This Friday, 23 November, is known in the USA as "Black Friday," the day following Thanksgiving  and the traditional beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

 

It will also go down in history as a turning point in the effort to win rights at work for employees of Wal-Mart, the world's largest employer, as strikes take place at Wal-Mart locations across the United States.

 

You can be part of this in the following ways:

 

Follow the news on LabourStart -- bookmark this page:

http://www.labourstart.org/wal-mart

 

Sign the online petition to Wal-Mart telling them to stop retaliation against workers who speak out: 

http://corporateactionnetwork.org/campaigns/black-friday/petitions/respect-your-employees-right-to-speak-out

 

On Friday, watch the live stream showing what is happening across the country in real time:

http://qik.com/OURWalmart

 

If you're on Twitter, tweet your support using this hashtag: #WalmartStrikers

 

If you're on Facebook, this is an interesting app -- it will identify all your friends who say they've worked at Wal-Mart, and you can then send them messages telling them you support this historic fight:

http://shareforrespect.com/Login.aspx

 

Finally, get your union to show the latest news from the fight to unionize Wal-Mart on its website, free of charge, updated throughout the day, every day -- more details here:

http://www.labourstart.org/walmart/newswire.shtml

 

Thank you!

 

Eric Lee

Thanks to everyone who worked in an election.

Nancy --  I'm about to go speak to the crowd here in Chicago, but I wanted to thank you first. I want you to know that this wasn't fate, and it wasn't an accident. You made this happen. You organized yourselves block by block. You took ownership of this campaign five and ten dollars at a time. And when it wasn't easy, you pressed forward. I will spend the rest of my presidency honoring your support, and doing what I can to finish what we started. But I want you to take real pride, as I do, in how we got the chance in the first place. Today is the clearest proof yet that, against the odds, ordinary Americans can overcome powerful interests. There's a lot more work to do. But for right now: Thank you. Barack

Roberta Rosheim shared Go Left's photo.

Sunday

By request

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

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• Sunny Story and 2 others like this.
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Rethinking Schools

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Dear friend of Rethinking Schools:

We are seeking narratives for a new book by Rethinking Schools. The working title is Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality.

We invite you to submit a story that relates to teaching and learning about sexism, gender, and sexuality in K-12 schools. We are particularly interested in articles about classroom teaching, curriculum, and youth activism—in and out of school. Students' voices are important; make sure we can hear them!

In order to include diverse voices, we particularly encourage students and educators of color and folks who work in places that are not often associated with LGBTQ activism such as rural schools and schools in the "heartland," although other submissions will be cheerfully considered.

We hope to address gender and sexuality across the curriculum so teachers and students of all disciplines are encouraged to contribute. Other topics may include education organizing/activism, policy matters, and stories that offer historical perspectives with a connection to the present.

Please remember that Rethinking Schools is not an academic journal. We want the writing to be lively, conversational, and to avoid the kind of needless jargon that infects so much education writing. Please approach it as a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end, filled with anecdotes and the voices of teachers, parents, and/or students. Traditional academic/scholarly articles will not be considered for this book.

The best way to understand what works for Rethinking Schools is to read through several issues of the magazine with an eye to how the authors show specifically what they do in the classroom and how they integrate information about the topic into the article. Specific examples you might want to look at include "It's OK to Be Neither" by Melissa Bollow Tempel and "When the Gender Boxes Don't Fit," by Ericka Sokolower-Shain. As a model of writing for the magazine, see anything by Linda Christensen.

Before you begin writing, check out the writers guidelines.

Please send submissions electronically (Word.doc) to jody@rethinkingschools.org. We are unable to read submissions of more than 4,000 words, and are generally interested in articles that are substantially shorter.

Many of the articles in the book will also appear in Rethinking Schools magazine. The initial submission deadline is January 31, 2013.

If you have questions, don't hesitate to contact Jody Sokolower, managing editor of Rethinking Schools.

