Newspapers Own Fault

Newspapers are dead.

Long live newspapers.

So says John Oliver – It is sad that it takes a comedian to tell everyone what they pretty much already knew. People don't read newspapers – they don't want to pay for what they can get for free off the Internet or from the TV for basically nothing. (Actually they do pay for it through their Internet subscription, cable or satellite bill, or cell phone bill. They just think that it is free.)

But actual investigative journalism about the issues that matter locally, regionally, and nationally? Don't hold your breath. That costs serious money. And people are more in tune to cute animal pictures than things that can and will affect their lives.

Sad to say, President Trump could happen because of the death of journalism and media's need to make a profit to satisfy investors. Trump, who spends next to nothing on campaign advertising is within 10 points of Clinton who is spending tons on advertising. Trump knows how to manipulate the media and Clinton is a wonk that has less ability to connect with people than my pet rock. Or cats. Then again, all they have to do to get attention is sit on your lap and you'll scratch them. A Clinton campaign commercial comes on and the channel gets changed or the mute button is hit.

And the CEO of CBS said that Trump was great for ratings, terrible for the country. Or something to that effect. I'll have to dig it up from FAIR.org. Yes, the Internet has become our collective memory. Until someone edits and changes it.

And the newspapers have no one to blame for their demise but themselves. Rather than cover stories that matter to the working class – the largest segment of the population – and tell them the truth about what has happened and why it happened, it focuses on crime, accidents, and other trivial matters that entertain but never educate about what is going on and why.

The 2007 economic crash and crisis was covered horribly. The press did a horrible job of explaining the causes of it – the repeal of the Glass-Steagle Act, Wall Street ratings agencies failing to do their job in investigating the quality of a stock and rating it accordingly, and other libertarian economic deregulation that just don't work. They sound nice in theory. In reality – look at the Gilded Age. That's where they would send us. That's where we are not far from actually.

And journalist jobs have been hacked and slashed from newspapers offices, so they don't have the time to do the deep digging that democracy requires in order to function. The great muckrakers of the late 1800's and early 1900's must be spinning in their graves about the state of journalism today. Yes, every once in a while so great muckraking does happen, but those are the exceptions and they are few and far between in local papers.

And the Internet – Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of social media – don't make up the slack. Granted, there are some great social media groups that do excellent work in exposing things that those in power don't want people to know about. But, and that's a big but, if you are not aware of those organization, it is like a tree falling in the forest. Does it really make a sound?

And Buffalo is a one newspaper town. Wasn't capitalism dependent upon competition? Body builders that I know tell me that opposition builds strength, That's why they use weights. Where's the opposition to the Buffalo News? Maybe that's why it is such a milquetoast product. (Please – ignore Carl Paladino just once. Get an opinion from someone else and dare to say he is boring and predictable.)

Thomas Jefferson stated that he'd rather have newspapers without government than government without newspapers. Well, we really don't have any newspapers and the ones we have are owned by the people we should be investigating. Or the friends of the people we should be investigating. Don't get me started on the government, or lack thereof that we have.

The Buffalo News has joined Politifact to check on the claims of politician during this election season. It will be interesting to see if this collaboration continues after the election is over. It is an interesting idea to have an organization looking into the claims of politicians and those that aspire to power.

I would like to see an EconoFact – an organization that checks into the claims of the unelected powerful – the barons of industry and Wall Street. Are the economists, Wall Street, businessmen (and women) telling us the truth or are they just spouting garbage? We probably won't see that because newspapers are dependent upon advertising from those very people that they would be investigating. And we all know how money talks.

So, people turn to comedians to find out what is going on. 

And people laughed at the John Oliver skit.

They should have been crying.

Why are we paying for Trico?

So the Erie County Industrial Development Agency is supporting tax breaks for the Trico Factory's redevelopment into a mixed use facility. This will include: residential use (a glorified way of saying apartments), hotel space (as if we don't have enough hotels in this community), educational (to replace the schools that were closed and turned into apartments), commercial, and retail space. (I ran out of snarky things to say about the last two.)

