Patriotic Wars!

THE GHOSTS OF THE PATRIOTIC WAR STILL HAUNT RUSSIA AND RECENT EVENTS IN UKRAINE WON'T EXORCISE THEM
By Stephen Wilson


(Moscow, Russia) - People predominantly hear only what they want to hear. This axiom applies not only to ordinary people, but politicians used to flattery, fear or acquiescence.

                So when a  poet wrote about the fiasco of the events of June the 22 1941, with the words, 'Damn you,year forty-one ', his lines were not published until 20 years later. And even almost 70 years after those events, people still don't want to hear the real truth of those events.

                Before June 22 1941, the Soviet government did not want to hear revelations, reports, or rumours of an imminent invasion. Official propaganda insisted there would be no war and that anyone who suggested otherwise were accused of warmongering, inciting panic or organising provocations. You could even be arrested and shot for claiming war would break out soon.

                So most prudent people maintained a tense brooding silence. However, even fear could not entirely contain all kinds of rumours, gossip and reports of an impending war .

                For instance, the late comedian, actor and veteran Yuri Nikulin was told by his commander as early as April 1941 'comrades, the world is in a rather shaken state. It is entirely possible, that we will go to war this year! I speak about this not as disclosed fact, but that I think war is unavoidable. Our number one enemy is Germany!' Nikulin stated that he and all his comrades         were surprised and did not trust the claim of their commander. After all, the Soviet Union had signed a non-aggression pact with Nazis Germany!

                The Soviet Union obtained many warnings of a planned German invasion. The problem was that nobody knew exactly when it would occur. Some reports claimed the invasion would come as early as April or June the 15, yet no invasion happened! The Russian state received 41 reports from Berlin over a period of 9 months before the war. Many of those reports seemed inaccurate, red-herrings and based on gossip. Yet at least two Russian spies sent the right date of the invasion. The reports were from the legendary spy  Sorge in Tokyo and 'Starshina' of the Luftwaffe. When Timoshenko and Zhukov presented evidence of a German invasion due on the 22 of June, Stalin angrily dismissed the claims. He answered 'Are you suggesting I should believe him too? ...This is not a source, but a disinformer.' When Zhukov and Timoshenko begged Stalin for permission to move frontier soldiers to more defensive positions, Stalin angrily retorted, 'We have a non-aggression pact with Germany. Germany is up to her ears with the war in the West and I am certain that Hitler will not start creating a second front by attacking the Soviet Union. Hitler is not such an idiot and understands that the Soviet Union is not Poland, not France and even England.'

                Two deserting German soldiers who swam over a river to warn the Russians of an invasion were summarily executed for 'provocations'.

                In hindsight, it is easy for us to condemn Stalin's attitude as sheer stupidity or incredulity. However, he was not the only one who thought that Hitler would not be stupid enough to attack Russia. Many British diplomats did not believe Hitler would attack Russia so soon. When German generals first heard what Hitler intended to do they could not believe it! The issue was not whether there would be a German invasion, but when and Stalin thought it would come only after Germany had eliminated the British threat. For the attack on 22 June 1941 did not make any long-term military sense and some German generals deemed it suicidal. Their suppositions were vindicated by subsequent events in 1945!

                Tumoshenko and Zhukov did their best to persuade Stalin to order all soldiers to be put on an all-alert answer. However, it was in vain. When Stalin declared, 'If you are going to provoke the Germans on the frontier by moving troops there without our permission, then heads will roll, mark me'.

                There were other signs of an imminent invasion adored by Folklorists. For example, a white swan died in Moscow Zoo on New year's eve, a village idiot in one town warned that there would be an invasion and people spoke of how ghosts had come up to them to inform them of the impending war. Some believed that it was no coincidence that the invasion came on Mid-summer day. This is the time when evil spirits come out to menace the living and the powers of darkness emerge out in the open. For once, what was seen as superstition assumed a grotesque reality. For when the Germans invaded Russia it must have appeared that the gates of hell had         crashed open and an awesome evil unleashed. For the scale of Operation Barbarossa was huge. As many as 3 million soldiers, almost 3000 tanks and 2000 planes were invading Russia!  The results of this invasion were horrendous! When I was a school boy I was told that 20 million Russians died. But now current estimates have reached 27 million!

                How did the Russians react to the news of the invasion ? Some historians suggest Stalin had a nervous breakdown. After chiding his men with the  words 'Lenin founded our state and we have fucked it up ' he retreated to his dacha. For days he did not answer telephone calls. It could well be true that he expected to be arrested and displaced from power. This never happened. Instead of arresting Stalin, his subordinates invited him to take the reins of power.

                The reactions to the outbreak of war encompassed a wide spectrum of emotions. War was not the first thing on peoples minds on the 22 of June.

                Some school students were more worried about exams, some went fishing and others went on a picnic. But it is fair to say many were stunned, shocked and excited by the news. One school student wished that the war had broken out at an earlier day because he had got a two for his final year exams. He said, 'If Hitler had started the war a bit earlier, perhaps the exams would have been cancelled. 'One female professor who felt sorry for all her boys who would be called up at the front that she burst into tears and gave them all excellent marks!

