The bastards at American Airlines say they want "consensual" agreements but I ain't buyin' it

the game they're playing is to make all the right noises but not to offer a damn thing and then when the unions call them on it, they blame the unions for not being "a collaborative part of the solution"... this just sets the stage for american management to seek a solution from the bankruptcy court which they have already figured out is sympathetic to management... this will ensure that contracts are eviscerated, wages slashed and a staggering number of employees kicked to the curb... you don't have to be a mind-reader to figure out this kind of bogus scenario...

American Airlines said time is running out for its unions to reach negotiated deals on cost savings targets and hinted it could ask the bankruptcy court to impose contracts on its union workers in order to win the savings the airline says it needs to exit Chapter 11.

"Every day that passes without new agreements introduces more risk to our situation," American's parent company, AMR, said in a negotiations update.

"Time is running out for union leaders to be a collaborative part of the solution," the airline said.

Earlier this week the standoff between the bankrupt carrier and its pilots' union grew increasingly tense, with the union saying the airline had little interest in reaching consensual deals with workers.

The carrier has said, however, that it prefers consensual deals to having terms imposed on workers by the court, as often happens in bankruptcy proceedings if the sides reach an impasse.

AMR repeated that position on Friday, saying company negotiators were prepared to meet at any time and that it would continue to be responsive to all union requests related to term sheets, savings targets, proposal valuations and the business plan.

But at least one union remained doubtful.

"It takes two to tango. We're not seeing a willingness to negotiate on management's side of the table," said Gregg Overman, spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association.

what a load o'crap...

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Crappy news day

same ol', same ol'...

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Dina Rasor: Self-dealing is the No. 1 problem that is preventing our government from working

self-dealing influence-peddling corruption... let's call it what it is...

dina rasor posting at truthout...

The overall self-dealing problem can hopefully begin to be reformed based on the knowledge gained from the accumulation of many examples of self-dealing in the system. The American public senses that the problem is there and hears about the deluge of corrupting money in the system, but they need individual examples to understand just how destructive this self-dealing is to our democracy.

the fix is in ... the global super-rich elites are in charge and have been for a number of years... our bought-and-paid for news media have zero interest in biting the hand that feeds them so any expectation that serious proposals for reform will see the light of day are delusional...

while i admire dina rasor's efforts to "out" the truth, i am increasingly doubtful that any such work will make a difference... the systemic nature of the problem means that any solution implemented on any part of that system will be effectively neutralized by the massive forces exerted by the rest of the system...

the hard piece of reality that none of us particularly want to face is that the whole house of cards (the corporate military industrial government complex fueled by the state religion of capitalism) must come down... unless and until it does, we can propose, discuss, reveal, protest, whistle-blow and vote for the candidates of our choice until hell freezes over and won't make a damn bit of difference...

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Dave Lindorff: President Obama his key advisors plus Biden, Clinton and Panetta are all currently war criminals for threatening Iran with attack

so, is this why obama doesn't want to hold the war criminals from the bush administration accountable...?

President Obama and His Key Advisors are a Gang of War Criminals

Under the Nuremberg Principles, later incorporated into the United Nations Charter, to which the United States is a signatory, the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, which is defined as a war started against another nation that does not pose an imminent threat of attack on the aggressor nation or nations, is the highest of war crimes, for which the perpetrators are liable for the death penalty. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of those above acts is an equally serious capital crime.

How then to explain the casual way that civilian and military leaders of the US and Israel are talking openly about plans and threats to attack Iran?

[...]

One would think that the magnitude of the unknown and dangerous potential consequences of a criminal attack on Iran by the US and its client state Israel would lead at least some news organizations to look into the very legality of such an attack.

But no. Apparently calling the leaders of this nation criminals is beyond the imagining of the so-called chattering class and its paymasters.

I’ll do it here though:

President Obama and his key advisors, as well as Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Panetta, are all currently war criminals for threatening Iran with attack. And if the US does attack Iran, either on its own or in support of an Israeli attack, they will be even worse war criminals, and will be deserving of the same fate met by Japan’s Imperial Army General and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, and by Nazi Germany’s Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop and Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel.

another perspective missing from our traditional news media...

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Male experts on women's reproductive health

they're right... late middle age men know everything...! < cough, cough >

Women's Health Experts Speak Out

100% of male experts agree: nobody knows more about women's issues like birth control than late-middle-aged men and the Republican party is well aware.

(click on image to watch video clip)

nothing like humor to highlight pure bullshit...

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Adbusters: Prepping for the upcoming G8 and NATO meetings in Chicago

here's a follow-up on my post from january 26 where adbusters calls for support for the #OCCUPYCHICAGO effort to focus world attention on the failure that is capitalism during the g8 and nato meetings in chicago in may...

TACTICAL BRIEFING #26

Anarchic Swarms – The Emerging Model

[...]

The stage is set for a climactic showdown in Chicago.

The crisis of capitalism is deepening. Youth unemployment has reached 50% in Spain and Greece… 30% in Portugal and Italy… 22% in the UK… almost 20% in the US. Hundreds of millions of people around the world are waking up to the fact that their future does not compute… that their lives will be a never ending series of ecological, financial, political and personal crises… and that if we don’t rise up and start fighting for a different kind of future, we won’t have a future.

That struggle ignites again May 1.

