 30, 2010). On January 8, 2011, a deadly rampage critically wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Six people were killed and 12 others injured in the attack (Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2011).

II. On Civil and Political Rights

In the United States, the violation of citizens’ civil and political rights by the government is severe.

Citizen’ s privacy has been undermined. According to figures released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in September 2010, more than 6,600 travelers had been subject to electronic device searches between October 1, 2008 and June 2, 2010, nearly half of them American citizens. A report on The Wall Street Journal on September 7, 2010, said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was sued over its policies that allegedly authorize the search and seizure of laptops, cellphones and other electronic devices without a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. The policies were claimed to leave no limit on how long the DHS can keep a traveler’ s devices or on the scope of private information that can be searched, copied or detained. There is no provision for judicial approval or supervision. When Colombian journalist Hollman Morris sought a U.S. student visa so he could take a fellowship for journalists at Harvard University, his application was denied on July 17, 2010, as he was ineligible under the “terrorist activities” section of the U.S.A. Patriot Act. An Arab American named Yasir Afifi, living in California, found the FBI attached an electronic GPS tracking device near the right rear wheel of his car. In August, ACLU, joined by the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian weekly, had filed a lawsuit to expedite the release of FBI records on the investigation and surveillance of Muslim communities in the Bay Area. The San Francisco FBI office has declined to comment on the matter “because it’ s still an ongoing investigation.” (The Washington Post, October 13, 2010). In October 2010, the Transportation Security Administration raised the security level at U.S. airports requiring passengers to go through a full-body scanner machine or pat-downs. It also claimed that passengers can not refuse the security check based on their religious beliefs. Civil rights groups contended the more intensive screening violates civil liberties including freedom of religion, the right to privacy and the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches (AP, November 16, 2010). The ACLU and the U.S. Travel Association have been getting thousands of complaints about airport security measures (The Christian Science Monitor, November 20, 2010).

Abuse of violence and torturing suspects to get confession is serious in the U. S. law enforcement. According to a report of Associated Press on October 14, 2010, the New York Police Department (NYPD) paid about 964 million U.S. dollars to resolve claims against its officers over the past decade. Among them was a case that an unarmed man was killed in a 50-bullet police shooting on his wedding day. The three police officers were acquitted of manslaughter and the NYDP simply settled the case with money (China Press, October 15, 2010). In a country that boasts “judicial justice,” what justice did the above-mentioned victims get? In June 2010, a federal jury found former Chicago police lieutenant Jon Burge guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice. Burge and officers under his command shocked, suffocated and burned suspects into giving confessions in the 1970s and 1980s (The Boston Globe, November 5, 2010). According to a report on Chicago Tribune on May 12, 2010, Chicago Police was charged with arresting people without warrants, shackling them to the wall or metal benches, feeding them infrequently and holding them without bathroom breaks and giving them no bedding, which were deemed consistent with tactics of “soft torture” used to extract involuntary confessions. On March 22, a distraught homeless man was shot dead in Potland, Oregon, by four shots from a police officer (China Press, April 1, 2010). An off-duty Westminster police officer was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and raping a woman on April 3 while a corrections officer was accused of being an accessory (Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2010). On April 17 in Seattle, Washington, a gang detective and patrol officer kicked a suspect and verbally assaulted him (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 10, 2010). On March 24, Chad Holley, 15, was brutally beaten by eight police officers in Houston. The teen claimed he was face down on the ground while officers punched him in the face and kneed him in the back. After a two-month-long investigation, four officers were indicted and fired (Houston Chronicle, May 4, June 23, 2010). On August 11, three people were injured by police shooting when police officers chased a stolen van in Prince George’ s County. Family members of the three injured argued why the police fired into the van when nobody on the van fired at them (The Washington Post, August 14, 2010). On September 5, 2010, a Los Angeles police officer killed a Guatemalan immigrant by two shots and triggered a large scale protest. Police clashed with protesters and arrested 22 of them (The New York Times, September 8, 2010). On November 5, 2010, a large demonstration took place in Oakland against a Los Angeles court verdict which put Johannes Mehserle, a police officer, to two years in prison as he shot and killed unarmed African American Oscar Grant two years ago. Police arrested more than 150 people in the protest (San Francisco Chronicle, November 9, 2010).

The United States has always called itself “land of freedom,” but the number of inmates in the country is the world’ s largest. According to a report released by the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project in 2008, one in every 100 adults in the U.S. are in jail and the figure was one in every 400 in 1970. By 2011, America will have more than 1.7 million men and women in prison, an increase of 13 percent over that of 2006. The sharp increase will lead to overcrowding prisons. California prisons now hold 164,000 inmates, double their intended capacity (The Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2010). In a New Beginnings facility for the worst juvenile offenders in Washington DC, only 60 beds are for 550 youths who in 2009 were charged with the most violent crimes. Many of them would violate the laws again without proper care or be subject to violent crimes (The Washington Post, August 28, 2010). Due to poor management and conditions, unrest frequently occurred in prisons. According to a report on Chicago Tribune on July 18, 2010, more than 20 former Cook County inmates filed suit saying they were handcuffed or shackled during labor while in the custody, leaving serious physical and psychological damage. On October 19, 2010, at least 129 inmates took part in a riot at Calipatria State Prison, leaving two dead and a dozen injured (China Press, October 20, 2010). In November, AP released a video showing an inmate, being beaten by a fellow inmate in an Idaho prison, managed to plead for help through a prison guard station window but officers looked on and no one intervened until he was knocked unconscious. The prison was dubbed “gladiator school” (China Press, December 2, 2010).