                I went into the First World war Memorial park to interview some people who may have witnessed the war. When I asked one kind old woman Natasha Nikolavitcha 'Do you remember how you felt when the war broke out on the 22 June 1941,' she answered, 'Yes , I do. I was only ten at the time and my family were living in Grozny. My older sister was singing a song when she was interrupted by an announcement on the radio where I heard that Kiev was being bombed. My family told my older sister to be       quiet so we could hear the news. I, with the rest of the children were evacuated to Moscow because everyone was afraid that the Germans would bomb the city because of its oil refineries.'

                Later, as I left the park I came across a small man wearing a modest medal who looked youthful for his age. I asked whether he remembered the outbreak of war and he told me 'Of course, but I was too young to serve at the front. My older brother was old enough to enlist and died in 1945 while liberating Poland. He was only 20. The village I grew up in came under German occupation. Only three people from one collective in the village came back alive from a figure of around 40. I was sent to study at a military academy where I grew up to become a general. I wanted to replace my lost brother! ' Sergi declined to give me his surname but showed me his passport with his uniform confirming he was a general.

                He had served in many countries around the world 'liberating people from British Imperialism'. He seemed to regret not being old enough to fight in the war.

                The outbreak of war was often met with disbelief. The late Comedian and actor Yuri Nikulin wrote  in his memoirs 'Seven Long Days ' that on June 22 'morning came,we calmly ate breakfast. It was Sunday so we took a three litre container and went to the Borano Station to get beer. A resident asked us 'is it true what they say, that war has broken out? ''It is the first time we have heard of this.' We calmly answered, 'There is no such war, you can see that we are going to get beer. What war is happening here,' we told   him and smiled. We walked on a little and again we were stopped. 'Is it certain that war has begun?' 'From where did you get this information? we said anxiously.

                'What is this, everyone is speaking about war and we are calmly going to get beer? At the station we saw people with worried faces standing about some electricity pylon and loudly speaking. They were listening to a speech by Molotov. Just as we arrived, the war began...

                'Later we returned and noticed Sergeant Krapivin smoking calmly and asking 'Where is the beer?'

                'What beer? War has begun!'

                'How?' asked Krapivin turning to take up the phone.

                 'Yes, in our home nobody knew anything about the war, neither soldiers nor civilians. We brought the news'.



                  UNPREPARED

                  Russia was vastly unprepared for this invasion! Stalin had not helped the situation by purging the Red Army of many of its best officers and thrusting them into prison. He had created such an atmosphere of fear that many officers were too scared to take the initiative. They spent much of the war waiting for orders. Stalin even ordered his soldiers not to retaliate against the invading German troops. He thought it might still be possible to sign a peace agreement with the Germans similar to the Brest Litovsk treaty of 1918.

                  Many of the soldiers were so poorly trained. They felt daunted by the thought of taking up positions. A famous novel by Boris Vasilev called 'All is Quiet on the Zori ' sums up the situation. The novel tells how a patrol of young female soldiers are sent on a reconnaissance mission to observe what German paratroopers are all up to. None of the young girls know much about drills, never mind how to use their weapons well. They just have to do training for war on the job with disastrous results. One soldier forgets how to walk over swamps with special wooden poles and drowns.

                   The rest are all shot dead by Germans leaving their lone sergeant to finish off the Germans. Many of those soldiers were ex-students unprepared or just not made for war. They were like many of the students enlisted and sent to die in the Battle of Moscow. They had inadequate and almost absent military preparation.

                   Kirill Berends was a student at the Aviation institute who was sitting an exam in higher mathematics when he heard the news of the outbreak of war. He enlisted in the artillery and later fought in the Battle of the Kursk.

                   After only a five month course he was given command of 15 men. 'I immediately felt my training as a commander was incomplete. ...We were children who did not understand anything.'

                   Kirill Berends is still a man with a mission. He has opened a museum to preserve the memory of the Great Patriotic war so that people don't forget their experience. This is important because not everyone wants to hear about the war. According to Rodric Braithwaite, who wrote a book on the Battle of Moscow, called 'Moscow 1941', discovered that school 110 which used to commemorate the deaths of one hundred pupils with an annual         ceremony, no longer holds such events. The teachers claimed the pupils got tired of hearing about the feats of their elders. The special sculpture to commemorate those who died had to be moved to a safer place to protect it from vandals. So it is not only extreme Ukrainian fascists and nationalists who disrespect and desecrate war memorials. Some young people don't understand or comprehend why they need to remember or pay homage to those who fell in 'The Great Patriotic war'.

                   The veteran Kirill Berends opened a museum to remind and re-educate the youth as to why the war must not be forgotten. He states, 'War - this is where people go to kill each other. I give myself this definition of war.

                   And my task is to tell about war so that it never happens again'.

                   Unfortunately, people have brief memories and at times, too much insensibility. As this article goes to press, a brutally senseless war is being waged partly because Russians dread a real revived threat of fascism. It is as if 1941 did not end in 1941! A war is being waged in Ukraine on the very same territory which the Germans advanced through. Scores of innocent civilians and journalists have already been killed  by indiscriminate sniper fire or mortars. As in 1941 thousands are fleeing the zone of conflict. If only people listened to Kirill Berends. Very few people learn the lessons of history. If you want to honour the dead, stop killing the living!

