THE POWER OF SOLIDARITY

This group's decision is just a start -- we need a sea of solidarity on this one --

SHOULD TEACHERS BE ALLOWED TO SAY WHAT THEY WANT IN THE CLASSROOM? PART THREE

Please read this piece on Ward Churchill. The report to which it refers is the Report of the Investigative Committee of the Standing Committee on Research Misconduct at the University of Colorado at Boulder concerning Allegations of Academic Misconduct against Professor Ward Churchill. I'd like to know if what we're looking at here is a witch-hunt being commissioned through backroom deals.

Here's a thought: if, as Professor Mayer says, the standards for "academic misconduct" are so vague that practically anyone in the academic business can be found guilty, maybe it's time we investigated the opera of some of the committee members, e.g.: Marianne Wesson, Robert N. Clinton, or maybe Jose E. Limon, for anything that could be inflated into "misconduct" in the same way in which it has been done to Professor Churchill.

Now, in saying this, I'm not particularly interested in crucifying anyone -- but I do want to verify the technique that Professor Mayer suggests is being used against Professor Churchill. And what better subjects for this verification than the people who are using the technique?

Footnote: Ward Churchill's version of the story can be read on Counterpunch.

PROJECT "PARIAH NATION" IS ON SCHEDULE

US media grooming is having a field day at the polls. "Let them hate me so long as they fear me" -- Caligula

ANOTHER ONE OF OURS IS REFUSED ENTRY INTO THE US

John (or Yiannis) Milios was denied entry into the US last Thursday, when he was scheduled to speak at a conference at SUNY Stony Brook called "How Class Works". Basically, the FBI "questioned about his political beliefs and was asked whether he expresses them peacefully or actively," then they swooped down, took everything, and expelled him. This is old news, but practically no press in the US has picked it up. I know about it because I read about it on an obscure Yahoo! group with tight limitations on membership.

It makes sense in terms of the larger trend -- the US is being prepped by its own ruling elites for a starring role as a pariah nation, anyway. Meanwhile, we should all read Milios' works -- if he's smart enough to be denied entry for political reasons, he's probably a good read...

GLOBAL WARMING TURNS POLAR BEARS INTO CANNIBALS

Now there's a pleasant thought. I just imagine the planet dying in advance of its planned urban development...

KUDOS TO THE THREE GITMO SUICIDES

They made it out of here -- the rest of us still have to live in a world with a Guantanamo Bay in it.

THE END OF THE SOUTH CENTRAL FARM

See here -- give a shout-out to Ralph Horowitz, Antonio Villaraigosa, Rocky Delgadillo, and the LA City Council (who held a closed-doors session to sell this property to Horowitz for 1/3 its market value back in '03), who made this all possible.

NOW HERE'S AN INTERESTING TWIST

Helena Cobban argues, "Bush's huge gamble in Iraq has failed. As a result, the U.S. is weaker everywhere in the world -- and that's not all bad." Sure. The thought is not new, though it hasn't been voiced often. Today, US is preoccupied with Iraq, and so Bush accumulates enemies daily while the imperialist machine is tied down behind its fortified Green Zones. And this is good for the world, because the world really ought to dislike America for its predatory politics and economics rather than imitating its resource-intensive consumerism.

The thing is, and this is contrary to what Cobban says, this doesn't stabilize the world. Cobban's hopes include:

The U.S. may lose the ability it has had for so long to block any resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute that does not conform to Israel's wishes. The U.S. and the other world powers may finally get serious about trying to stabilize Afghanistan (and other long-neglected parts of the world like Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Darfur), rather than leaving them to fester and thus incubate new al-Qaidas or other, as-yet-unseen networks of stakeless international troublemakers. And crucially, the gross power imbalance between the U.S.'s 300 million people and the 6 billion humans who are not U.S. citizens may finally shift toward a more egalitarian, and therefore more just and stable, position.

Liberal Democrats, as I said yesterday, have no real theory of capitalism, and thus do not see how policy occurs against a background of capital accumulation. The Palestinians are today a marginalized charity of Muslim oil capitalists; the "long-neglected parts of the world" are for the most part not worth the investment for the exploiter-nations to care, and "gross power imbalance" is a product of capital accumulation. Cobban does not appear to see that.

No, the decline of US power due to its engrossment with Iraq will make the world less stable, as it will tie the global rule of the transnational capitalist class to the ideological renegades who make up the Project for a New American Century, which intends to destabilize the world so it can be remade by force in America's image. PNAC won't succeed, either; the process it has chosen, recolonizing the resource sinks of the world through military force, is too high-entropy, too destructive. The resulting deterioration in American hegemony will give US opponents a chance, which will balloon into even further conflict.

I REALLY LIKED THIS PIECE ON DAILYKOS

Michael J. Smith's report from the Daily Kos convention in Las Vegas...

The Kosniks, as I found when I first arrived, are not bad people. On the contrary, they are smart, engaging, well-meaning, and energetic, and a good many of 'em are, well, attractive. But after three days, I'd had enough of them, and then some. Couldn't wait to get to the airport -- and in this day and age, that says something.

The Kosniks are cultists, and there is, ultimately, nothing more tiresome. They've invested so much, emotionally, in the Democratic Party that it's made them rather shallow and monotonous. All their thinking, all their energy, is bent toward getting people like Massa and Sestak -- and ultimately, Warner or Hillary Clinton -- into office. As the song says:

One, two, three, what're we fighting for? Don't ask me, I don't give a damn...

No doubt they all started with a vision, a generous, humane vision. But the instrument they chose to realize their vision has turned them into its instruments instead.

Here's a test: go to Daily Kos on any single day, and check out how much of the content is dedicated to getting someone elected as opposed to winning on some political initiative of importance.

I see the problem here as being one shared by liberal Democrats in general. They have no theory of how capitalism has evolved into its current crisis-situation, and so they like capitalism when it grants them a profit, and they dislike it (or something similar which they misidentify, like "the system") when it does something obviously bad like give us President Bush. Every position they take is an ad hoc, knee-jerk, response to the latest headline. Getting Democrats elected becomes more important to the most committed of the bunch than changing the political landscape. They are part of the reason American politics is in the mess it is in.

BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY PREPARES FOR INDEFINITE CONQUEST OF IRAQ

For those who don't think the plan is for indefinite occupation of Iraq, think again. Meanwhile, the invasion of Ramadi is on the calendar. And, of course, this report is telling. It's popular to be antiwar, but it looks like it's going to be that way indefinitely. Or at least as long as everyone continues to believe that going through bourgeois democracy is the only way to go.