Wrongful conviction occurred quite often in the United States. In the past two decades, a total of 266 people were exonerated through DNA tests, among them 17 were on death row (Chicago Tribune, July 11, 2010). A report from The Washington Post on April 23, 2010, said Washington DC Police admitted 41 charges they raised against a 14-year-old boy, including four first-degree murders, were false and the teen never confessed to any charge. Police of Will County, Illinois, had tortured Kevin Fox to confess the killing of his three-year-old daughter and he had served eight months in prison before a DNA test exonerated him. Similar case happened in Zion, Illinois, that Jerry Hobbs were forced by the police to confess the killing of his eight-year-old daughter and had been in prison for five years before DNA tests proved his innocence. Barry Gibbs had served 19 years in prison when his conviction of killing a prostitute in 1986 was overturned in 2005 and received 9.9 million U.S. dollars from New York City government in June 2010 (The New York Times, June 4, 2010).

The U.S. regards itself as “the beacon of democracy.” However, its democracy is largely based on money. According to a report from The Washington Post on October 26, 2010, U.S. House and Senate candidates shattered fundraising records for a midterm election, taking in more than 1.5 billion U.S. dollars as of October 24. The midterm election, held in November 2010, finally cost 3.98 billion U.S. dollars, the most expensive in the U.S. history. Interest groups have actively spent on the election. As of October 6, 2010, the 80 million U.S. dollars spent by groups outside the Democratic and Republican parties dwarfed the 16 million U.S. dollars for the 2006 midterms. One of the biggest spenders nationwide was the American Future Fund from Iowa, which spent 7 million U.S. dollars on behalf of Republicans in more than two dozen House and Senate races. One major player the 60 Plus Association spent 7 million dollars on election related ads. The American Federation of States, County and Municipal Employees spent 103.9 million U.S. dollars on the campaigns from October 22 to 27 (The New York Times, November 1, 2010). U.S. citizens have expressed discontent at the huge cost in the elections. A New York Times/CBS poll showed nearly 8 in 10 U.S. citizens said it was important to limit the campaign expense (The New York Times, October 22, 2010).

While advocating Internet freedom, the U.S. in fact imposes fairly strict restriction on cyberspace. On June 24, 2010, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs approved the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, which will give the federal government “absolute power” to shut down the Internet under a declared national emergency. Handing government the power to control the Internet will only be the first step towards a greatly restricted Internet system, whereby individual IDs and government permission would be required to operate a website. The United States applies double standards on Internet freedom by requesting unrestricted “Internet freedom” in other countries, which becomes an important diplomatic tool for the United States to impose pressure and seek hegemony, and imposing strict restriction within its territory. An article on BBC on February 16, 2011 noted the U.S. government wants to boost Internet freedom to give voices to citizens living in societies regarded as “closed” and questions those governments’ control over information flow, although within its borders the U.S. government tries to create a legal frame to fight the challenge posed by Wikileaks. The U.S. government might be sensitive to the impact of the free flow of electronic information on its territory for which it advocates, but it wants to practice diplomacy by other means, including the Internet, particularly the social networks.

An article on the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Magazine admitted that the U.S government’s approach to the Internet remains “full of problems and contradictions” (Foreign Policy Magazine website, February 17, 2011).

III. On Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The United States is the world’s richest country, but Americans’ economic, social and cultural rights protection is going from bad to worse.

Unemployment rate in the United States has been stubbornly high. From December 2007 to October 2010, a total of 7.5 million jobs were lost in the country (The New York Times, November 19, 2010). According to statistics released by the U.S. Department of Labor on December 3, 2010, the U.S. unemployment rate edged up to 9.8 percent in November 2010, and the number of unemployed persons was 15 million in November, among whom, 41.9 percent were jobless for 27 weeks and more (Data.bls.gov). The jobless rate of California in January 2010 was 12.5 percent, its worst on record. Unemployment topped 20 percent in eight California counties (The Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2010). Unemployment rate of New York State was 8.3 percent in October 2010. There were nearly 800,000 people unemployed statewide, and about 527,000 people were collecting unemployment benefits from the state (The New York Times, November 19, 2010). Employment situation for the disabled was worse. According to statistics released by the U.S. Department of Labor on August 25, 2010, the average unemployment rate for disabled workers was 14.5 percent in 2009, and nearly a third of workers with disabilities worked only part-time. The jobless rate for workers with disabilities who had at least a bachelor’s degree was 8.3 percent, which was higher than the 4.5 percent rate for college-educated workers without disabilities (The Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2010). The unemployment rate for those with disabilities had risen to 16.4 percent as of July 2010 (The Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2010). In 2009, more than 21,000 disabled people complained to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) about their experience of employment discrimination, an increase of 10 percent and 20 percent over the numbers of 2008 and 2007 (The World Journal, September 25, 2010).

Proportion of American people living in poverty has risen to a record high. The U.S. Census Bureau reported on September 16, 2010 that a total of 44 million Americans found themselves in poverty in 2009, four million more than that of 2008. The share of residents in poverty climbed to 14.3 percent in 2009, the highest level recorded since 1994 (The New York Times, September 17, 2010). In 2009, Mississippi’s poverty rate was 23.1 percent (www.census.gov). Florida had a total of 2.7 million people living in poverty (The Washington Post, September 19, 2010). In New York City, 18.7 percent of the population lived in poverty in 2009, as an additional 45,000 people fell below the poverty line that year (New York Daily News, September 29, 2010).

People in hunger increased sharply. A report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in November 2010 showed that 14.7 percent of U.S. households were food insecure in 2009 (www.ers.usda.gov), an increase of almost 30 percent since 2006 (The Washington Post, November 21, 2010). About 50 million Americans experienced food shortage that year. The number of households collecting emergency food aid had increased from 3.9 million in 2007 to 5.6 million in 2009 (The China Press, November 16, 2010). The number of Americans participating in the food-stamp program increased from 26 million in May 2007 to 42 million in September 2010, approximately one in eight people was using food stamps (The Associated Press, October 22, 2010). In the past four years, 31.6 percent of American families tasted poverty for at least a couple of months (The Globe and Mail, September 17, 2010).

