Amazon's promise of '50,000 new jobs' for Chicago is bunkum

A week ago I posted about Amazon not being the kind of company Chicago needs. But Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner continue to grovel before the king of e-commerce offering huge tax and real estate giveaways that will only push the state and city into more debt, hurting schools and wiping outpensions. All this in the hope that Amazon will bring "50,000 jobs" to the city.

Sadly, most local pols, including Democrats running to replace Rauner, have drunk the Amazon jobs koolade. So has the media for the most part. On Friday, a planted Amazon good-news story claims the company is about to hire 10,000 holiday workers in IL.

Amazon is hiring more than 120,000 seasonal workers nationwide, including 10,000 new employees in Illinois. That means jobs at local fulfillment centers, sortation centers and customer service sites — and some of those positions could become permanent, according to Amazon. 

What's left out of the Patch piece is that these are non-union, mostly minimum-wage jobs offering most of these workers little or no chance for full-time employment. The work is mind-numbing and repetitive. 50-hour weeks are not uncommon and managers are continually relocated.

As for the claim that thousands of seasonal workers were given full-time jobs last year, it's important to remember that good-paying "full-time" jobs with Amazon are not usually permanent jobs and that those few who are hired full-time are usually replacing some of the thousands who quit or are fired each year.

In fact, Amazon has the second highest worker/turnover rate of any of the Fortune 500 companies. Turning over a big chunk of the workforce each year (most new-hires are gone after just nine months) saves the corporation millions of dollars on benefits like medical coverage and paid vacation days.

Amazon has built its empire around fast shipping speeds and generous return policies. But little is said of it's "dangerously intense internal company culture".

Last year, Bloomberg reported that the company was using flat-screen televisions in its warehouses to shame workers for alleged theft. The workers are not identified by name; rather, they are shown as black silhouettes with the word “terminated” or “arrested” emblazoned before an account of what they stole from the company and how they got caught. In the absence of a TV monitor, workers told Bloomberg that similar information was posted on walls or bulletin boards around the office.

A former Amazon contract worker wrote this, in an open letter to CEO Jeff Bezos:

There’s a lot of talk about how Amazon is a great place to work. They have showers in the basement. You can get your bike serviced while you work. And there’s food trucks! But if you really want to create a positive work environment and generate productivity and employee loyalty, give your employees some job security.

That's not likely to happen. Amazon, stay away.

Why Amazon is not the kind of company Chicago needs

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner are BFFs again. What brings the pair of Republicrat drinking buddies back together after some highly publicized spats, including personal name-calling, are school vouchers, more and bigger tax breaks for the rich, and Amazon.

Both of them, along with all but a few state and city pols, have been prostrating themselves before the Seattle-based king of global e-commerce, offering up some of the city's best real estate and a virtual tax-free existence if the low-road, parasitic company will only agree to open its second headquarters in IL, and bring "50,000 jobs" to Chicago.

Where have we heard those kinds of wild promises before? Think Olympic Games or Boeing's move here from Seattle in 2001, which, despite Mayor Daley's overblown promises, produced only a few hundred jobs and little in the way of taxes.

Ben Joravsky writes:

While 50,000 jobs sounds great, Chicago's got a checkered history when it comes to companies making good on job promises. The most infamous case was Republic Windows and Doors. In the 1990s, the city gave Republic more than $10 million in tax increment financing money to build a factory on Goose Island that would employ at least 610 people. In 2008, Republic closed the factory but got to keep the TIF cash.

Amazon's founder, CEO and Trump clone, Jeff Bezos  claims that his company is going to invest more than $5 billion to create a second headquarters in a city like Chicago. He says the move will produce thousands of high-paying jobs over the next 10 to 15 years. And all he wants in return is free land and billions in corporate tax incentives. Bezos has been playing the same game for years.

When Bezos was first deciding where to base his new e-commerce business in 1995, Seattle was not his first choice. Instead, according to Newsweek, the CEO of Amazon, now the world’s largest online store, eyed a Native American reservation near San Francisco that would have considerably lowered his tax bill.

The state of California quashed that scheme, but Bezos’s zeal for tax avoidance did not stop there. Throughout much of Amazon’s more than 20-year history, he has carved out competitive tax positions for the company as it expanded globally. His business acumen in that regard has even attracted the wrath of presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who earlier this year accused Bezos of buying The Washington Post to gain political influence and avoid taxes. During a speech in Texas, Trump said, “If I become president, oh do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems.” 

Boy, did he lie. Bezos, with a net worth of more than $45 billion, pulls down and annual salary, including stock options, of nearly $2 million. That's a small part of what's local taxpayers are paying for if Amazon is allowed to ride virtually tax-free.

More from Newsweek:

Amazon’s IRS case in the U.S., which could force it to pay more than $1.5 billion in unpaid taxes, has revealed some findings that are, at best, awkward for the company. According to court documents, Amazon hired an economist from the global financial advisory company Deloitte in 2001 to review the various approaches that could be adopted to reduce its taxes.

Bezos is also a big backer of charter schools and other school privatization schemes in the state of Washington. According to a report in the Nation, the Bezos Foundation has donated to Education Reform Now, a nonprofit organization that funds attack advertisements against teachers’ unions and other advocacy efforts to promote test-based evaluations of teachers. Education Reform Now also sponsors Democrats for Education Reform (DFER).

