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  • Voting as if a Just Peace Matters

    The 2016 Presidential race again offers us a choice among corporate financed candidates and parties who have demonstrated by word, action and policy their antagonism to Islamic aspirations that we struggle for peace with justice for an ummah which embraces all of Creation. One of them would build a wall to exclude your families from re-uniting here.  The other has built a political career on the bodies of innocents murdered in this nation’s illegal, immoral and imperial wars of aggression, conquest and occupation.

    The Green Party offers a welcoming political home to our immigrant neighbors, and immigrant or not, as well to our Muslim neighbors too often vilified by our nation’s racism and Islamophobia.  Please check us out.

     

  • The Revolution Televised : Episode 1- Awakening of a Generation

    from Write Brain Studio

  • Leaked Deutsche Bank Speech Shows Clinton Asking Wall Street To Police Itself, Supporting US Pivot To Asia

    Originally published at Mint Press News, November 4, 2016

    Clinton’s October 2014 speech to Deutsche Bank was leaked as part of WikiLeaks’ archive of John Podesta’s Gmail account, revealing more of the nominee’s agenda for the financial sector and global affairs.

    MINNEAPOLIS — With just days to go before the election, a two-year-old speech to a prominent global bank provides new insight into Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s possible agenda if she takes control of the White House.

    Clinton delivered the speech on Oct. 7, 2014 to Deutsche Bank in New York, but the content of that speech and an ensuing Q&A session wasn’t made public until WikiLeaks released it as part of the organization’s ongoing publication of emails and files taken from the private Gmail account of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chair.

    Clinton has faced pressure to release her speeches to banking executives throughout her presidential campaign, and particularly while vying for the Democratic nomination against Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who made campaign finance reform a central plank in his presidential platform.

    In her speech, Clinton acknowledged the pressures facing Wall Street in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. She referenced the legacy of President Theodore Roosevelt in calling for moderate economic reforms:

    “Remember what Teddy Roosevelt did. Yes, he took on what he saw as the excesses in the economy, but he also stood against the excesses in politics. He didn’t want to unleash a lot of nationalist, populistic reaction. He wanted to try to figure out how to get back into that balance that has served America so well over our entire nationhood.”

    Roosevelt was known as a “trust buster” who was responsible for breaking up massive corporations, and he was outspoken about his wariness of big banks and wealthy business executives.

    Clinton also acknowledged “that many Americans feel frustrated, some even angry,” about the economic downturn, adding: “And a lot of that anger has been directed at the financial industry.”

    While recognizing the need for reforms, Clinton also seemed to suggest that the financial sector might be allowed to police itself:

    “Today, there’s more that can and should be done that really has to come from the industry itself, and how we can strengthen our economy, create more jobs at a time where that’s increasingly challenging, to get back to Teddy Roosevelt’s square deal. And I really believe that our country and all of you are up to that job.”

    According to one analysis of the speech and related emails, this attempt to acknowledge critics of the banking industry could have been intended as a way to placate Clinton’s critics in the event of the eventual release of the speeches.

    “In an email on November 20, 2015 Clinton speechwriter Dan Schwerin explicitly noted how he left an ‘easter egg’ in the DB speech precisely in case the world came knocking and asking for Hillary’s speeches,” wrote an anonymous contributor at Zero Hedge using the name “Tyler Durden,” a shared pseudonym adopted by many writers at the site, in an analysis of the speech published on Wednesday.

    In the 2015 email, Schwerin wrote:

    “I wrote her a long riff about economic fairness and how the financial industry has lost its way, precisely for the purpose of having something we could show people if ever asked what she was saying behind closed doors for two years to all those fat cats. It’s definitely not as tough or pointed as we would write it now, but it’s much more than most people would assume she was saying in paid speeches. … Perhaps at some point there will be value in sharing this with a reporter and getting a story written.”

    Ultimately, “Tyler Durden” noted, the Clinton campaign opted not to release the speeches.

    Elsewhere in the Deutsche Bank speech, Clinton acknowledged the crucial role big banks will play in Washington’s strategic pivot to Asia. She said:

    “Will we have the discipline and dexterity to follow through on our pivot to Asia where so much of the history of the 21st century will be written, while managing new and old crises in the Middle East and Europe?

    Can we get our relationship with China right, navigating between the twin shoals of excessive accommodation and the potential for dangerous conflict?

    Will our traditional allies in Europe and East Asia step up and share the responsibilities of upholding a global order under pressure from so many fronts?”

    The focus on Asia, started under the Obama administration and likely to continue under Clinton, if her speech is any indication, involves encircling China with economic and military allies as a way to undercut China’s growing global influence. However, some historic allies like the Philippines have begun to push back against U.S. influence in the region.

    Many analysts see the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a controversial trade deal, as a key element to the U.S. pivot to Asia. While initially supportive of the deal, Clinton now promises to oppose the TPP as president after facing intense pressure from Sanders and activists opposed to the deal.

  • ‘Anti-Establishment’ Trump Plans to Appoint Goldman Sachs and George Soros Insiders

    “I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton.”

    By Claire Bernish @Subversive_Pen | published at Mint Press News, November 4, 2016

    Contrary to his anti-establishment stance — which supporters readily boast as a viable alternative to Hillary Clinton — Donald Trump’s establishment roots run so deep, the billionaire real estate mogul plans to appoint a former Goldman Sachs partner and George Soros Fund manager as Secretary of the Treasury should he win the election.