Number of homeless Americans increased sharply. According to a report by USA Today on June 16, 2010, the number of families in homeless shelters increased 7 percent to 170,129 from fiscal year 2008 through fiscal year 2009. Homeless families also were staying longer in shelters, from 30 days in 2008 to 36 in 2009, and about 800,000 American families were living with extended family, friends, or other people because of the economy. The number of homeless students in the U.S. increased 41 percent over that in the previous two years to one million (The Washington Post, September 23, 2010; USA Today, July 31, 2010). In New York City, 30 percent of homeless families in 2009 were first-time homeless (www.usatoday.com). The city’s homeless people increased to 3,111, with another 38,000 people living in shelters (The New York Times, March 19, 2010). New Orleans had 12,000 homeless people (News Week, August 23, 2010). An estimated 254,000 men, women and children experienced homelessness in Los Angeles County during some part of the year. Approximately 82,000 people were homeless on any given night. African Americans made up approximately half of the Los Angeles County homeless population, 33 percent were Latino, and a high percentage, as high as 20 percent, were veterans (www.laalmanac.com). American veterans served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could become homeless one year and a half after they retired, and about 130,000 retired veterans become homeless each year in the US (homepost.kpbs.org). Statistics from the National Coalition for the Homeless showed that more than 1,000 violent offences against homeless people have occurred in the U.S. which caused 291 deaths since 1999. (The New York Times, August 18, 2010)

The number of American people without health insurance increased progressively every year. According to a report by USA Today on September 17, 2010, the number of Americans without health insurance increased from 46.3 million in 2008 to 50.7 million in 2009, the ninth consecutive annual rise, which accounted for 16.7 percent of the total U.S. population. Sixty-eight adults under 65 years old died due to lack of health insurance each day on average in the US. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in November 2010 showed that 22 percent of American adults between 16 and 64 had no health insurance (Reuters, November 10, 2010). A report issued by the Center for Health Policy Research, University of California, Los Angeles indicated that 24.3 percent of adults under 65 in California State in 2009 had no health insurance, representing a population of 8.2 million, up from the 6.4 million in 2007. Proportion of children without health insurance in the state rose from 10.2 percent in 2007 to 13.4 percent in 2009 (The China Press, March 17, 2010, citing the Los Angeles Times).

IV. On Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination, deep-seated in the United States, has permeated every aspect of social life.

An Associated Press-Univision Poll, reported by the Associated Press on May 20, 2010, found that 61 percent of people overall said Hispanics face significant discrimination, compared with 52 percent who said blacks do. The New York Times reported on October 28, 2010 that more than 6 in 10 Latinos in the United States say discrimination is a “major problem” for them, a significant increase in the last three years.

Minorities do not enjoy the same political status as white people. The New York city’s non-Hispanic white population is 35 percent, while more than 70 percent of the senior jobs are held by whites. Since winning a third term in November 2009, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has announced a parade of major appointments: bringing aboard three new deputy mayors and six commissioners. All nine are white. Of the 80 current city officials identified by the Bloomberg administration as “key members” on its Website, 79 percent are white. Of 321 people who advise the mayor or hold one of three top titles at agencies that report directly to him – commissioners, deputy commissioners and general counsels, and their equivalents – 78 percent are white. And of the 1,114 employees who must live in the city, under an executive order, because they wield the most influence over policies and day-to-day operations, 74 percent are white (The New York Times, June 29, 2010).

Minority groups confront discrimination in their employment and occupation. The black people are treated unfairly or excluded in promotion, welfare and employment (Chicago Tribune, March 12, 2010). It is reported that one-third of black people confronted discrimination at work, against which only one-sixteenth of the black people would lodge a complaint. The Washington Post reported on October 15, 2010 that about 30 black firefighters alleged systematic racial discrimination within the D.C. Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services, claiming that black employees faced harsher discipline. Shirley Sherrod, who was black, was fired by the Agricultural Department after a blogger posted her truncated comments that 24 years ago, she did not help a white farmer when she was working for a nonprofit agency established to help black farmers. The U.S. Agriculture Department in February, 2010 reached a 1.25-billion-dollar settlement in a decades-long struggle by African-American farmers who had suffered from discrimination within farm loans (The Washington Post, July 23, 2010). The New York Times reported on September 23, 2010 that by September 30, 2009, Muslim workers had filed a record 803 claims of complaints over employment discrimination, up 20 percent from the previous year.

Minority groups have high unemployment rate. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in July 2010, among the population 16 to 24 years of age, 2,987,000 unemployed people were white, with unemployment rate reaching 16.2 percent; 992,000 were black or African American people, with unemployment rate of 33.4 percent; 165,000 were Asians, with unemployment rate of 21.6 percent; 884,000 belonged to Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, with unemployment rate of 22.1 percent (www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/youth.pdf). According to a report of the working group of experts on people of African descent to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations in August 2010, unemployment was a very serious issue for the Afro-descendant community in the United States, with levels of unemployment being, proportionately, four times higher among this population than in the white community. Reference was made to a case where the New York City Fire Department was found to have discriminated against people of African descent who had applied for employment as firemen. Of the 11,000 firemen employed by the New York City Fire Department, only about 300 were of African descent, despite their being about 27 percent of the population of New York (UN document A/HRC/15/18). Nearly one-sixth of black residents in the city were unemployed in the third quarter of 2010. About 140,000 of the city’s 384,000 unemployed residents, or 36 percent, were black (The New York Times, October 28, 2010).

