31st Jan2012

Mumia Abu Jamal – Rosa Our Rosa

by iSpit


‘


Rosa Our Rosa by Mumia Abu-Jamal

 

For Mumia Abu-Jamal, I am Goldie, his daughter.

 

For Mumia Abu-Jamal, I am Frances Goldin.

 

 

 

We gather today over 140 years after the birthday of Rosa Luxemburg –

 

The brilliant thinker, writer, activist and revolutionary who’s memory still burns bright around the world.

 

As I’ve thought of her this season I wondered – what would she think of the Occupy Wall Street movement here in the U.S.?

 

Having read some of her political writings and her journal entries from prison, I think I have a taste of her thinking. I think she would reply, in her typical boldness:

 

“This is a movement?  If anything it is the beginnings of a movement; for movements lead to revolutions, or, betrayed, they lead to apparent reforms that often end up in setbacks, especially for the working class and the oppressed.

 

That’s because capitalism co-opts movements; they buy off leaders, and when that doesn’t work, they bring the iron hand out from under the velvet glove – and crush them. “

 

Wow – I’d reply, and add: But it’s actually a leaderless movement of mostly unemployed students.

 

To which Rosa would say something like:

 

”Aha! I see perhaps two possible outcomes; a) the bourgeois media depicts the entire movement as miscreant, sex friends or drug addicts (and then they crush them); or b) the police spies among them, identify key personalities and offer them lucrative jobs in high finance or some other sector, and once bought off, use them as a wedge against their former comrades. “

 

Wow, Rosa – that’s a pretty grim picture, I’d say. And she’d answer:

 

“It’s called class war, brother – not a dinner party! And as many of these activists are unemployed, capital can spare a few shekels to buy off the most advanced layer. “

 

And, finally, I’d say: Rosa – why are you so done on students? These kids are doing some remarkable things! “

 

And Rosa would reply:

 

“Students can spark a movement, as they’ve done all around the world. But can they carry it through? Can they engage the workers? The teachers, the tradesmen, the postal unions, the transit workers – if they can’t, then they can’t really top into a social force that has the potential to stage mass strikes that shuts down production – and that’s all Wall Street – - or any capitalist – - really cares about!“

 

Me again: “That sounds good, Rosa, but these students“- -

 

To which she’d interrupt:

 

“Jamal – c’mon – don’t be a dombkopf!  Students – schmudents! First of all, if they’re graduated, they’re not students anymore – they’re unemployed workers! Secondly, years ago, when you were a young guy, there were vast student’s movements – anti-war, pro-black-rights, pro-prisoners’ rights, anti-imperialists, etc., etc. Where are they now? Didn’t they get caught off? “ – - “Oh, and aren’t many of them these kids’ parents? “

 

To which I’d shut up.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this mental exercise, done with the highest regard and respect for a socialist intellectual and revolutionary: Rosa Luxemburg.

 

I chose this topic which may not be immediately familiar to you in Germany, which is, in the United States, a subject of endless fascination by much of the population, because it has taken the country by storm.

 

In the beginning of September, 2011, no such movement existed. But the events of Tahir Square in Egypt, the rising unemployment which left many college students unemployed, and the growing social inequality in American society, as shown by the obese well-being of Wall Street and the bankers, converged in a movement to show deep social dissent with this state of affairs.

 

When young people, most using cell phones and other instant media, began calling for a protest gathering at the iconic bull sculpture known worldwide as the symbol of the rampaging markets of New York’s Wall Street, hundreds, then thousands swarmed into the streets.

 

And, like that, a Movement was born.

 

Within days the call was met by crushes of students, most angry at the bottomless greed of the economic elites – the 1%.

 

They started the „We Are the 99%!“Chant, and again, within days, similar occupations sprang in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles – - and beyond.

 

Within weeks, over 100 city centers, home of the moneyed elites, were occupied.

 

But what really kicked them into high gear, was when cops in New York, blithely sprayed chemicals into the faces of young women doing nothing more than marching with an anti-capitalist banner. Carried via YouTube, it reached millions, and inspired more to join the protests.

 

Rosa, I’m convinced, would’ve loved it!

 

As I write this year’s message from prison, it’s the first time I’ve done so without death sentence.

 

That’s entirely due to you – and people like you – who have stood with me through thick and thin.

 

Danke – viel viel Danke – to ALL of you brothers and sisters in Germany, in France, in Spain, in England, in Canada, in India, and yes – - in the United States for making this happen.