    Steve Mnuchin came on board Trump’s campaign as finance chair in May, raising eyebrows of many who felt his 17-year history with Sachs — and affiliation with liberal globalist George Soros as an Investment Professional of Soros Fund Management — conflicted directly with the then-presumptive nominee’s conservative stance and criticisms of establishment politicians.

    “It is difficult to see how a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner would secure such a prominent position in an administration delivered by a populist wind,” Compass Point analyst Isaac Boltansky toldPolitico of Trump’s curious choice for Treasury Secretary.

    According to Fox Business Network, Trump’s confidence in winning the White House has fomented enough to begin picking Cabinet members, and besides the anomalous choice of Mnuchin for the Treasury, sources said he’s considering New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for Attorney General and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for Homeland Security Secretary.

    Trump has, of course, expended great efforts in criticizing opponent Hillary Clinton’s deep ties to the banking and Wall Street elite; and prior to garnering the Republican nomination, extended that critique to competitor Ted Cruz, saying in one debate:

    “I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton.”

    Zero Hedge noted when Trump hired the left-leaning hedge fund manager and financier as finance chair that Mnuchin had previously donated multiple times to various Democrats, including Barack Obama and none other than Hillary Clinton.

    Further substantiating his establishing banking insider status — the precise profile Trump claims publicly to loathe — Mnuchin worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years, headed OneWest Bank prior to its purchase by CIT Group in 2015, and now sits on CIT’s board while also serving as chairman and chief executive of Dune Capital Management, a private investment firm with a focus on financing big-time Hollywood movies, like “Avatar.”

    If Mnuchin’s Wall Street ties don’t trouble Trump’s supporters enough, the hedge fund manager’s links to George Soros — an ardent Clinton fan — certainly will.

    In fact, in terms of opposition, Soros has spent billions influencing global politics by inserting his brand of leftism wherever possible — and earlier this year even pledged, with others, some $15 million specifically to mobilize Latinos and immigrants to defeat Donald Trump.

    “Steven is a professional at the highest level with an extensive and very successful financial background,”Trump said upon bringing Mnuchin into his campaign. “He brings unprecedented experience and expertise to a fundraising operation that will benefit the Republican Party and ultimately defeat Hillary Clinton.”

    Indeed, Trump’s campaign, quoted by the Daily Caller, said Mnuchin “has previously worked with Mr. Trump in a business capacity and brings his expertise in finance to what will be an extremely successful fundraising operation for the Republican Party.”

    While business dealings certainly bring ordinarily clashing personalities into contact on occasion, these details about the relationship between Trump and Mnuchin evidence the former’s links to the left.

    Despite the nominee’s many diatribes excoriating Hillary Clinton as out-of-touch with the American populace, Trump’s own status as a billionaire belies both their decades-old friendship and striking similarities — particularly as darlings of the establishment.

    Should you choose to vote on the 8th, it would be prudent to keep in mind blustery campaign rhetoric — from any politician — only constitutes so much hot air.

    This article originally appeared on The Free Thought Project. 

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  • Fighting Ghost Fascists While Aiding Real Ones

    by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

    An architect of regime-change, coups, no-fly zones, rule of the rich and mass incarceration is about to become Commander-in-Chief, yet the bulk of what passes for the Left is “engaged in a 1930s-style ‘united front’ against a ‘fascism’ that was never a threat in 21st century America.” Donald Trump, the orange menace, didn’t have a chance of becoming president. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is a 21st century fascist and threat to life on Earth.

    Fighting Ghost Fascists While Aiding Real Ones

    by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

    Originally published at Black Agenda Report on October 26, 2016

    “Trump’s anti-“free trade” stance and opposition to regime change and military confrontation with Russia and China drove most of the Republican-allied section of the ruling class straight into Hillary Clinton’s imperial Big Tent.”

    Hillary Clinton’s impending — and totally predictable — landslide victory on November 8 will prove only that there never was any danger of a “fascist” white nationalist takeover of the U.S. executive branch of government in 2016. That was always a red (or “orange”) herring, a phony “barbarians at the gate” threat that — as Wikileaks documents confirmed — John Podesta and Hillary’s other handlers fervently hoped would convey “lesser evil” status to their manifestly unpopular candidate.

    There was nothing particularly devious or out of the ordinary in the Hillary camp’s favoring Donald Trump or, alternatively, Ted Cruz. It is standard Democratic Party practice to position themselves just to the left of the Republicans. In a duopoly electoral system, victory lies in where the cake is cut. By hugging close to the GOP’s flanks, national Democratic candidates can lay claim to a “center-left” spectrum of political space that encompasses a clear majority of U.S. public opinion on most issues. By this calculus, Democrats are supposed to win, unless they are tripped up on the closely related issues of race (failure to “stand up” to the Blacks) and foreign policy (failure to “stand up” to whoever is the designated foreign enemy).

    Race is the trickiest part of the equation, since white supremacy is embedded in the American political conversation, hiding just beneath the surface of most discourse on social and economic policy.

    “His overt racism probably weakened his appeal to whites.”