Poverty proportion for minorities is also high in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau announced in September, 2010 that the poverty proportion of the black was 25.8 percent in 2009, and those of Hispanic origin and Asian were 25.3 percent and 12.5 percent respectively, much higher than that of the non-Hispanic white at 9.4 percent. The median household income for the black, Hispanic origin and non-Hispanic white were 32,584, 38,039 and 54,461 U.S. dollars respectively (The USA Today, September 17, 2010). A survey released by the America Association of Retired Persons on February 23, 2010 found that over the previous 12 months, a third (33 percent) of African Americans age 45+ had problems paying rent or mortgage, 44 percent had problems paying for essential items, such as food and utilities, almost one in four (23 percent) lost their employer-sponsored health insurance, more than three in ten (31 percent) had cut back on their medications, and a quarter (26 percent) prematurely withdrew funds from their retirement nest eggs to pay for living expenses. Even in the tough employment environment, 12 percent of African Americans age 65+ returned to the workforce from retirement, while nearly 20 percent of African Americans age 45 to 64 increased the number of hours worked and 12 percent took a second job (The Los Angeles Times, February 23, 2010). In 2009, there were more than 30,000 black children living in poverty in the nation’s capital, almost 7,000 more than two years before. Among black children in the city, childhood poverty shot up to 43 percent, from 36 percent in 2008. In contrast, the poverty rate for Hispanic children was 13 percent, and the rate for white children was 3 percent (The Washington Post, September 29, 2010).

The U.S. minority groups face obvious inequality in education. A latest report released by America’s Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University showed that 81 percent of white, 64 percent of Hispanic, and 62 percent of African-American students graduated from high schools in 2008 (The World Journal, December 2, 2010). As of 2008, among white men aged 55 to 64, the college completion rate was 43 percent, while 19 percent of Hispanics. Among white men aged 25 to 34, the completion rate was 39 percent, compared with 14 percent of Hispanics (The Washington Post, October 20, 2010). In New York City, the number of white adults with a master degree were three times more than Hispanics. According to a report released by the Sacramento State University, only 22 percent of Latino students and 26 percent African American students completed their two-year studies in the university, compared with 37 percent of white students (The San Jose Mercury News, October 20, 2010). A report released from New York City’ s Department of Education in January 2010 found that 6,207 or 4.7 percent-out of a total of 130,837 disciplinary incidents reported in the City’s public schools during the 2008-09 school year were bias-related with gender, race/color, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation (The China Press, January 18, 2010). The USA Today on October 14, 2010 reported that African American boys who were suspended at double and triple the rates of their white male peers. At the Christina School District in Delaware, 71 percent of black male students were suspended in a recent school year, compared to 22 percent of their white male counterparts. African-American students without disabilities were more than three times as likely to be expelled as their white peers. African-American students with disabilities were over twice as likely to be expelled or suspended as their white counterparts (USA Today, March 8, 2010).

The health care for African-American people is worrisome. Studies showed that nearly a third of ethnic minority families in the United States did not have health insurance. Life expectancy was lower and infant mortality higher than average (BBC, the social and economic position of minorities). Mortality of African American children was two to three times higher than that of their white counterparts. African American children represented 71 percent of all pediatric HIV/AIDS cases. African American women and men were 17 times and 7 times, respectively, more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than white people, and twice more likely to develop cancer.

Racial discrimination is evident in the law enforcement and judicial systems. The New York Times reported on May 13, 2010, that in 2009, African Americans and Latinos were 9 times more likely to be stopped by the police to receive stop-and-frisk searches than white people. Overall, 41 percent of the prison population was estimated to be African American. The rate of African Americans serving a life sentence was more than 10 times higher than that of whites. Males of African descent who dropped out of school had a 66 percent chance of ending up in jail or being processed by the criminal justice system (UN document A/HRC/15/18). A report said 85 percent of the people stopped in New York to receive stop-and-frisk searches over the past six years had been black or Latino (The Washington Post, November 4, 2010). According to a report of the Law School of the Michigan State University, among the 159 death row inmates in North Carolina, 86 were black, 61 were white and 12 were from other ethnic groups. During the trial process of the 159 capital cases, the number of black members taken out from the jury by prosecutors more than doubled that of non-black members. According to statistics from the Chicago Police Department, the proportion of black people being the criminals and the victims of all murder cases is the highest, reaching 76.3 and 77.6 percent respectively (portal.chicagopolice.org). The Homicide Report of the Los Angeles Times showed 2,329 homicides in Los Angeles County from January 1, 2007 to November 14, 2010, with victims of 1,600 Latinos and 997 black people (projects.latimes.com/homicide/map/).

Racial hate crimes are frequent. The FBI said in an annual report that out of 6,604 hate crimes committed in the United States in 2009, some 4,000 were racially motivated and nearly 1,600 were driven by hatred for a particular religion. Overall, some 8,300 people fell victim to hate crimes in 2009. Blacks made up around three-quarters of victims of the racially motivated hate crimes and Jews made up the same percentage of victims of anti-religious hate crimes. Two-thirds of the 6,225 known perpetrators of all U.S. hate crimes were white (AFP, November 22, 2010).