The enemies of truth in politics:  Both sides have real problems.  What is the truth?  No one honestly addresses the Afghan war in needing the gas line completed which is just another way to starve off China and rape the land from natural resources.  We have owed China so much money since BEFORE Cllnton was elected.  No one talks about the billions spent to keep the billionaire oil companies in tact with the "need" for that oil.  Who is what? Please listen to the "fact finder" if you think the economic program submitted by Romney is the answer for our country.  How gullible can people be?

Nancy

How The Right's Latest Conspiracy Theory Might Unleash a Wave of Domestic Terrorism if Obama Wins

Some types of spin are more dangerous than others.
September 25, 2012  |  
 
 

Two of the Fort Stewart soldiers charged with murder and conspiracy to assassinate Obama.
 
 
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In a somewhat desperate attempt to maintain morale among a Republican base that disdains its standard-bearer, a number of conservative media outlets are pushing an alternate reality in which Mitt Romney is leading in the polls by wide margins and American voters have a decidedly negative view not of the challenger, but of Barack Obama.

It's an exceptionally dangerous game that the right-wing media are playing. If Obama wins – and according to polling guru Nate Silver, he'd have a 95 percent chance of doing so if the vote were held today – there's a very real danger that this spin -- combined with other campaign narratives that are popular among the far-right -- could create a post-election environment so toxic that it yields an outburst of politically motivated violence.

A strategy that began with a series of rather silly columns comparing 2012 with 1980, and assuring jittery conservatives that a huge mass of independents was sure to break for Romney late and deliver Obama the crushing defeat he so richly deserves, entered new territory with the bizarre belief that all the polls are wrong. And not only wrong, but intentionally rigged by “biased pollsters” – including those at Fox News – in the tank for Obama. (See Alex Pareene's piece for more on the right's new theory that the polls are being systematically “skewed.”)

Consider how a loosely-hinged member of the right-wing fringe – an unstable individual among the third of conservative Republicans who believe Obama's a Muslim or the almost two-thirds who think he was born in another country – expecting a landslide victory for the Republican might process an Obama victory. This is a group that has also been told, again and again, that Democrats engage in widespread voter fraud – that there are legions of undocumented immigrants, dead people and  ineligible felons voting in this election ( with the help of zombie ACORN ). They've been told that Democrats are buying the election with promises of “free stuff” offered to the slothful and unproductive half of the population that pays no federal income taxes and refuses to “take responsibility for their lives” – Romney's 47 percent.

They've also been told – by everyone from NRA president Wayne LaPierre to Mitt Romney himself – that Obama plans to ban gun ownership in his second term. (Two elaborate conspiracy theories have blossomed around this point. One holds that Fast and Furious – which, in reality, is much ado about very little – was designed to elevate gun violence to a point where seizing Americans' firearms would become politically popular. The second holds that a United Nations treaty on small arms transfers (from which the United States has withdrawn) is in fact a stealthy workaround for the Second Amendment.)

And they've been warned in grim, often apocalyptic terms of what's to come in a second term. The film, “2016: Obama's America,” offers a dystopian vision of a third-world America gutted by Obama's supposed obsession with global wealth redistribution. His re-election would bring something far worse than mere socialism – it would be marked by Kenyan anti-colonialism, in which America's wealth is bled off as a form of reparations for centuries of inequities between the global North and South.

These kinds of fringe views aren't relegated to the fever swamps of the right-wing blogosphere – they're often reinforced by elected Republicans. Reps Steve King, R-Iowa, Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, Louie Gohmert, R-Texas and others warn that the Obama administration has been infiltrated by Islamic Extremists . An elected judge in Texas advocated a tax increase – yes, a tax increase! – in order to better arm local sheriff's deputies whom he claimed would serve on the front-lines of the civil war likely to come should Obama be re-elected. “I’m talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator,” he said.
Of course I got this article because of alternet.org (see link below) but after I read about Leder closing a 70 year old ice cream business so the pension plan could be put on the Federal Government and then gaining tax savings by putting management funds in the tax deduct line therefore keeping his rate , like Romney's at 15% my blood boils.  I pay taxes for a reason and it is NOT to make the rich richer!  OOOO  nancy

