Yahoo for the Rebirth of Liberalism!

This is great. It's tinged with racism ("third world peasants"), but nonetheless it's wonderful to see liberals regain some backbone and some anger. Note how thick the Fox interviewer is: he cites a $70 per hour figure for worker compensation, then denies asking anything about healthcare pensions. Obviously autoworkers don't make $70 an hour; the kind of cooked numbers Fox presenters use include all future costs for the worker. The guy could at least have the courtesy to understand how his numbers are distorted.

Urgent: Demand amnesty for NYU student occupiers

Today New York University has shown its true face more than ever. Claiming to be a "private university in the public service," it is clearly not even in the service of those students whose tuitions allow it to exist.

Earlier today, NYU cut power to all outlets in the occupied space and turned off the wireless internet. Obviously this was an attempt to silence and intimidate the occupiers who have broad-based support.

Then, NYU said it would negotiate and instead detained and suspended the student negotiators when they showed up. Security has now broken through the barricade and people are being detained and suspended.

Instead of dialog and negotiation, the NYU administration has shown they prefer the authoritarian, dissent-quashing, dictator route. It is a true reflection of how they run their university. Nothing but thugs with suits on, interested in getting rich under the guise of "education."

Be prepared to defend any individual or group that is targeted academically or legally for their role in the occupation. Widespread support for the occupation and its demands will not be extinguished by NYU's hypocritical, tyrannical behavior.

Come out to 60 Washington Square South if you can.

Email NYU Administrators. Demand amnesty and no suspensions:

NYU President John Sexton: john.sexton@nyu.edu

John Beckman, NYU Spokesperson: jhb5@nyu.edu

Office of the Provost: provost@nyu.edu

Office of the Vice President: evp@nyu.edu

Here is John Sexton, NYU President, so people can call as well as email:
(212) 998-2345

Missing the Racist Forest for the Trees

I imagine by quitting time today most people will have heard about the NY Post cartoon that ran yesterday. It depicted two police officers with guns drawn and a bullet-riddled monkey. One cop is saying "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." I don't believe I've seen such as racist cartoon since the publication of the anti-Muslim Danish cartoons of a few years back.

CNN's Roland Burris and Al Sharpton have called out the cartoonist and the Post for the vile history in the US of referring Blacks as 'monkeys' and the vigilante and state terror that have gone hand in hand with it. A relatively unreported fact has been that hate crimes against Blacks has INCREASED after the election. Sean Delonas, the cartoonist, claims that it is standard practice to mix two current events in a political cartoon. We all know about OBAMA's stimulus bill (many defenders of the cartoon point to the fact that the 'kill Obama' implication is patently false because the legislature, not Obama wrote the bill. Pure bollocks.) But, who the fuck has heard of the other story, the Connecticut monkey attack incident? I surely haven't.

My biggest beef with the backlash against the cartoon (and admittedly I have not done a wide survey of the responses online) is that no one is calling out the implication of police brutality!!! Police have ramped up their killings and shootings of young Black men. Look at Oscar Grant. Delonas and his 'freedom of speech' defenders are apologists for the very real racism that continues to exist despite the historic election of Obama and are actively contributing to the climate where cops get off scot free for murder.

Attention Democrats: Word to Your Mother

This is the funniest shit I've seen in a long time. The GOP, in a bold move to rebrand itself as the dopest thing this side of LL Cool J, has launched an 'off the hook' (their words) marketing campaign. Perhaps they hope the youth will 'get jiggy with' fiscal conservatism and find the 'flyness' in family values. Either way, I suspect hilarity shall ensue from this campaign.

Also, demonstrating how with the times the party is, Chairman Michael Steele made a 'midget' joke.

Towards a Marxist Understanding of American History

Or, books I want read this summer. After two semesters of having my head filled with cultural studies nonsense, I plan on spending this summer dancing with the dialectic and getting gritty with materialism. Here's a few of the classic Marxist works on American history I plan on reading. If you're so inclined, hit me up with suggestions.

Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made - Eugene D. Genovese

The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 - Charles Sellers

Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century - Harry Braverman

The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America - Leo Marx

The White Pacific: US Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas After the Civil War - Gerald Horne

Popular Fronts: Chicago and African American Cultural Politics, 1935-1946 - Bill V. Mullen

James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928 - Bryan D. Palmer

Race, Class, and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, 1908-1921 - Brian Kelly

Mark Ames on Going Postal

Radio Interview: Mark Ames on Recession Murder/Suicide Rampages from Team eXiled on Vimeo.

Dubai is Sinking into the Sea!!

Actually, only part of it is. But it's still something to celebrate. Nothing like some good old biblical style punishment being hurled down at Ground Zero for global opulence.

Justice for Loretta Capeheart!

To: Sharon K. Hahs, President, Northeastern Illinois University

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, support Northestearn Illinois University professor Loretta Capeheart in her suit against NEIU's president, vice-president, and provost for violation of her free speech rights and retaliation against her for exercising these rights in defense of labor, minorities, and academic freedom.

After playing a leading role in her union (University Professionals of Illinois-AFT) during a strike, defending students arrested for protest of a CIA recruitment event, and contradicting her provost on the matter of recruitment and retention of Latino/a faculty, Professor Capeheart was

-denied appointment to her duly elected post as department chair,
-denied merited awards, and
-defamed in a faculty council meeting by NEIU's vice president,
who maliciously charged her without basis with stalking a student.

We are outraged at these serious and malicious attempts to silence one of our fellow academics, unionists, and anti-war activists. We cannot allow NEIU administrators to get away with these attacks on academic freedom and workers' rights. Their actions should be chilling to all workers, activists, and scholars. Her case is a perfect example of the stakes of the ongoing struggle for academic freedom—for labor, for inclusion and equality of minorities, and for the right to protest war and injustice on our campuses.

Capeheart seeks an injunction against further violations, for her rightful appointment as chair, and for monetary damages for defamation.

We stand with her.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Sign the petition here.

The Limits of Liberalism

Terry Eagleton on the Limits of Liberalism.

Life Imitates Comedy

A few months ago Dennis Perrin wrote a satirical ad for John McCain:
NARRATOR: Barack Obama's friend Bill Ayers once belonged to a group that bombed public buildings. But how many people did Ayers actually kill? Based on the evidence, the answer is ZERO. That's right -- not a single dead body. Sorry Senator Obama. If you want to be president, you'll have to find a more violent group of friends.

John McCain. He's killed before, and he'll kill again.


Now, we have Ehud Barak campaigning against Avigdor Lieberman on precisely those grounds: 'When has he ever shot anyone? When has he ever held a rifle?'

Smart People Support Palestine

Tony Benn Tells the BBC How it Is

This is so gangsta.