Other education philanthropy supported by the Bezos Foundation include KIPP, Teach for America and many individual charter schools, including privately funded math and science programs across the country.

Both Rahm and Rauner, facing upcoming elections, see landing Amazon as a feather in their respective caps and are eager to jump at the bait. Bezos' name popped up in recently-released Rahm emails. In January 2013, Emanuel emailed Bezos, asking for more information about the possibility of the online retail giant locating a facility in Chicago.

"While this is below you, this is very important to me and would like to know if there any chance to set up a phone call with you to discuss?" Emanuel wrote the billionaire, who also owns the Washington Post. "Hope you had a Happy New Year."

Bezos responded by adding one of his executives to the email, "who leads our global fulfillment." Amazon has built multiple facilities in suburban collar counties, but only one in the city.

Bezos

While the city needs jobs, it's questionable whether all, or even most of those promised jobs will go to Chicagoans or to those in communities with the greatest need or highest youth unemployment rates. More likely, Amazon would move many of its existing staff and top execs here from other cities. It's not even clear that these execs will live in the city or in the burbs.

Secondly, there's the question of the negative impact this giant tax giveaway will have on public education and the current pension-debt crisis? America's corporate tax rate is 35%. But Amazon is one of 115 companies along with Boeing on the S&P500 that pay much less -- around 4%..

Finally, there's the problem of Amazon's unethical and even criminal modus operandi. The company was just hit with a $293 million fine from the European Union for failing to pay its tax obligations there.

According to the International Business Times, Amazon is far from alone in shrinking its effective tax rate by racking up state subsidies and credits — as those same states struggle to keep their public pension funds afloat. It cites a study released Wednesday by the advocacy group Good Jobs First and the National Public Pension Coalition which makes the connection between the huge tax breaks used to attract giant corporations to states and cities and their growing pension-debt crisis.

Greg LeRoy, the founder and executive director of Good Jobs First, said the best policy solution for governments looking to attract companies to their states is to prioritize small startups with high growth potential, rather than flocking to well-established behemoths, as well as choosing firms that require a lot of human capital, as opposed to those based mostly on automation. Either way, he said, the bottom line is there needs to be a clear payoff to not just the company but the surrounding economy — in which access to stable retirement income plays a significant role.

Mr. LeRoy makes a lot of sense.

In short, writes Joravsky,

 ...bringing Amazon to town will probably cost untold millions in tax credits—money diverted straight from the state's coffers. That spells a tax hike for everyone else as the state jacks up taxes to compensate for the money it's giving to Amazon.

 I'm hoping the Rahm/Rauner deal with Amazon goes the way of George Lucas' Star Wars Museum.

Big corps not "fleeing" IL over $15/hr minimum wage after all.

Crain's begs Amazon: "Come to Chicago. We have plenty of low-paid workers here."

Last year we defeated the Rahm/Rahner plan to bring Amazon HQ2 into Chicago. Why? Because they are among the worst low-road, abusive, union-busting companies with the poorest working conditions of any corporation. Plus, we knew that their promise of 50,000 new jobs was BS. Plus, despite raking in superprofits, they would have ended up paying no state or city taxes to help support our schools and city services. Preckwinkle and Daley were the only mayoral candidates who supported Rahm's plan.

Good riddance, right?

Chicago being a strong union town, along with our push for a living wage, then led to a fear campaign in the media by Rahm/Rahner claiming that other companies would now flee the state and the city if we made them pay fair taxes and a living wage to their workers.

Fast forward --  With Rauner and Rahm gone, Gov. Pritzker signed a bill in February, passed in the IL Legislature, that would raise the state's minimum wage to $15/hr. Not a living wage, but good news just the same.

The bad news is that under the new law, minimum-wage workers won't see $15/hr under for six years. Why such a compromise with Republicans in a Democratic-dominated legislature? You'd have to ask the progressive house members who crafted the bill.

But now comes the news that since the passage of the bill, corporations are coming back to IL rather than running away. In fact last week, Amazon announced plans to open a fulfillment center in Channahon, Illinois, supposedly creating more than 500 new, full-time jobs. The project, developed by Venture One Real Estate, will add a new distribution center of over 1 million square feet in size—the sixth in Will County for the online retailer, after properties in Crest Hill, Joliet, Monee and Romeoville.

“Illinois is a great place to do business and we are excited to continue our growth and investment in the state with our new fulfillment center in Channahon,” said Alicia Boler Davis, Amazon’s vice president of global customer fulfillment. “Since 2010, Amazon has invested more than $4 billion in the state through its local fulfillment center and cloud infrastructure, research facilities and compensation to thousands of employees in the state. We are excited to create more than 500 new full-time jobs, in addition to the 11,000 current employees across the state, who receive industry-leading pay and benefits starting on day one.”

And this from Gov. Pritzker:

“This significant jobs announcement is another sign that Illinois’ future is bright, and I’m excited to see Amazon build on its investment in Illinois with 500 new jobs in the south suburbs,” said Governor J.B. Pritzker. “Illinois is the transportation hub of the Midwest, and our workforce is among the best in the world."

I guess the big corps like Amazon aren't scared off by Pritzker's Fair Tax initiative. I didn't think they would be, even with Indiana and Wisconsin right next door.