Immigrants’ rights and interests are not guaranteed. Lawmakers in the Arizona Senate in April 2010 passed a bill to curb illegal immigration. The law requires state and local police to determine the status of people if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are illegal immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documentation proving they are in the country legally (The Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2010). Another proposed Arizona law, supported by Republicans of the state, would deny birth certificates to children born in the United States to illegal immigrant parents (CNN U.S., June 15, 2010). A group of UN human rights experts on migrants, racism, minorities, indigenous people, education and cultural rights expressed serious concern over the laws enacted by the state of Arizona, saying that “a disturbing pattern of legislative activity hostile to ethnic minorities and immigrants has been established”. The Arizona immigration law requires state law enforcement officers to arrest a person, without a warrant. It also makes it a crime to be in the country illegally, and specifically targets day laborers, making it a crime for an undocumented migrant to solicit work, and for any person to hire or seek to hire an undocumented migrant. The law may lead to detaining and subjecting to interrogation persons primarily on the basis of their perceived ethnic characteristics. In Arizona, persons who appear to be of Mexican, Latin American, or indigenous origin are especially at risk of being targeted under the law. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on November 19, 2010 that a large group of human rights organizations prepared to hold a vigil in South Georgia in support of suspected illegal immigrants being held in a prison in Lumpkin. As of September 17, 2010, the prison was holding 1,890 inmates. Court cases for inmates at the prison were pending for 63 days on average. With regard to immigration detainees, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants said, in a report to the Human Rights Council in April 2010, that he received reports of detainees being willfully and maliciously denied proper medical treatment, to which they are entitled by legislation, while they are in the custody of the national authorities. The Special Rapporteur observed during his country missions that irregular migrant workers are often homeless or living in crowded, unsafe and unsanitary conditions (UN document A/HRC/14/30).

V. On the rights of women and children

The situation regarding the rights of women and children in the United States is bothering.

Gender discrimination against women widely exists in the United States. According to a report released on August 11, 2010 by the Daily Mail, 90 percent of women have suffered some form of sexual discrimination in the workplace. Just 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. A report by the American Association of University Women released on March 22, 2010 showed that women earned only 21 percent of doctorate degrees in computer science, around one-third of the doctorates in earth, atmospheric, and ocean sciences, chemistry, and math. Women doing the same work as men often get less payment in the United States. According to a report on September 17, 2010 by the Washington Post, in nearly 50 years, the wage gap has narrowed by only 18 cents. The census report released on September 16, 2010 showed that working women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. The New York Times reported on April 26, 2010 that Wal-Mart was accused of systematically paying women less than men, giving them smaller raises and offering women fewer opportunities for promotion in the biggest employment discrimination case in the nation’s history. The plaintiffs stressed that while 65 percent of Wal-Mart’s hourly employees were women, only 33 percent of the company’s managers were (The New York Times, April 26, 2010).

Women in the United States often experience sexual assault and violence. Statistics released in October 2010 by the National Institute of Justice show that some 20 million women are rape victims in the country (www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/october/10-ag-1220.html). About 60,000 female prisoners fall victims to sexual assault or violence every year. Some one fifth female students on campus are victims of sexual assault, and 60 percent of campus rape cases occurred in female students’ dorms (World Journal, August 26, 2010).

According to the Human Rights Watch report released in August last year, 50 detainees in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers have been alleged victims of sexual assault since 2003. Most of these victims were women, and some of the alleged assailants, including prison guards, were not prosecuted. In one case, a guard in a Texas detention center pretended to be a doctor and sexually assaulted five women in the center’s infirmary (World Journal, August 26, 2010). According to figures from Pentagon, cited by the Time magazine on March 8, 2010, nearly 3,000 female soldiers were sexually assaulted in fiscal year 2008, up 9 percent from the year before. Close to one third of the retired female soldiers said they were victims of rape or assault while they were serving.

Women are also victims of domestic violence. In the United States, some 1.3 million people fall victim to domestic violence every year, and women account for 92 percent. One in four women is a victim of domestic violence at some point during her life, and the violence kills three women each day in the United States by a current or former intimate partner (CNN, October 21, 2010). In 2008, police in the New York City received reports of more than 230,000 domestic violence cases, which equals to 600 cases per day (China Press, April 3, 2010). In all homicide cases in 2009, of the female murder victims for whom their relationships to the offenders were known, 34.6 percent were murdered by their husbands or boyfriends (www2.fbi.gov). In the Santa Clara County in California, police receive more than 4,500 domestic violence related calls every year, and more than 700 women and children live in shelters to avoid domestic violence (World Journal, October 15, 2010; China Press, October 9, 2010).

Women’s health rights are not properly protected in the United States. According to the Amnesty International, more than two women die every day in the United States from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. African-American women are nearly four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than white women in the past 20 years. Native American and Alaska Native women are 3.6 times, African-American women 2.6 times and Latina women 2.5 times more likely than white women to receive no or late pre-natal care (UN document A/HRC/14/NGO/13).

Children in the U.S. live in poverty. The Washington Post reported on November 21, 2010, that nearly one in four children struggles with hunger, citing the U.S. Department of Agriculture. More than 60 percent of public school teachers identify hunger as a problem in the classroom. Roughly the same percentage go into their own pockets to buy food for their hungry students (The Washington Post, November 21, 2010). According to figures released on Sept. 16, 2010 by the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate increased for children younger than 18 to 20.7 percent in 2009, up 1.7 percentage points from that in 2008 (www.census.gov). Poverty among black children in the Washington D.C. is as high as 43 percent (The Washington Post, September 29, 2010), and some 2.7 million children in California live in impoverished families. The number of poor children in six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area has increased by 15 to 16 percent. Statistics show that at least 17 million children in the United States lived in food insecure households in 2009 (World Journal, May 8, 2010).