Teachers of Businessmen

Do Public School Chiefs Really Need an Education Background?
By Jim Vail


When it comes to the system we live in, the names of people helping to run the show are not as important as we think.

Let's take Arne Duncan, President Obama's education secretary.

A prominent education blogger called for a more 'qualified' education secretary with a teaching background to replace Duncan.

Mr. Duncan certainly makes the people angry. 

He said Hurricane Katrina was the best thing to happen to the public school system in New Orleans (half of them became charter schools). Then he said after the disasterous results of Common Core tests in New York, that white suburban moms complaining is silly because maybe their little Johnny isn't as smart as they thought he was.

So let's get someone with a teaching background. 

Rod Paige served as the education secretary under former President George Bush. He was a teacher in Missippi and moved up the ranks into administration and to the top federal job.

He called the teachers unions 'terrorists.' He represented the so-called Texas testing miracle that turned out to be a fraud.

In Chicago many education experts complained about how the mayor appointed businessmen instead of education professionals to lead the public schools.

There was Paul Vallas, who worked in the city's budget office, who ran the schools under Daley. He was mocked for not even being qualified to be a substitute teacher.

Then Ron Huberman replaced Duncan to run the schools, and again, here was a cop now running the schools.

So mayor Emanuel, hearing the cries of a 'qualified' superintendent, replaced him with Jean Claude Brizzard.

Mr. Brizzard had a big teaching background.

He was fired after the first teachers strike in 25 years. He was no defender of teachers.

Did any of this matter? Heck no - all of them have one important thing in common - they work for the man who is beholden to the 1% to implement education reform.

Whether they were a teacher or not, they are now running the city's public schools and implementing harsh education reform measures to ensure privatization, charter schools, anti-unionism, outsourcing, testing, etc.

If any of them refused to follow orders, they would be out the door.

It's the one percent who run the show here. We as defenders of public education must understand this and not get caught up in names to think any administrators have any real pull in the system we're stuck in.

We need to fight for our rights, and not wait for the next teacher turned schools chief to save us!    

Teachers Fight Back!

Tennessee Tied Teachers’ Jobs to Standardized Test Scores. Here’s How They Pushed Back—and Won.

By Molly Rusk

http://www.nationofchange.org/tennessee-tied-teachers-jobs-standardized-test-scores-here-s-how-they-pushed-back-and-won-1401509408

What if a surgeon’s medical license could be taken away based on an error-prone statistical formula that ranked his abilities on a scale of 1 to 5, based on the success (or failure) of a small number of the operations he performed? Or imagine if a lawyer could lose her membership to the bar because a statistical estimate of her success predicted that she would lose the majority of her cases next year.

Last year, public school teachers in Tennessee faced precisely that situation, but they didn’t take it lying down. Instead, they started a year of creative actions that led to a decisive change in policy—despite a governor determined to keep an unreliable statistical formula as a key method of evaluating teachers.

Their campaign ended successfully on April 24, when Governor Bill Haslam signed a bill rolling back the use of a statistical instrument known as TVAAS in teacher licensing decisions—and hitting the pause button on an important facet of the testing trend in Tennessee, at least for the moment.

Education experts are divided as to what this development will mean for America’s schoolkids. But many believe that it could spark similar campaigns nationwide.

“The change in Tennessee sends a message about politics,” said Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Education Data and Research at the University of Washington. “It will embolden people in other states who think that tests ought not to be used for teacher evaluations to continue the pushback.”

According to Bob Peterson, president of the Milwaukee teachers’ union, the development in Tennessee is just one piece of the puzzle. “The success of the pushback in Tennessee is one part of the larger growing movement for testing reform, against the use of standardized tests to pigeonhole and sort our students, and to scapegoat our public schools and teachers,” Peterson said. “New York, California, Oregon—there’s growing grassroots activity.”

From "chickens and cows" to public education

The story begins in the early 1990s, when the state of Tennessee hired Dr. Bill Sanders, then a statistician at the University of Tennessee’s program in agriculture, to develop a statistical tool that could measure how well teachers were doing their jobs. So Sanders created the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System.

Also known as TVAAS, the state adopted the system in 1993, and school district administrators and board members used it as a diagnostic of how schools and teachers were performing.

While Sanders was a perfectly good statistician, some have cracked wise about his background. “His initial forays into statistical modeling were based on livestock—chickens and cows,” said Jim Wrye, manager of government relations for the Tennessee Education Association, the largest professional association of teachers in the state. 

In the context of increasing federal pressure to emphasize testing in public schools, TVAAS was seen as a limited tool. It gathered information about how a given teacher’s students were doing on the state’s standardized test and spat out a number from 1 to 5, with 5 being best. It showed in a general way how well teachers were preparing students for the test. Soon other states began adopting systems based on TVAAS.

But then, beginning in 2010, Tennessee made several policy decisions that changed the role TVAAS played in teacher’s lives.

The reason for the change was a federal initiative called Race to the Top, introduced in 2010, which put states in competition for education funding. The states that came up with the best education reform plans—defined by a set of goals laid out by the federal government—would win a large public education grant. Among the goals of Race to the Top was teacher accountability. To meet that goal, United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan encouraged school districts to use student test scores to decide whether teachers could receive or renew their teaching licenses, among other things.