First: The name of the organization is the Industrial Development Agency. Only two of the proposed uses have anything to do with the word industrial – retail and commercial. At that, I doubt that there will be much manufacturing, if any, in the complex that is going to be redeveloped. Most of the job growth in Buffalo has been low paying sales and service jobs. Somehow I have this funny feeling that this won't be any different.

Second: Why does a capitalist need the government to interfere in the developer's plans? Time and time again I hear the capitalists saying that they want the government out of their faces, hair, business (chose your cliché) and that they could do better if the government would leave them alone. Instead we have the exact opposite here – the capitalist is asking the big oppressive government to give them property, sales, and mortgage reporting tax breaks.

Allow me to translate what the capitalists are demanding the big oppressive government to do: pass the costs of doing business on to the working class and others that pay taxes so that the corporation can record bigger profits, give themselves higher salaries, better benefits, and stick it to the working class with poor wages, benefits, cuts to services that the government provides, and higher taxes. All for less.

We have how many schools that were closed and the Buffalo City Schools can't renovate them into a new school for culinary arts? (A fancy way of saying “cooking.” The best cook I ever met learned how to cook from her grandmother. She was an off the boat immigrant who spoke next to no English and measured everything out by hand, looks, and – I swear- luck. Then again, it was a family thing and capitalism does a good job of destroying families.) Nope. As before, these old schools get sold off to be converted into apartments.

Which brings me to all these houses that are in foreclosure or are sitting empty – These can't be used for people to live in because … ? It's not like Buffalo has a housing shortage. If all the houses we have that are empty were fixed up or demolished (if that bad) and new housing put up … Or banks forced to do something about the foreclosed property. These lofts are novelties, not necessities. They are the latest housing fad. When the loft style goes out of fashion, which it will, what then?

The working class needs good paying jobs. Yes, these will provide construction workers and those associated with it good wages. What about the rest of the working class? Retail means minimum wage. These are always low to to no skill jobs with bad wages and next to no benefits. Many of the people working at these jobs are trying to support families and require food stamps and other forms of public assistance to make ends meet (barely).

And I know people that work in the hotel industry – don't hold your breath om the wages and benefits issue.

And the apartments, retail, etc. are for the highly paid people that will be working in the medical campus – not for the average everyday people. This is all about segregating the people that live in the city of Buffalo from the upper class that will be working in the medical campus.

I think there is a word for this – gentrification.

Plain and simple – the city of Buffalo, Erie County, New York State should not be subsidizing this in any way at all.

It's not our responsibility to support private profit making and gentrification.

What the capitalists want is socialism for themselves and capitalism for themselves.

If capitalism is so great, why don't they try living under it?

Housing Distraction

The Buffalo News reports today on housing discrimination that is still legal in Baltimore.

After reading the article, I wondered why they focused on Baltimore? We can find African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and other poor peoples segregated into specific areas all over the USA.

Look at Buffalo Schools and their struggle for funding, their low performance on tests that don't matter, and all sorts of issues. Then drive down the road to Amherst, Williamsville, Clarence, and other segregated suburbs. Play compare and contrast. And look at the racial make up of the communities as well. And their financial data.

When I lived on the East Side of Buffalo, all it took was a few blocks and I was technically in Cheektowaga. There were still poor people, but the minority population dropped off significantly.

When I lived outside of Clarence, I rarely saw African Americans. Or Hispanics. I might see some Asians. When I was pursuing my degree in librarianship (Yes, there is actually a degree needed to be a librarian.) I had the opportunity to visit Clarence High School. The library was the former gym – renovated to be a two story area. It had an attached computer lab. It's database budget in 2000 was $20,000. That's more than my entire budget this year – Library Materials Aid and supply lines combined.

And drive through the Kensington area – It's not exactly pretty in some places. And then there are the former stores and “mini-malls” as we called them. Technically they were called “plazas.” Not exactly seeing a renaissance in this area of town. And the “Fruit Belt” is going to get whalloped with increasing rents because of the Downtown Medical Campus. Guess who is going to be driven out so that better paid middle and upper middle class people can have a convenient place to live?

In reality, we should be reading articles like these and then looking critically at our own communities to see if what the article is reporting on is evident in our own community and region.

I would write about Rochester, but not being intimately familiar with it, I do not want to comment on it. I have met teachers that say that they are happy that they “escaped it.” As if is a prison? I'm sure that's what the people of the community want it to be seen as.

To me, the article was a case of a shell game. Ignore what is going on in your community – look at how terrible things are over in this neighborhood. To me the article was a way of trying to distract people from how bad things are for the urban poor where they live. Yes, things may be bad in (your city here), but look at this place and these examples. You should be happy you have it so good.

BS.

Minority communities have it poor wherever they are. They are redlined into specific areas and deliberately gerrymandered so that they do not have the power in voice that their numbers deserve.

Minorities need to break free from the two capitalist parties and start voting for candidates and parties that support their needs and demands.

Skip the Democrats (and especially the Republicans) and look into socialism for real solutions.

You have nothing to lose and a whole world to win.

Olympic Sized Follies

The Olympics are going on and I don't care.

Kind of like Jimmy cracked corn. I still don't care.

I care that thousands of people were thrown out of their homes to build venues for this multi-million dollar cash cow for the 1%.

I care that people that have protested the Olympics (and that disastrous World Cup Soccer) have been thrown in jail. And won't get out until this charade, façade is over with.

I care that social spending and agencies are being defunded to cover the excessive costs of having the Olympics in Brazil. The money will never be repaid either. Those people are TSOL when it comes to living life. Spectacle is more important.

When I look at the financial crisis that both Greece and Spain are in – both hosted the Olympics. How much of the debt that those countries are in are from hosting this financial waste case?

But it's the one time that we can set aside our differences and problems and just compete in a friendly manner.

Tell that to Team Refugee.

Tell that to the Palestinians,

So next time two countries want to go to war, we'll tell them about the “spirit of the Olympics,” set up a quick venue and have them compete in a variety of sporting events to see who is better. Whoever wins more points wins the war. Gold = 3 points. Silver = 2 points. Bronze = 1 point. Each disqualification results in the loss of 2 points.

Yeah. Right. Like that'll happen.

Maybe I should lay off the hard cider.

Or maybe people should start reading the work of David Zirin and others that have covered the disaster that hosting the Olympics can be.

We get the pomp and circumstance – a glorious façade.

The people living in the host country and area that it is being held in get a personal hell.

And the country is stuck with a huge bill while the IOC walks away with a hefty amount of money for a not-for-profit organization.

So you can say that the IOC gets the gold, silver, and bronze while the people get the shaft.

I'll pass.

Buffalo News - Wrong on Testing. Again.

So the Buffalo News has another editorial OP-ED about Buffalo and NY schools and testing. And that ever pesky testing opt-out movement which is keeping students away from tests that have never (in the history of education) been proven to show what a student is capable of.

If these tests are so great, that means that the education of those that have never taken them is sub par, at best. Even if they went to college prep schools and elite colleges, etc. Blah blah blah.

Which explains the mess that this country is in and the incompetence of our leaders in the various fields. Particularly the media which Thomas Jefferson so duly noted was essential to the preservation of democracy in this country.

Which is why Presidents Reagan, GHW Bush, WJ Clinton, (sic) GW Bush, and Obama are able to sell us failed economic policies as garbage. (And pretty much every president before them.  And the two current candidates.  God,   please help us.) And how GW Bush was able to lie us into a war in Iraq with total media complicity – because they were never subject to rigorous testing in school they had no idea how to check and see if Bush was telling us the truth. Heaven knows that other countries around the world had figured out that Bush was lying but our media? Nope.

Clearly they were not tested enough.

And because they failed so miserably, that is why fewer people are going to the mainstream corporate media for news and information. Weather, yes. Local information about something, maybe. With some salt added. But big newspapers and corporate media? Give me SNL, Steven Colbert, John Stewart, George Carlin, and any comedian (or comedienne) and I'll get a more accurate take on what is going on in the world and why it is happening.