And the great irony is that starting salary at the new center will be (you guessed it) $15/hr. Six years before the new law takes full effect and with no union representation for workers.

This should also bring some organizing-the-unorganized jobs for union organizers.

Crain's to Amazon. Won't you please come to Chicago. We've got cheap labor.

"Chicago's low pay scales and big labor pool rank it tops for Amazon's HQ2", says Crain's.

Crain's let the cat out of the bag about Chicago's pitch for Amazon's HQ2. We already knew that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner were offering Amazon over $2B in tax incentives and prime city real estate to move their second headquarters here.

In return, Chicago was supposed to get 50,000 new "high paying" jobs. I don't know how many people actually believe the mayor's B.S. Looking at his and Rauner's poll numbers, there's probably not very many. But if you are one of them, please take a look at the Crain's Chicago Business above-the-fold story this week. It will reveal that the real pitch city corporate leaders are making to Amazon CEO and world's richest man, Jeff Bezos is cheap labor.

According to Crain's, Amazon is more cost-sensitive than most tech companies since it imposes a strict cap on salaries and Chicago can offer Bezos a large skilled labor pool that includes research analysts, techies, and mid-level managers who are among the lowest-paid in the nation.

Chicago also has seen lower wage inflation than many HQ2 semifinalists. Last year, annual pay here rose 1.6 percent, half the rate in Seattle. It's the silver lining in the cloud that has been hanging over the Chicago economy for the past decade. Relatively slow growth in wages and housing values frustrates people already here, but it looks good to employers and employees being squeezed hard by inflation. 

 High-paying tech companies in a small market can drive up wages for nontech jobs, too. Managers in administrative services, HR, training and development, marketing, and sales cost 10 to 19 percent more in Austin than Chicago. Tech-sales workers make 50 percent more in Austin, and market research analysts make 35 percent more. 

In other words, the mayor is selling Chicago's workers to Bezos at a cheap price and without (he hopes) bothersome unions. But the city doesn't need and shouldn't want a company that comes here on those terms.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

James Baldwin

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. One hasn’t got to have an enormous military machine in order to be un-free when it’s simpler to be asleep, when it’s simpler to be apathetic, when it’s simpler, in fact, not to want to be free, to think that something else is more important. -- Nobody Knows My Name

Rev. William Barber & Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign

While our nation once fought a war against poverty, now we wage a war on the poor...People are poor not because they are lazy, not because they are unwilling to work hard, but because politicians have blocked living wages and healthcare and undermined union rights and wage increases.-- Guardian Op-ed

Les Wexner, Ohio billionaire and longtime Republican donor 

“If you don’t think things are right, open your mouth...I just decided I’m no longer a Republican." -- HuffPost

James Bloodworth, worked undercover in Amazon warehouse

 In Amazon’s case, convenience evidently has a cost, and this cost is born by those toiling away in Amazon’s warehouses, rarely heard from in the media and invisible to the millions of people who every day submit orders through Amazon’s website. -- Guardian

Paul Vallas, on why he didn't act on CPS sexual assaults

His campaign released a statement that said the Lovett case was “not one that Mr. Vallas or any one of a number of other former school officials to whom we reached out, recalls other than vaguely as something that was fleetingly reported on the news.” Vallas’ campaign defended the lack of an investigation by saying it was a matter for police and child welfare authorities. -- Chicago Tribune

I hope they cast a black Superman. It would nice for a brotha to finally be faster than a speeding bullet.

— Travon Free (@Travon) September 13, 2018

Struck up a conversation w/Glorimarie Peña in Old San Juan. Regarding Hurricane María response, she told me, “It’s not that we weren’t treated like US citizens, it’s that we weren’t even treated like humans.” pic.twitter.com/B8NebKyqSA

— Leyla Santiago (@leylasantiago) September 15, 2018

Will Chicago elect a mayor who's back in bed with Bezos on HQ2?

 

Toni Preckwinkle and Bill Daley on board with Bezos. 

...bringing Amazon to town will probably cost untold millions in tax credits—money diverted straight from the state's coffers. That spells a tax hike for everyone else as the state jacks up taxes to compensate for the money it's giving to Amazon. -- Ben Joravsky

Like Freddy Krueger in Nightmare on Elm St., Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and his HQ2 plan for Chicago just keeps coming back from the dead. It looks like, now that New York has said no, Rahm/Rauner's $2.5B tax and land giveaway to Bezos is back on the table in Chicago.

How can that be with Rauner gone, Ed Burke on his way to jail, and Rahm on his way out the door? It can only happen if Gov. Pritzker and a new Chicago mayor are ready, willing and able to meet all of Bezos demands and accept his unsubstantiated estimates of tens of thousands of "high-paying city jobs".

And which of the current mayoral candidates is ready to bend over for Bezos? According to Crain's there's only two (maybe three) -- Bill Daley, Toni Preckwinkle and possibly, Paul Vallas who hasn't said yet.

While I would expect no less from Daley and Vallas, I'm still amazed that Preckwinkle, who's only in the race because of backing from CTU and SEIU, is willing to play ball with union-buster supreme, Bezos. The jobs Bezos promises are unsustainable and without long-term security. Amazon has the highest employee turnover this side of Walmart and their working conditions are reported to be the worst of any major corporation.