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In order to win Race to the Top funding—the state was awarded more than $501 million—Tennessee turned TVAAS scores into a major component of teacher evaluations. While 51 percent of a teacher’s total score still came from an observation—in which a school district official would visit a school and watch a teacher in action—TVAAS scores were now worth 35 percent.

In August 2013, the state Board of Education voted to adopt a policy, introduced by State Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman, which placed even more weight on TVAAS scores. Under this new policy, if a teacher scored lower than 2 out of 5 points for three years in a row, she would not be eligible to renew her license.

Before that decision, TVAAS scores didn’t cause much trouble because they were only a diagnostic, with no real consequences. But when teachers realized that these erratic scores could put their careers on the line, they started getting worried.

“The most valuable possession of a teacher is her license,” Wrye said. “A license allows her to do what she loves. It’s worth more than her house, it’s worth more than her car. And when you decide to take it away, you better have a rock-solid reason.”

Teachers saw TVAAS as anything but rock-solid. Like other statistical measurements, it has what’s known as a “standard error.” In other words, a teacher could receive a score of 5 for a given school year but actually deserve only a 3, according to other components of her evaluation. By the same token, a teacher could receive 3 points for a given year, but actually deserve a 5. Errors of this nature are built into statistics, but the likelihood that this would occur was relatively high for TVAAS.

The system was so unpredictable, said Wrye, "It was sometimes viewed as the crazy aunt in the basement."

Wrye also said the system unfairly punished teachers who work in the neediest communities. "Places with high poverty, places with low resources, places that have a high influx of English language learners—there are places where, no matter what the teacher does, they will not have very good test scores or TVAAS scores."

Last year, complaints about TVAAS began trickling in to the TEA. As the association investigated individual cases, they discovered how the system’s standard error, among other kinks, was affecting teachers, according to TEA President Gera Summerford. In one instance, eighth-grade teacher Mark Taylor was denied a bonus because of poor scores, even though the scores only reflected the work of about 16 percent of his students.

These kinds of complaints made it clear that the August 2013 decision—set to take effect in 2015—could cost a teacher her license and perhaps her whole career because of an erratic and often inaccurate statistical calculation. So the TEA launched a campaign to urge the Tennessee legislature to reverse the policy and ensure fairness in teacher evaluations.

How they did it

The TEA started by doing what teachers do best: educating. “What we ended up doing is, first and foremost, explaining to the legislature what exactly TVAAS was,” said Jim Wrye, who was among the TEA leaders who spearheaded the campaign.

On January 23, two TEA allies, Senator Mike Bell and House Rep. Mathew Hill, presented an initial bill, the Educator Respect and Accountability Act of 2014, that would completely remove student standardized test scores from teacher evaluations.

But because of pressure from a minority of legislators who supported the existing policy, the bill was modified to focus specifically on TVAAS. It amended the law so that the state department of education could not revoke a teacher’s license based on her TVAAS scores. It also took away the state Board of Education’s authority to adopt policies on teacher licensing.

Meanwhile, on January 31, the state Board of Education met to finalize new rules for teachers’ licenses. During that meeting, they rescinded the policy they had approved in August 2013.

But that reversal was only the beginning. The modified bill still had to survive a gauntlet of committees, subcommittees, and hearings.

On February 4, Jim Wrye and TEA General Counsel Rick Colbert gave a 15 minute presentation before the state’s House Education Committee, laying out the major problems with TVAAS. Other TEA leaders gave a similar presentation for the Senate Education Committee.

Once members of the legislature understood that TVAAS was not a state standardized test but rather an unreliable statistical estimate derived from standardized test scores, the bill gained widespread support. Within two weeks, 88 out of 99 members of the Tennessee legislature, including both House representatives and senators, signed on as co-sponsors.

Despite the growing support for a policy change in the legislature and in the Board of Education, the governor was determined to keep TVAAS as a core component of teacher evaluations. Tennessee Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman was the leading proponent of this policy, and Governor Haslam personally lobbied senators, urging them to support the commissioner’s position.

“One senator said he had spent over 10 years in the general assembly and [had] never been called to the governor’s office on a particular bill, before this one,” Wrye said. “He still voted for us in committee.”

The TEA leaders didn’t do all the talking. The association organized more than 400 teachers who went to Nashville during spring break to personally talk to legislators about TVAAS and other public education issues like charter schools and vouchers.

The TEA also created a petition asking the governor to treat teachers as professionals. After nearly 12,000 people signed the petition, the TEA delivered it to Governor Haslam’s office with comments outlining the key reasons that the TEA’s licensure bill had gained such widespread support in the legislature.

The final twist of the screw came in the form of two lawsuits that the TEA filed against Governor Haslam and Commissioner Huffman. The lawsuits were based on separate complaints that two teachers—one of whom was eighth-grade teacherMark Taylor, mentioned above—had brought to the association about TVAAS. In both cases, the teachers lost bonuses they believed they deserved, due to poor TVAAS scores that did not represent the full extent of their work.

TEA President Summerford stressed that the lawsuits did not address teacher licensure rules, the issue at the heart of the association’s licensure bill.

However, they “bring into sharp focus ... the fundamental flaws of TVAAS in making high stakes decisions for teachers,” Wrye said.

