Category: Class War

Walmart drives down American wages

~ susie

Think Progress:

Walmart’s outsourcing of jobs is driving down wages at American factories, according to a report from the National Employment Law Project. Instead of employing its own factory employees, Walmart subcontracts many of the jobs to outside companies that have histories of low wages and labor violations, the report said. “These outsourced workers laboring on Walmart’s behalf toil at the bottom of a complex hierarchy of intermediaries and in alternative employment schemes that leave them vulnerable to significant worker rights abuses and unsure where to seek redress,” said the report, which also noted that workers at multiple Walmart-contracted facilities have sued their employers for violating minimum wage laws and cheating them out of pay.

Quote of the day

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Krugman:

Everything we know says that this generation will never — never — recover from the terrible job market into which it has graduated. But hey, we can’t do anything about that; we must have austerity, for the sake of the next generation.

JFK

~ susie

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.

Education ‘reform’

~ susie ~ 7 Comments

A parent and attorney cross-examines Penny Pritzker, billionaire member of the Chicago Board of Education. (She was Obama’s finance chair.) Via Diane Ravitch:

Farmer is a trial lawyer. He describes how he bristled when he heard an interview on the radio in which Pritzker described what Chicago students need: enough skills in reading, mathematics, and science to be productive members of the workforce. Why no mention of the arts, of music, of physical education, he wondered.


So he cross-examined Pritzker in absentia. Her own children attend the University of Chicago Lab School. Mayor Rahm Emanuel sends his children there too. Arne Duncan is a graduate.


Farmer points out that the Lab School has a rich curriculum, not preparation for the workforce. Children there get the arts and physical education there every day. The Lab School has a beautiful library, and Pritzker is raising money to make it even grander and more beautiful. He asks the absent Pritzker, “Do you know that 160 public schools in Chicago don’t have a library?”


The Lab School has seven teachers of the arts. In a high school that Pritzker voted to close, there was not a single arts teacher.


Matt Farmer goes on to quote the director of the Lab School, who opposes standardized testing and insists upon a rich curriculum. The statement by the Lab School’s director about the importance of the union bring the assembled teachers to their feet, roaring and applauding.


I hope Penny Pritzker and Rahm Emanual watch this video. People who have the good fortune to send their children to elite private schools should do whatever they can to spread the same advantages to other people’s children. When they are members of the board of education and the mayor, they have a special responsibility to do what is right for the children in their care. If they inflict policies on other people’s children that are unacceptable for their own children, they should be ashamed.

Why I can’t stand Donna Brazile

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

Have you ever heard anything so typical of the Villagers?

As for John Edwards, he should seek redemption, not re-election. He should find some way to be of service without getting publicity for it – running a legal assistance program or a charity; teaching in a public school in a low-income community; becoming a social worker or a youth counselor. He shouldn’t do interviews; he shouldn’t give speeches; and he should never – ever – run for public office again. His model should be Chuck Colson, not Richard Nixon.

Yeah, Chuck’s the right role model. He used his alleged born-again experience to simply shift his bare-knuckles political style to manipulating the fundamentalist base for profit. But it “looked” good to people who didn’t know, and really, appearance is the ultimate Village value.

Edwards borrowed (without attribution) Jesse Jackson’s famous line: “God isn’t finished with me yet.” He is more likely to hear God’s voice in church or when he is walking alone or with his family than when he is performing in public.

First of all, that isn’t even what Edwards said, so Donna’s unChristian little dig is inaccurate. He said, “I don’t think God’s through with me.” Second, who the hell is Donna Brazile to decide anything for anyone? What typical Beltway arrogance. In case she forgets, this was exactly the attitude the Village displayed toward Bill Clinton: Too low-class, too Southern, Not People Like Us. Fuck her.

And one other thing: I was never a huge fan or a personal friend of John Edwards. But I do think it is time to stop casting stones at him. He did some things that were very wrong. But so might many of us when faced with the temptations of celebrity. If he stays out of the spotlight, we should leave him and his family alone.

So if he doesn’t stay out of the spotlight, he’s asking for it – from people like Donna Brazile. Give me a break.