December 4, 2014

Professor Richard Wolff: Global Capitalism November 2014 Monthly Update

These programs begin with 30 minutes of short updates on important economic events of the last month. Then Wolff analyzes several major economic issues. For November 12th, these will include:

1. How the Absence of Economic Democracy Undermines Political Democracy

2. Economic Democracy and Revolution Inside Enterprises (Factories, Offices, Stores)

3. The Real Economics of Wages, Prices, and Profits

December 4, 2014

Bankruptcy Court Ruling Helps Anti-Union Grocer Slash Benefits and Pensions for 1,100 Workers

(In These Times) In a new version of the old ploy of manipulating federal bankruptcy courts to bludgeon unions into economic concessions or givebacks, the nation’s largest grocery wholesaler used sped-up court procedures to make a quick buy of one of its regional competitors last month—and, in the process, slash the pensions and benefits of 1,100 truck drivers and warehouse workers.

Members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey are angry over the loss and apprehensive about their futures, union leaders say. Their new employer, C&S Wholesale Grocers, has a reputation of buying up unionized companies, shifting the work of handling retail food products to non-union distribution centers and then getting rid of the union members altogether.

“The (members feel) they got screwed. … They are dissatisfied and angry,” says Bill Shappell, President of Teamsters Local 429 in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, which represents about 450 warehouse workers, truck drivers and mechanics who have been affected.

Union members could see trouble ahead when their former employer, Associated Wholesalers Inc. (AWI), filed a Chapter 11 petition in federal bankruptcy court on September 9. Included in the court filing was an announcement that AWI and its main subsidiary White Rose Inc. didn’t want to reorganize its business under court protection, as is normal in most Chapter 11 cases, but rather wanted a quick sale to C&S. An auction was ordered, but only one other bidder came forward. The court approved the purchase by C&S on October 29. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17414/bankruptcy_court_ruling_helps_anti_union_grocer_slash_benefits_and_pensions

December 4, 2014

Cyclists Who Hate Hills, Meet Norway’s Bike Escalator

(Slate) Cycling is wonderful way to get to and from work. So healthy. So environmentally friendly. So cost-effective. But if your route home involves a giant hill, it’s way too easy to say, “Screw this. I’m taking the bus.”

The residents of Brubakken Hill, in the Norwegian city of Trondheim, do not have this problem. In 1993 they were blessed with Trampe: a bicycle escalator that pushes riders up the hill without requiring them to dismount.

To use the escalator, a cyclist rides up to the station at the bottom and places her right foot on a small footplate sticking up from the slot running along the curb. The plate then moves all the way up the hill, lifting the rider along with it. There are multiple footplates, spaced every 66 feet to allow up to six cyclists to use Trampe at the same time. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/12/02/trompe_cyclocable_the_bike_lift_in_trondheim_norway.html

December 4, 2014

D.C.: Metro's Funding Needs Run Up Against Local Budget Realities

Metro’s pay-as-you-go approach — the result of having no dedicated funding source — is running into trouble as the transit authority prepares to unveil its next budget to its board of directors on Thursday.

The problem: Metro’s operating expenses are increasing while its revenues are not, largely the result of declining rail ridership. So Metro will ask its jurisdictions in Washington, Virginia, and Maryland for more money to fill a potentially large hole in its proposed $1.8 billion operating budget for fiscal year 2016, which starts next July.

But Metro’s request for a 10 percent increase in the annual subsidy paid by its jurisdictions will run into harsh budget realities in the Washington suburbs. Municipalities and counties are facing their own fiscal crunches, possibly forcing Metro to further tighten its own belt — including the possibility of rail service cuts — even during rush hour.

This request for cash is happening at the same time Metro needs its jurisdictions to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the expansion of its rail car fleet so the transit authority may run all eight-car trains during rush hour. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.wnyc.org/story/metros-proposed-funding-increase-runs-against-local-budget-realities/

December 4, 2014

‘I Can’t Breathe’ Is Echoed in Voices of Fury and Despair

(NYT) They chanted it in Grand Central Terminal, shouted it in Times Square, emblazoned it across Facebook and Twitter, the three words that came to stand for the death of another unarmed black man at the hands of a white police officer.

“I can’t breathe,” Eric Garner had gasped after the officer put his neck in a chokehold on a hot July day on Staten Island, a fatal encounter captured on video and viewed by millions of people. On Wednesday, after a grand jury declined to indict the officer, the words — and the video — were revived in a wave of despair and fury that rolled as far out as the corridors of Capitol Hill and the streets of Oakland, Calif.

Elected officials in New York and Washington, too, did not hold back, offering an extraordinary outpouring of stunned reaction that seemed to mirror — and perhaps calm — protesters’ anger. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/nyregion/i-cant-breathe-is-re-echoed-in-voices-of-fury-and-despair.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

December 4, 2014

Amy Goodman: Hands Up, Don’t Choke

from truthdig:



By Amy Goodman


Another police killing of an unarmed man of color. Another grand jury deciding not to indict: Not for murder. Not for manslaughter. Not for assault. Not even for reckless endangerment. We live in a land of impunity. At least, for those in power.