#OCCUPYCHICAGO will be the focal point of this global spiritual insurrection… 50,000 of us will converge on the windy city and confront the G8 and NATO leaders with an ultimatum. We will set up impromptu encampments throughout the city and wage a full-spectrum memewar backed up by new tactics of anarchic swarming. Our militant in-your-face nonviolence will inspire thousands of towns, cities and campuses around the world to rise up in solidarity just like they did last October.

This is a worldwide, multi-front mutiny against the way our economic and military leaders are running the world.

[...]

Occupy has taught us all. It innovates, fractures, grows resilient and more diverse. In this spirit we celebrate the Gandhian ferocity of the Zuccottis who launched this movement with their magical assemblies and nonviolent ways … we extol the growing crop of working groups with their desire for a positive program of social and political change. And on the wild side we honor those in Oakland who have lost their fear against all odds. With this rainbow coalition, we hold our heads high and embrace the heady days of Spring.

it'll also be good practice for the upcoming republican and democratic national conventions...

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The MF Global theft

from the nyt...

Federal investigators examining the final days at MF Global and how customer money went missing are poring over scores of wire transfers in and out of the brokerage firm, including the possible movement of $325 million that may have belonged to customers, according to people briefed on the matter.

The suspicious transfer, which until now has not been made public, was first discovered in the early hours of Oct. 31, the day the firm filed for bankruptcy. Initially, the firm attributed a shortfall of more than $1 billion in customer money to an “accounting error,” records show. But after hours of searching, executives acknowledged to regulators in the firm’s offices in Chicago that the shortfall was real — and may have been caused in part by the $325 million transfer, said one of the people briefed on the matter.

It remains unclear where that money went, or even if it belonged to customers. But it is one of many significant wire transfers that federal authorities — including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — have spent months reviewing to piece together MF Global’s final days.

pushing aside the patent b.s. lack of "clarity" about where the money went, atrios chooses to call it what it really is...

When a billion bucks or so goes "missing" it isn't due to complexity, or accounting errors, or those crazy moments right before the firm went bankrupt. It's theft. The money was stolen from customers and then given to somebody else. Precisely why, by who, and to whom are questions that should be answered, but the underlying issue shouldn't be obscured. People were robbed. [emphases added]

seems to be a lot of thievery goin' around these days...

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Linh Dinh: The only way we can compete with foreign slaves is to become slaves ourselves

an articulate and unflinching overview of the state of our nation circa february 2012...

linh dinh via information clearing house...

We fancy ourselves indebted middle-class, but this mirage is quickly evaporating. Most of us are indebted slaves. Banks conjure money out of thin air to enslave most of us for life. We must go into debt to buy a house, a car or go to school. Many of us go into debt just to eat. Like you, you and you, I will carry my shitty credit score to a mass paupers’ grave, with my hearse a U-Haul. There is a renewed emphasis on going to college as a means to success, but in this economy, a degree will likely only impoverish you further, since you will be in hock to the banksters even as you work a job completely unrelated to your dubious education. If you can even get a job, that is. Joining winos and bag ladies with smudgy and off-target makeup will be legions of useless scholars.

Still, there are perks to being house slaves of the empire, since even homeless Americans sport brand name shoes, and our poor are generally the most obese, meaning they have enough to eat, even if what they’re ingesting may shorten their lives by decades.

[...]

Deprived of their toys, many Americans will demand that their government does whatever is necessary to restore the good old days, so there will be more desperate wars, and more repression of those who oppose this American way of life. Meanwhile, the media will serve up opulent fantasies to feed a nostalgia for this lost and glorious past. The poorer we become, the richer we will look on television.

Americans will have less, and our lives will be harder, but no one wants to talk about this decline, least of all politicians, since that would be the quickest way to not get elected, but even if we had a wise and ethical leadership, our country will still go into decline, because the resources for infinite growth are simply not there. They never were, of course, since this is a finite planet, after all, where natural limits must be reached sooner or later. That moment is now, unfortunately.

Don’t kid yourself that the fiery anger burning through Greece, Spain and elsewhere won’t be but a tame prelude to what will happen here, what with our robust sense of entitlement, deep alienation and trigger happy ways. Our government seems to anticipate as much, for it has put into place all of the physical and legal means to clamp down on us hard, when things do explode.

more linh dinh - and some terrific, gritty photos of the philly/camden area - at his website here...

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Mr. Fish' take on corporate America remembering to serve the common good

i seem to be on a bit of a visual streak...

mr. fish...



see more of mr. fish here...

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More Adbusters

i like their stuff... see even more here...

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Why does the criminal banker Larry Summers continue to command a global forum?

probably because the venue is the financial times, the newspaper of the 0.0001%...

The US tax system needs rebuilding

By Lawrence Summers

i won't even bother posting snippets from the above article... suffice it to say, summers starts out by sounding the alarm about "entitlements," social security, medicare, etc., and then goes on to suggest the plenary solution to everything that ails us is to revisit the catfood commission (simpson-bowles)...

however, the most galling piece of information to come my way this past week is that summers' name is actually being floated by obama as a replacement for zoellick at the world bank... fuck... what do we have to do to get rid of these dangerously evil people...?

Larry Summers To Run World Bank? 37,000 Sign Petition Saying No In 24 Hours

anybody who's got two brain cells to rub together should be putting his or her name on that petition... you can do it here...

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