 

As you know, the struggle continues.

 

This battle ain’t over until we all are free!

 

Mao used to say “The journey of a thousand leagues begins with one step.“

 

We have taken this step.

 

We are one step closer to freedom!

 

Lang lebe Red Rosa!

 

FREIHEIT ! Free the Move Prisoners! Free Leonard Peltier!

 

Dismantle the prison-industrial complex!

 

Meine Freunden – Bewegung!

 

Aus der Todeszelle, hier sprecht

 

Mumia Abu-Jamal

 

Auf Wiedersehen!

 

Goldie for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

 

Frances Goldin for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

 

Prison and government officials are trying to censor and silence Mumia Abu-Jamal. I stand as one of many Americans who believe that there is tremendous value in his voice being heard. I and others will fight to make sure that both his voice and his body are free.

Category : Audio, Interviews
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0 Comm
20th Jan2012

SOPA, PIPA Postponed Indefinitely After Protests

by iSpit

When the entire Internet gets angry, Congress takes notice. Both the House and the Senate on Friday backed away from a pair of controversial anti-piracy bills, tossing them into limbo and throwing doubt on their future viability.

The Senate had been scheduled to hold a proceedural vote next week on whether to take up the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — a bill that once had widespread, bipartisan support. But on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he was postponing the vote “in light of recent events.”

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives said it is putting on hold its version of the bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The House will “postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith said in a written statement.

The moves came after several lawmakers flipped their position on the bills in the wake of widespread online and offline protests against them.

Tech companies, who largely oppose the bills, mobilized their users this week to contact representatives and speak out against the legislation. Sites including Wikipedia and Reddit launched site blackouts on January 18, while protesters hit the streets in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Google drew more than 7 million signatures for an anti-SOPA and PIPA petition that it linked on its highly trafficked homepage.

The tide turned soon after the protest, and both bills lost some of their Congressional backers.

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns,” Smith said Friday in a prepared statement. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves.”

PIPA and SOPA aim to crack down on copyright infringement by restricting sites that host or facilitate the trading of pirated content. (Click here for our explainer: What SOPA is and why it matters.)

Backed by media companies, including CNNMoney parent Time Warner, the bills initially seemed on the fast track to passage. PIPA was approved unanimously by a Senate committee in May.

But when the House took up its own version of the bill, SOPA, tech companies began lobbying heavily in opposition — an effort that culminated in this week’s demonstrations.

Reid hinted that PIPA may not be dead yet, saying: “There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved.”

Meanwhile, alternative legislation has also been proposed. A bipartisan group of senators introduced the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) on January 18 — the same day as the Wikipedia site blackout.

Among other differences, OPEN offers more protection than SOPA would to sites accused of hosting pirated content. It also beefs up the enforcement process. It would allow digital rights holders to bring cases before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), an independent agency that handles trademark infringement and other trade disputes.

California Republican Darrell Issa introduced OPEN in the House, and Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden introduced the Senate version. OPEN‘s backers had posted the draft legislation online and invited the Web community to comment on and revise the proposal.

Soon after SOPA and PIPA were tabled, Issa released a statement cheering “supporters of the Internet” for their protest efforts.

He wrote: “Over the last two months, the intense popular effort to stop SOPA and PIPA has defeated an effort that once looked unstoppable but lacked a fundamental understanding of how Internet technologies work.”

Category : News, Technology, World News
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6 Comm
19th Jan2012

Internet Access Isn’t A Human Right, Says Google VP

by iSpit

Google VP and Internet evangelist Dr. Vinton Cerf writes in the New York Times that Internet access isn’t a right – it’s just a tool towards enabling free speech.

Dr. Vinton Cerf, a Google VP and its chief Internet evangelist, took to the pages of the New York Times late last week with a opinion piece provocatively titled “Internet Access Is Not a Human Right.” But if the title doesn’t immediately make you close the browser tab, Cerf provides a philosophical look at the case against the concept.In the wake of the so-called “Arab Spring,” the role social media played in enabling protesters to gather and exercise their human right of free speech sparked a lot of discussion on the necessity of Internet access. In fact, France and Estonia have already officially recognized Internet access as an essential human right.

But, as Cerf writes:

“[That] argument, however well meaning, misses a larger point: technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself. There is a high bar for something to be considered a human right. Loosely put, it must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience. It is a mistake to place any particular technology in this exalted category, since over time we will end up valuing the wrong things.”