Violence against children is very severe. Figures from the official website of Love Our Children USA show that every year over 3 million children are victims of violence reportedly and the actual number is 3 times greater. Almost 1.8 million are abducted and nearly 600,000 children live in foster care. Every day one out of seven kids and teens are approached online by predators, and one out of four kids are bullied and 43 percent of teens and 97 percent of middle schoolers are cyberbullied. Nine out of 10 LGBT students experienced harassment at school. As many as 160,000 students stay home on any given day because they’ re afraid of being bullied (www.loveourchildrenusa.org). According to a report released on October 20, 2010 by the Washington Post, 17 percent of American students report being bullied two to three times a month or more within a school semester. Bullying is most prevalent in third grade, when almost 25 percent of students reported being bullied two, three or more times a month. According to a UN report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, 20 states and hundreds of school districts in the United States still permit schools to administer corporal punishment in some form, and students with mental or physical disabilities are more likely to suffer physical punishment (UN document A/HRC/14/25/ADD.1).

Children’ s physical and mental health is not ensured. More than 93,000 children are currently incarcerated in the United States, and between 75 and 93 percent of children have experienced at least one traumatic experience, including sexual abuse and neglect (The Washington Post, July 9, 2010). According to a report made by the Child Fatality Review Team from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, between 2001 and 2008, injury-related deaths among children aged one to 12 years old in the United States was 8.9 deaths per 100,000. The figure for those in the New York City was 4.2 deaths per 100,000 (China Press, July 3, 2010). Thirteen children and young adults have died at a Chicago care facility for children with severe disabilities since 2000 due to failure to take basic steps to care for them (Chicago Tribune, October 10, 2010). According to a study published on October 14, 2010 in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, about half of American teens aged between 13 and 19 met the criteria for a mental disorder. Fifty-one percent of boys and 49 percent of girls aged 13 to 19 had a mood, behavior, anxiety or substance use disorder, and the disorder in 22.2 percent of teens was so severe it impaired their daily activities (World Journal, October 15, 2010). Pornographic content is rampant on the Internet and severely harms American children. Statistics show that seven in 10 children have accidentally accessed pornography on the Internet and one in three has done so intentionally. And the average age of exposure is 11 years old – some start at eight years old (The Washington Times, June 16, 2010). According to a survey commissioned by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 20 percent of American teens have sent or posted nude or seminude pictures or videos of themselves. (www.co.jefferson.co.us, March 23, 2010). At least 500 profit-oriented nude chat websites were set up by teens in the United States, involving tens of thousands of pornographic pictures.

Apr 24

The War That Never Ended

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The War That Never Ended

[col. writ. 4/10/11] (c) ’11 Mumia Abu-Jamal

150 years ago, shells were lobbed into Fort Sumpter, South Carolina, and the Civil War began.

In 4 years, over 600,000 combatants were killed, more than in Vietnam’s long, 9-year war.

Isn’t it interesting that the war fought to preserve slavery was fought in the nation called “land of the free?”

From 1861 to 1865 the war raged all across the country.

At war’s end the U.S. Congress passed the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, and it would take nearly 100 years for the courts to even begin to recognize them (for most of that time, they granted constitutional rights to corporations -not Black persons.) For the courts supported white supremacy rather than Black equality.

While one of the biggest offenders was the Supreme Court, American presidents also played key roles in supporting policies designed to restrict, deny and undermine Black rights.

Under state laws, Blacks were denied the right to vote, to enjoy public accommodations, to hold public office, and to purchase homes in most neighborhoods.

Schools, from elementary to college were both racially segregated and economically under funded.

150 years later, and urban schools remain segregated by class, as well as woefully under funded.

Over 50% of kids in big-city schools, like Baltimore, New York and Chicago are drop-outs. such schools are often more segregated today than they were 50 years ago, and the political elites are pushing to privatize education.

It’s been a century and half since that bloody war began, and still legal scholars like Michelle Alexander (author, The New Jim Crow), argue that the Black poor and working class constitute a “caste” in American society, subject to disparate and discriminatory treatment in the nation’s courts, and virtual social exclusion, afterward.

For too many people, the war continues.

–(ac) ’11 maj

Apr 21

Charter Schools: The White Man’s Panacea for Education

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Charter Schools: The White Man’s Panacea for Education

By: Solomon Comissiong

The illusion that white liberals and conservatives seldom find common ground is farcical. It is a deceptively dangerous illusion that far too many believe in. It is important to understand that the perceived chasm that separates white people politically is, in all actuality, very small in regards to a number of social issues. When you can clearly indentify your foes as well as your friends, it makes all ensuing battles that much easier. Most white liberals(noticeably different from a truly progressive oriented white person), as with white conservatives, have very little intention to progressively work towards eradicating the root causes of social issues that plague most black communities in America. It is extremely important for people of color to understand this very important fact—white liberals will never seek on their own to destroy institutional racism and white supremacy. It should be obvious that white conservatives will not as well, but then again they never claim to give a damn about black people. They are what they are, whether you like it or not.
White liberals, on the other hand, love to profess how liberal they are on “civil rights” issues, but when it comes to taking an aggressive approach towards things like institutional racism, or even the military industrial complex, they are silent. And as the Bard has written, “Silence speaks consent.” If they were surgeons their solution to fixing a six inch gash in your arm would be to give you a band-aid rather than disinfecting the wound, dressing it, and sufficiently wrapping it. So when it comes to “complex” issues that black and brown youth face, failing schools for instance, their approach is to provide a little patchwork here and a little patchwork there. Their approach is never to admit that if these schools were white they would never be allowed to fail in such a manner as many schools of color are failing, largely based on the fact that they are under-supported and socially neglected. Neither liberals nor conservatives would not suggest some of the same “remedies”, to predominately white schools, that they often recommend to black and brown schools. And yes, with the re-segregation of today’s school systems, which are much like those of the 1960s, in terms of racial makeup, we can refer to them as black, brown or white. As a matter of fact, it is very important that we do this since a great many black and brown schools do not even receive half of the governmental support and funding as do many of their white counterparts.