In the end, there were only six “no” votes on the TEA’s licensure bill in the Tennessee legislature, out of a total of 132 voting members. And when Governor Haslam signed the bill on April 24, teachers across the state celebrated the development as a major policy victory.

“It showed tremendous care and support by the rank and file senators and House members for their teachers,” said Wrye.

Federal pressure to emphasize testing in public schools will continue to affect education policy in Tennessee and in the rest of the country. But the TEA’s campaign highlights the need for testing data to be used more carefully and demonstrates the power of teachers to act effectively when it is not.

Molly Rusk wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Molly is a recent graduate of the program in Creative Writing at the University of Washington and an online reporting intern at YES! Follow her on Twitter @mollylynnrusk.

Ukraine Tragedy Continues!

CEASEFIRE BREAKS DOWN! REFUGEES FLOOD INTO RUSSIA 
By Stephen Wilson

(Moscow, Russia) -  The ceasefire appears to have 'finished,' if it really began in the first place.

              The  peace was like a train jolting back and thro, unsure of whether to go back or forward, or on which track to change on as all the diplomats working at the signal box were sending conflicting signals. This is why it is too simplistic to blame the insurgents for the prolonged conflict, for it is not too far-fetched to assume that European and Ukrainian officials have never made a sincere commitment to support the peace -process in the first place. 

              Another problem is, 'How can you negotiate peace when you don't acknowledge there is a war in the first place? So the first step is to readily acknowledge a real war situation exists in the first place! This is a real war and not 'a simple criminal conspiracy', 'terrorist acts' or 'bandits getting above themselves.' Yet the Ukrainian government often speaks as if there is no war as do American officials. It reminds me of the British attitude to northern Ireland. Instead of recognizing a war existed, they just understated the situation by calling it 'the Troubles'. If the solution to the problem lies in simply arresting terrorists, then the whole complexity of the situation is reduced to a 'law and order ' problem.

              The American government policy betrays an utter ignorance which must embarrass its own citizens, especially highly educated, cultural and spiritual people who loathe war. They either don't grasp the situation in the Ukraine and live in a     world of their own, or they are aggressively belligerent and           indifferent to the loss of human lives. One wonders if they have hearts of stone or they are Walter Mitty characters. At least Walter Mitty tried to save the jobs of workers!

               Even from a cynical real political point of view the     statement of American officials indicate an almost amateurish and childish level of irresponsibility and ineptitude. According to Mary Garf, there are no refugees.

               She states, 'They could be visiting their grandmothers and returning back'. 'The Ukrainain government is not carrying out acts of war, but only carrying out anti-terrorist operations'. Those are Alice in Wonderland statements! One thing is certain and that is the American government is not supporting peace but condoning a callous and inexcusable war while the European statesmen are not even challenging them on this. In deed, we don't now whether the European Union is for either war or peace. For they are sending out confusing, contradictory and inconsistent statements.

               We are for war and peace! We are for peace and if we don't get it, we will increase economic sanctions. A writer called David Wanborough stated, 'Economic sanctions is a form of war against Russia. It is declaring a trade war against Russia'. Since the European Union represents 28 countries, you can potentially hear 28 different policies.

               For example, France tends to act like a dove while Germany seems to act more aggressively, like a falcon. It is clearly self evident that the European policy towards Ukraine is not fully     worked out, or even fully agreed upon if they in deed have one!

               The problem is that the European Union forgets it is not a superpower; the Americans are attempting to prove they are still the main superpower and the Russians have already declared they are now a superpower which is the equal of America. The balance of power has tilted the other way, and recent events in Ukraine demonstrate this stark truth.

               THE WAR GOES ON!

               The war, in all its unfolding frightening horror is going on. The Ukrainian forces have been launching air-raids, artillery barrages and sniping at the Russians who are trapped in a siege situation where they are often cut off from basic utilities such as water, electricity, food and medical supplies. Then there is the constant terror of hiding in cellars from air-raids, not knowing whether a rocket or bomb will hit them. Already many peaceful civilians have been killed by either stray or intentionally aimed bullets or shells. The recent air-strike on Luganskaya railway station reduced it to a heap of smoldering rubble and ash reminiscent of old war footage of Stalingrad. Ten people were reported to have died in this senseless strike. The panic of a poor fear stricken women fleeing a burning building ought to waken     people up! A five-year-old boy perished in this attack. For what       purpose was this illogical 'anti-terrorist operation'? Do American       officials regard five-year-old children and fleeing women terrorists?

                 I spoke to Russians about the American policy. Most told me that they thought the Americans were mostly ignorant or plain stupid.

                 In fact, there is a prevailing belief in Russian that Americans are stupid. This is a common stereotype which took the American English teacher Daniel Ogan aback! Yesterday a Russian student asked me, 'Why do the Americans and Europeans dislike Russians?' I retorted, 'They don't dislike Russians,' but I was not sure my answer convinced him.

                  It is difficult to say how many people have died from 'anti-terrorist' operations. One figure states that 279 people have died and that from this figure, 160 represented peaceful civilians. This suggests that the main casualties of this war are civilians.