This past summer, after covering the protests in Ferguson, Mo., I flew back to New York City and went straight to Staten Island to cover the march protesting the police killing of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old African-American father of six. This story was strikingly similar to the police killing in Ferguson, where Officer Darren Wilson gunned down unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown. Both cases involved white police officers using deadly force. Both of the victims were unarmed African-Americans. In both cases, local prosecutors, with close ties to their local police departments, were allowed to control the grand jury. There were some differences between the cases. Most notably, Eric Garner’s killing was captured on video.

If you look at the video closely, just as NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo puts him in an illegal chokehold, you see Eric Garner put his hands up, the international signal of surrender. He is then taken down by a gang of police officers. You hear him repeatedly say, “I can’t breathe!” He says it a total of 11 times before he goes limp and dies.

Where did this video come from? A young man named Ramsey Orta was standing near Garner on that July 17 afternoon when the police moved in. Orta flipped open his cellphone and videoed the whole thing. Pantaleo was caught red-handed. The evidence was there for everyone to see. Well, the grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo. Only two people were arrested in the wake of Garner’s death: Ramsey Orta, who shot the video, and his wife, Chrissie Ortiz. Chrissie told a local television station that since Ramsey was identified as the videographer, they had been subjected to police harassment. Ramsey was arrested the day after the city medical examiner declared Garner’s death a homicide. Chrissie was later arrested as well. I saw them at the Staten Island march that Saturday, standing near where Garner died. I asked them for comment, but they were afraid. They huddled on the same stoop that Ramsey was on when he filmed Garner’s death. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hands_up_dont_choke_20141203

December 4, 2014

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, ..............

[font size="5"].........but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."[/font]

-- Elie Wiesel

December 4, 2014

Amy Goodman: Hands Up, Don’t Choke

from truthdig:



By Amy Goodman


Another police killing of an unarmed man of color. Another grand jury deciding not to indict: Not for murder. Not for manslaughter. Not for assault. Not even for reckless endangerment. We live in a land of impunity. At least, for those in power.

This past summer, after covering the protests in Ferguson, Mo., I flew back to New York City and went straight to Staten Island to cover the march protesting the police killing of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old African-American father of six. This story was strikingly similar to the police killing in Ferguson, where Officer Darren Wilson gunned down unarmed African-American teenager Michael Brown. Both cases involved white police officers using deadly force. Both of the victims were unarmed African-Americans. In both cases, local prosecutors, with close ties to their local police departments, were allowed to control the grand jury. There were some differences between the cases. Most notably, Eric Garner’s killing was captured on video.

If you look at the video closely, just as NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo puts him in an illegal chokehold, you see Eric Garner put his hands up, the international signal of surrender. He is then taken down by a gang of police officers. You hear him repeatedly say, “I can’t breathe!” He says it a total of 11 times before he goes limp and dies.

Where did this video come from? A young man named Ramsey Orta was standing near Garner on that July 17 afternoon when the police moved in. Orta flipped open his cellphone and videoed the whole thing. Pantaleo was caught red-handed. The evidence was there for everyone to see. Well, the grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo. Only two people were arrested in the wake of Garner’s death: Ramsey Orta, who shot the video, and his wife, Chrissie Ortiz. Chrissie told a local television station that since Ramsey was identified as the videographer, they had been subjected to police harassment. Ramsey was arrested the day after the city medical examiner declared Garner’s death a homicide. Chrissie was later arrested as well. I saw them at the Staten Island march that Saturday, standing near where Garner died. I asked them for comment, but they were afraid. They huddled on the same stoop that Ramsey was on when he filmed Garner’s death. .........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hands_up_dont_choke_20141203

December 4, 2014

Chris Hedges column from last year, worth a re-read after the events of the last week

.......(snip).......

In poor communities where there are few jobs, little or no vocational training, a dearth of educational opportunities and a lack of support structures there are, by design, high rates of recidivism—the engine of the prison-industrial complex. There are tens of millions of poor people for whom this country is nothing more than a vast, extended penal colony. Gun possession is largely criminalized for poor people of color while vigilante thugs, nearly always white, swagger through communities with loaded weapons. There will never be serious gun control in the United States. Most white people know what their race has done to black people for centuries. They know that those trapped today in urban ghettos, what Malcolm X called our internal colonies, endure neglect, poverty, violence and deprivation. Most whites are terrified that African-Americans will one day attempt to defend themselves or seek vengeance. Scratch the surface of survivalist groups and you uncover frightened white supremacists.

The failure on the part of the white liberal class to decry the exploding mass incarceration of the poor, and especially of African-Americans, means that as our empire deteriorates more and more whites will end up in prison alongside those we have condemned because of our indifference. And the mounting abuse of the poor is fueling an inchoate rage that will eventually lead to civil unrest.

“Again I say that each and every Negro, during the last 300 years, possesses from that heritage a greater burden of hate for America than they themselves know,” Richard Wright wrote. “Perhaps it is well that Negroes try to be as unintellectual as possible, for if they ever started really thinking about what happened to them they’d go wild. And perhaps that is the secret of whites who want to believe that Negroes have no memory; for if they thought that Negroes remembered they would start out to shoot them all in sheer self-defense.”

The United States has spent $300 billion since 1980 to expand its prison system. We imprison 2.2 million people, 25 percent of the world’s prison population. For every 100,000 adults in this country there are 742 behind bars. Five million are on parole. Only 30 to 40 percent are white. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at; http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_business_of_mass_incarceration_20130728

December 4, 2014

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee :luvya: