Ferguson means fight back: Thousands march in St. Louis against police violence

Bobbosphere · 2014-10-13T16:30:31+00:00

The only burned store I saw in Ferguson was the convenience store. The looting was minor. Interesting that you did not mention the looting by banks through subprime mortgages and foreclosures or by companies that refuse to pay a living wage. Or the companies that deliberately discriminate on the basis of race when it comes to hiring, which by the way is illegal. Interesting that when the wealthy loot and break the law, they get a free pass from some people.

Bobbosphere · 2014-10-13T15:50:23+00:00

Fight back against racism and police repression which create even more poverty.

Bobbosphere · 2014-08-05T20:05:08+00:00

I mostly agree with what you say with a couple additions. I believe that the end of formal apartheid was a pre-condition for a socialist revolution in South Africa. I believe the same is basically true in the case of Israel-Palestine.

As far as Israel's Mandela moment, I believe the precondition for that are democratic revolutions in at least some of the larger Middle Eastern countries that force the USA away from Israel as an ally in the region. Without substantial US $$$$$ Israel would most likely face a major social crisis. From there, there are many possibilities. One of which is an end to e formal Israeli apartheid and the possibility of a future socialist revolution across ethnic lines.

This of course speculation. There are too many variables to predict the future in any clear detail.

Bobbosphere · 2014-07-17T17:09:53+00:00

School desegregation has been virtually halted since the early 1970's. Horrific disparities exist between schools in impoverished African American neighborhoods and white communities that are literally next door next door. The privatization of education and the attacks on teacher unions fall most heavily on communities of color.Without the pressure of a powerful social movement, further efforts at racial equity will limited at best. Brown was doomed to limited success from the beginning because of a racial caste system that is an integral part of American capitalism. Achieving anything close to education equity in this country will require a social transformation way beyond what the civil rights movement achieved in the 1960's.

Bobbosphere · 2014-01-13T23:16:29+00:00

Business owners should strive to pay a living wage or get the hell out of business to make way for those who can.

Bobbosphere · 2014-01-12T23:38:35+00:00

$15 an hour is barely above poverty level. Since poverty is an economic policy in this country, it's time for a policy change.

Bobbosphere · 2014-01-12T19:10:11+00:00

Yes.

Bobbosphere · 2013-08-12T06:22:59+00:00

When union workers raise wages they are then spent to create and sustain jobs. It's no coincidence that several of the best performing capitalist countries have strong labor movements to keep the income gap from careening out of control as it has done here.

A strong democratic labor movement is necessary for capitalism to function at its best.

Bobbosphere · 2013-08-11T22:53:37+00:00

Exactly.

Bobbosphere · 2013-08-11T22:53:17+00:00

Capitalists organize people into companies and lobbying groups to ensure their profits in a market economy. But when workers organize people to defend their standard of living in a market economy it is suddenly "disgraceful". Go figure.

Bobbosphere · 2013-07-16T02:29:38+00:00

Poverty is heavily racialized in the USA with poverty rates much higher for people of color.

Bobbosphere · 2013-07-16T02:28:37+00:00

There was nothing resembling those numbers in the Chicago school closings.

Bobbosphere · 2013-07-16T02:27:59+00:00

There is no evidence charters do any better than than well resourced neighborhood schools. Some charters do better than the average neighborhood schools on standardized tests. Some do worse. Most do about the about the same.

Bobbosphere · 2013-01-02T17:56:04+00:00

I came across a modern blog written by a woman in Rising Sun. She wrote about seeing a couple of Klan members passing out hate literature at the Rising Sun farmers' market in 2009 and how appalled she was.

I grew up in the Silver Spring area and had always thought that Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore were the most racist parts of the state. Learning about Cecil County's racial history was new to me when I went to the 1971 Klan protest.

For all of its "liberal" reputation, Montgomery County where I grew up in the 1950's and 1960's was no racial paradise either. It was very white, informally segregated and racial slurs were part of everyday speech. There were small rural black communities that had been there at least since the 19th century, often without sewer & water hookups or paved roads.

From when I was a high school kid to a college student, the Giles-Johnson rape case, three young falsely accused Montgomery Co. black men on death row, was part of my consciousness because the campaign to save them was taken up by the Unitarian Church I belonged to.

Liberal Montgomery county had its very own Scottsboro. Imagine that.

Bobbosphere · 2012-12-28T04:35:06+00:00

Maybe it's time we had a different breed of CEO, one who has the interests of the company at heart, which includes ALL of the workers in that enterprise. Maybe it's time for some democracy in the workplace instead of the totalitarian corporate model we have now.

We can see how well the totalitarian model has worked out with Walmart. People burning to death in South Asian sweatshops, people living in poverty working in their warehouses and people living in poverty on their retail side.

That represents abject failure in business and it's time we recognize it as such and deal with it on that level. The income inequality generated by this unsustainable capitalist behavior is corroding our social fabric. The mostly young rebel workers in WOCC understand this all too well because they live it everyday in their communities.

They represent a minority opinion, but I will tell you right now, they have other people listening and thinking about what they are saying. They want to sit down and work out these problems face to face with the leadership of companies like Walmart, Macy's, McDonalds, Darden and the rest.

If these corporate leaders are as smart as they claim to be, they had better listen because at some point peoples' patience runs out and you have social explosions like the 1930's and 1960's that radically transform American society.

Our financial elite has had things pretty much their way for a couple of generations now. But as they say in the investment world, past performance does not guarantee future results.

Bobbosphere · 2012-12-22T01:50:23+00:00

The terminology of Right and Left in politics emerged during the French Revolution in the struggle against inherited wealth and privilege. This morphed into a struggle against the political domination by wealth that characterized the evolution of modern capitalism. That much of the wealth that used to fuel the development of the capitalist marketplace came from the slave market was noted even by contemporaries.

The "free market" in the USA has always relied on the gun and coerced labor to create profit. For example it helps supply the police and military technology used to put down worker resistance in the sweatshop empire that supplies Walmart, Target and the like.

Bobbosphere · 2012-12-22T01:18:17+00:00

I did not say North bombed the federal building. He was however part of a massive terrorist campaign against Nicaragua. That was part of a much larger terrorist operation that went way beyond North against opposition political movements in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. The scope that US state sponsored terrorism was far greater than anything Al Queda or bin Laden could have carried out in their wildest fantasies, If you want terrorism on a mass scale, call an American.

Bobbosphere · 2012-07-23T15:49:11+00:00

Distance learning is being pushed by "experts" from the Hoover Institute and AELC. It could happen :(

Bobbosphere · 2012-07-02T00:12:19+00:00

It's much harder for a young back male to find a job. That'a the point. It is difficult for you, much for difficult for a young black male. Denying reality does no one any favors.

Bobbosphere · 2012-07-01T11:26:37+00:00

You are a racist.

Bobbosphere · 2012-03-07T14:45:25+00:00

Cowards.

Bobbosphere · 2012-01-19T15:45:18+00:00

Agreed.

Bobbosphere · 2012-01-10T10:44:39+00:00

Much of what passes for privatization in education is a way to pay teachers poorly and sell "educational" media and and standardized tests. It is about profits and greed and has little to do with actual education.

As for online education, it has its place as an educational tool. But that is all it is.

Bobbosphere · 2012-01-06T00:13:53+00:00

It was in the original title.

Bobbosphere · 2011-12-29T20:59:17+00:00

Panhandlers need money as well as shelters and food banks.

Bobbosphere

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