To use Cerf’s own example, it used to be that you needed a horse to make a living. But the related human right was the right to earn a living, not to own a horse. And it’s the same for the Internet: technology enables and enhances the right to free speech, but it’s just a tool towards that end.

The argument for Internet access as a civil right is stronger, Cerf writes, but runs into the same problems. Civil rights are “conferred upon us by law,” as Cerf puts it, and the United States already provides for “universal service” for things like telephones, electricity, and by extension, the Internet.

But all of that misses the point, he writes:

“Yet all these philosophical arguments overlook a more fundamental issue: the responsibility of technology creators themselves to support human and civil rights. The Internet has introduced an enormously accessible and egalitarian platform for creating, sharing and obtaining information on a global scale. As a result, we have new ways to allow people to exercise their human and civil rights.”

Rather than letting law or judicial bodies set the pace, Cerf says that engineers and technologists have an obligation to both empower their users and to protect them from harm from viruses and the like. In other words, there’s a civic responsibility that goes alongside technological innovation.

In conclusion, Cerf writes:

“Improving the Internet is just one means, albeit an important one, by which to improve the human condition. It must be done with an appreciation for the civil and human rights that deserve protection — without pretending that access itself is such a right.”

Heady stuff, to be sure. And given Dr. Cerf’s role as evangelist, it’s a lot more clear where Google’s commitment to transparency and user protection comes from (I’ll leave the discussion of how well Google fulfills that commitment up to the comments).

This isn’t the first time Cerf has touched on topics of Internet governance and the future of the web, but his New York Times op-ed was his clearest statement of intent yet. It’s not nearly as controversial a response as it seems, but I’m wondering what the industry response is going to be, if anything at all.

Category : News, Stupititity All Stars, Technology, World News
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8 Comm
03rd Jan2012

Collecting Rainwater Now Illegal in Many States As Big Government Claims Ownership Over Our Water

by iSpit

Many of the freedoms we enjoy here in the U.S. are quickly eroding as the nation transforms from the land of the free into the land of the enslaved, but what I’m about to share with you takes the assault on our freedoms to a whole new level. You may not be aware of this, but many Western states, including Utah, Washington and Colorado, have long outlawed individuals from collecting rainwater on their own properties because, according to officials, that rain belongs to someone else.

As bizarre as it sounds, laws restricting property owners from “diverting” water that falls on their own homes and land have been on the books for quite some time in many Western states. Only recently, as droughts and renewed interest in water conservation methods have become more common, have individuals and business owners started butting heads with law enforcement over the practice of collecting rainwater for personal use.

Check out this YouTube video of a news report out of Salt Lake City, Utah, about the issue. It’s illegal in Utah to divert rainwater without a valid water right, and Mark Miller of Mark Miller Toyota, found this out the hard way.

After constructing a large rainwater collection system at his new dealership to use for washing new cars, Miller found out that the project was actually an “unlawful diversion of rainwater.” Even though it makes logical conservation sense to collect rainwater for this type of use since rain is scarce in Utah, it’s still considered a violation of water rights which apparently belong exclusively to Utah‘s various government bodies.

“Utah‘s the second driest state in the nation. Our laws probably ought to catch up with that,” explained Miller in response to the state‘s ridiculous rainwater collection ban.

Salt Lake City officials worked out a compromise with Miller and are now permitting him to use “their” rainwater, but the fact that individuals like Miller don’t actually own the rainwater that falls on their property is a true indicator of what little freedom we actually have here in the U.S. (Access to the rainwater that falls on your own property seems to be a basic right, wouldn’t you agree?)

Outlawing rainwater collection in other states

Utah isn’t the only state with rainwater collection bans, either. Colorado and Washington also have rainwater collection restrictions that limit the free use of rainwater, but these restrictions vary among different areas of the states and legislators have passed some laws to help ease the restrictions.

In Colorado, two new laws were recently passed that exempt certain small-scale rainwater collection systems, like the kind people might install on their homes, from collection restrictions.

Prior to the passage of these laws, Douglas County, Colorado, conducted a study on how rainwater collection affects aquifer and groundwater supplies. The study revealed that letting people collect rainwater on their properties actually reduces demand from water facilities and improves conservation.