Burke may be under indictment and Ald. Danny Solis may have gone underground, wire and all. But the spirit of pay-to-play and quid pro quo, obviously still lives on among these three.

ONE MORE POINT, if I might... Bezos is also a big backer of charter schools and other school privatization schemes in the state of Washington. According to a report in the Nation, the Bezos Foundation has donated to Education Reform Now, a nonprofit organization that funds attack advertisements against teachers’ unions and other advocacy efforts to promote test-based evaluations of teachers. Education Reform Now also sponsors Democrats for Education Reform (DFER).

Other education philanthropy supported by the Bezos Foundation include KIPP, Teach for America and many individual charter schools, including privately funded math and science programs across the country.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Thousands of marchers took over Chicago's Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday, demanding an end to gun violence joblessness. 

Jonathan Capehart

Just when you thought the callous disregard for these children couldn’t get any worse, the New York Times reported last week that “records linking children to their parents have disappeared, and in some cases have been destroyed.” And don’t forget that the Trump administration is going after naturalized U.S. citizens now, too. -- Washington Post

Christine Geovanis, CTU spokesperson

“Our concern is equity. And where is the plan that is designed to lift up neighborhoods that are so clearly struggling? By not having a plan, by refusing to deploy a plan, they’ve been able to dovetail these one-off announcements that don’t strengthen all neighborhoods and all neighborhood needs equally, and end up privileging some at the expanse of thousands of others.” -- Sun-Times

Michael Sainato

The reality is that the decline of America’s traditional retail industry has left a void that corporate titans like Amazon will continue to exploit – unless employees, unions and Amazon customers work together to raise wages and improve working conditions. -- Guardian

Elizabeth Warren

 “He tries to bully me to shut me up, and he’s also trying to bully women all across this country. He talks about MeToo. He thinks we should sit down and shut up. It’s just not going to happen.” --Washington Post

David Callahan

The rest of us, ordinary citizens without big bank accounts, will certainly play a role in the outcome this November. We cast the votes, after all. But more and more, US politics – along with civic life broadly – often feels like a spectator sport, as a growing array of billionaire super citizens battle it out in the public square. -- Guardian

'Improved statistical housekeeping' in D.C.

Another miracle?

No, it's not the Texas miracle (Rod Paige). It's not the Chicago miracle (Arne Duncan) either. No, this time we're all talking about the Michelle Rhee miracle in D.C. If you haven't already heard the news, test scores have gone up in the nation's capital, under Rhee's precise and decisive test-prep strategy.

Yes, elementary schools increased their scores by 8.1 % in math, 3.8% in reading. In the middle and high schools it was a 2% increase in reading and 4% in math.

What's the significance of all these numbers? Do they indicate a real improvement in teaching and learning? Well no. Not exactly. Do they reflect an improvement in the living conditions for students outside of school? Well no, not that either. Do they mean anything at all has changed in the classroom? No. Then what exactly did Supt. Rhee to increase scores on the DCComp tests?

It's simple, according to the Washington Post report. Taking her cue from Chicago, she used a strategy that relied on "improved statistical housekeeping."

Rhee's version includes,

"intensive test preparation targeted to a narrow group of students on the cusp of proficient, or passing, scores, and "cleaning the rosters" of students ineligible to take the tests -- and also likely to pull the numbers down." Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee described some of these approaches as the pursuit of "low-hanging fruit."

Others call it educational triage.

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The Second International Handbook of Educational Change is out. The blurb reads: "Written by the most influential thinkers in the field." Sounds like a must-read for a guy like me who aspires to be such a thinker. It's edited by some of my favorites--Andy Hargreaves and Ann Lieberman. So I went on Amazon to order a copy. Figured I'd read it over the summer break. Maybe even use it in my class next quarter. Guess what?Amazon has it on sale for only $588.73 (they throw in free-shipping). That's a savings of 18%, down from the list price of $679. It makes me wonder, what kind of "educational change" they're thinking about and who they think will make it?

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Another horrific story about the American Indian Public Charter Schools in Oakland, "The Education Revolution: Cookie Cutter Kids?

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How it all plays out in East Austin.

Capitalism 2.0. Is the lion really lying down with the lamb?

What's going on here? Corporate America, Hollywood, and NFL owners all rebranding and advertising Black Lives Matter themes, doling out billions in philanthropic grants to left and progressive organizations, and even heaping faint praise on socialists. 

From watching the TV ads, one would think that the Fortune 500 corporations had all joined BLM, that the NFL had made things right with Colin Kaepernick, and that the Golden Globes weren't being awarded by a white-only board. 

In this vein, two recent articles in Crain's Chicago Business caught my attention this week. The first, "City Council's socialists see themselves as an antidote to the status quo", by reporter A.D. Quig, is surprisingly praiseful of a "socialist bloc" of aldermen, elected to the Council in the 2019 anti-machine wave that included the landslide election of Mayor Lori Lightfoot. 

Quig writes: 

Their legislative scoreboard isn't terribly impressive, and they've rankled some of their colleagues and the mayor along the way. But they've undoubtedly moved the needle: They changed city policy to fight gentrification in Woodlawn, along the 606 trail and in Pilsen. They've pushed officials to at least examine wresting control of Chicago's electrical grid from ComEd. And in the most recent city budget, they helped boost funding for non-police anti-violence programs and to have mental health workers respond to certain emergency calls instead of cops.

