It is just impossible to love the Democratic Party (DNC)

Let's set this straight.  The DNC worked behind the scenes to derail Bernie's campaign.  Then, running Clinton as their candidate, who nobody liked, they proceeded to  the just plain lose to Trump.  This caused untold misery across the country. Then DNC again works behind the scene to derail Ellison who they feared would take control of the offending party away from the "Democratic Establishment".   Knowing just many now see it this way and support the "New Democrats" the DNC uses dirty tricks again to squeak by the vote and hold on to power.  Did I miss anything?  These people are very unpopular and support very bad policy that hurts regular people and could end up insuring that we inherit 50 years of right wing Neo Facist government.  How can they think they can win again?


For more on this fiasco read Glen Greenwald piece below.
FOCUS | Key Question About DNC Race: Why Did Obama White House Recruit Perez to Run Against Ellison?:



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EU and Euro troubles gives the Right an advantage that does not have to be

I will let this blogger speak for himself, but I like France and Europe in general and it will be sad indeed if the stupid, greedy Neo Liberal left continues to set the stage for the rise of the Neo Nazi through continued austerity measures. We are going down this road and Frexit + Neo Nazis eventually becomes a likely outcome.  Trump, Brexit, Farrage, La Pen...it's all related.

"As I said in the past, I’d favor Brexit under a left-wing government, even minus the Euro, the binding agreements that are part of the EU make running a real left-wing government impossible, but under the Conservatives, it’s likely be a fiasco.
However the case for France is a lot stronger, because France isn’t winning under the Euro and hasn’t been for some time. France would be better out of the Euro.  Again, it would be better that it be done by someone other than LePen, but the left has emasculated itself in these debates by refusing to be for nationalism, and thus ceding the anti-EU argument mostly to the right.  (There are some exceptions.)
Frankly, the entire south of Europe should leave the Euro (though not necessarily the EU), and so should France.  It just is not in their interest to stay, at least not if interest means “the interests of most of the population.”
It is a pity that people like LaPen and Farrage are the people filled with passionate conviction, while most of the left swings in the wind pathetically, and the only major left wing leader of conviction, Corbyn, has polls leaving him far far behind the Conservative party. (Though I consider that more an indictment of Britons than Corbyn.)"  Ian Welsh

The Realpolitik of Britain’s Interest In a LePen Victory | Ian Welsh:



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War of Words...Trump uses term "military operations" but realy means tough

The military is highly regarded in this country, and Trump's use of the term "Military Operation" means good and strong and will generally meet with approval by broad popular opinion.  Only the opposition want to get picky about how he chooses his words.  By repeating his words we reinforce his frame and this is a frame which enjoys nearly universal agreement, so we lose.  Stick to what actually happened and how that policy is bad or inhumane or how it causes unintended bad consequences.  Of course that takes more work.



Trump Touts Recent Immigration Raids, Calls Them a 'Military Operation':



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An Abridged Glossary of Corporate Education Reform

Education has been a righteous battlefield for the left since as long as I can remember.  I graduated from the university in 1972.  Reagan was Governor, my starting tuition for a full load quarter was $88 and as you know started skyward thereafter and never stopped.  By June 6th, 1978, nearly two-thirds of California's voters passed Proposition 13 bringing defunding and privatization of public institutions and the financial shit really started to fly.

Given a seemingly impossible mission of promoting anti -teacher propaganda, right wing think tanks and spin doctors achieved the impossible public relations dream in the intervening years.  Public opinion holds schools and teachers to be at fault.  We guzzled the kool-aide.

This is a very brief 10 point primer on the hot button issues, giving facts to dispel myths.  We will need facts now that the alternative-facts President Trump is on the job of putting the final nail in the coffin for public schools. Sample true fact below:

"As New York Times reporter Kate Zernike observed, "The Detroit, Flint and Grand Rapids school districts have among the nation's 10 largest shares of students in charters, and the state sends $1 billion in education funding to charters annually. Of those schools, 80 percent are run by for-profit organizations, a far higher share than anywhere else in the nation."

But Michigan's charter schools have not been as successful as DeVos and others claim, Zernike reports. In 2015, a federal review concluded that the number of charter schools on the list of the state's lowest-performing schools was "unreasonably high." And, according to Education Trust-Midwest: "The majority of charter districts statewide (67 percent) perform worse than Detroit Public Schools among African-American students in 8th Grade Math"

An Abridged Glossary of Corporate Education Reform:
Michigan state's system is a right wing model for these folks so read it and weep.  And then get up and tell the truth to power.

Side note while we are on the subject,  I also believe that compulsory schooling in the service of the machinery of industry is problematic at its root, but that is a much larger, esoteric discussion for another time.

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Trump’s victory speaks to a crumbling liberal order

Chomsky saw this coming 6 years ago when he said:

"If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest, this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I don’t think all this is very far away. If the polls are accurate it is not the Republicans but the right-wing Republicans, the crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election"

Admittedly, "charismatic and honest" doesn't match Trump.  If it did it would be even worse, but this pretty much tells our story and as I said long ago, I am not surprised.

How did this happen we ask in shock?  Well, everyone was so feed up they didn't vote and they didn't have a candidate and white guys were sold a bill of good about jobs and enemies and how they were right to hate.  In his resent article cataloging hopeful projects around the world Michael Meurer sums up the the results:

Alas for their delusions. Trump is the ultimate globalist. He simply wants the world to return to the US-led colonial order of 1950s Eisenhower-era capitalism, albeit under a fascistic cult of personality rather than with an avuncular retired general and war hero as national figurehead. It is a fantasy that will be dissolved by acid reality with unpredictable consequences

One of the unintended consequences that acid reality includes is that we are now talking about the deep state and a coup. David Talbot's SF Chronicle piece "Washington's coup fever heats up" illustrates the cracks in the empire, but such a coup would only serve to cement and consolidate corporate/state power in the very system that brought us to this point, not change the conditions that make the rise of a totalitarian world dominator so inevitable.  Each side of this coin leads to the same place while wearing different clothing. That game is rigged. Unless of course we strip the clothing off, expose the domination beneath it all and change it fundimentally.  The timid need not apply.

Read full article here ROAR Magazine:

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Smart Totalitarianism

Good and broadly researched overview of the extent of mass surveillance, control over policy and public opinion by corporate/state collusion.

Chris Spannos

"Under neoliberalism, state and corporate power have fused to impose new forms of social control, using technology to transform private life into a system of total domination"

This may seem overstated or conspiratorial theory until you read the litany of examples in this article.  Read the full article here ROAR Magazine: also check out their colorful and revolutionary looking back issues.  You will feel better knowing these people are on the case.

The radical Duch publication "Roar" below is funded in part by a Dutch enterprise that is part equity fund, part funder for radical media projects, Democracy and Media Foundation with roots in the 1944 illegal, Dutch resistance newspaper Het Parool




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In Depth Look At the Dark Side of NAFTA For the Mexican People

When I first fought NAFTA in 1993, we said that "free trade" really meant  freedom for multi-national corporations to plunder labor and the environment around the world.  At the time I didn't even know any farmers.


Now, 23 years later I am a farmer of sorts and terms "Know Your Farmer" and "Farm to Table" and "Eat Local" are all in popular usage.  Pick up a magazine and you will see beautiful, young farmers and world class chefs and wonderful food beautifully displayed in delicious full color. It's all so trendy and I could say white and classist.

There was much bluster about US job losses under NAFTA in the 2016 election, but walking along the banks of the Río Santiago in the pueblo of Juanacatlán, Mexico, the larger impact of the agreement immediately becomes a searing reality. One's eyes and skin burn after only a few minutes' exposure to the toxic spray and sulfurous stench as foaming waves of chemical pollution cascade over a once pristine falls known only a few decades ago as the Niagara of Mexico.  Read More 

Lets put two and two together people -- this calls for solidarity across the planet to stop this juggarnaut.  The author Michael Meurer connects a lot of dots and has quite a diverse resume and  is worth following.

Seeding the Future Against Destructive Neoliberal Capitalism:



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Money Talks, especially a whole lot of money from AT&T & Comcast

This is a very sad story about mainstream civil rights groups taking huge amounts of money from corporations in order to support these corporations lobbying efforts. In this case get this the NAACP is promoting the end of net neutrality, go figure

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/41955-civil-rights-groups-funded-by-telecoms-back-donald-trumps-plan-to-kill-net-neutrality

If CNN says it about BDS then it must not be fake news

The CNN report implies that BDS is inspired by Anti Semetic neo nazis. which is truth on its head. Why is CNN spreading fake news about BDS? | The Electronic Intifada:



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OMG ... will they really write a law to fix fake news?

OMG is not an unreasonable response to news of the European establishment's idea of "writing a law" to fix "fake news".  You can see the story for yourself if you want to have your very own Ah Ha moment.. For anyone who has thought many long years on such things (insert Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent here) this is seriously F**ked up and kind of scary. 

Shutting down fake news could move us closer to a modern-day ‘1984’ - The Washington Post:

I have to say this is written by an unlikely pair, a Cato Institute wonk Flemming Rose and a Danish wonk from a group called "Justitia"Jacob Mchangama.  Sample below...definite free speechers. In a nutshell???? Yea, it's more complicated than that and have to wait for another episode. I like Flemming's bumper sticker thought of the day.  If you look closely at the bug in the left hand corner you will crack up.  Good to have a little dark humor because this stuff is not funny.

Childcare Heros Are Playing Key Role in Pushing Change

This story is connected to the sanctuary movement nationwide and most central in communities of color such as in Philadelphia.  However it points to the need for this kind of support in our own communities such as young farmers, and participants from Petaluma in Marches and activist meetings.

“When a radical woman becomes a mother, she often finds herself left behind by her mostly childless peer group,” Victoria Law and China Martens wrote in their preface to the book Don't Leave Your Friends Behind. “Various social justice movements and radical left philosophies challenge us to create personal and social change but often provide no support for mothers who try to do so.”

This is an old story.  As a young radical union activist and single father in the tumult of 1970 at UCSB, we organized, you guested it,  a campus wide child care center.  We should learn from successes of the past.  This article contains a good review of some of these and it could be central to the new sanctuary movement that promises to be a bulwark of new resistance to authoritarianism.

Childcare as movement work is not a new concept, comprising a core element of the popular “survival programs” of the Black Panthers. As Nick Chiles summarizes for the Atlanta Black Star, “The free breakfast for schoolchildren program was set up in Berkeley, California, in 1968 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. It was the first significant community program organized by the Panthers, and perhaps the most well known. By the end of 1969, free breakfast was served in 19 cities, under the sponsorship of the national headquarters and 23 local affiliates. More than 20,000 children received full free breakfast (bread, bacon, eggs, grits) before going to their elementary or junior high school.”

We must build a resistance.

  Childcare Groups Are Playing Key Role in Pushing Change and Fighting Trump | Alternet:



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Inconvienient facts are being scrubbed at federally maintained sites such as EPA and HUD

If You Don’t Use Climate Data, You Lose It:



Scrubbed forever?  You would think that it would be a crime to lose or throw out all the hard, paid for research work, but as Nixon famously said, "if the president does it, it's not a crime."
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