June 30, 2014

Betrayal

(xposted in Socialist Progressives and E Warren groups):

June 28, 2014

Yesterday: June 27

Today in Labor History: Emma Goldman, IWW, Wagner Act, strike and lockout
by: Special to PeoplesWorld.org
June 27 2014

There were at least five major events in the annals of labor history in the U.S. that occurred on June 27.

(1) On June 27, 1869 Emma Goldman was born in Lithuania. At the age of 17, she came to the United States. Goldman was an early advocate of free speech, birth control, women's equality and independence, and union organization. Her criticism of mandatory conscription of young men into the military during World War I led to a two-year imprisonment, followed by her deportation in 1919 ...

The others are here: http://peoplesworld.org/today-in-labor-history-emma-goldman-iww-wagner-act-strike-and-lockout/

June 26, 2014

Arne Duncan and Special Education -

This is what happens when you let profit be the driver for education in a society. You have buffoons like Duncan "in charge" and you set up both teachers and children for failure -


"We know that when students with disabilities are held to high expectations and have access to a robust curriculum, they excel," Duncan said.

In announcing a new emphasis and "major shift," the U.S. Department of Education will now demand that states show educational progress for students with disabilities.

Arne Duncan announced that, shockingly, students with disabilities do poorly in school. They perform below level in both English and math. No, there aren't any qualifiers attached to that. Arne is bothered that students with very low IQs, students with low function, students who have processing problems, students who have any number of impairments -- these students are performing below grade level.

"We know that when students with disabilities are held to high expectations and have access to a robust curriculum, they excel," Duncan said. (per NPR coverage)

And I'm pretty sure we don't know any such thing. I'm pretty sure that the special needs students in schools across the country are special needs precisely because they have trouble meeting the usual expectations.

There's no question that special needs students require more educational attention than simply being warehoused. And it's true that unnecessarily low expectations are no help to any student. But it is also true that an entire educational sub-specialty, a whole other class of training, has been developed simply to address the challenge of teaching students with special needs.

More here if you can stomach it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-greene/disabilities-testing-education_b_5528835.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000020

June 26, 2014

Every morning -

June 21, 2014

Educating for the Status Quo

Educating for the Status Quo
6.21.14 ~ by Shawn Gude

The Common Core, the education establishment’s cherished set of national educational standards, is under attack.

Glenn Beck and Karen Lewis, state’s rights proponents and Gates critics, anti-standardized testing skeptics right and left — all are lining up to pillory a policy that counts Randi Weingarten, Jeb Bush, and the National Parent Teacher Association among its supporters. Opponents, if one can draw parallels between the grievances of prudish conservatives, militant unionists, and Louis C.K., fret that the Common Core circumscribes creativity and regiments schooling. Conservative detractors are skittish about government indoctrination, lefties about corporate domination.

So severe is the scorn that even the Gates Foundation, a financial backer of the standards, is backpedaling; last week, it said schools should hold off on using test scores to evaluate teachers and promote students until the two-year initial implementation process is complete.

The Common Core debate is important not simply because of the standards’ immediate effects on pupils, but because it offers us an opportunity to ask the biggest questions about our education system: What should be the guiding ethos of public education in a democratic society? What are we preparing students for, other than participation in economic life? And how should schooling be structured to reflect democratic values?

The short answers: Incredulity, not docility, is the trait to inculcate, along with a citizenry disposed to questioning received wisdom and orthodoxy and a less hierarchical teacher-student relationship. In each instance, the Common Core is an impediment ...

much more here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/06/educating-for-the-status-quo-common-core/

June 19, 2014

Sharing Elizabeth Warren Meme for Facebook -

June 18, 2014

A Brazilian Street Artist Speaks to the World -

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_spot/2014/05/20/paulo_ito_world_cup_a_brazilian_street_artist_has_created_the_world_cup.html

June 11, 2014

Rank-and-File Environmentalism

Rank-and-File Environmentalism
6.11.14 - by Trish Kahle (Jacobin)

Labor is often considered hopelessly reactionary on the environment. But democratic unions can fight for both jobs and the planet.