Corporate capitalists lauding socialist aldermen? Is the lion really lying down with the lamb or just preparing lamb stew? I would say, a little of both -- a divide and conquer game.

In the second, "Capitalism 2.0, it's not just about profits", Judith Crown claims there's a "new capitalism" that is all about socially conscious investors seeking "to improve sustainability and benefit the social good while still making money."

Putting lipstick on a pig? Of course. 

Corporate greed has never been more rapacious. The gap between the one-percent and the rest of us has never been wider, and it's been made more apparent by a pandemic and global recession that has reproduced and magnified social inequality and put thousands of working-class and poor families on long food lines while Wall St. booms. 

According to Oxfam, the world’s 10 richest billionaires — which include Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and LVMH luxury group’s CEO Bernard Arnault — have collectively seen their wealth grow by $540 billion over this period. 

Big philanthropy using a portion of its enormous concentration of wealth to improve its image while avoiding taxation is nothing new. It goes back to the days of Carnegie and Rockefeller. But there's more to it than that. 

(Dissent Magazine)

Warren Buffett's son Peter calls it "Philanthropic Colonialism", and he oughta know:

As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.

So why is this sop to City Council socialists, now coming from the voice of big business in Chicago?

Well, for one thing, it's definitely not a "sea change," but the same old, same old in response to popular revolts and grassroots reform. It's what we used to call "riot insurance" back in the '60s. It's new in that it includes and is shaped by new technologies and includes innovative and created corporate branding strategies combined with the use of, what I call power philanthropy. That is, huge foundations created by the like of Bill Gates as alternatives to government, public space, and decision-making.

That's not to say there aren't real divisions among the plutocrats, populists, and fascists or well-intentioned philanthropists who truly support social justice and environmental movements on the ground. 

But the system's short-term response to popular revolts is still tactical, a mixture of political repression along with some concessions and hard-won reforms for racial justice and expanding the social safety net. Then there's the long-term, strategic response -- an ideological barrage fomenting division, confusion, and false consciousness, the normalization of inequality the manufacturing of consent. 

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It was largely these insights about how power is constituted in the realm of ideas and knowledge, along side of repressive force, that pushed many of us progressive educators to develop the popular education practices, to contest accepted norms of legitimacy and foment critical thinking skills and habits of the mind in our classrooms and communities. All this in the face of a top-down corporate reform, heavily-funded by these same power philanthropists which was often successful in buying off leaders and fomenting divisions and splits at the base. 

Our strategy included the adult literacy and consciousness-raising methods of Paulo Freire in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, methods of participatory action research (PAR), and many other approaches to social transformation, popular media, communication, and cultural action.

I'll leave it to the current generation of activists, organizers, and educators to develop their own counter-strategies, and they are doing just that. 

There's no better example I can think of than the current organizing drive among Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, which ties labor issues to Black Lives Matter and issues of racial equality. That's the recipe, it seems to me. 

Dow is still a four-letter word to me

“Dow is committed to the principles of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power. Our values – integrity, respect for people, and protecting our planet – are the foundation on which we stand and our values guide our political contributions,” the company wrote.

Ruling Class Splits are important to note and utilize, when possible. But this one is unfathomable. The chemical giant Dow has announced it's suspending all PAC contributions “to any member of Congress who voted to object to the certification of the presidential election.” The suspension will last for one election cycle — two years for representatives and up to six years for senators.

Upon hearing this news, an old San Fernando Valley State College SDS comrade sent me some old clips to remind me of the battles we SDSers waged against Dow, the main manufacturer of napalm and other chemical weapons during the Vietnam War. 

 On May 7, 1966, Daily Breeze reporter Bob Rawitch [my former editor at the SFVC Daily Sundial] sat in on a regional meeting in Los Angeles of a relatively new left-wing group, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In the next day’s Breeze, he reported on the group’s tentative plans to picket the Dow plant in Torrance and to distribute 5,000 leaflets protesting the use of napalm in the Vietnam War.

The demonstration was scheduled for Saturday, May 28, during the Memorial Day weekend. Two pro-war groups announced plans to counter the SDS protest: the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), and the Victory in Viet Nam Association (VIVA), whose South Bay branch was headed by future congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

Dow plant manager vowed to conduct “business as usual” at the plant during the protest, and Torrance Police Chief Walter Koenig assured residents that the department was equipped to handle “any demonstration disturbance that might arise.”

NO BUSINESS AS USUAL soon became our mantra as we shut down universities across the country in protest of Dow Chemical and the genocidal war from which they were profiteering and still are. 

Fast forward 56 years and we find Dow, their brand threatened by association after last week's MAGA assault on the Capitol, announcing that they were cutting donations to the election deniers.  

Over the weekend, several other large companies — Marriott, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Commerce Bancshares — announced a suspension of donations to members of Congress who voted against election certification. Monday, the list expanded to Amazon, AT&T, Comcast, Airbnb, Mastercard, and Verizonlp. Hallmark has even asked for its money back from two of the senators who opposed certification, Josh Hawley and Roger Marshall. 

But here's the thing. Only those who just fell off the pumpkin truck will buy this sudden corporate about-face. Temporarily cutting-off donations, with a wink and a nod to right-wing PACs, only makes people more aware that these companies have been buying politicians and underwriting Trump and his MAGAs to the tune of millions each year since 2016. And there's little doubt that they've gotten their money's worth. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on the military killings in Myanmar

I am deeply shocked by the killing of dozens of civilians, including children & young people, by security forces in Myanmar today.

