RED EYE 01/04/12

Arabs Get Military Dictators Again

NYT,11/24 — No one expected the Arab revolts to be a simple march ahead, but rarely have things seemed so much in flux, with more potential for fragmentation, bloodshed and disarray. While many analysts describe the disturbances as an inevitable reckoning with the legacy of dictatorship, others worry the region may face years of unrest before systems emerge to replace the stagnant, American-backed order that held sway. …The forces of reaction—namely the military—seem more determined than ever to hold on.  In Egypt, “The ruling military council is corrupt and not that much different than Mubarak.” It has deployed the same tools of its predecessor, appealing to the old mantra of security and stability. “The word ‘stability’ is but a righteous word used for wrongful ends.”

 ‘Development’ Super-exploits Indigenous Tribes

GW, 12/2 — What should development mean for those who are mostly self-sufficient, raising their own food and building their dwellings where the water is still clean—like many of the world’s 150 million tribal people? In some of the world’s most “developed” countries (Australia, Canada, and US), development has turned most of the tribal survivors into dispossessed paupers. Take any measure of what development ought to mean: high income, longevity, employment , health; low rates of addiction, suicide, imprisonment and domestic violence, and you find that indigenous people in the US, Canada and Australia are by far the worst off on every count.

Colonialism set out to take away their self-sufficiency on their own territory, and lead them to glorious productivity, as menials, on someone else’s. There’s little point in calling for retroactive apologies for this, because it’s not confined to the past: most development schemes foisted on tribal peoples today go in exactly the same direction.

So what about modern education? In Australia, mixed race children were forced into distant boarding schools to “breed out” their “Aboriginalness” and turn them into an “underclass.” From frozen Siberia to sunlit Botswana, boarding schools remain the main plank in integrationist policies, which destroy more than educate. It’s no hidden conspiracy: it’s openly designed to be about turning people into workers, scornful of their own heritage.

As a Botswana Bushman told me: “First they make us destitute by taking away our land, our hunting and our way of life. Then they say we are nothing because we are destitute.”

Gov’t Layoffs Hurt Black Families

NYT, 12/5 — Buried in the November jobs report was some very bad news for those who work in the public sector. There were 20,000 government workers laid off last month, by far the largest drop for any sector of the economy, mostly from states, counties and cities.

That continues a troubling trend that’s been building for years, one that has had a particularly harsh effect on black workers. More than half a million government positions have been lost since the recession. Those layoffs mean a lower quality of life when there are fewer teachers, pothole repairers and nurses.

Millions of African-Americans — one in five who are employed — have entered the middle class through government employment. Now tens of thousands are leaving their jobs. The effect is severe, destabilizing black neighbourhoods and making it harder for young people to replicate their parents’ climb up the economic ladder.

Bosses Selling More, Hiring Less

NYT, 12/2 — More than two years after the recovery officially began, American employers have reinstated less than a quarter of the jobs lost during the downturn, according to Labor Department figures. Still, factory output grew last month. 

But the number of people applying for unemployment benefits is still too high to signal strong hiring. “Manufacturers are trying to meet demand without significantly increasing their work force.”

‘Sanctions’ vs. Iran Can Equal War

NYT, 12/6 — Iranian leaders are increasingly concerned that oil sales, Iran’s main source of income, are now at risk in ways that they were able to avoid in earlier rounds of Western sanctions. Those sanctions were imposed to press Iran, so far unsuccessfully, to halt its nuclear program.

“If you cut Iran out of the oil market, this is no longer economic pressure... At some point, sanctions become an act of war,” said Vali Nasr, a professor at Tufts University and an expert on Iranian affairs.

‘School choice’ hurts, worker says

NYT, 12/5 — If you want to see the direction that education reform is taking the country, pay a visit to my leafy, majority-black neighborhood in Washington. While we have lived in the same house since our 11-year-old son was born, he’s been assigned to three different elementary school as one after the other has been shuttered. Now it’s time for middle school, and there’s been no neighborhood option available.

Meanwhile, across Rock Creek Park in a wealthy, majority-white community, there is a sparkling new neighborhood middle school, with rugby, fencing, an international baccalaureate curriculum and all the other amenities that make people pay top dollar to live there.

Such inequities are the perverse result of a  “Reform” process intended to bring choice and accountability to the school system. Instead, it has destroyed community-based education for working-class families….Schools, depleted of resources, were shut down. Invariably, schools that served the poorest families got the ax — partly because those were the schools where students struggled the most, and partly because the parents of those student had the least power.

 

Open threat: Mid-East arms race

NYT, 12/7 — A Saudi prince, in a remark designed to send chills through the Obama administration and its allies, suggested that the kingdom might consider producing nuclear weapons if it found itself between atomic arsenals in Iran and Israel….The remark confirmed Western fears about the potential for an arms race in the Middle East.