    Trump thought he could win by combining an overt white racist appeal with an anti-corporate message that laid the blame on Wall Street for (white) American job losses and falling living standards. He also calculated — correctly, it turns out — that in the wake of the 2008 economic meltdown, many white Americans were more upset about their own economic and social status than they were angry at Russians; that they wanted regime change at home more than abroad.

    Both of Trump’s central policies backfired, dooming his campaign. His overt racism probably weakened his appeal to whites, who have given majorities to national Republicans since 1968 but whose self-image is that they are not, as individuals, racist. (Certainly, white women found further reason to reject his candidacy.) Much more spectacularly, Trump’s anti-“free trade” stance and opposition to regime change and military confrontation with Russia and China drove most of the Republican-allied section of the ruling class straight into Hillary Clinton’s imperial Big Tent.

    At the national level, the duopoly system, as we had known it, virtually ceased to exist – a fact dramatically driven home by the near-universal corporate media rejection of Donald Trump, the candidacy they had done so much to create. The near-collapse of the duopoly system was the great fracture of the 2016 election, a potential historic opening to a far wider space of progressive political struggle, including on the moribund electoral level. With the ruling class gathered in one Big Tent, and the overt racists occupying the imploded shell of the GOP, the system itself was in disarray. What was once two vibrant parties of the ruling class, with a virtual monopoly on the totality of the electorate, had become one ruling class party plus a hollowed-out husk, at least temporarily occupied by white nationalists under the leadership of a narcissistic and incoherent billionaire, yet without enough funds to mount a competitive general election campaign.

    “The near-collapse of the duopoly system was the great fracture of the 2016 election.”

    In these pages, we had been saying since last year that Donald Trump could not win; that Bernie Sanders’ fate would be sealed in the southern primaries; and that, although ruling class money would insure Clinton an election by landslide, it could not buy her legitimacy among a significant section of the Democratic “base,” who would now be pushed to the latrine area of her Big Tent. As we wrote on May 18 of this year:

    “Outsized fear of Trump is hysteria. These days, the ‘brown shirts’ wear blue. Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street, War and Austerity – not Trump, the racist America Firster. And, he can’t win, anyway – not with tens of millions of ‘moderate’ Republicans and most of the party’s funders rushing into Hillary’s welcoming embrace.”

    But sadly, hysteria does reign in most of the “left” precincts of America. Those who did not hesitate to kick Hillary when she appeared to be “down” — in those heady days when they imagined it was possible she could lose to Sanders — are terrified to kick her when she is “up” and primed to take the helm of the hyper-power. They are engaged in a 1930s-style “united front” against a “fascism” that was never a threat in 21st century America, where a different kind of dictatorship of the rich (but also a fascism) has made brown-shirts (and Klansmen) utterly superfluous. These trembling leftists refuse to oppose the modern manifestation of fascism, which is now firmly entrenched in power with Hillary as its champion, in favor of a crusade against an “orange” menace that did not have a ghost of a chance of seizing national power. They have made themselves perfectly irrelevant and useless — except, of course, to the fascists-in-charge.

    BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

  • Freedom Rider: Ignoring Angela Davis

    by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

    How low the icon has fallen. Angela Davis diminished herself and denounced her own history when she endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and in 2012, claiming the corporate imperial Democrat was part of the “black radical tradition.” Davis now signals she’s in Clinton’s corner, and smears independent voters as “narcissists.” Who will “Free Angela” from her shameful servitude to the Democratic Party?

    Freedom Rider: Ignoring Angela Davis

    by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

    Originally published at Black Agenda Report on 10/04/2016

    “She is no better than Democratic party scoundrels who point at Trump’s low hanging racist fruit while simultaneously cutting deals with ruling elites.”

    There is nothing more revealing than passive voice and tortured syntax. One-time left wing icon Angela Davis demonstrated as much when she said she may vote for Hillary Clinton. Her actual words, “I’m not so narcissistic to say that I wouldn’t vote for her,” indicate some embarrassment with a bit of defensiveness thrown in for good measure. If Ms. Davis finds it difficult to be straightforward and say she is voting for Hillary then perhaps she ought to rethink her decision.

    Everyone who rejects Hillary Clinton risks being smeared as a narcissist, a nihilist or a Trump loving Putinite. The Democratic party, their friends in the corporate media, and the black misleaders have banded together so well that only those with the strongest convictions will defy the Clinton campaign slogan and announce they are decidedly not “with her.”

    It would have been easy for Davis to say that she hadn’t decided yet or that she is ambivalent or to give a reason why she finds Clinton lacking or take the easy way out and use Trump as an excuse. Instead she used a tired argument that ought to be rejected out of hand by a person of her stature. She joined in castigating those who don’t follow the Democrats into an endless loop of betrayal and disappointment. She didn’t use the discredited words lesser evil, but she may as well have.

    “Her 2010 statement that ‘Obama won despite the power of money’ was equally bizarre.”

    It is difficult to convey to younger generations what Angela Davis meant to black people and to everyone who fought for liberation. When she was wanted by the FBI and tried for murder in 1972 she was the ultimate hero, one of the last of that era and one of the few to emerge unscathed. The cry, “Free Angela” and her image were ubiquitous as was the demand for her freedom. After her acquittal she did not give an inch. She denounced the United States prison system, then a shell of what it is now, never shrank from calling herself a Marxist and spoke against injustice practiced here and around the world. She twice ran for vice president on the Communist Party USA ticket and could be counted on to fiercely criticize of this nation’s policies.