                  It is worth observing that the incompetence or indiscriminate attacks on innocent people have a precedent. A military expert Rusten Klupov stated, 'The professionalism of           Ukrainians was indicated by some stupid incidents. In 2000 a missile 'Tuchka' fell into a high story building over Kiev and in 2001, in a training exercise, a rocket which was launched destroyed a plane on the flight from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk with the loss of 77 passengers' lives. You can be certain that those incidents led to the end of further military training exercises!'

                  Those tragic events happened in peacetime! Experiencing a bombing raid is traumatic. One woman in Ukraine reported, 'They would attack 5 times, 20 times, every 35 seconds. Afterwards, there was an interval for 5-10 minutes, then again, bombing for almost an hour. How we prayed during this time. We thought that our very rescue could only be ensured by a miracle from God. Later, there was a leak and smoke was coming from somewhere. In fear, we went to look, and we were relieved there was an interval in the bombing which left us alive'.

                  Many of the victims of war can't understand why they are being targeted by their own government. 'Why are they attacking us? We don't want to go to war against anyone .'

                 There is a great sense of disbelief, shock and amazement. Some insensitive people might rebuke those civilians for being naive. They are not naive! On the contrary, they retain a sober sane sensibility, much more perceptive than naive American officials. They correctly perceive evil as absurd, abnormal and beyond all the laws of logic as well as human nature.

                  They intuitively grasp the intensity of suffering!

                  At one Moscow metro Taganskaya, you can't avoid seeing a huge mural looming up declaring 'Crimea is Russia'. Not far from here, a tent has been pitched by charity volunteers who are appealing for donations to aid the people on Donbass. Already, some refugees have trickled into Moscow. One female refugee said, 'I can't get used to how quiet life in Moscow is!' This is despite the fact Moscow is one of the noisiest and busiest cities in Europe!

                  I spoke to one hairdresser, who I'll call' Olga', whose husband has recently gone off to volunteer to defend Donbass'. I asked Olga how she felt about this, as well as the situation in Ukraine. She answered, 'I could kill him! He has left me to look after two children! He told me that, 'It is my patriotic duty to defend my motherland'. I told him that he would only be killing his neighbours. I hate this war and think it is only being  fought over money and control of the resources, which the Donbass  holds. The war is being fought so some politicians and officials can make money from it. What I hate is when so many innocent people are suffering, especially children . ..I don't know how some refugees will get work in some parts of Russian, such as Smolensk. I'm from there and I know the area very well. There is alot of mass poverty and unemployment there. It is so bad that in some villages near there, half the people are just drinking. Life is very difficult here. So how the government will manage to provide the refugees with work when they can't support local people amazes me!'

                  'I have many friends from Ukraine and don't want to go to war against them'.

                  What will become of Olga's husband is anyone's guess. Hopefully, peace will prevail to grant people a desperately needed break!

American Idol Elections!

THE REAL “AMERICAN IDOL”: ELECTIONS AS AUDITIONS

Whose Consent Really Counts and How Decisions Are Actually Made

by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Revcon.com

Editors’ Note: This is taken from the talk “Why We’re In the Situation We’re In Today...And What to Do About It: A Thoroughly Rotten System and the Need For Revolution,” one of the 7 Talks given by Bob Avakian in 2006. Audio of the 7 Talks, plus the Question and Answer Session, with Concluding Remarks, is available on revcom.us in the Audio and Video listing for Bob Avakian, and at bobavakian.net. The author has edited this for publication here.

I’ve used this example before—that elections in the U.S. are like a very complicated audition. Complicated audition in the sense that it’s like the popular shows where people get on and perform, like “American Idol.” In these situations, secondarily you’re trying to get the approval of the audience, but primarily you’re trying to get the approval of the panel of judges. Even in terms of getting to perform, getting your chance to be out there before the audience—and in terms of how the audience is influenced—you have to get the approval of the judges. Now, part of getting the approval of the judges is showing that you can move the audience in a certain way—but in a fundamental sense it comes back to the judges. It’s the same thing in elections.

In these elections, under this system, the “audition” (in other words, participation in primary elections to determine who the final candidates will be) is geared primarily to the panel of judges—to where the big money is to finance a campaign, to where the people are who control the media and other major institutions—you have to win their approval, above all. But part of auditioning for them is to convince them that you can influence the “audience” (the public) in a way they want it influenced. That is a big part of the way you audition, of what this audition is really for—not for “the public” but for the “panel of judges”—for those people who are in a position to decide whether they will (or will not) get major finances funneled into your campaign, and will (or will not) cast your “audition” (your efforts as a candidate) in a favorable light in the mass media, and so on.

The “deciders,” in fundamental and ultimate terms, are not “the American People,” as they like to pretend, but that small part of “the American people” which dominates the economy and therefore the politics, the media and in general the means of molding public opinion, and every other sphere of social life: the capitalist-imperialist ruling class and its political and literary representatives.

How does this “panel of judges” decide whether your audition is any good—or, on the other hand, when to bring out the Simon Cowell type to tell you: “You stink, get the hell out of here!” [audience laughter] This is based on their calculation of their strategic interests and how what you’re doing, and what you stand for, a) will (or will not) serve those interests directly; and b) will (or will not) serve them, so to speak, indirectly—by influencing the populace in the way they want it influenced. That’s what makes the audition complicated. You’re not just auditioning for them, to see if they like “the key that you sing in,” but this is also, in a real sense, about whether or not they think you can influence the audience, the electorate (“the American people”) in the way they want to influence it.