Or the Independent media – Democracy Now, the Real News Network, Free Speech Radio News, and a whole bevy of other resources (Z Magazine, Monthly Review, Counterpunch, In These Times, The Progressive, Dissent, The Nation, and of course, Socialist Action newspaper. I save the best for last. There are others that can be listed I'm sure. These are off the top of my head. Got one? Tell me. I'd love to look at it.)They were correct on the wars, Bush's tax plans, and other plans that wrecked this country.  And all the other presidents as well.  And they are providing the best and most critical analyses of the current election.

Third party anyone?

So we have the usual list of complaints about testing and parents that are keeping their children away from a pedagogically questionable practice that is conducted at inappropriate times throughout the school year. (It should all be done in June. At the end of instruction. You don't give a final exam in the middle of a unit. Duh.)

And the people doing the criticizing are not the ones that have to work with the students or deal with them when they ask “Why do we have to know this? Or “Is this going to be on the test?”

My favorite; “I hate school. It's stupid and useless.”

Yes. Those are the attitudes we need for students to have towards education. When they give up on learning, they are not just giving up on themselves. They are giving up on the community where they live and the country that they live in.

So, if what we were doing before all this testing was a failure – that explains a ton.

But turning students off from education is also not working.

Our students, and our country deserve better.

Socialists demand:

-An end to punitive testing in schools

-The refunding of all money wasted on tests that show and prove nothing (After 1 year,interest is added. Prime plus 1% per year.)

-An end to charter schools – their whole purpose is to promote testing more and to put our taxes into Wall Street and the pockets of the 1%

-The adoption of Portfolio Assessments which show student strengths through a wide variety of tasks, not just one test

We demand educational justice for our students.

Our future and democracy depend upon it.

Not the Way to Go Green

Governor Cuomo has chosen the wrong way for NY to go green.

He could have worked to promote wind energy. Being near the Great Lakes we receive an incredible amount of wind. Continuously. And new windmill designs are coming out that have a much smaller profile, look more aesthetically pleasing, and generate more electricity. Nope.

He could have promoted solar. This would certainly be a boost for Buffalo with the building of Solar City and the advances being made in battery technology. Elon Mush released his home battery plans as open source material. Anyone can take the technology and develop it. A firm in St Catherines has demonstrated that it can produce the same battery as Elon Musk has for about 20% of the cost. Could we get that proved and get them to put a plant in over here? Nope.

The Great Lakes have currents in them (until global warming wipes them out completely) that could be used to generate tidal energy. Just like windmills but below the water where we don't have to see them. And they are below the lever where boat hulls could strike them. Double win – the boating community sails or motors about and we get electricity. Nope.

Instead the Governor has chosen to pucker up to his campaign donors posteriors and is pushing for fracked gas pipelines to Canada and Connecticut and the other New England States.

Seriously? This is green energy? How? From the radioactive elements that are released from the fracking wells?

Fracking is one of – if not the absolute – environmentally dangerous ways to produce natural gas. And we all know that we need to break away form the carbon based fuels if we want our children and grand children to have land to live on.

And then there are the multi million dollar subsidies to the out old, out dated, near ancient nuclear plants that are, according to nuclear specialists, getting to be too dangerous and too inefficient to operate.

Think about this – all nuclear plants are doing is using deadly radiation to boil water into steam that will turn a turbine and generate electricity.

Like we can't do that with solar? A friend on mine was at a camp in Northern NY that used solar powered water heaters. They never ran out of hot water, even in winter, and you had to mix cold water with it because the water was at 160 degrees F.

With new advances in solar technology we can get that up to 212 easily and consistently. And we won't need fracked gas as a “bridge fuel.”

So let's can these nuclear plants and put our money into something that is not going to kill us and will actually create jobs. With solar panels becoming more affordable all the time they are going to become more popular and why produce them overseas when we can do it right here? And the batteries too.

The only demand for nuclear will be to dismantle those ineffective and inefficient plants.

If we are going to go green, let's at least make it environmentally friendly. Now.

Not in however the half life or uranium or plutonium is.

Cultural Relevance

Out and about I heard some Bible thumper trying to witness to someone. After some excuse that the person gave for why they would wait to become a Christian the thumper answered “Let the dead bury the dead.” The other person looked at them and said “Whatever” and walked away.

