February 28, 2012

Stealing From The Mouth of Public Education to Feed the Prison Industrial Complex

Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 by Institute for Policy Studies

Stealing From The Mouth of Public Education to Feed the Prison Industrial Complex
We are witnessing a systemic recasting of education priorities that gives official structure and permanence to a preexisting underclass comprised largely of criminalized poor black and brown people.

by Adwoa Masozi


States across the US are excising billions of dollars from their education budgets as if 22% of the population isn’t functionally illiterate.

According to the NAAL standards of the National Center for Education Statistics 68 million people are reading below basic levels. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that “nearly all states are spending less money (on education) than they spent in 2008 (after inflation), even though the cost of providing services will be higher.” On top of cutting 4 billion dollars from their budget, Texas has also eliminated state funding for pre-K programs that serve around 100,000 mostly at-risk children. North Carolina has cut nearly a half billion dollars from K-12 education resulting in an 80 percent loss for textbook funds and a 5 percent cut in support positions like guidance counselors and social workers among numerous other cuts. Decisions like these leave little reason to wonder why both those states are facing 27% drop out rates.

Closing public schools has so become the rage that the state of California has even produced a best practices guide on how to close and make them fit for turn-around. Why not promote a ‘best practices guide for keeping a school going’ instead? Why make these decisions when we know that a lack of education decreases access to quality (and legitimate) employment opportunities, increases the likelihood of encounters with the criminal (in)justice system, negatively impacts health outcomes, and altogether limits one’s ability to determine her or his own future?

What we’re witnessing is a systemic recasting of education priorities that gives official structure and permanence to a preexisting underclass comprised of largely criminalized poor black and brown people. Certainly having a prominent underclass isn’t new to the US as it has quite the track record of denying fill-in-the-blank people fill-in-the-blank rights. But the material outcomes of this shift are as communally and economically devastating as were the outcomes of the Black Codes in the 1800s and subsequent Jim Crow laws that persisted until 1965; both of which were legal, with implementation that varied from state to state and still impacts communities today. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/28-4

February 28, 2012

CNN Silences War-Skeptical Soldier

from Consortium News:



CNN Silences War-Skeptical Soldier
February 27, 2012

Exclusive: By obsessing over Iran gaining a nuclear weapon “capability” – even with no actual bomb – while ignoring Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal, the U.S. news media proves the point of its own bias. There’s also the usual hostility toward dissenting voices, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.

By Ray McGovern


When CNN interviews a U.S. Army corporal preparing for his third deployment to Afghanistan, should TV viewers be permitted to hear him out on a front-burner issue like Iran’s alleged threat to Israel? For those who might think so, watch what happens when 28-year-old Cpl. Jesse Thorsen touches a neuralgic nerve by suggesting that Israel can take care of itself.

It’s impossible to say exactly what happened to the remote feed that suddenly got lost in transmission back to CNN Central, but the minute-long video is truly worth a thousand words:

The interview, which dates back to Jan. 3 when the Iowa caucuses were the evening’s big news, is at least symbolic of how our Fawning Corporate Media treats dissident voices that clash with the prevailing pro-war-on-Iran bias. I missed the segment when it aired, but I think it still merits comment today as war clouds thicken, again.

In the aborted one-minute segment, Cpl. Thorsen is interviewed by CNN’s Dana Bash, who presumably picked him out for the live interview because he had a large tattoo on his neck about never forgetting 9/11. The tattoo – plus two tours in Afghanistan behind him (and yet another in front of him) – may have suggested to Bash and her CNN producers that Thorsen was unlikely to say anything to muddle or muffle the new drumbeat for war. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/27/cnn-silences-war-skeptical-soldier/

February 28, 2012

Blown Away: How the U.S. Fanned the Flames in Afghanistan

from TomDispatch:



Blown Away
How the U.S. Fanned the Flames in Afghanistan

By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse


Is it all over but the (anti-American) shouting -- and the killing? Are the exits finally coming into view?

Sometimes, in a moment, the fog lifts, the clouds shift, and you can finally see the landscape ahead with startling clarity. In Afghanistan, Washington may be reaching that moment in a state of panic, horror, and confusion. Even as an anxious U.S. commander withdrew American and NATO advisors from Afghan ministries around Kabul last weekend -- approximately 300, military spokesman James Williams tells TomDispatch -- the ability of American soldiers to remain on giant fortified bases eating pizza and fried chicken into the distant future is not in doubt.