The continuing military crackdown is unacceptable and demands a firm, unified & resolute international response. https://t.co/qtnQaH5jvN

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) March 27, 2021

           

R.I.P. Beverly Cleary

“I had chicken pox, smallpox and tonsillitis in the first grade and nobody seemed to think that had anything to do with my reading trouble,” Cleary told the AP. “I just got mad and rebellious.” By sixth or seventh grade, “I decided that I was going to write children’s stories.” -- Guardian

Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell 

“She wanted to check on his pulse, check on Mr. Floyd’s well-being,” Blackwell said. “She did her best to intervene. When she approached Mr. Chauvin …. Mr. Chauvin reached for his Mace and pointed it in her direction. She couldn’t help.” -- AP

Bessemer, AL Amazon warehouse worker Linda Burns

 “They are treating us like robots rather than humans.” -- AP

 Attorney Walter Shaub, former director of the US Office of Government Ethics

"Georgia's bill would make it a crime to give free food or water to voters standing in line for hours and hours. But we know who these politicians force to stand in line all day long," Shaub said earlier this month on Twitter. "I've never once stood in line for even five minutes where I get to vote. This racism is thorough." -- CNN

Emma Berquist @eeberquist

everyone's anti-godzilla until there's a 200,000 ton boat that can't be moved

'It's all about symbolism'--Rotherham

Ed Sector's Andrew Rotherham is frustrated. He likes conservative-style, top-down, anti-teacher reforms including school vouchers, but is upset at the way they've been packaged. The symbolism of his favorite "reformer," D.C.'s Michelle Rhee, on the cover of Time Magazine with boom in hand, has him pulling his hair out. Writing in U.S. News, Rotherham decries the use of poorly chosen symbols projected in the media.

He blames reform movement leaders for allowing themselves, "to be defined as a cloistered group of white dilettantes from Ivy League schools—counterproductive symbolism and off the mark."

He's right of course. Not ALL of them are Ivy Leaguers. I think Rotherham went to the Univ. of Virgina.

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What Kids Can Do: Speech Contest 2009

As Graduation Day approaches, What Kids Can Do invites students to raise their voice and let others know what matters most to them in this moment and in the years ahead. This year's theme: "Crisis and Hope in These Trying Times." Maximum award: $100 gift certificate from amazon.com. Eligibility: anyone from age 12 to 19, writing in English. Deadline: May 18, 2009.
http://www.wkcd.org/featurestories/2009/03_WKCD%20speech%20contest/index.html

IN THE MAILBOX

From Lyn DeLorme, North Dakota Study Group

Dear NDSG 2010 participants:

The reading for this year's NDSG meeting is Mike Rose's 2009 "Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us," a thin (144 pages) but powerful book that looks at contemporary American education. You can order your copy at:

http://www.amazon. com/Why-School- Mike-Rose/ dp/1595584676.

Or, you can pick up a copy from your local library. Look forward to rich conversations about the reading, and about so much more.

NDSG planning committee

--
Lyn DeLorme
Instructional Designer
North Dakota State University
Distance & Continuing Education
1919 N. University Drive
Office: SGC D125

Mailing Address:
NDSU Distance & Continuing Education
Dept. 2020
PO Box 6050
Fargo ND 58108-6050

701-231-6371 (direct)
701-231-7016 (fax)
http://www.ndsu. nodak.edu/ dce

Today's knee-slappers

Funniest Quotables:

Fariley

"I plan to operate independently. That’s how I operated as a federal prosecutor. I would go off and do the investigations and report on them and take my actions. Nor do I feel any pressure from the mayor to conduct my work in any way.”-- IPRA chief, Sharon Fairley  

“Urban Prep has always respected teachers’ right to organize, and as such, would never dismiss any teacher because of his or her organizing activity.” -- Chief operations officer Evan Lewis 

Patton 

“He's [Dan Webb] not going to sully his reputation by not doing a good and thorough job, and I don't want him to." -- Rahm's top City Hall lawyer, Steve Patton 

 The bipartisan reform of No Child Left Behind was an important start, and together, we’ve increased early childhood education, lifted high school graduation rates to new highs, and boosted graduates in fields like engineering. -- Pres. Obama's SOTU speech 

Dying laughing. Oregon "militia" said people keep sending "bags of dicks" to their camp. Dildos from Amazon. 😂😂😂 https://t.co/cZAVJjmYQM

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) January 13, 2016

IPRA chief vows to cut umbilical cord to City Hall to help restore public trust broken by Laquan McDonald case https://t.co/1bNWHSOlTe

— Fran Spielman (@fspielman) January 12, 2016

Looking back on Chicago's great 2001 Boeing tax giveaway

Chicago Theater welcomed Boeing in 2001. 

It's been nearly 20 years since Boeing Corp. pulled one of the great hustles on the people of Chicago with help from then-Mayor Richard Daley and Gov. George Ryan. While many of us protested the deal that brought Boeing's headquarters from Seattle to Chicago, we couldn't stop the huge corporate tax giveaway that would become the norm for cities and states competing with each other for corporate investments.

Families of Boeing 737 MAX crash victims protest. 