Both things are part of the audition—but it’s all on the terms of the dynamics of this system. And what happens if you get outside of the dynamics of this system? For example, if you start saying: “It’s ridiculous that we spend so much on the military when people are so hungry in the world—we should cut the military budget in half and use that money to feed the people in the world—I was just listening to Bono the other day, and he convinced me.” [audience laughter] Well, you could run that out, but you’re not going to be a serious candidate for any significant elective office in the U.S., and certainly not for president, if you’re saying that. Why? For all the reasons I was discussing earlier: because that does not conform to the underlying dynamics of this system, and to the superstructural expressions—politically and militarily and geo‑strategically—of those underlying dynamics. 

You would be totally out of line with the way things actually work, to put it in simple terms, and you would get nowhere. Maybe you’d get an article in The Nation, or something [audience laughter], but you will get nowhere in terms of actually getting close to exercising any power or any significant influence on the direction of government and society in an overall sense. Because you’re “wack”—or you’re “out of whack”—you’re out of line with what the actual dynamics are and how that expresses itself in terms of the political and geo‑strategic needs of the people who are the dominant, ruling class within this system of capitalist-imperialist production relations—those who control this system and who fashion and use elections to function as a key part of the political structures to reinforce that system.

They have found this, up to this point at least, to be a convenient and actually a brilliant device as they have developed it—to do this in the form of elections. It serves their interests all the better, at least up to this point, to rule through a political system that involves “popular elections”—but popular elections in which and through which they exercise fundamental and ultimate control. That is what is really going on, and not something else. And that is why programs that may conform to what a lot of people would like, but are not in the interests of the ruling class, will get nowhere under this system. For example, if you took a poll and you asked people to indicate, up or down, how they felt about what I just articulated about cutting the military budget in half and using the half that was cut to end world hunger—probably a majority of people who identify as “Democrats” would be strongly in favor. But that has nothing to do with what the Democratic Party will adopt.

Why? That’s a question that people should be challenged to seriously engage. Why that discrepancy, what does that flow out of, what does that reflect, what does that tell us?

Boycott Elections!

Making the Case for an Election Boycott: Why the Left Should Refrain from US Imperialism's Electoral Charade

By Danny Haiphong

Blackagendareport.com

by Danny Haiphong

The left should not participate in, “and thus provide consent for, the rule of imperialism every four years.” Say “No” to the charade. “Barack Obama's two-term presidency has been a lesson for the entire left that voting for a Wall Street politician within the imperialist state can only bring more misery and political confusion, not less.”

Making the Case for an Election Boycott: Why the Left Should Refrain from US Imperialism's Electoral Charade

by Danny Haiphong

“The two-party US political system more clearly than ever works exclusively in the interests of the imperialist ruling class.”
There are many dangerous trends emerging from progressive and revolutionary forces in the US. One of the most concerning is a growing focus on electoral campaigns as a tactic to achieve grassroots objectives.  The electoral victories of Kshama Sawant, Chokwe Lumumba (Rest in Power), and Ras Baracka are a clear indication of popular discontent with austerity, gentrification, and privatization in US cities under capitalist siege.  However, whatever encouragement these victories provide cannot resolve the contradictions of US capitalism. The primary purpose of US capitalism's state machinery is to manage the affairs of the ruling class. This poses the important question of whether electing representatives into political office is a worthy tactic for the left or whether it should be abandoned all together.

Historical Context of Capitalist State-Reform and the US left

The English colonizers, after defeating the British Crown in the American (counter) Revolution, made it clear that African slaves, property-less Whites, women, and indigenous people would have zero decision-making power in who would represent them in the newly formed US nation-state. As US capitalism industrialized, property restrictions were lessened to further privilege White Americans into "citizenship" at the expense of Black and indigenous people. From the very beginning, electoral politics were a stage where capitalists performed for the state power needed to manage the profits obtained from racism and labor exploitation.

US government hostility to the interests of the working class and oppressed understandably deterred the left from pushing revolutionary goals through electoral politics.  Prominent socialists like Eugene Debs ran for President a handful of times with little success. For the most part, leftists understood that running candidates for political office was a drain on resources and political morale. So, rather than run candidates, the left organized people to win concrete victories from the capitalist state in specific historical moments.  Progressive labor and civil rights legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act and the National Labor Relations Act, were won because the collective organization of workers and victims of white supremacy presented a direct threat to the interests of capitalism. What made such gains so important was how they expanded popular vision of what was possible and at the same time failed to fully transform the inherent antagonisms of the US capitalist social order. Poor Black and colonized peoples in the US, largely excluded from state-reforms, saw no other option but to demand complete self-determination and liberation from capitalist domination.

“George Jackson warned that imperialism ensured that the US government could no longer reform itself in the last stage of capitalism.”

George Jackson was a leader of the Black liberation movement that was partly inspired by inadequate state-reforms.  Jackson wrote extensively in his book Blood in my Eye (1971) on the changing nature of capitalist state-reform. He learned quickly from his experiences organizing for the Black liberation movement from behind the walls that there was nothing left that Black America could wrestle from the US capitalist state. The conditions of the working class were on the decline. Prior reforms had improved the economic conditions of White America while doing virtually nothing for the economic needs of poor Black and indigenous nations.  Jackson concluded that these developments were evidence of US capitalism's last stage: imperialism.