No set of Taliban guerrillas, suicide bombers, or armed Afghan “allies” turning their guns on their American “brothers” can alter that -- not as long as Washington is ready to bring the necessary supplies into semi-blockaded Afghanistan at staggering cost. But sometimes that’s the least of the matter, not the essence of it. So if you’re in a mood to mark your calendars, late February 2012 may be the moment when the end game for America’s second Afghan War, launched in October 2001, was initially glimpsed.

Amid the reportage about the recent explosion of Afghan anger over the torching of Korans in a burn pit at Bagram Air Base, there was a tiny news item that caught the spirit of the moment. As anti-American protests (and the deaths of protestors) mounted across Afghanistan, the German military made a sudden decision to immediately abandon a 50-man outpost in the north of the country. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175509/tomgram%3A_engelhardt_and_turse%2C_the_end_in_afghanistan/

February 28, 2012

Paul B. Farrell: World Bank warns: China is a ticking time bomb

World Bank warns: China is a ticking time bomb
Commentary: Will Super Rich in China or U.S. be first to trigger meltdown?

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — “It’s as if 2008 never happened,” warned a BusinessWeek editorial last year. A new crash is certain to complete what the 2008 meltdown started but failed to complete — reform Wall Street.

Everybody knows Wall Street’s still playing the same speculative games that triggered the 2008 crash: Bankers and politicians never learned history’s lessons from the 2008 crash, that our “mutant capitalism” is eating at America’s soul, handicapping future generations — we will repeat them.

Today it’s even worse: Arab Spring. Occupy Wall Street. And they’re about to kick into high gear for the 2012 elections. EU banks, Europe’s great nations, the euro, all still in danger. Greece collapsed. Fears it’s not over. U.S. debt’s blowing an ever-bigger bubble. Then, last week EU Central Bank President Mario Draghi announced that Europe’s liberal social net is “gone.” That’s as gut-wrenching as Obama saying Social Security’s gone.

And just when you though it couldn’t get worse: The World Bank warns that China is headed for collapse. Imagine China crashing. The country holding over a trillion of America’s debt. The same China that’s running all over the world like a 19th century Wild West robber baron, using reserve dollars they got from years of financing America’s costly wars and cheap toys. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/world-bank-warns-china-is-a-ticking-time-bomb-2012-02-28?link=home_carousel

February 28, 2012

Oligarchy in the U.S.A.: The wealth defense industry protects the richest of the rich

from In These Times:





Oligarchy in the U.S.A.
The wealth defense industry protects the richest of the rich.

BY Jeffrey A. Winters


In 2005, Citigroup offered its high net-worth clients in the United States a concise statement of the threats they and their money faced.

The report told them they were the leaders of a “plutonomy,” an economy driven by the spending of its ultra-rich citizens. “At the heart of plutonomy is income inequality,” which is made possible by “capitalist-friendly governments and tax regimes.”

The danger, according to Citigroup’s analysts, is that “personal taxation rates could rise – dividends, capital gains, and inheritance taxes would hurt the plutonomy.”

But the ultra-rich already knew that. In fact, even as America’s income distribution has skewed to favor the upper classes, the very richest have successfully managed to reduce their overall tax burden. Look no further than Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, who in 2010 paid 13.9 percent of his $21.6 million income in taxes that year, the same tax rate as an individual who earned a mere $8,500 to $34,500. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/12698/oligarchy_in_the_u.s.a

February 28, 2012

Too Big to Fail: An Executive Suite Story

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



Too Big to Fail: An Executive Suite Story
February 26, 2012

If a blunder you committed cost your employer $4 million, how long would you stay employed? In America today, a CEO can cost his company $4 billion and still collect both a paycheck and a bonus.

By Sam Pizzigati


People in America get fired all the time. Break too many plates as a dishwasher, lose too many games as a coach, miss too many deadlines as a reporter, you’re going to be history.

We need this accountability. We couldn’t function, as a healthy society, without it. But accountability has to be universal. To create and sustain excellence, no society can hold only some people accountable — and give others a free pass.

Yet some societies — deeply unequal societies — do give out free passes. All the time. In these unequal societies, grand accumulations of wealth translate into grand accumulations of power. The powerful make their own rules. They rig daily life’s games. They come out winners no matter how poorly they play.