The “jobs versus environment” debate is often seen as a fundamental division between labor and environmentalists, most recently emerging in the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline. Despite dire warnings from scientists about its potentially disastrous environmental impact, the pipeline was endorsed by the AFL-CIO, which justified its decision by citing “job creation.” Estimates range from 5,000-9,000 temporary positions — a drop in the bucket compared to the more than 794,000 unemployed construction workers in the US — and a mere 35 permanent jobs.

Is there any kind of environmental degradation, environmental activists might wonder, unions won’t endorse to secure a small handful of construction jobs?

Jeremy Brecher is right to point in a recent piece to the need for the labor and environmental movements to “evolve toward a common program and a common vision.” To do so, we’ll need to break down the false “jobs versus environment” dichotomy created by capital to obscure the fact that the exploitation of workers and the degradation of the environment go hand in hand ...

More here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/06/rank-and-file-environmentalism/

June 10, 2014

Asian slave labour producing prawns (global shrimp trade)

A six-month investigation has established that large numbers of men bought and sold like animals and held against their will on fishing boats off Thailand are integral to the production of prawns (commonly called shrimp in the US) sold in leading supermarkets around the world, including the top four global retailers: Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco.

Asian slave labour producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK
Thai 'ghost ships' that enslave, brutalise and even kill workers are linked to global shrimp supply chain, Guardian investigation discovers

Kate Hodal, Chris Kelly in Songkhla and Felicity Lawrence
theguardian.com, Tuesday 10 June 2014 07.05 EDT

Slaves forced to work for no pay for years at a time under threat of extreme violence are being used in Asia in the production of seafood sold by major US, British and other European retailers, the Guardian can reveal.

A six-month investigation has established that large numbers of men bought and sold like animals and held against their will on fishing boats off Thailand are integral to the production of prawns (commonly called shrimp in the US) sold in leading supermarkets around the world, including the top four global retailers: Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco.

The investigation found that the world's largest prawn farmer, the Thailand-based Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods, buys fishmeal, which it feeds to its farmed prawns, from some suppliers that own, operate or buy from fishing boats manned with slaves.

Men who have managed to escape from boats supplying CP Foods and other companies like it told the Guardian of horrific conditions, including 20-hour shifts, regular beatings, torture and execution-style killings. Some were at sea for years; some were regularly offered methamphetamines to keep them going. Some had seen fellow slaves murdered in front of them ...

More here: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/10/supermarket-prawns-thailand-produced-slave-labour

http://static.guim.co.uk/ni/1402416727149/shrimp_slavery_done_web2.svg

June 10, 2014

The murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht

The murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
Workers Power - Monday, June 09, 2014

95 years ago, on the night of January 15 1919, two great socialist revolutionaries died. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were brutally murdered by paramilitaries, acting on the orders of the German Social-Democratic government.

Workers Power commemorates the anniversary of Luxemburg and Liebknecht’s death by analyzing their contribution to the Marxist tradition.

At the time of their deaths, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were leaders of the Spartacus group, the Left wing of the German workers’ movement. They had broken from the Social-Democratic Party (SPD) after its betrayal of the 1918 revolution.

In January 1919, the Social-Democratic government of Friedrich Ebert was trying to rebuild a capitalist Germany in tandem with the ruling class. In contrast, Luxembourg and Liebknecht were fighting for a socialist revolution to rid Germany of the corrupt politicians, the warmongering generals, and profiteering capitalists who had led the country into the terrible carnage of the First World War.

Today, Karl and Rosa are remembered as heroes of the Revolution, an inspiration to workers, to youth, to women fighting injustice everywhere. Their writings and their actions are rich in lessons. Their murderers are remembered as those who were prepared to butcher the workers of Berlin to preserve bourgeois rule. Their betrayal of the Revolution led, ultimately, to decades of inequality, terror, and war under the Nazis ...

Much more here: http://www.workerspower.net/the-murder-of-rosa-luxemburg-and-karl-liebknecht