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Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 06:59:10 -0700
To: effortsos@groups.facebook.com
From: notification+kjdmuvd7uv5m@facebookmail.com
Subject: [EFFORT SOS] 5 Biggest Lies About America's Public Schools -- Debunked

Elise Robillard posted in EFFORT SOS
 
Elise Robillard 8:59am Sep 30 
 5 Biggest Lies About America's Public Schools -- Debunked

11 Years in Afghanistan/ Oct 7, 2012

11 Years is Too Long

Afghan War Observance

Sunday, Oct 7^th, 1PM

Sidewalk on W. side of Clinton St.,@Clinton St. & Iowa Ave, Near Historic Old Capitol

The continuation of the war in Afghanistan is harmful to the people of Afghanistan, and to U.S. citizens. Peace is hard work, but we’d better try it. Please join with us.

Sponsored by: Veterans for Peace Chapter #161, PEACE Iowa, Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Iowa NEA Peace & Justice Caucus,

(People wishing also to participate in the Hike for Refugees @ 2PM at Old Brick will be able to attend both events

For further information, contact Ed Flaherty @ 319 621-6766, flahertyem@q.com

Union wins in WI struggle/ etc

Chicago Teachers Raise the Bar     The Chicago Teachers Union has done the seemingly impossible. At a time when teachers are pilloried in the press and attacked by Democrats and Republicans alike, Chicago teachers walked out for seven days in a strike that challenged every tenet of the corporate agenda for overhauling education.     Verizon Workers Queasy at Deal     Leaders of the Communications Workers and Electrical Workers (IBEW)announced a tentative agreement with Verizon, but some workers say it's far from what they deserve. They're planning to vote no.   South African Miners Win through Wildcats      South African miners won a dramatic pay increase, following a wave of strikes that spread to many gold and platinum mines. The strikes grew after a massacre by police took 34 lives. The struggle exposures fractures in South African society that won't heal soon. Wisconsin Anti-Union Bill Overturned in Court     Just an hour before teachers in Madison, Wisconsin, rallied in solidarity with Chicago teachers, they learned that their suit to overturn Governor Scott Walker's anti-union bill had won. The mood at the rally was "giddy," said Jim Cavanaugh, who was local central labor council president during last year's uprising. Casino Organizing Puts Union's 'Las Vegas Standard' to the Test   Mario Medina wore a union button for 2.5 hours before his Las Vegas employer, Station Casinos, fired him. He's one of a dozen fired in what the Culinary Union says is the biggest organizing drive underway.  Video: Michigan Unions Battle for Amendments to Defend Democracy, Collective Bargaining    Unions have fought to place two measures on the ballot. One would block emergency managers, the second would enshrine collective bargaining rights. Former Labor Notes writer Paul Abowd explains the union-backed initiatives facing Michigan voters this fall.   New Book from Labor Notes:  The Steward's Toolbox       The Steward's Toolbox: Skills and Strategies for Winning at Work is for activists eager for practical advice. Full of concrete examples of grievance tactics, contract campaigns, and coalition-building, its 55 chapters were written by shop floor leaders experienced in building active, democratic unions.  Their lessons will help you inspire members, make new allies, and kick-start your union. Order it here for $15. Help Push Labor Notes Forward Please consider making a contribution so we can continue to provide the kind of independent news and analysis about the labor movement that you'll find nowhere else.  Push us all forward with your tax-deductible gift today.

Chicago Teachers, the truth

Educators in Chicago made the hard decision to go on strike this Monday, September 10. They did not make this decision lightly as they knew it would cost them both in time away from their jobs but also it could possibly cost them the good will of parents and community members who follow the simplistic reporting on the strike which usually ignores the core reasons for the strike in the first place. This strike strikes a chord with many educators here in Des Moines and its not because we envy the chance to go on strike, which is a right we do not have in this state. The reason this strike will be closely watched by many educators in Des Moines and around the country is because what Chicago’s teachers have decided to stand up to and what they have decided to take a stand for.

This strike is NOT mainly about salaries and benefits, although that is what the enemies of unions would want you to believe, rather it is about striking for better teaching and learning environments in the schools of Chicago. The CTU and Chicago Public Schools were close enough in their negotiations on salary and benefits those issues alone would not have led to a strike. The Chicago Teachers Union is striking because it has decided to take a stand against some of the harmful reform ideas that are being pushed on our schools, especially urban schools.

The Chicago Public Schools,under the direction of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, wants to start using new teacher evaluation systems that would largely evaluate teachers based on student standardized test scores. This commonly used tool of education “reformers” is harmful to students and strangles teachers because it overemphasizes teaching to a test, rote memorization, test drills, and cutting back on learning that isn’t directly related to the tests. There have been no studies that show tying teacher evaluations to student test scores actually improves student learning. There are plenty of studies that call into question the fairness of evaluating teachers using student test scores. Such studies frequently show that there is little to no real connection between student scores and teacher quality, at the most this reform might create teachers who are better at drilling for a test but not better at actually teaching students so they can learn. Teachers in Des Moines and around the country have been living under this cloud of accountability by sham measures now for many years and many of us have our fingers crossed that the CTU’s stand against this kind of harmful reform succeeds.

Chicago teachers are also striking, in part, to force the school district and the state to provide better teaching and learning environments. Many  of Chicago’s schools are not air conditioned and the CTU is asking the district to provide that in every Chicago school. Furthermore, the Chicago Public Schools and mayor are comfortable with the thought of allowing class sizes of up to 50 students, most of whom would be students living in poverty who have increased needs for individual help. The Chicago teachers are taking a stand for these students and asking for reasonable class sizes. Teachers in Des Moines and around the country are applauding the Chicago teachers for taking a stand for their children who have no one else to speak for them.

In the eyes of many teachers around the country this stand has been a long time coming. We are tired of having reforms pushed on us that we know do not improve student learning and attach importance to the wrong things. We are tired of teaching in environments that do not allow us to provide the individualized attention and time we know is necessary, especially for children of poverty. We are tired of being used by so-called reformers whose real intentions are to open up our public schools to corporations and private, for-profit groups who want to make quick bucks off our kids while losing the true spirit of public education in the process. We watch Chicago with fingers crossed that this time someone stands up to the ed “reform” bullies and fights back for our schools and ultimately for the good of our kids.