Jonathan Kozol, author of The Shame of a Nation and Savage Inequalities (and a relatively progressive white man), has spent much of his career outlining the institutionally racist nature of America’s failing public school system within both books. Failing to delineate the racial makeup of these predominately black and brown schools, which are systemically neglected by the US government, only confuses the issues. Failing to identify the racial disparities prevents us from properly identifying the racist and white supremacist roots in these problems. And just like failing to identify the root causes of any physical malady will prevent a physician from properly diagnosing the sickness of a patient and therefore subsequently leading toward a recovery, so too is the case for most social issues. The institutionally unequal disparities between black schools and white schools are logically no different.

On March 19, 2010 I witnessed an “interesting” debate surrounding education and charter schools on the vastly mainstream oriented MSNBC morning program, “Morning Joe”. The last 20 minutes of the program featured New York State Senator Bill Perkins ((D) 30th Senate District). Bill Perkins, jurisdiction (within Harlem) is predominately black, as is he. He was engaged in a charter school debate with the conservative blow hard host of the show, former republican congressman Joe Scarborough. Perkins was arguing to the point that Charter Schools (which are mostly publicly funded but privately run) were not the answer towards adequately improving educational standards within Harlem, as well as in the rest America’s communities of color. The always smug and overtly disingenuous Scarborough continually claimed that charter schools were the best answer for black communities to get the education they deserve (we can only imagine what the means). He tried to back up his claims up by selectively picking pieces out of a recent Stanford study on the effectiveness of charter schools. When Perkins pointed out that the same Stanford study contradicted his (Scarborough’s) assertion that charter schools were the panacea to solving the education problem, Scarborough rudely spoke over him. The Stanford study clearly stated charter schools, in general, do not out perform public schools. Almost half of all charter school kids perform at the same level as children enrolled in public schools. And close to 40 percent (37 percent) do worse than public school kids. These are important facts that Joe Scarborough conveniently omitted from his on-air baseless diatribe. Scarborough then, in a clear act of desperation, started to reference people like John Legend and Al Sharpton as individuals who thought that charter schools were a good idea. This was a feeble and asinine way of trying to prove his point. When did they become experts on public education? That crap may work on legions of corporate media’s most faithful viewers but not on the author. I am no fan of corporate “news’ nor am I a fan of programs like “Morning Joe”. Using the playground debate tactics that Scarborough employed he might as well have arbitrarily thrown a couple more random black luminaries to prove his specious argument.

Al Sharpton has clearly shown his willingness to climb into bed with the likes of Arne Duncan (Secretary of Education) and Newt Gingrich (former rightwing congressman) in order to curry favor with Obama and his misguided charter school agenda. One can only imagine what deals were struck behind closed doors to bring that motley crew together. The New York state senator (Perkins) made the most profound statement on “Morning Joe” when he alluded to the fact that white people, in general, are not willing to prescribe charter schools to their own children in their own communities. This was a statement to which Joe Scarborough had no clear rebuttal. He had no significant response because it all boils down to the fact that Joe Scarborough could not give a damn about black youth in America’s socially neglected communities. He could not give a damn about the very real and predatory “school to prison pipeline” strategically set up in many predominately black and brown schools. Scarborough could give a damn about black boys that are routinely (and unjustly) profiled and harassed by the police. And he certain could not give a damn about the prison industrial complex which is destroying black families and communities! All of the aforementioned are irrefutably institutionally racist and have direct and indirect impacts on schools in black and brown communities. He (Scarborough) pushes charter schools for the same reason Arne Duncan (who was appointed by Barak Obama) does; they represent the privatization of public schools as we know it. This is where the neoliberal agenda romantically converges with the neoconservative agenda regarding education. While serving as the CEO of Chicago’s public school system Arne Duncan made a name for himself by turning over the control of predominately black and brown public schools to the military. This is certainly a move he would never try with predominately white schools. Rather than to recruit the expert, experienced pedagogues of our country he fell into the historical trend of bringing on more “muscle” to control blacks and browns…not unlike the managers of slave plantations of yore. His blueprint is to control by dispassionate force rather than to inspire by skilled, empathetic pedagogy.

Endorsing charter schools is the easy way out instead of putting the money and requisite resources into revamping, rebuilding, and adequately funding public education in this country. Privatizing American schools and excluding the masses of black and brown children is simply another way of keeping the institutionally racist status quo in tact. The measures of adequately funding schools are only viable in white “well to do” communities where property taxes and capitalist values play a major role in public school funding, never mind that property tax financing of schools is one of the great injustices hovering over this topic of public education. If this country had even an once of equity, when it came to all children, it would make sure that all public schools, regardless of where they were located, would get equal funding and support. However, since America is firmly situated on a foundation of capitalism, social injustice and racism; the U.S. will continue to place superficial “band-aids” on the deep wounds of an institutionally racist public educational system that plagues black and brown communities.