Consider Randall Stephenson, the chief exec at telecom giant AT&T. Stephenson had a bad year in 2011. A really bad year. His decisions cost AT&T over $4 billion. What price did Stephenson pay for this debacle? Last week we learned that price — and much more about the dysfunction that defines us. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://toomuchonline.org/too-big-to-fail-an-executive-suite-story/

February 28, 2012

Robert Reich: As Santorum and Romney Battle for the Loony Right, the Rest of Us Should Not Gloat

As Santorum and Romney Battle for the Loony Right, the Rest of Us Should Not Gloat
Monday, February 27, 2012


My father was a Republican for the first 78 years of his life. For the last twenty, he’s been a Democrat (he just celebrated his 98th.) What happened? “They lost me,” he says.

They’re losing even more Americans now, as the four remaining GOP candidates seek to out-do one another in their race for the votes of the loony right that’s taken over the Grand Old Party.

But the rest of us have reason to worry.

A party of birthers, creationists, theocrats, climate-change deniers, nativists, gay-bashers, anti-abortionists, media paranoids, anti-intellectuals, and out-of-touch country clubbers cannot govern America. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://robertreich.org/post/18391045294

February 28, 2012

Corseted Minds: Does Fear of Irrelevance Send Conservative Men Fleeing to the Victorian Age?

AlterNet / By Lynn Parramore

Corseted Minds: Does Fear of Irrelevance Send Conservative Men Fleeing to the Victorian Age?
If you focus on the utilitarian value of human beings, you may find yourself at some point nervously glancing in the mirror.

February 28, 2012 |


In the last 50 years, American women have finally been able to reliably earn a living, thus rendering men economically unnecessary. Women are outstripping men in education. We’re breaking the glass ceiling. Childbirth out of wedlock no longer carries disgrace. There’s enough sperm stashed away in banks to promulgate the human race indefinitely. On a biological level, modern science has debunked the Adam’s rib story about the female being a derivative of the male.

Still more shattering, there’s even worry that the Y chromosome is in danger of extinction. At the very least, it has seen better days. As the New York Times recently reported:



That’s gotta make Rick Santorum nervous. (Though the Times does concede that men may have “long-term viability” after all).

Conservatives find themselves in an era of technological advance, information on steroids, women on the rise, and men who do not know what their role is supposed to be. Can we be surprised that they look back wistfully on a “simpler time” when gender roles were strictly defined – and when men did the defining? ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/news/154296/corseted_minds%3A_does_fear_of_irrelevance_send_conservative_men_fleeing_to_the_victorian_age/

February 28, 2012

Israel Won’t Alert U.S. Before Any Strike on Iran, a Top Source Says

via truthdig:


AP claims a source familiar with high-level American-Israeli discussions says Israeli officials have made it clear they will not alert the U.S. before any attack by their country on Iran.

If true, it’s an indication that relations between the U.S. and Israel have not eased, although the stated reason for not notifying Washington before an attack would be to distance the U.S. from the action. As AP reports: “Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is necessary, they would keep the Americans in the dark to decrease the likelihood that the US would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel’s potential attack.”

But Iran would almost certainly see the U.S. as the major military sponsor of its attacker, whether Washington is tipped off or not.

Both Israel and the United States are concerned about Iran’s nuclear program, but the two countries have pushed different approaches, with Israel’s conservative government campaigning for military action and the Obama administration favoring sanctions and diplomacy. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/israel_to_keep_us_in_the_dark_on_iran_source_says_20120227/

February 28, 2012

Bank switching movement is real

from the LA Times:



Nearly 10% of bank customers switched to another financial institution last year, with a third saying onerous fees prompted the move, a J.D. Power & Associates study found.

The 9.6% who moved their money compared to 8.7% in 2010 and 7.7% in 2009 – an increase the study attributed to a backlash against increased fees, coupled with poor service and unmet customer expectations.

“It is apparent that new or increased fees are the proverbial straws that break the camel’s back,” said Michael Beird, director of Power’s banking services practice.

“More than one-half of all customers who said fees were the main reason to shop for another bank also indicated that their prior bank provided poor service.” ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.latimes.com/business/money/fi-mo-switching-banks-20120227,0,5039444.story