Jackson warned that imperialism ensured that the US government could no longer reform itself in the last stage of capitalism to appease certain sectors of its exploited subjects. And he was, and still is, correct. The ruling class went on an offensive that has yet to end, brutally repressing revolutionary upheaval in the US while making calculated and necessary changes to ensure the survival of capitalism on the global stage. Some of these changes included ending of the Vietnam War, monopolizing corporate power into the realm of finance, and most importantly for the purposes of this article, opening up avenues to Black candidacy in corporate and political office. These "reforms" isolated revolutionary organizations like the Black Panther Party and re-directed popular energy toward what the imperialist ruling class deemed acceptable forms of political participation.

Boycott the Vote!

George Jackson's analysis points to the need to direct political energy away from participation in the imperialist state.  Popular mistrust in the US government is at a high point, as shown by low voter-turnouts and percentages of Presidential and Congressional approval.  However, the political vacuum created by imperialism has strengthened the illusion of legitimacy around running candidates for political office. This contradiction exists despite the fact that the two-party US political system more clearly than ever works exclusively in the interests of the imperialist ruling class.

The political party for bankrupt liberal leftists, the Democratic Party, has jointly expanded the prison state, austerity, surveillance, war, poverty, and by extension, corporate rule with its Republican counterparts. Still, both Democrats and Republicans rhetorically perform a show of opposition for the corporate media. And in no other historical period has any President provided a more effective assault on oppressed people for the imperialist ruling class. Barack Obama's two-term presidency has been a lesson for the entire left that voting for a Wall Street politician within the imperialist state can only bring more misery and political confusion, not less.

“Occupy Chicago activists burned their voter registration cards outside of Obama's campaign office.”

So while some organizations like Socialist Alternative are seeking city council victories to achieve goals such as a $15 per/hour minimum wage, others are organizing to boycott US electoral politics all together. In 2012, a group of organizers campaigned for an election boycott of the Presidential election.  The campaign emphasized a shift in consciousness around the act of voting.  Instead of voting for the Democratic or Republican Parties of imperialism and legitimizing their rule, the campaign called on people to actively withhold their vote.  This meant not only being absent from the polls as individuals, but also collectively organizing others to withhold their vote in opposition to the electoral charade of the capitalist class.

Although Obama was re-elected President, the efforts of boycott organizers were not in vein. Numerous tactics were employed to make the stand against US imperialism's elections visible. Occupy Chicago activists burned their voter registration cards outside of Obama's campaign office. Organizer Terri Lee and others presented the idea of an election boycott to as many media sources and events as possible, which included venues such as the Left Forum.  As a collective, the boycott organizers were most concerned with positioning themselves as a left movement that refused to vote in, and thus provide consent for, the rule of imperialism every four years.  This is an important position that deserves serious ideological and practical consideration from leftist formations in the US imperial center.

Conclusion

US governmental elections are advertised as a staple of Western "democracy" by the imperialist ruling class. However, the fact remains that elections under this racist, capitalist, neo-colonial system only legitimize the rule of the capitalist class over its exploited subjects.  Electoral politics are movement killers, not movement builders. In the 1970's, the Oakland chapter of the Black Panther Party split with the more militant chapters around the country and began focusing on mayoral and city council campaigns.  Each campaign drained the resources of the Party and diluted the revolutionary ideological foundation that had once inspired young, working class Black Americans.

“Sawant’s election has helped begin the process of removing the "Fight for $15" out of the streets and into the seats of bourgeois government.”

Kshama Sawant's city council victory in Seattle will inevitably run into similar issues in the fight for a $15/hr minimum wage. It already appears her election has helped begin the process of removing the "Fight for $15" out of the streets and into the seats of bourgeois government.  Additionally, Sawant's recent appearances on Democracy Now! alarmingly argued for mass movement forces to run "third party" candidates for political office and emulate her victory around the country. If history is our guide, than Sawant's strategy needs reconsideration.  Malcolm X, in his speech The Ballot or the Bullet, cautioned Black left political forces on the limitations of merely exercising the right to vote with a vow of non-violence despite the white racist terror that awaited them at the polls.  In this period, the right to vote has been rolled back by the same imperialist state the vote legitimizes.  The US imperialist system only guarantees incorporation of revolutionary and progressive objectives into the imperialist state machinery.  This spells defeat of, not victory for, working class power in contrary to what Sawant claims.

An organized election boycott has the potential of channeling the mistrust that most left-leaning folks have with the US imperial state into concrete political action. Instead of electing city council members, let's confront our municipal officials that are hell-bent on selling neighborhoods and assets to the corporate ruling class.  Let's confront our elected officials in Washington for their service of empire and corporate power.  The left’s most important task in this period is to take principled positions against US imperialism. Electing "third party" candidates into this machinery won't do this, but campaigns such as an election boycott give us a chance to fight for transformation of the imperialist system we so desperately need.

Danny Haiphong is an activist and case manager in the Greater Boston area. You can contact Danny at: wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com.