I Don't Believe It

Florida woman arrested for
assaulting her roommate who
ate her Girl Scout cookies.

I don’t believe it. I absolutely, positively, one thousand percent don’t believe it. General Petraeus has made a claim so outrageous, and so outrageously racist, I find it hard to believe. He has accused Afghans of setting their own children on fire to make the U.S. look bad. Underlying this ridiculous claim is the obvious belief that Afghans are not like us, are somehow like “savages” who don’t care about their children. This is like saying they don’t value life as we do, life is cheap in Afghanistan, they are somehow less than human. The idea that Afghan parents would set their own children on fire is so disgustingly awful as to be completely beyond the pale and Petraeus should be shamed in the eyes of all of humanity. You don’t even have to be in Afghanistan, or even investigate this claim to know that it is utter hogwash, uttered by a General who is losing the “war” he is supposed to be winning, and now waiting to be relieved of his duty there. Pathetic. This is not the first time our military has made such claims against those they cannot defeat. Why doesn’t he admit that Americans are sending their children halfway around the globe to be killed for no reason at all other than, perhaps, the greed of International Corporations, and the stupidity of U.S. Foreign Policy?

Yes, it is true that what is happening in Wisconsin is part of a Republican strategy to destroy unions in the U.S., and is not about budgetary matters. If this were not so the “movement,” if it can be called that, would not be spreading so rapidly to other states like Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey and Florida. This is a genuine conspiracy funded by the Koch brothers and other corporate interests who think they can finally destroy the unions and further consolidate their Fascist state. I do not use the term lightly, fascism is, as Mussolini made clear, the marriage of the state with corporate interests. This is precisely what these people are trying to bring about, and they have nearly succeeded. The only thing still standing in their way is the continued existence of collective bargaining. They want a return to the 1920’s when workers had no rights at all, no minimum wage, no 8 hour work day, no 5 day work week, no benefits, and were little more than wage slaves. They long for the days when they had peasants, serfs, and slaves. Wisconsin has to win on this one, big time, and make it clear the people are simply not going to stand for this. The moneyed interests seem confident that no revolution will occur in the U.S., but they are treading on very slippery ground. They seem to have found a very willing stooge in Governor Walker who, unfortunately (as I understand it) cannot be recalled before 2012.

It is not very clear what will likely happen in Wisconsin. The obvious solution would be for Walker to simply withdraw his demand that workers give up their collective bargaining rights. It does appear that he is slowly losing whatever support he had from business and others. And it also appears that Governors in other states who were thinking about union busting themselves are beginning to have second thoughts. Walker has a history of being very anti-labor, and also very anti-abortion. I do not believe the voters of Wisconsin voted for him for those reasons, and I’m pretty sure that many who voted for Tea Party candidates are having second thoughts.

Tom Luna, the head of Education in Idaho, has come up with a plan to reform education by increasing class sizes, letting go teachers, going to online classes, abolishing tenure, and stuff like that. As near as I can tell it’s a lousy program and is meeting with a great deal of resistance. I guess it basically is an attempt to privatize education in the State of Idaho. I find the idea of privatizing education, prisons, energy, water, and most other things, horrifying. It seems obvious to me that when schools and prisons are run for profit, they are by definition not run with the best interests of students or prisoners in mind. After all, how do you make a profit on such enterprises? Obviously by scrimping on food and care, overcharging, and whatever else you can do to maximize profit. Privatization is a really dumb idea and is, in my view, diametrically opposed to the public interest. If they must privatize something let it be cosmetics or the fashion industry or other things that have little redeeming value to begin with. Basic necessities should be exempt by law from privatization.

LKBIQ:
Pittsburgh & the riots neither surprised nor greatly disturbed me; for where the government is a sham, one must expect such things.
Mark Twain

TILT:
If the mass of ice in the Antarctic were to melt it is estimated the sea levels would rise as much as 26 feet.