The dreams of Brown v. Board of Education are just that, dreams. Separate and unequal still rule the day within America’s failing public school system. Failed policies such as No Child Left Behind and unqualified government officials (Arne Duncan who has never spent a minute as a classroom teacher) are continually given the reigns to decide the future of millions of youth of color. Even Diane Ravitch, a former George HW Bush Assistant Secretary of Education, explicitly states the failings of NCLB and the myths of charter schools in her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She has hand an epiphany late in life, but an epiphany nonetheless. Public schools in America need to be approached in a radically different manner that involves more emphasis placed into critical thought as well as comprehension, and not just regurgitation of material that is forced down students’ throats in order to pass statewide standardized tests. An educational system that espouses memorization without comprehension and rote learning without critical thinking only produces robots that will continue to accept whatever it placed before them rather than to question, consider and decide for themselves. But perhaps that is the intent of millennium public education. Robotic thinkers will not challenge and actively resist that same system that makes them robotic in the first place. The curriculum in public schools needs to be revamped and made more culturally relevant, especially in communities of color but likewise among their white counterparts lest millennium white students continue being culturally disadvantaged. And yes, more money needs to be placed into these schools. Its funny that liberal and conservative white politicians will claim that you cannot simply throw money into education and expect it to magically pay off, however when it comes to placing their children in expensive private schools or well funded public schools they have no issue with that. These disingenuous cretins systemically throw trillions of dollars into military aggression that ultimately kills people, however when it comes to investing in the lives of millions of youth, they can’t seem to find any good reason to do so. And now they have a brown skinned man in the White House willing to do their bidding. Obama’s commitment, like his dim witted predecessor (Bush), is to his military expenditure, Wall Street and his corporate handlers. Unfortunately far too many of us cannot see through the façade. The Change You Can Believe In campaign has quickly become The Beliefs You Can Change administration.

Solomon Comissiong is an educator, community activist, author, public speaker and the host of the Your World News radio program (www.blogtalkradio.com/Your-World-News). He may be reached at: solo@yourworldnews.org

Apr 19

Questioning the Dream Act: A Latina Speaks Out

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In a time of xenophobic explosions occurring on a number of fronts in our community it is essential that we defend and stand for one of the critical elements that has been the catalyst for substantial change throughout history, culturally relevant education. Unfortunately, the attacks on ethnic studies are nothing new. Since the inception of this nation one key element that has been deliberately stripped from both indigenous and African people has been the ability/right to education and to preserve one’s cultural history. If the invading Europeans truly did believe that natives and Africans were savages incapable of learning then why did they feel the need to create laws that prevented enslaved Africans from learning to read or laws that forced natives to attend “Indian Schools” where they were indoctrinated with a history told from the perspective of Europeans? Both were systematic means to prevent any form of resistance.

Unfortunately, these times of hegemonic imposition are not of the past. Among many others, the enactment of the Arizona bill banning ethnic studies, HB2281, demonstrates a continuing attack on empowering communities of color through knowledge of self and of their culture. The law bans any ethnic studies course that “promotes the overthrow of the U.S. government, promotes resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals”. However, one cannot avoid noticing that in no way is this law being applied equally. White culture is also an ethnicity, but since it has forcibly become the norm in this country it is not othered as “ethnic”. Meanwhile, history told from a Eurocentric perspective is standardized and goes unquestioned as to whether it is biased.

Without the opportunity to have a more profound and equal understanding of historical facts and events Latinos will continue to have no historical context about our struggles, and thus what they rightfully should demand from this government. From requiring accurate, culturally relevant education, to a return to the original version of the federal DREAM Act, to requiring that the U.S. ends its militarization of sovereign Latin American countries. Instead, the endemic belief that the more we assimilate and compromise will continue to prevail and true freedom for our families here and back home will never materialize.

The mobilization of tens of thousands of young Latinos for the DREAM Act shows the potential, power, courage, and skill that we have in our community. But this movement has also revealed telling notions of the state of our cultural awareness and knowledge of our history. Throughout the development of the DREAM movement I have seen how activists and Latino organizations have opted to take on a patriotic stance as to demonstrate that they have assimilated and will do anything for this country, even to give their lives for corporate interests at the hands of the military.

The irony of the almost unquestioning support for the DREAM act without any regard to how the military provision may militarize Latinos into low-ranking, life threatening positions is that this same military is, in large part, the reason for why we are here as immigrants to begin with. From the Monroe Doctrine to Manifest Destiny the U.S. has used these ideologies to justify intervention after intervention. More telling is the establishment of, the School of the Americas, a military school on Latin American soil designed specifically to train right-wing military personnel to carry out infiltration tactics, torture, and even mass executions against their own people as a means to secure that U.S. companies will have the opportunity to exploit Latin American resources and people’s labor.

From organizing a military coup to murder democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 to providing the Contras in Nicaragua with weapons—to financing the rise of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic; there are no moral limits to the sinister acts of the U.S. military. The same underlying themes that used to invade our homelands (and still do covertly) can be seen in the justification for the involvement in the current wars in the Middle East. Can we as a community, that has already endured such brutal oppression justify participating in such acts against other people of color ? Can we really further sign up our youth to fight in the same military that was responsible for displacing countless Latino youth and their families?

Until the time when our history is equally interjected into the “mainstream” history of this country we must seek ways to create spaces to educate one another on our history that has been purposefully neglected. Only this will allow us to develop the necessary amount of cultural pride, geopolitical understanding and respect for our ancestors that we need to demand what we deserve. The militarization of our youth in the U.S. as well as of our people in Latin America is not justified—and in no way should we settle for anything that permits this. If the numbers of young Latinos that have organized for the DREAM act would demand a return to the original volunteer provision with the condition that if this was not changed they would retract their votes from the Democratic Party (as should be done regardless, http://gp.org/index.php)—-I suspect that our demands would be taken more seriously. After all; interceding in politicians’ money and power is the only way change will truly occur!

Andrea Zamudio

zamudio.andrea@gmail.com

yourworldnews.org

Archive

For April, 2011

US Intervention in Syria – by Stephen Lendman

America’s Terminal Decline – by Stephen Lendman

Palestinian Unity Deal Announced – by Stephen Lendman

Vermonts Gets Single-Payer Health Care! (Who is Next?)

Vermont Gets Health Care Right

Detroit: By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) fights back against school closures and the new Jim Crow

USA’s Human Rights Record (Hyprocrisy of ‘Democracy’)

The War That Never Ended

Charter Schools: The White Man’s Panacea for Education

Questioning the Dream Act: A Latina Speaks Out

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