    But Barack Obama seems to have cast the same spell on Davis that he has on the rest of black America. She denounced her own history when she endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and in 2012 she not only supported him again but claimed that he was part of the “black radical tradition.” The lie is so grotesque that it is difficult to know if she was really thinking when she said those words. Nor was that her first foolish remark uttered on behalf of Obama.  Her 2010 statementthat “Obama won despite the power of money” was equally bizarre. Barack Obama set fund raising records in his presidential campaign. Ms. Davis aided and abetted his marketing ploy which gave the appearance of a people-based movement when in fact he perfected the art of creating a record breaking campaign war chest.

    It is sad that Davis continues to devolve politically before our eyes, it is even worse that she attacks those who are still ready to fight back against neo-liberalism and imperialism. If she is willing to vote for Hillary Clinton she should just say so. But she felt compelled to get in her own dig at independent thinkers with the “narcissist” label. She is no better than Democratic party scoundrels who point at Trump’s low hanging racist fruit while simultaneously cutting deals with ruling elites.

    “She joined in castigating those who don’t follow the Democrats into an endless loop of betrayal and disappointment.”

    Angela Davis has gone down this slippery slope in part because of the weaknesses of the black left. Many who once proudly proclaimed that identity succumbed to the siren song of the black face in the high place or took the path of least resistance out of expediency and rank cynicism.

    Fortunately Davis’s words were roundly criticized. Only those who feel a now undeserved loyalty defended the foolishness. Davis was not given a pass by most commentators and that is a good thing. The millions of people who thought seriously and decided not to vote for Hillary Clinton deserve more than to be dismissed with name calling. Their day has arrived. The illogical words coming from a once venerable figure are proof of desperation.

    The so-called narcissists have thrown down the gauntlet to the democratic party. Famous former leftists can’t put the genie back in the bottle. The democratic party can no longer depend on silence and fear to keep their former voters in line. They have seen too much and won’t even be intimidated by the thought of a Trump presidency. Angela Davis’s day has passed. The narcissists aren’t listening any more.

    Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as athttp://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

  • New Layers of Dirt on Charter Schools

    by Paul Buchheit

    Despite ever mounting evidence to the contrary, corporate media and corporate-bought politicians continue to proclaim the superiority of charter schools. Meanwhile, “nearly 2,500 charter schools closed their doors from 2001 to 2013, leaving over a quarter million kids temporarily without a school.” The New Orleans school privatization experiment has clearly failed, as has Detroit. Yet, the charter myth persists, backed by big money and lies.

    New Layers of Dirt on Charter Schools

    by Paul Buchheit

    This article previously appeared in CommonDreams.

    “Charter schools have turned our children into the products of businesspeople.”

    An earlier review identified the “Three Big Sins of Charter Schools”: Fraud, a Lack of Transparency, and the Exclusion of Unwanted Students. The evidence against charters continues to grow. Yet except for its reporting on a few egregious examples of charter malfeasance and failure, the mainstream media continues to echo the sentiments of privatization-loving billionaires who believe their wealth somehow equates to educational wisdom.

    The Wall Street Journal, in its misinformed way, says that the turnaround of public schools requires “increasing options for parents, from magnet to charter schools.” Wrong. As the NAACPaffirms, our nation needs “free, high-quality, fully and equitably-funded public education for all children.” For ALL children, not just a select few.

    The NAACP has called for a moratorium on charter schools. And Diane Ravitch makes a crucial point: “Would [corporate reformers] still be able to call themselves leaders of the civil rights issue of our time if the NAACP disagreed with their aggressive efforts to privatize public schools?”

    Here are the 4 Big Sins of Charter Schools, updated by a surge of new evidence:

    1. Starve the Beast

    Corporate-controlled spokesgroups ALEC, US Chamber of Commerce, and Americans for Prosperity are drooling over school privatization and automated classrooms, with a formula described by The Nation: “Use standardized tests to declare dozens of poor schools ‘persistently failing’; put these under the control of a special unelected authority; and then have that authority replace the public schools with charters.” But as aptly expressed by Jeff Bryant, “As a public school loses a percentage of its students to charters, the school can’t simply cut fixed costs for things like transportation and physical plant proportionally…So instead, the school cuts a program or support service.”

    It’s an insidious and ongoing process, aided and abetted by business-friendly mainstream media outlets, to convince Americans that “every family for itself” is better than the mutual support and cooperation of a public school system.

    2. Cream and Segregate and Discard

    Urban charter schools primarily enroll low-income minority students. That seems admirable upon first reflection, but selective admissions of the best students from ANY community will make an individual school look good, leading to the belief that the concept will work on a larger scale. Success is much harder to achieve if a school accommodates special needs and English-learner students.

    Numerous sources reveal the high degree of segregation in charter schools — white or black, and by income and special need.

    As expressed in the report “Failing the Test,” “School choice is just that — except that charter schools are doing the choosing instead of communities.”

    It gets worse. Prominent New York charter network Success Academy has been accused of“counseling out” students who are low-performing or disruptive or otherwise difficult to teach. Even worse are charters that shut down, stranding hundreds of students, while their business operators can just move on to their next project. Nearly 2,500 charter schools closed their doors from 2001 to 2013, leaving over a quarter of a million kids temporarily without a school.