In Solidarity with the CTU,

Andrew Rasmussen

Des Moines Education Association President

> >Chicago Headed Toward First Teachers Strike in 25 Years

>
>CTU files 10-day strike notice with labor board; strike date has not been
>set
>
>CHICAGO - Today, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) filed a 10-day notice with
>the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board indicating more than 26,000
>public school teachers, clinicians and paraprofessionals may go on strike in
>coming days. The notice is a legal requirement defined by state law. No date
>for a strike has been set by Union leaders. The House of Delegates will meet
>Thursday at
>4:30 p.m. to talk next steps.
>
>Should CTU members call for a work stoppage, this will be the first
>"teachers' strike" in Chicago since 1987. "This is a difficult decision for
>all of us to make," said union President Karen Lewis.
>"But this is the only way to get the Board's attention and show them we are
>serious about getting a fair contract which will give our students the
>resources they deserve."
>
>"CPS seems determined to have a toxic relationship with its employees,"
>Lewis said. "They denied us our 4 percent raises when there was money in the
>budget to honor our agreement; they attempted to ram a poorly thought out
>longer school day down our throats; and, on top of that they want us to
>teach a new curriculum and be ready to be evaluated based on how well our
>students do on a standardized test.
>It has been insult after insult after insult. Enough is enough."
>
>CTU has been in contract negotiations with the Chicago Public Schools
>(CPS) since November 2011. Teachers have been without a contract since June
>of this year after its five-year agreement with the District expired without
>a new agreement in place. Labor leaders have said they are negotiating for
>a "better day, job security and fair compensation for employees."
>
>Labor talks have been productive on some fronts such as winning provisions
>for nursing mothers, ensuring textbooks will be available on day one,
>teachers will have access to functioning computers and counselors and social
>workers will have appropriate, private workspaces to serve students. But
>the bigger issues such as wages, job security and evaluations are on the
>table and the two sides remain far apart. "We will have a contract," Lewis
>said, "and it will come the easy way or the hard way. If our members are on
>the picket-line, we will still be at the negotiating table trying to hammer
>out an equitable agreement. There's a larger picture here."
>
>Teachers, paraprofessionals and school clinicians have been vocal in their
>opposition to CPS' draconian policies. In May, nearly 10,000 of them marched
>in downtown in preparation for a strike authorization vote which drew a 98
>percent approval from CTU membership. Only 1.82 percent of CTU members voted
>against authorizing a strike. Member angst was driven by CPS' overly
>aggressive push for a longer school day without indicating how the District
>would staff and pay for the program. Educators were angry that the Board
>made no commitments to offering students the much needed art, music,
>physical education and world language classes they needed.
>
>In July, and much to CPS' chagrin, a much anticipated "Fact Finder's
>Report" recommended, in part, that CPS's longer school day amounts to a
>19.4% increase on average that teachers will have to work, and he determined
>that CPS cannot expect its employees to work nearly 20% more for free or
>without fair compensation. Accordingly, the Fact-Finder's report recommends
>both a general wage increase and an additional increase due to the length of
>the school day: A general wage increase of 2.25% for School Year 2012 --
>essentially a cost of living increase -- without any changes to existing
>steps and lanes. He also recommends an additional increase of 12.6% to
>compensate teachers for working a longer school day and year representing a
>combined first-year increase of 14.85%, plus existing step and lane
>adjustments. Both the CTU and the Board rejected the findings.
>
>"We have chronic underfunding and misplaced priorities in the system,"
>said high school teacher Jen Johnson. "CPS would rather shut down schools
>rather than give them the resources they need. Thousands of students have
>been displaced by CPS' school actions. Teachers are losing their jobs and
>parents have no choice but to keep their child in an under-resourced
>neighborhood school or ship them off to a poor-performing charter
>operation."
>
>Lewis said members are also concerned about the Board's plan to close over
>100 neighborhood schools and create a half public-half charter school
>district. "This education crisis is real especially if you are Black or
>Brown in Chicago," she explained. "Whenever our students perform well on
>tests, CPS moves the bar higher, tells them they are failures and blames
>their teachers. Now they want to privatize public education and further
>disrupt our neighborhoods. We've seen public housing shut down, public
>health clinics, public libraries and now public schools. There is an attack
>on public institutions, many of which serve, low-income and working-class
>families."
>
>CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
>
>222 MERCHANDISE MART PLAZA, SUITE 400, CHICAGO, IL 60654
>
>T 312-329-9100 | F 312-329-6200

Meeting the Needs of Our Students' Futures

We started school with the kids on Thursday. I have been teaching for 36 years. I was a student at an urban school, and I have taught in a destitute Georgia school and rural schools in Illinois. I have never seen a more desperate time for my students' futures and more demand for preparation for their careers. What is particularly disconcerting is that we are not only woefully incapable to prepare them properly for the technology they will need in this new work environment, but that even if we did indeed have all the technology needed, it would be obsolete 2 years after they learn this.

Teachers are being cut. Schools are losing funds from their respective states. Administrators are walking are like basset hounds, fearing the next collection of bad financial news while demands are being made on their accountabilities. Where does it end?

The veteran that I am (and I intent to go for another 15 years) has been cynical about the changes proposed because states lose the philosophical fortitude for the long haul of following through on the new "ideas." This is different.

This change is sticking with us. I can tell you we in the western part of Illinois are feeling the urgency to do something substantive. We have no option. It is not about test scores, despite what we are being told by the state, and it never has or should be. It is about the realization that students can no longer say "I can just get a factory job and make good money" like they used to. There is no good option anymore outside of more and more post-secondary education.

What can fix this? I honestly believe that the move to charter/private schools is the exact wrong answer. The opposite is what we need--free education from pre-kindergarten through PhD. The A&R aspect instead of the immediate financial reward philosophy that has overtaken this country must be re-established. Do we have the will to do this? No, we don't in present form, but I think this is our only salvation.