(Photo from Black Agenda Report)
PHILADELPHIA STORY: COULD BE U.S. STORY WHEN IT COMES TO THE CLOSING OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
(Black Agenda Report)
Philadelphia is only one of the most recent of numerous school systems including Atlanta and New York City, following the lead of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former CEO of Chicago public schools in wielding a weapon of mass destruction against public education in the country. In Philly as elsewhere, the city prepares to close 40 public “under-performing” schools in what will undoubtedly be the prelude to the privatization of the school system, A recent CEO of the system, Paul Vallas, came to the city after a privatizing stint in Chicago and then later in post-Katrina New Orleans. This is largely an untold story with a mainstream media maintaining a deafening silence on the issue and a black “leadership” class so enamored of President Obama that it dare not question the educational policies of his administration. Al Sharpton, for one, has received a “loan” and gone on national tour to promote charter school development with the the likes of Bill Gates. ”Civil rights leaders” are quick to level charges of racism against anyone daring to make negative comments on the “pretty First Lady” but are unwilling to speak a single word about an educational policy is profoundly harmful to the black community in America.
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U.S. GEO-POLITICAL STRATEGY IN ASIA: ZUMWALT-ING CHINA INTO SUBMISSION TO U.S. POWER.
(Asia Times)
Latest in a series of Pentagon military strategy reviews affirms the drift of U.S. policy in the area, insisting that Asia is to be the new “pivot” of military action in the world and that plans for the development of expensive high-tech Zumwalt ships will go foreward, after early misgivings about their expense and their effectiveness. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can wax diplomatic as long as she likes about a rising China being beneficial to U.S. interests. The Department of Defense is the bearer of the weapons that will hopefully ensure that this diplomacy thing doesn’t get out of hand.
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GREEN PRISON IS A TERM FOR HONDURAN BANANA PLANTATION WORKERS THAT APPLIES AS WELL TO IMMIGRANT FARM WORKERS IN THE U.S.
(Counterpunch)
This is the contention of a Honduran resident, Dean Galaro, who uses a novel by Ramon Amador called “Green Prison” about Honduran labor to describe the situation in the U.S. as well. Long-term government policy in Honduras involved inviting foreign banana companies into their country for its “economic development,” but banana workers were trapped in “prison” of low-wage work for which they had no effective alternatives. Just so, immigrant farm workers in America find themselves in a green prison in which they are trapped into exploitative labor conditions as the “alternative” that faces them is deportation for the perhaps 90% of them who are “illegal” immigrants.
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NEW RESTRICTIONS ON ABORTION ARE ON THE MARCH AROUND THE U.S.A.
(USA Today)
The content of new state legislation is varied. but the direction of movement is clear: abortion opponents are harvesting the fruits of the conservative effects of the 2010 elections to propose new measures that go so far as to confer “personhood” on fetuses and to define abortion as tantamount to murder. For the 2012 presidential elections, these forces are debating whether to hitch their wagon to a Mitt Romney whose views have been tacking heavily to the right—or to maintain an arms-length relationship to a politician who has a past history of pro-abortion sympathies.
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SARASOTA REPUBLICANS NOT READY TO GIVE UP ON AN “ARIZONA-STYLE” IMMIGRATION LAW FOR FLORIDA.
(Florida Independent)
The last legislature failed to pass draconian enforcement laws that would have allowed police to make routine inquiries about arrested people’s immigration status—and pass any pertinent information to federal enforcement agencies. Although that “style” of enforcement is still being adjudicated for its constitutionality, the Sarasota County Republican Party has launched a petition campaign to try once again to have Florida join the ranks of states which define illegal immigration as a severe problem requiring drastic enforcement action.
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Quote of the day…
Though my grandson and I are in two different sections of the country and both facing different cancer scares, we share one thing more prominently than anything else. We are being violated as human beings in need of medical care by our health providers’ need to protect profits. The money comes first; the patient is but a necessary cog in the healthcare revenue wheel.
Donna Smith of California Nurses Association and single-payer medical insurance advocate, on how “for profit” medical system is a disaster for both young and old.
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