    3. Scream ‘Public’ to Get Tax Money, Plead ‘Private’ to Hide Salary Data

    Charter schools are increasingly run by private companies, or by private trusts. The National Labor Relations Board affirms that charters are private, not public.

    As private entities, they are unregulated and lacking in transparency, and, as concluded by theCenter for Media and Democracy, they have become a “black hole” into which the federal government has dumped an outrageous $3.7 billion over two decades with little accountability to the public.

    4. Engage in “Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and Mismanagement”

    That’s how the Center for Popular Democracy describes charter performance in 2015, during which the schools wasted an estimated $1.4 billion of taxpayer money. The fraud is far-reaching, with examples from around the country:

    The Department of Education audited 33 charter schools and concluded: “We determined that charter school relationships with CMOs (charter management organizations) posed a significant risk to Department program objectives.”

    In California, charter performance is so poor that even the National Association of Charter Authorizers is calling on the state to better control the authorization of such schools. At present, there are almost no restrictions on opening a charter school, and existing schools are restrictive in their enrollment policies.

    Because of charters, Michigan cities have lost nearly half (46.5%) of their revenue over the past 10 years. Detroit, which is surpassed only by New Orleans in the number of charter students,half of the charter schools perform only as well as, or worse than, traditional public schools. A federal study found an “unreasonably high” number of charters among the lowest-rated public schools in the state.

    In Louisiana, according to the Center for Popular Democracy, “charter schools have experienced millions in known losses from fraud and financial mismanagement so far, which is likely just the tip of the iceberg.”

    According to PR Watch, Florida “has one of the worst records in the nation when it comes to fraud and lack of charter school oversight.” Texas has an unknown number of charters housed in churches. Nine charters in Washington remain open despite being declared unconstitutional by the state’s Supreme Court.

    Ohio might be worst of all. Since the 2006-07 school year, 37 percent of the state’s charter schools receiving federal grants have either closed or never opened. An Ohio newspaper reported, “No sector – not local governments, school districts, court systems, public universities or hospitals – misspends tax dollars like charter schools in Ohio.”

    The Big Picture

    Despite student selection advantages, charter schools generally perform no better than public schools, according to the most recent CREDO study and as summarized by the nonpartisan Spencer Foundation and Public Agenda: “There is very little evidence that charter and traditional public schools differ meaningfully in their average impact on students’ standardized test performance.” As for technology-based schools, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools admits that “The well-documented, disturbingly low performance by too many full-time virtual charter public schools should serve as a call to action to state leaders and authorizers across the country.”

    Charter schools have turned our children into the products of business people. Americans need to know how important it is to get the profit motive out of education, and to provide all our children the same educational opportunities.

    Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of “American Wars: Illusions and Realities” (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

  • US Cyber-War Is Against Wikileaks, Not Russia

    by SREĆKO HORVAT

    Originally published at CounterPunch Oct 3, 2016

    When the ruling class is in panic, their first reaction is to hide the panic.

    They react out of cynicism: when their masks are revealed, instead of running around naked, they usually point the finger at the mask they wear. These days the whole world could witness a postmodern version of the infamous quote “Let them eat cake”, attributed to Marie-Antoinette, queen of France during the French Revolution.

    As a reaction to WikiLeaks publishing his emails, John Podesta, the man behind Hillary Clinton’s campaign, posted a photo of a dinner preparation, saying “I bet the lobster risotto is better than the food at the Ecuadorian Embassy”.

    A similar version of vulgar cynicism emerged earlier this month when Hillary Clinton reacted to the claim that she reportedly wanted to “drone” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (“Can’t we just drone this guy?”) when she was the US Secretary of State. Instead of denying her comments, Clinton said that she doesn’t recall any such joke, “It would have been a joke if it had been said, but I don’t recall that”.

    One doesn’t have to read between the lines to understand that if Hillary Clinton had said that, she would have considered it a joke. But when emperors joke, it usually has dire consequences for those who are the objects of their “humor.”

    Cyber-war Not with Russia…but WikiLeaks

    During the last few months I have visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London several times and each time I came out of the Embassy, where he is spending his fifth year in political asylum under legitimate fear he might be extradited to the US, my thought was the following one: although he lives, without his family, in a postmodern version of solitary confinement (even prisoners are allowed to walk for up to one hour a day), although he has no access to fresh air or sunlight for more than 2000 days, although the UK government recently denied him safe passage to a hospital for an MRI scan, if his access to the internet would be cut off this would be the most severe attack on his physical and mental freedom.

    The last time I saw him, which was only two weeks ago, he expressed the fear that, because he had already published leaks concerning US elections and with more to come, the US might find various ways to silence him, including pressuring Ecuador or even shutting down the internet.

    What seemed a distant possibility only two weeks ago, soon became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    When the Obama administration recently announced that it is, as Biden said, planing an “unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia”, the first victim was not Putin, but precisely Julian Assangewhose internet was cut off just a day after Biden’s self-contradictory proclamation.

    No wonder Edward Snowden reacted immediately by saying that “nobody told Joe Biden what ‘covert operation’ means.

    According to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, a covert operation is “an operation that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor.”

    It is no secret anymore that the Ecuadorian government has come under extreme pressure since Assange leaked the Democratic National Committee email database. We don’t know yet whether the US pressured Ecuador to shut down the internet, but it is clear that the present US government and the government to come is fighting a war with WikiLeaks which is all but “covert”. Is it really a coincidence that Julian Assange’s internet access was cut off shortly after publication of Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches?