Personally, I don’t think a study was even necessary to come to this obvious conclusion. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that using rainwater instead of tap water is a smart and useful way to conserve this valuable resource, especially in areas like the West where drought is a major concern.

Additionally, the study revealed that only about three percent of Douglas County‘s precipitation ended up in the streams and rivers that are supposedly being robbed from by rainwater collectors. The other 97 percent either evaporated or seeped into the ground to be used by plants.

This hints at why bureaucrats can’t really use the argument that collecting rainwater prevents that water from getting to where it was intended to go. So little of it actually makes it to the final destination that virtually every household could collect many rain barrels worth of rainwater and it would have practically no effect on the amount that ends up in streams and rivers.

It’s all about control, really

As long as people remain unaware and uninformed about important issues, the government will continue to chip away at the freedoms we enjoy. The only reason these water restrictions are finally starting to change for the better is because people started to notice and they worked to do something to reverse the law.

Even though these laws restricting water collection have been on the books for more than 100 years in some cases, they’re slowly being reversed thanks to efforts by citizens who have decided that enough is enough.

Because if we can’t even freely collect the rain that falls all around us, then what, exactly, can we freely do? The rainwater issue highlights a serious overall problem in America today: diminishing freedom and increased government control.

Today, we’ve basically been reprogrammed to think that we need permission from the government to exercise our inalienable rights, when in fact the government is supposed to derive its power from us. The American Republic was designed so that government would serve the People to protect and uphold freedom and liberty. But increasingly, our own government is restricting people from their rights to engage in commonsense, fundamental actions such as collecting rainwater or buying raw milk from the farmer next door.

Today, we are living under a government that has slowly siphoned off our freedoms, only to occasionally grant us back a few limited ones under the pretense that they’re doing us a benevolent favor.

Fight back against enslavement

As long as people believe their rights stem from the government (and not the other way around), they will always be enslaved. And whatever rights and freedoms we think we still have will be quickly eroded by a system of bureaucratic power that seeks only to expand its control.

Because the same argument that’s now being used to restrict rainwater collection could, of course, be used to declare that you have no right to the air you breathe, either. After all, governments could declare that air to be somebody else’s air, and then they could charge you an “air tax” or an “air royalty” and demand you pay money for every breath that keeps you alive.

Think it couldn’t happen? Just give it time. The government already claims it owns your land and house, effectively. If you really think you own your home, just stop paying property taxes and see how long you still “own” it. Your county or city will seize it and then sell it to pay off your “tax debt.” That proves who really owns it in the first place… and it’s not you!

How about the question of who owns your body? According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark office, U.S. corporations and universities already own 20% of your genetic code. Your own body, they claim, is partially the property of someone else.

So if they own your land, your water and your body, how long before they claim to own your air, your mind and even your soul?

Unless we stand up against this tyranny, it will creep upon us, day after day, until we find ourselves totally enslaved by a world of corporate-government collusion where everything of value is owned by powerful corporations — all enforced at gunpoint by local law enforcement.

Category : Health, iphone, Politics As Usual, program, Video
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5 Comm
02nd Jan2012

Study Finds Minority Students Get Harsher Punishments

by iSpit

Black and Hispanic students are far more likely to be kicked out of school when they break the rules, including some that often have nothing to do with keeping students safe, according to a new report from a civil rights research and advocacy group.

     And school discipline records are too often seen as a measure of how safe a school is and not often enough as a gauge of how healthy a school is academically, said Daniel J. Losen, the report’s author and the senior education law and policy associate at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at the University of California, Los Angeles. But he said there is no evidence that banishing some students will improve the education of classmates still in school, while studies have show that punishing students increases their risk of dropping out.
     The report, released today in Washington, is the latest in a series of actions intended to draw attention to school discipline practices that some consider overly harsh or punishments that are meted out disproportionately among students of different races, genders, and ethnic groups.
     In his report, “Discipline Policies, Successful Schools, and Racial Justice,” Mr. Losen argues that the students who miss class time for misbehavior are at a greater risk of missing out on educational opportunities, but schools only reluctantly turn to alternatives for managing students‘ behavior. The report was published by the National Education Policy Center at the University of
Colorado, in Boulder.
Department of Education’s office for civil rights, Mr. Losen found that more than 28 percent of African-American middle school boys had been suspended at least once, compared with 10 percent of white males nationwide. For girls, it was 18 percent of black students, compared with 4 percent of white students.