I am also killing myself laughing watching 3^rd Rock from the Sun. Watching a bunch of aliens in human form from another planet trying to understand us and our culture. Our metaphors, taken literally by the aliens, are utterly hilarious. (I have the DVDs as a gift. The giver said I would fit into the “family” quite perfectly. I am thinking this was intended as an insult.  I will have to ask.)

And I finished reading Geek Wisdom – a book about nerd aphorisms and what they mean to nerds and geeks everywhere. Not to anyone else – just geeks and nerds. Several of them are quite brilliant in their criticism of capitalist culture and society. I must give them points for that.

Why type all this?

If we can not speak the language of the people we are trying to reach out to, they will never understand us or want to join us. And if we get too arrogant in our loft knowledge and wisdom, they will blow us off and remain forever in the prison that is capitalism. And our desired revolution will be but a dream in the future. And the capitalist class will be able to use charlatans like Clinton and Trump (among many others) to channel people into maintaining the system.

The Occupy movement was brilliant in its depiction of society as the 99% versus the 1% - with the 1% being the cause of the problems we face and a protected & privileged class from the problems that they create.

But if we go into deep analysis about the crisis with long winded diatribes with heavy language we will never reach the people that we need in order to spark the revolution that everyone knows that they want.

Look at Lenin and the Russian Revolution. He could write some very deep books about imperialism, capitalism, and the crisis that the world faced. When push came to shove, it was three words that gained the support of the masses and secured the success of the revolution. Land, bread, and peace.

I have heard people saying that we should not simplify how we write, talk, our analysis, etc – but what good is Anti-Düring or Das Capital if no one will read it? The Communist Manifesto was popular because it was simple, brief, and explained what people needed to know. More popular than the Manifesto was Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. This simple text is loaded with easy to understand analysis that any high schooler could understand. (For the record, this book was key sections from Anti-Düring. And I win debates with people from information gleaned from this short book.)

We need to speak to people about the crisis this world is in using language they understand.

Otherwise they will, like the Saturday Night Live skit featuring John Lovitt (The Amazing Alexander), keep supporting capitalism. They will like it better than Cats and will see it again and again as the only way to live their lives.

Just a thought.

NY Test Scores Mean?

Test scores in NY are doing something.

The state claims that they are going up and that this shows that education is improving in the state.

Critics say that more students opted out this year (which is true) and that because of the opt outs Albany is trying to extrapolate something from the data that is not there.

A second group of critics says that test scores are up because students are getting better at taking the tests. If you know how to take a test, especially multiple choice, you can do well.

This was proved to me by a group of students that reviewed like blazes on how to use their Earth Science and Chemistry tables. If you know where to look on the tables, you can get at least a 70 on the Regents Exams. With enough work in a Barron's Review book, you can get past the 80 mark.

Do these students know the content or are they just getting better at tests?

Or are they learning, like capitalists, how to game the system so that they can get through school with a minimal amount of work and not learn anything.

I watched several groups of students kill the US History Regents this year by reading the textbook and doing practice exams that the State Dept. of Education posts on-line. They don't trust the teacher and view all the classwork as “bunk” and “totally useless.”

So, who's correct?

The ultimate question is: How do we know that the students have learned? If we were to give them a real world problem that they will face, can they solve it? Or at least propose solutions?

What is the purpose of the test? And why are we giving them in March, April, and May when the students still have between 1 to 3 months of instruction left.

We need to remember the purpose of testing – to turn off students from learning so that the economically poor students drop out and go into high school graduate equivalence programs. This allows the state to cut funding to poorer districts and then send the money to richer districts or to privatized charter schools. Either way the poor are screwed out of an education that might help them take action to lead them out of their economic situation.

The flip side of the drop outs is that they have not bought all the capitalist propaganda that is pushed down students' throats in our education system. This makes it easier for us socialist to show them real history, real economics, really how the government works, and science that is not clouded by religious bigotry.