    If at the beginning we still had a “soft” version of postmodern McCarthyism, with Hillary calling everyone opposed to her campaign a Russian spy (not only Assange, but also Donald Trump and Jill Stein), then with Obama’s recent intervention it became more serious.

    With Obama’s threat of a cyber-war, the “soft” McCarthyism didn’t only acquire geopolitical significance, but at the same time a new mask was revealed: Obama is obviously trying to cement the public debate and make the Russian threat “real”, or at least to use it as a weapon in order to help Clinton to get elected. Moreover, this new twist in something that has already become much more than only US elections (US elections are never only US elections!), shows not only how Obama is ready to strengthen Hillary’s campaign, but it also reveals that a cyber war is already in the making.

    It is not a cyber war with Russia, but with WikiLeaks.

    And it is not the first time.

    What would Clausewitz say?

    In 2010, when the Collateral Murder video was published, the Afghan and Iraq war logs were released, and we witnessed one of the most sinister attacks on freedom of speech in recent history. VISA, Mastercard, Diners, American Express and Paypal imposed a banking blockade on WikiLeaks, although WikiLeaks had not been charged with any crime at either state, federal or international level. So if the US government successfully convinced payment companies representing more than 97% of the global market to shut down an independent publisher, why wouldn’t they pressure Ecuador or any other state or company to cut off the internet?

    The US is not only rhetorically trying to “get” Assange (it is worth to check out the Assassinate Assange video for evidence of the verbal masturbation of US officials), he poses a serious threat to the major elite factions in the US to remain in power. No wonder panic is rising in the US, which is now going even so far that a 16-year-old boy in Britain has been arrested on criminal charges related to the alleged hacking of email accounts used by CIA director John Brennan, which WikiLeaks published in October 2016.

    What WikiLeaks obviously successfully challenged–and maybe one day (“history is written by the victors”, remember?) it will be learned in military strategy– is what the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz would call the “centre of gravity” (Schwerpunkt), which is the “central feature of the enemy’s power”.

    Instead of speaking about the Russians, we should start speaking about the Schwerpunkt of the actual leaks, their real essence. Just take the following quotes by Hillary Clinton exposed by WikiLeaks, which reveal her true nature and the politics behind her campaign: “We are going to ring China with missile defence”, “I want to defend fracking” and climate change environmentalists “should get a life”, “you need both a public and a private position”, “my dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders”.

    What WikiLeaks has shown is not only that Hillary is a hawkish war-monger, first it was Libya (over 1,700 of the 33,000 Clinton emails published by WikiLeaks reference Libya), then it was Syria (at a Goldman Sachs conference she explicitly stated she would like to intervene in Syria), tomorrow it will be another war.

    It is now clear – and this is the real “centre of gravity” where we should focus our attention – that the future Clinton cabinet may already been filled with Wall Street people like Obama’s was. No wonder WikiLeaks revelations create utter panic not only in the Democratic Party itself but also the Obama administration.

    One question remains, isn’t WikiLeaks, by leaking all these dirty secrets, influencing the US elections? Yes, it certainly is, but the current criticism misses its point: isn’t the very point of organisations such as WikiLeaks to publish the material they have and to influence public opinion?

    The question should finally be turned around: isn’t the US mainstream media the one influencing the US elections? And isn’t Obama, by announcing a cyber-war with Russia, influencing the elections?

    WikiLeaks is not only influencing the US elections, but transforming the US elections – as they should have been from the very beginning – into a global debate with serious geopolitical consequences at stake. What WikiLeaks is doing is revealing this brutal fight for power, but, as the old saying goes, “when a wise man points at the Moon, the idiot looks at the finger”. Instead of looking at the finger pointing to Russia, we should take a look at the leaks themselves.

    If democracy and transparency means anything today, we should say: let them leak!

    Join the debate at CounterPunch’s page on Facebook

    Srećko Horvat is a philosopher and activist. He is co-author, with Slavoj Žižek, of What Does Europe Want? (Columbia University Press, 2014) and author of The Radicality of Love (Polity Press, 2015). Together with Yanis Varoufakis he co-created the movement DiEM 25. https://diem25.org/

  • Georgia’s Governor Wants To Turn His Public Schools Into Post Katrina New Orleans

    by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

    An utterly cynical and deceptively marketed constitutional amendment is on the ballot in Georgia. It’s called the “Opportunity School District” because it’s about creating business opportunities for the charter school sugar daddies who contribute to the governor. Elite Republicans and Democrats too from the First Black President down to local mayors all want school privatization, so they’ve disguised their privatization amendment as something else entirely.

    Originally published at Black Agenda Report on September 21, 2016

    Georgia’s Governor Wants To Turn His Public Schools Into Post Katrina New Orleans

    A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

    There’s a constitutional amendment on the ballot in Georgia this November. The word voters will see on their machines election day read thusly:

    “Amendment #1: Provides greater flexibility and state accountability to fix failing schools through increasing community involvement.

    “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow the state to intervene in chronically failing public schools in order to improve student performance?”

    It’s Georgia Governor Nathan Deal’s cynically misnamed “Opportunity School District” or OSD, the latest atrocity in the bipartisan right wing drive to privatize public education in the United States.