     “The massive increase in the use of suspension out of school, which is a really important indicator of whether or not a kid’s going to drop out, is something a school can control,” he said.
 
Minor Violations
     In some cases, Mr. Losen said, expulsions or suspensions are necessary, or required by law, such as when a student brings a gun to school. But many suspensions are for far less serious rule-breaking. He points out that the 2006 data from the Education Department‘s civil rights office found that 3.25 million students, or 7 percent of those in K-12 schools at the time, had been suspended at least once. Only about 102,000 were expelled, however.
     “When people hear ‘suspension,’ they think the kid must have done something pretty bad. Most of these are for minor violations,” Mr. Losen said.
     Wanda Parker of Greenville, Mississippi, said her son James was suspended from school after a teacher thought he was using a cell phone in class. In reality, Ms. Parker said, James, a 9th grader at the time, was holding a classmate’s iPod. Unable to convince the school James didn’t have a cell phone, his parents watched as James served a 45-day suspension from school. He wound up in summer school to pass the classes he needed to become a sophomore this school year.
     “These zero-tolerance policies are not fair,” Ms. Parker said Wednesday. “They dehumanize our schools and make them feel more like a prison than a home.”
     A review of data from North Carolina from the 2008-09 school year found that, for possessing or using a cellphone at school, almost 33 percent of first-time black middle school offenders were suspended, compared with 14.5 percent of white students. For dress-code violations, 38.3 percent of black students for whom it was a first-time offense were suspended, vs. 16.6 percent of white students.
     A dress-code violation may involve a student wearing colors affiliated with a gang, but kicking a student out of school could make the problem worse, he said.
     “You’re afraid about gang affiliations, and you’ve just increased the chances of gang affiliation,” Mr. Losen said.
     The reasons for such wide disparity in the punishment of white and minority students are unclear, he said.
     Research suggests that unconscious bias likely plays a part in the disparities, Mr. Losen said.
     “Why else would we see, for the same first-time offense, blacks receiving harsh punishments far more often than whites?”
He said raising awareness about the disparities is crucial, and training in multicultural competence should be combined with training in classroom-management and strategies such as positive behavioral interventions and supports. This intervention-and-supports model is a decisionmaking framework that guides the selection, integration, and implementation of evidence-based interventions for improving academic and behavior outcomes for all students.
Using that framework allows for the tracking of student-discipline data by race or ethnicity, he said, “but too few schools have elected to look at that information. That should be a requirement.”
Compounding that problem is that many minority students have teachers with less experience. The Education Department recently shared data showing that in schools across the country where 20 percent to 80 percent of students are black or Hispanic, their teachers are paid significantly less than the average teacher in the districts.
“Children who need the most too often get the least. It’s a civil rights issue, an economic security issue, and a moral issue,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said at the time.
Trading suspension and expulsion for other types of discipline doesn’t mean a school is trading control for chaos, Mr. Losen said.
The Baltimore district famously cut its suspensions in recent years, and in turn, the dropout rate decreased. The school system used a series of methods and collaborated with the police department to make changes in how students are disciplined, in addition to stepping up efforts to coax chronically absent students and dropouts back into the classroom.
In that district, and the school district in Clayton County, Ga., which also dramatically reformed the way students are disciplined, the changes didn’t cost money, said County Juvenile Court Judge Steven Teske. “It’s about system reform. We just had to take what we had and do it differently,” he said. Referrals from school police officers to his court have dropped significantly over the last few years, and that’s left more resources on his end to deal with juveniles who have committed serious crimes.
He said students are more inclined to share information about potential incidents than they ever did in the past, when a school police officer was someone to be feared. And there’s been another side effect with fewer students being suspended: The district’s graduation rate is up.
“Who would ever think that keeping kids in school would increase graduation rates?,” he said.
 