So, I doubt what Governor Cuomo says is accurate in any way. Fewer students taking the test means that fewer students are doing better or taking the tests that they are conditioned to take.

And ask students what they think about the tests – Do the students think that the tests show everything that the student knows or is capable of?

If that answer is “No” - then the tests have truly failed.

350 to 1

One boneheaded skinhead thought he could get a white supremacy rally going in Buffalo and was drowned out by people opposed to a message of hate.

The Buffalo Anti-Racism Coalition was the organizing force that opposed the few that showed up.

And Buffalo has a proud tradition of opposing hate groups, though a few do exist in the area. Because of the mass opposition, they keep to them selves and keep quiet.

And the organizer of the white supremacy rally had the nerve to have campaign literature for office – he wants to be a senator. Can we write him in for psychiatric evaluation instead?

We need to be aware of a few things:

1. The Republican Trump candidacy, which has shed all pretenses and “dog whistle politics” and code words, has boosted the bravery of white supremacy in this country. They are becoming more vocal and acting out even more than before.

2. The loss of manufacturing jobs to trade deals made by Democrats and Republicans has fueled the unemployment of the male population that white supremacists feed off of. “Back in he day” one could graduate from high school and go work for Chevy, Ford, Bethlehem Steel, and other manufacturers and make good money. Capitalists and capitalist crises killed those jobs and now the undereducated are being stuck with low paying, no benefit jobs. They need to see that capitalists like Trump and Clinton are the tools of the capitalist elites. Voting for either is slitting your own throat.

3. Their concerns about immigration are a result of US capitalist run foreign policy, which subverts democracy in other countries and places capitalist dictatorships in power. If people were able to democratically run their own countries and the USA let them, then they would not be running for fear of their lives or to make money to send home to their families.

We need to use the capitalist crisis to educate those around us who are susceptible to the lies of white supremacy about the truth of the situation.

We need to show those who are victims of the capitalist created and managed crisis that the only solution to their crisis is socialism – an economy run of, by, and for the people – not just the 1%.

If we fail to see and do this, then the next rally might be larger.

Mussolini and Hitler fascist groups both started small. They grew in a crisis.

Let's use this crisis to throw the light on the failures of capitalism and begin the road to revolution.

Downside to Trade Deals

If there is one good thing that came out of the Democratic Primary was that the Bernie Sanders supporters made a big deal about the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) and forced the media to talk about it.

There has been some coverage of the TPP, but it has been very simplistic at best and often as a swipe against Wikleaks. Otherwise, no coverage at all.

The TPP is a monstrous trade deal that would basically set corporate law over national law. It would enshrine a corporation's ability to make a profit over the citizenry's right to choose how they want their country governed.

Now, because of the Sanders supporters, the cat is out of the bag and people are starting to look at the TPP and are seeing it in an very unfavorable light. Even the Buffalo News admits this in the Sunday paper (July 31 2106 – Downside to trade deal would be no deal at all.)

As someone that lived through NAFTA (forced through Congress by President Clinton and VP Gore in the 1990's, this trade agreement made it possible for capital to move freely and screw over workers any and every where in North America. It made it possible for capitalists to move finances and jobs wherever they wanted to and the government could do nothing to stop them. Former Presidential Candidate H Ross Perot had it correct when he said that the “great sucking sound that you hear is jobs leaving this country.” They – jobs, good high paying union jobs – left this country for Mexico. Further trade agreements made it possible for the capitalists to move American jobs to South and Central America and to Asia.

We, the people, need to stand against the TPP and demand that our representatives vote against it.

Via e-mail I have been told that both NYS Senators oppose it and that Congressman Reed opposes it. We need to keep the noise and pressure up and make sure that the entire WNY delegation is opposed to the TPP and that Seantors Schumer & Gillibrand remain opposed to the TPP. We also need to school the Buffalo News to represent our interests and not the capitalist class interests.

The following resources are good to educate yourself on this terrible trade deal:

Democracy Now!

Public Citizen

Real News Network

Socialist Action

Wikileaks has a searchable database on the TPP and other agreements on the front page.

No to the TPP – Yes to workers' rights and citizens' ability to govern their country.