    The so-called “Opportunity School District,” as its corporate funded multimillion dollar advertising campaign calls it, empowers the governor, through an agency he appoints, to decide what schools are “failing”, usually by low scores on standardized tests. It authorizes the closing of a hundred Georgia public schools, almost entirely in black Georgia.

    The governor then gets to fire up a virtual school district stretching across the entire state, a district in which he alone appoints all the officials on whatever basis at what ever salary suits him. OSD lets the governor create up to a hundred new charter schools in his virtual district to eat the funds which used to go to those public schools. The new OSD charter schools will make fortunes for their investors and contractors, who have already and will continue to donate generously to the governor and his friends. OSD’s charter schools will only be responsible to their own boards and investors, and of course the governor.

    There is no “flexibility” or “community involvement” whatsoever. It’s simple school privatization. OSD will strip locally elected school boards, along with parents, teachers and communities of any and all rights to control their schools and the educational destiny of their children.

    The only opportunity in Governor Deal’s opportunity school district is a business opportunity for his friends, not an educational opportunity for our children.

    The leading candidate to head this contraption is said to be Illinois Democrat Paul Vallas, who shredded the public schools of Chicago and Philly before being named the first head of the post-Katrina New Orleans Recovery School District, an all charter operation created when one-percenters closed all 127 New Orleans public schools. So it’s not metaphor when we say Governor Deal wants to turn Georgia’s schools into those of post-Katrina New Orleans.

    Some Democrats DO oppose, though they only criticize Republican privatizers, not Democrats. Some Republicans oppose it too, because OSD will strip locally elected school boards of any semblance of control over the educational futures of children. But the most powerful politicians of both parties do want school privatization. They just don’t like to use p-word, it has “high negatives.” So their privatization amendment is on the ballot, nicely wrapped up to look like something else entirely.

    Unlike Democrats and Republicans, many of whom are deep in the pockets of charter school sugar daddies, the Green Party is the only political party which unequivocally opposes school privatization in general and the OSD in particular. If the amendment passes, it will be the biggest set of school closures since Katrina, and Chicago a few years back when Rahm Emanuel shut down 50 schools at once. The eyes of the nation, for a little while will be on Georgia.

    For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter.

    Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and the co-chair of the GA Green Party. He lives and works near Marietta GA and can be reached via email at bruce.dixon@blackagendareport.com.

  • Hillary’s Family Ties to School Privatizers, and Diane Ravitch’s Review of Hoosier School Heist

    By Doug Martin at Hoosier School Heist Blog, and Diane Ravitch

    Originally published at dianeravitch.net in July 2015

    Last week the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy, without consulting more than a token slice of the union’s membership. It’s hard not to know that AFT leaders have turned their backs on teachers and thrown in with the privatizing politicians and consultants. Hillary too has her own family ties to school privatizers.

    Hillary’s Family Ties to School Privatizers, and Diane Ravitch’s Review of Hoosier School Heist

    By Doug Martin at Hoosier School Heist Blog, and Diane Ravitch

    1. Hillary and the Privatizers

    A while back, Hillary Clinton, speaking the talk of the working class as all Wall Street DC Democrats do, lashed out at top hedge fund managers for “making more than all of America’s kindergarten teachers combined.”  Hillary’s statement was mere deception. Not because it wasn’t the truth; but because Hillary happens to love hedge fund managers and banksters.

    Hedge fund managers seek to privatize education and steal pensions from teachers, as I detail in my bookHoosier School Heist, and wipe out what is left of the middle class.  And Hillary is all about that.

    In fact, Hillary’s son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky, is a hedge fund manager.  His fund, Eaglevale Partners, recently lost a little money in Greece, a country which cannot pay back loans to billionaires, banksters, and hedge fund managers who have set in place legalized stealing in the form of disaster capitalism.

    One of the chief structures behind disaster capitalism across the planet is the World Bank, which Hillary once wanted to lead.

    As a New York Times piece noted, Eaglevale Partners is a “fund that makes trades based on global economic and political events.” Several investors in Hillary’s son-in-law’s hedge fund, as the New York Times alsopointed out, have ties to the Clintons and have even funded Hillary’s campaign chest. Goldman Sachs is one of these.  As of November 2010, Goldman Sachs, through its Charter School Loan Facility, was funding 130 charter schools across the US.  Hillary’s son-in-law was once a Goldman Sachs employee.

    As for Bill?  Bill Clinton has been behind the for-profit charter school movement since its inception, as many now know. Last year, he even spoke at a Nashville charter school operated by one of Chelsea’s old college sweethearts.

    Recently an outfit spreading charter schools in India was honored at the Clinton Global Initiative, and MarcMezvinsky, Clinton’s hedge fund son-in-law, was there for the photo-op.

    Disaster capitalism is the leading force behind the assault on public schools.  And be sure that Hillary, hedge fund managers, Goldman Sachs, and Randi Weingarten will help further its agenda.

    DC is a lost cause.  And so are the teachers unions. Sleep good at night. Focus your energy on the state level and make plans for a real revolution, before global warming kills us all off.