Big biz loves U.S. split into states

NYT, 12/7 — As states have struggled to balance their budgets by cutting services, laying off workers and raising taxes, a study…suggests that many profitable Fortune 500 companies have not been paying much in state corporate income taxes…with some big firms paying none at all in recent years…

Many states…have granted their own tax breaks to try to…lure companies from other states.

Recession doesn’t halt global heat

NYT, 12/5 — Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record last year, upending the notion that the brief decline during the recession might persist through the recovery….Scientists…said the increase, a half-billion extra tons of carbon pumped into the air….solidified a trend of ever-rising emissions that…will make it difficult, if not impossible, to forestall severe climate change in coming decades.

….This country is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, pumping 1.5 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere last year.

The United States were surpassed several years ago by China….Emissions per person, though, are still sharply higher in the wealthy countries….Urgent pleas that society find a way to limit emissions have met sharp political resistance in many countries, including the United States, because doing so would entail higher energy costs…

Massey mine killers get off light

NYT, 12/7 — In what officials say is the largest settlement ever in a government investigation of a mine disaster, Alpha Natural Resources agreed to pay $209 million…for the role of its subsidiary, Massey Energy, in a mine explosion last year that killed 29 men in West Virginia….

But for the families of the miners killed in the accident — the worst such disaster in 40 years – the settlement was justice denied. Many were hoping for criminal charges against the people who ran Massey, the company that, according to the federal government’s own review, knowingly put their relatives in harm’s way….

Under the federal mine act, safety violations, with the exception of falsifying records, are categorized as misdemeanors....

Proposed changes to the mine act did not make it out of the House at the end of the last session of Congress, because of…an intense lobbying effort by the coal industry.

Afghan told to marry her rapist

NYT, 12/2 — When the Afghan government announced Thursday that it would pardon a woman who had been imprisoned for adultery after she report that she had been raped, the decision seemed a clear victory for the many women here whose lives have been ground down by the Afghan justice system.

But…the announcement also made it clear that there was an exception that the woman, Gulnaz, would agree to marry the man who raped her….The solution holds grace risks for Gulnaz, who uses on name, since the could be so humiliated that he might kill his accuser, despite the risk of prosecution, or abuse her again.

The decision from the government…underscoring the unfinished business of advancing women’s right here, and raising questions of what will happen it eh future to other women like Gulnaz.

Indeed, what prompted the government to act at all was a grass-roots movement that began after Gulnaz was featured in a recent documentary film.

Mumia ends 30 years of death race

NYT 12/8 —Prosecutors in Philadelphia announced Wednesday that they had halted the state’s effort to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal the death row inmate convicted of killing a police officer 30 years ago, who subsequent legal case based o claims of innocence has received international attention.

During his long stay on death row, Mr. Abu-Jamal, 57, a former Black Panther and radio reporter, became a vocal and — to some — convincing advocate of his own “Free Mumia” movement. That cause became particularly prominent around college campuses, where students collected donations….

Christina Swarns, director of the criminal justice practice at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which is representing Mr. Abu-Jamal, said that she was “delighted” by the decision — and that the Free Mumia movement had some influence…

Mr. Abu-Jamal, who is black, was convicted of fatally shooting Officer Faulkner, who was white, on Dec. 9,1981, after the officer pulled over Mr. Abu-Jamal’s brother for driving the wrong way on a one-way street….Abu-Jamal had been shot in the chest by the officer.

Mr. Abu-Jamal has said that he was at the scene but that someone else — not identified — was the killer.

‘Occupy’ far better than Dems

NYT, 12/4 — ….Left-wing street theater has arguably eclipsed Tea Party activism as our politics’ defining form of protest.

Of these movement, Occcupy Wall Street earned by far the most attention….Occupy Wall Street…seemed to be doing what a decent left would exist to do: criticizing entrenched power, championing the  common good and speaking for the many rather than the few….Even if it has failed to embrace plausible solutions, OWS at least picked a deserving target — the “moral rupture” created Wall Street’s and Washington’s betrayal of the public trust.

Better a protest movement that casts itself (however quixotically) as the defender of “the 99 percent” than a protest movement that just represents Democratic interest groups…

Bosses selling more, hiring less

NYT, 12/2 — More than two years after the recovery officially began, American can employers have reinstated less than a quarter of the jobs lost during the downturn, according to Labor department figures…Factory output grew last month at the fastest rate since June….But the number of people applying for unemployment benefits is still too high to signal strong hiring… “Manufacturers are trying to meet demand without significantly increasing their work force.”…..