Growing Chorus
     Recently, other groups have also taken steps to try to reform school discipline policies that rely heavily on suspensions and expulsions, their unequal application from school to school and among students of different races and backgrounds, their connection to dropping out of school, and the overlap between students who are disciplined this way who end up in juvenile or adult prisons.
     Among some of those recent developments:
  • Earlier this year, a Fairfax County, Va., teenager committed suicide, which his family and friends connected to a seven-week suspension he received for his first serious school rule violation. It was at least the second such death in the district. The school board later dialed down the severity of some of the consequences handed down to students who break rules.
  • In July, a study from the Council of State Governments found that more than half of all Texas middle and high school students were suspended or expelled at least once between 7th and 12th grades, but the punishments were applied unevenly between students of different races, abilities, and schools, and students disciplined with those methods were more likely to repeat a grade or drop out of school than students who were not punished in the same way.
  •  The same week, Mr. Duncan and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder shared plans to reshape school discipline policies that end up pushing children into the juvenile-justice system for crimes and rule-breaking on campus, keeping them from pursuing an education. Mr. Duncan was building on a speech more than a year earlier in which he noted that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would have been “dismayed to learn of schools that seem to suspend and discipline only young African-American boys.”
     This latest report’s release coincides with the Dignity In Schools campaign’s National Week of Action on School Pushout, which involves demonstrations in 14 states and the District of Columbia.
     The group advocates an end to zero-tolerance policies and the use of other methods to discipline students, such as positive behavioral interventions and supports, spokesman Joao Da Silva said.
     His group also wants a provision built into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now the No Child Left Behind law, if it is reauthorized. The existing law requires publicly reporting information about drug use and other incidents, but the reporting should be improved, Mr. Da Silva said, and low-performing schools should be encouraged to improve school climate, not just given sanctions based on student performance.
     Mr. Losen also recommends that, as Congress works on rewriting the ESEA, the new version of the law should include incentives for schools, districts, and states to support students, teachers, and school leaders to improve classroom and behavior management where there are high rates of suspension and expulsion.
     “This is a myth busted, that we have to kick out the ‘bad’ kids,” Mr. Losen said. “This is an unsound educational practice. The idea that we’re going to scare them straight is not working.”
Category : ipod, News
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1 Comm
29th Dec2011

U.S., Los Angeles Schools in Civil Rights Pact

by iSpit

A federal investigation into whether Los Angeles students are denied educational opportunities has prompted the school system to overhaul its approach to teaching immigrant and black students, federal and city officials said Tuesday.

The investigation was part of a probe by the U.S. Department of Education into whether 76 public school districts nationwide comply with civil rights law.

 

Among the findings, the department concluded that the Los Angeles Unified School District was classifying students as proficient in English though they couldn’t speak the language, federal officials told The Wall Street Journal. “Those students had been languishing in limbo,” said Russlynn Ali, the U.S. Department of Education assistant secretary for civil rights.

 

The investigation also found that black students have limited access to technology and library resources. In addition, black students “were subject to unfair discipline,” Ms. Ali said, and had higher suspension and expulsion rates than other students.

Under its pact with the Education Department, Los Angeles agreed to boost college preparatory services for minority students and improve English training for students whose first language isn’t English, according to a copy of the agreement.

 

The agreement also includes extra training for teachers, and outreach to parents whose children are learning English. In addition, it calls for a greater effort to identify black students who are eligible for the district’s special programs for talented and gifted students.

 

“Los Angeles has a long and proud history as a magnet for immigrants,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at a press conference. But, he said, “we still have a long way to go before we see that [minority students] are consistently getting what they need.”

 

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and schools Superintendent John Deasy hailed the cooperative approach to creating the plan, but noted that no extra funding would be provided to implement it. Mr. Deasy said the district is engaged in a “profound struggle with funding.”

 

Like many of America’s school districts, Los Angeles has been forced to severely cut its budget, end programs and lay off teachers as state political leaders are deadlocked in a budget battle that will likely bring more cuts to education next year.

More than 200,000 of the district’s 671,648 students are classified as “English language learners,” meaning they need help learning English. The district has more than 60,000 black students.

Category : News, program, Protest/Activism
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5 Comm
14th Dec2011

New Wikileaks Files Expose Widespread Mobile Phone, Email Hacking Capability

by iSpit

Wikileaks has released dozens of new documents highlighting the state of the once covert, but now lucrative private sector global surveillance industry.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange unveiled today the latest batch of released files from the whistleblowing organisation.

Speaking to a number of students and members of the press, bright and optimistic as ever, said: ”Who here has an iPhone? Who here has a BlackBerry? Who here uses Gmail? Well, you’re all screwed.”

According to Assange, over 150 private sector organisations in 25 countries have the ability to not only track mobile devices, but also intercept messages and listen to calls also.

The technologies developed by this industry can be used to access Internet browsing histories and email accounts, through computing tapping or accessing mobile phones remotely. This information is then sold as wholesale information to governments or other private industry partners.