Boeing promised to bring 500 high-paying jobs to Chicago and claimed that the combined executive pay would trickle down and create even more jobs and small businesses. This in exchange for $60 million in tax breaks for the huge military defense contractor. Their promise wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

Gov. Ryan even claimed at the time that the move would bring Illinois more than prestige. "It will pay huge dividends, producing a 100-to-1 return on the state's investment", he said.

It didn't. 

Boeing's former CEO Tom Condit explained in 2001 and later, the headquarters move was made to create psychological distance between the corporate leadership and the manufacturing sites on the ground.

There also was a suspicion that the corporate and political climate of Chicago — its more conservative, business-friendly bent; its expensive steakhouses where macho titans of industry could talk over cigars and scotch — would better suit the taste and personality of men like Boeing’s then-president, Harry Stonecipher.

From their airy perch in Chicago, Boeing’s leaders could — and did — make steely decisions about where to locate work or where to make layoffs at a safe remove from the people affected on the ground.

 The BGA's Alejandra Cancino, writes this week in Crain's, that the Boeing deal,

...laid down a marker for megadeals to come that opened the public purse in the name of economic development. Since then, states and cities have engaged in an escalating bidding war for jobs and bragging rights, with the promise of future economic riches as bait. 

A new massive $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package signed by Trump includes billions of dollars in loan guarantees for Boeing, in financial peril before the pandemic because of the grounding of its faulty 737 Max aircraft. By that and other incentive measures, the price tag for the 2001 Boeing deal might seem puny. 

As would the failed offer of $2 billion in tax incentives then-Mayor Emanuel and Gov. Rauner made to Amazon in exchange for a promised "50,000 new high-paying jobs." That deal fell through but it's one that Gov. Pritzker appeared ready to pursue again in 2019 when Rahm was still mayor.

With Rahm and Rauner gone and more important things for Mayor Lightfoot to focus on, I doubt he'll pursue it now.

Side Note -- I would call the two Boeing 737 Max crashes, which killed 346 men, women and children, a case of criminal neglect and malfeasance and wonder why none of those top execs have been dragged from their "airy perch" in Chicago and carted off to prison?

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mayoral candidate Bill Daley wants drones everywhere 

 “I’d have as many cameras as we could buy so the people could feel safer wherever they’re at … I’d have a camera on every block in the city if I could.” -- Sun-Times

Chris Wallace to Trump

You’re seen around the world as a 'beacon for repression'. -- The Hill

Stacey Abrams

“Let’s be clear: This is not a speech of concession because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper,” Ms. Abrams said amid a blistering attack on Mr. Kemp’s record as the state’s chief elections regulator and on the balloting process in Georgia. “As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede that.” -- New York Times 

 Maurice Mitchell, National Director of Working Families Party

...said in an interview that airs today on "Rising" that it is a "misassessment" to say that the Democratic Party moving too far to the left will ultimately hurt its candidates in elections. "I think it's a total misassessment of what's happening. It's less about the politics of the left and the right, and it's more about the politics of the grassroots, versus elite politics.

Cong. Bobby Rush calls for protests over Target closings.

Chatham resident, Malcolm Bonner

...said he no longer wants to fight big businesses to stay in his community. “Forget Target. I don’t understand why we have to fight them to come here, we have to fight them to stay and in 10 years am I going to have to fight them again? I’m tired of having to fight for food, I shouldn’t have to fight for food.” -- Protest planned over Target store closings 

April Simpson, the president of Queensbridge Tenants Association.

“What are they [Amazon HQ2] going to do for the community? Are they going to guarantee us employment opportunities? I’m worried about, when they come, they’re not going to have opportunities for people. Not just people from Queensbridge — but other lower- and middle-income people in this area. That’s why we’re leery about them coming in.” -- New York Times

Retired Adm. William McRaven

McRaven, the former Navy Seal who led the team that killed Osama bin Laden, called Trump's attack on the media "the greatest threat to our democracy in my lifetime." -- The Hill

People keep giving me directions to the spouse and intern events instead of the ones for members of Congress 🤦🏽‍♀️

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) November 14, 2018

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Kentucky Wildcats

A wildcat strike action, often referred to as a wildcat strike, is a strike action undertaken by unionized workers without union leadership's authorization, support, or approval; this is sometimes termed, an unofficial industrial action. Wildcat strikes were the key pressure tactic utilized during the May 1968 protests in France. -- Wikipedia

Attica Scott, first African-American woman to serve in the Ky Legislature in over 20 years

She explained how the Republican-controlled Statehouse gutted the state pension program last week, surreptitiously changing a sewage treatment bill: “On the Thursday before Good Friday, that morning, it was a sewage bill. And by that afternoon, it was the so-called pension reform bill.” -- Democracy Now

Rev. James Lawson.