    Doug Martin is the author of Hoosier School Heist : How Corporations and Theocrats Stole Democracy From Public Education, a book being read in over 130 cities and towns and 78 Indiana counties, 23 states, and the District of Columbia.  A regular guest on national and Indiana radio talk shows such as Justin Oakley’s Just Let Me Teach and Amos Brown’s Afternoons with Amos, Dr. Martin’s research has been or will soon be featured in the Washington Post Answer Sheet , ABC’sNightline, and the Associated Press. 

    2. Diane Ravitch, review of Hoosier School Heist

    Every so often, I run into someone who says that he or she cannot take seriously the claim that there is such a thing as a “privatization” movement. They think that charter schools are public schools (I do not) and they scoff at any concern about for-profit schools. They say things like, “There have always been for-profit businesses in education, selling tests, textbooks, supplies, etc., why does it matter if some corporations run schools for profit?” In their eyes, corporate reform is innovative and risky, and no one—not even the for-profit corporations—is trying to privatize public education.

    To anyone who questions the existence of the privatization movement, I recommend Doug Martin’s “Hoosier School Heist.” Martin is a blogger who holds a Ph.D. in nineteenth century American literature. He is a native of Indiana who is deeply versed in that state’s school politics and its major (and minor) players. His book is eye-opening; actually, his book is eye-popping. It is a no-holds-barred critique of Indiana’s politically and financially powerful privatization movement.

    Martin’s critique shows the linkages among the free-marketeers, the Religious Right, and the greedy.

    A few examples of his snappy style:

    “Academic progress is irrelevant to voucher supporters, for the goal is not to improve schools through competition, as they claim, but to completely dismantle traditional public schools altogether. In fact, those calling for school privatization don’t want to hold anyone with profit motives accountable, as Florida has proven.”

    He recognizes that vouchers and charters drain funding from public schools, leaving the latter with fewer teachers, fewer aides, fewer programs—“so for-profit education management companies can take them over with temporary teachers or justify starting charter schools by deeming the neighborhood schools as ‘failing.’”

    He sees why Wall Street is involved in the charter industry. “Making money from disasters is a Wall Street specialty, and investors have jumped on the opportunity for school privatization. Besides generating tax-exempt bonds, stocks, and other shady financial gimmicks, school privatization allows big bank CEOs, private equity firm honchos, and hedge fund managers to collect interest on loans to non-unionized charter schools which employ a temporary teacher workforce….Unlike traditional public school boards, charter school boards are unelected, undemocratic, and cloaked in mystery. Their conflicts of interest enable schemes like high rent to waste public education money.”

    Martin challenges the corporate-sponsored claims that the public schools are failing to produce a good workforce. He says that Indiana’s newspapers and TV stations “advertise corporate school talking points, portray front group spokespeople as ‘experts,’ and seldom, if ever, question that profit motives and rigged research behind the corporate-sponsored statements that our schools are failing.”

    The Republican-dominated legislature has taken steps to cripple the funding of public schools. “To sneak more politically connected for-profit charter schools into Indiana, in 2010 legislators cut $300 million annually from the public school budget and mandated tax caps to purposely ensure the destruction of public schools….Since the state controls the purse strings, Republican lawmakers have purposely bolted in place everything needed to start closing down Indiana schools and expanding for-profit charter schools.”

    Martin shows how the overuse of standardized testing has benefited corporate politicians like Mitch Daniels. Not only do they stifle the critical thinking skills needed in a democratic society, not only do they send millions to testing corporations, but they demoralize and drive out good teachers. This too sets public schools up for failure.

    One of the valuable aspects of Doug Martin’s book is his careful dissection of the sponsors of corporate reform in Indiana. A key player is called the Mind Trust, which Martin cites as an exemplar of “crony capitalism.” Martin writes:

    “The Mind Trust typifies America’s counterfeit political Left. Mouthing the rhetoric of class warfare, civil rights, and female empowerment, the mock liberals at Education Sector, the Center for American Progress, and the New America Foundation, all supportive of the Mind Trust specifically or school privatization in general (and most bringing home six-figure salaries), attack teachers unions and public schools and connive to mount in place a school system based on corporate profit, one which disenfranchises the female teachers and minority and poor students they claim to be helping.”

    Martin calls out the enablers of the school privatization movement, such as Eli Lilly and the Lilly Endowment, reliable funders of privatization activities, and of Teach for America and the New Teacher Project, which will recruit the temporary teachers needed for the charters. He cites the power of ALEC in the Indiana legislature, whose members pushed to evaluate teachers by their students’ test scores and to judge colleges of education by the test scores of students taught by their graduates. He provides overviews of the anti-teacher, anti-union, privatization agenda of Stand for Children, DFER (Democrats for Education Reform), the Christian right, the Bradley Foundation, the DeVos family of Michigan, and the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), which promotes charters and vouchers.

    Martin doesn’t offer any suggestions about how to combat the well-funded, interconnected organizations that are advancing the privatization agenda. His book contains valuable information about the privatization movement, its goals, its major players, and its strategies. He leaves it to voters to figure out how to save public education in Indiana.

    Whether or not you live in Indiana, you should read this book. The major players like DFER and BAEO operate nationally. The activities in Indiana follow a script that is being enacted in many states, probably including yours.

    Hoosier School Heist is listed on amazon.com, or you can obtain a copy by going to the website http://www.hoosierschoolheist.com.

    Diane Ravitch is a former education advisor to the Clinton administration, who eventually realized the folly of corporate-inspired school reform. Find her work online at http://dianeravitch.net