Speaking at City University in London, he said that the publication of the ‘Spy Files’ is intended to be a “mass attack on the mass surveillance industry”. He described the interception of this data as “lawful”, it will lead society to a “totalitarian surveillance state”.

Along with representatives from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and Privacy International, documents were shown to suggest that software could not only read emails and text messages on mobile phones, but invasively alter them and send out fake messages to others.

The UK, one of the most surveilled countries in the world, with more CCTV cameras per person than any other major city, is one of the most prevalent in Internet monitoring, phone and text messaging analysis, GPS tracking and speech analysis technologies.

In the past ten years, he highlighted, the private industry had grown from a covert, behind-the-scenes industry, that primarily sold the U.S. National Security Agency, and GCHQ, the UK’s third intelligence service.

Wikileaks released today 287 documents, documenting “the reality of the international mass surveillance industry”, highlighting how “dictators and democracies alike” can procure this “spying system” technology developed by U.S., the UK, Australia and Canada.

Last month, it was found that Leeds-based company Datong plc. sold phone tracking and remote-disability technology to Scotland Yard, home of London’s Metropolitan Police, which could then be used to track protestors or disable remotely shut-off mobile phones en masse.

ZDNet uncovered evidence to support that this technology could have been sold to oppressive regimes in the Middle East and North Africa.

In one case, a subsidiary of Nokia Siemens Networks, Trovicor supplied the government of Bahrain technology that enabled the tracking of human rights activists, the Wikileaks website said.

U.S.-based company SS8, along with Hacking Team in Italy and Vupen in France, are all said to manufacture Trojan malware that can hijack computers and phones — including BlackBerrys, iPhones and Android devices — and “record its every use, movement, and even the sights and sounds of the room it is in”.

Wikileaks said that other companies like Czech Republic-based Phoenexia collaborate with military units to create speech analysis tools, allowing the government to acquire intelligence based on identified gender, age and even their vocal stress levels.

In one document dating back to 2006, it shows how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sold technology to the oppressive Libyan regime to “intercept data” and acquire the “localisation of GSM”, the ability to locate where mobile phones are located geographically.

Another leaked document from 2011 shows how one UK firm is “depended upon” by the government, including “law enforcement agencies, intelligence and military agencies [and] special forces”. Such technologies can be “integrated into bespoke solutions for static, tracking and mobile overt and covert surveillance”.

Category : iphone, mobile, News, World News
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0 Comm
13th Dec2011

Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke (Trailer)

by iSpit

“Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke” Trailer from Mayer\Leyva on Vimeo.

In the film, Luther Campbell, the former 2 Live Crew front-man and recent Miami mayoral candidate, revolutionizes hip-hop, fights for first amendment rights, and launches Miami into a golden era as mayor. A working cut of the film screened last April at the 2011 Borscht Film Festival at the Arsht Center’s packed Knight Concert Hall.

The film’s narrative peaks when South Florida’s Turkey Point nuclear plant explodes, turning Miami into a radioactive wasteland. Uncle Luke must use his booty bass powers to save the city using old-fashioned methods of re-population.

Category : Trailers, Video
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1 Comm
05th Dec2011

JR of Block Report Radio Interviews Johanna Fernandez

by iSpit

JUSTICE ON TRIAL – The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal from Big Noise Films on Vimeo.

The People’s Minister of Information JR of Block Report Radio Interviews Johanna Fernandez

Justice on Trial navigates the tempest of the Abu-Jamal trial by reviewing the known facts of the case. It demonstrates that the major violations in the Abu-Jamal case — judicial bias, prosecutorial misconduct, racial discrimination in jury selection, police corruption and tampering with evidence to obtain a conviction– are not special to this case. Instead, they are commonly practiced within the criminal justice system and account for the disproportionate incarceration of African Americans and Latinos in the United States. The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is a microcosm of greater problems in the criminal justice system in the United States today. The attention that its many violations have received make the Abu-Jamal case one of the most important civil rights cases of our time.

Category : General
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1 Comm
26th Oct2011

Police Raid And Violate Rights Of #OccupyOakland Protestors (Video)

by iSpit

Is this happening to occupiers across the country? While I may not fully support the occupy movement, I dont agree with violations of rights either.

Watch live streaming video from occupyoakland at livestream.com
Category : Live Stream, Politics As Usual, Stream, TV, Video, World News
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