“We cannot make our democracy succeed, be effective, if you do not have working people in organized units who can care for their economic benefits … who can care for the issues of justice.” --Democracy Now

Thomas Frank

“Amazon is the shining representative of a new golden age of monopoly,” is how the Atlantic journalist Franklin Foer put it in 2014, and what he said then is even truer today. -- Guardian 

Maria Villegas, who cleans Sayre Language Academy Elementary in Galewood

Says she has been told ahead of time by her supervisor when an inspector was coming. As a result, Villegas says, “When there is an inspection coming, we leave some things that we [normally] do daily. We leave them to clean the stairwells really well, they’re [inspectors] going to enter through there. Clean the first couple of bathrooms because they’re going to check those. The person who inspects enters the first floor checks the bathrooms, checks the stairwells — but doesn’t go to the upper floors.” -- Sun-Times 

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Attempts to silence players who refuse to accept their assigned roles fits right in with owners’ smarmy manipulation of the women cheerleaders through discriminatory Jane Crow “laws”.  -- The NFL's Plan to protect America From Witches

Why I can't vote for Pritzker

Gassing the water protectors

“JB personally and through his businesses and trusts has both active and passive investments in many different economic sectors,” Pritzker spokeswoman Galia Slayen said. “If elected, JB is committed to putting in place best practices to ensure that no conflicts ever exist.”

It's not just that he's another white male billionaire. No, I've more or less made peace with that, given the record high cost of running for governor and that there are no women or people of color in the race with a realistic chance of defeating Public Enemy #1,Gov. Bruce Rauner.

And it's not just that J.B. Pritzker, a partner in the union-busting Hyatt Hotel chain, is another mainstream Democrat who is bound to sell out the very unions that have rallied behind him. After the pension-theft debacle with Gov. Quinn, I've almost gotten used to that.

Company thugs set dogs on DAPL protesters.

I guess the killer for me was when I read the Sun-Times this morning and learned that Pritzker, like Donald Trump, is a big investor in Energy Transfer Partners LP, the pipeline operator that constructed and is a part owner of the Dakota Access Pipeline. That's the notorious pipeline which carries oil underground, through Native American sacred burial grounds, from North Dakota all the way to an oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois.Yes, the very same company that turned hired thugs and vicious dogs on the water protectors at Standing Rock.

Yes, I know that candidate Chris Kennedy, who has tried to rebrand himself as a leftist, is also a global capitalist with major investments in oil and defense companies. He even stands to profit from his holdings in Amazon, the corporation that Rauner and Rahm Emanuel are trying to lure, with huge tax breaks, to Chicago.

At Standing Rock with Chicago students.

I have disliked Kennedy ever since he used his position as head of the Univ. of IL Board of Trustees to tarnish or destroy the careers of educators like Bill Ayers and Steven Salaita because of their political views.

But Standing Rock is where I draw the line. I went to Standing Rock twice last year, once with a dozen Chicago neighborhood high school students, to join the protests. The time spent there left an indelible mark on me and on those students. For over a year an international movement has called on cities, universities and other investors to divest--to get rid of their holdings connected to the Energy Transfer Partners and to the Dakota Access Pipeline.  So the fact that J.B. Pritzker fattens up his investment portfolio with pipeline blood money makes it impossible for me to vote for him, much less support him.

I'm hoping against hope that Dan Biss can pull an upset in the primary and go on to defeat Rauner.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

When Jonathan Bailey returns home from his job at an Amazon warehouse, he puts everything he was wearing in a plastic garbage bag. ... New York Times

John Iadarola, host of The Damage Report

Coronavirus is the election. Trump has a vision for how to respond to it. We can see that vision playing out as the death toll rises. Is Joe Biden seriously going to simply surrender the discussion around this virus to Trump without a fight? How could he possibly imagine the American people will replace Trump with someone who plans to fight COVID-19 with politeness? -- The Hill

Osita Nwanevu

Trump is deeply vulnerable now. But the Biden campaign will not prevail unless that vulnerability is actually exploited. If Biden isn’t going to offer a bold vision for America’s future beyond this crisis, he could at least fulfill the promise his campaign made to the Democratic electorate—that this election would be a real fight, and one Biden could win. -- New Republic

R.I.P. kicker Tom Dempsey

“The owners make the rules,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2010, “and my favorite saying about owners is, ‘If you threw them a jockstrap, they’d put it on as a nose guard.’ They don’t know a damn thing about football.” -- Washington Post

Gov. Andrew Cuomo

 "This [ventilators from China and Oregon] is a big deal, and it's going to make a significant difference," Cuomo said, calling the redistribution of ventilators a key to saving more lives in New York and across the globe...“We’re all in the same battle here.” -- USA Today

Georgia! Y'all could have a Yale Law School graduate who believes in science. Instead, y'all have this guy. https://t.co/s1rfOU3Vuw

— Commissioner Omari Hardy 🚶🏾‍♂️🚲 🛴 🚉 🌳 🏘 🌇 (@OmariJHardy) April 5, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 

Robert Reich, former US secretary of labor

The most dramatic change in American capitalism over the last half-century has been the emergence of corporate behemoths like Amazon and the shrinkage of labor unions. -- Guardian

 V.P. Kamala Harris in Atlanta

"For the last year, we’ve had people in positions of incredible power scapegoating Asian Americans. People with the biggest pulpits spreading this kind of hate." -- Washington Post

Sen. Raphael Warnock 

It is a contradiction to say we must protect minority rights in the Senate while refusing to protect minority rights in the society. Colleagues, no Senate rule should overrule the integrity of the democracy and we must find a way to pass voting rights whether we get rid of the filibuster or not. -- Democracy Now

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General

 "Some countries are racing to vaccinate their entire populations while other countries have nothing. This may buy short-term security, but it’s a false sense of security." -- Media briefing