No comfort in reality

afrofuturistaffair:

In light of the Philly School District’s announcement to close 23 schools this year and chop many more into achievement networks to be managed by public and private groups, we ask:

What will our education system look like in 5 years? In 10? 15? 20+?

What will it be like to be a…

(Source: facebook.com)

theamericanbear:

On Sunday, [April 21st], Paraguay will conduct[ed] its first elections since the parliamentary coup that deposed Fernando Lugo last year. According to the sociologist Marco Castillo, voters face a choice between reactionary oligarchism with fascist inclinations – the Liberal party candidate, Efraín Alegre, in alliance with the extremist UNACE party – and reactionary oligarchism with narcotrafficking inclinations: the Colorado candidate, and favourite to win, Horacio Cartes.

A leaked cable from the US embassy in Buenos Aires three years ago described Cartes as the head of an ‘organisation believed to launder large quantities of United States currency generated through illegal means, including through the sale of narcotics, from the TBA’ – the Tri Border Area of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil – ‘to the United States’.

Cartes promises a ‘responsible and efficient government’ and ‘a new direction for the country, with opportunities for everyone’. But some will have more opportunities than others. Eighty per cent of Paraguay’s agricultural land is owned by 2 per cent of the population. In April 2012, 60 landless campesinos occupied land in Curuguaty ‘belonging’ to Blas Riquelme, a businessman and former Colorado party politician (in 1969 the Stroessner dictatorship gave him 50,000 hectares that was supposed to be distributed among poor farmers). On 15 June the campesinos were confronted by the Paraguayan police. The result: 11 dead campesinos, six dead policemen, and the pretext the anti-Lugo phalanx had been waiting for to overthrow the elected leader and install the Liberal vice-president, Federico Franco, in his place.

I interviewed Franco last week at the presidential residence in Asunción. He painted an idyllic picture of post-coup Paraguay, cleansed of the pernicious influence of Hugo Chávez, whose demise, he told El País, was ‘a blessing’. Pumping the air with his fists for periodic emphasis, Franco pronounced the country ‘ideal for investors’. After the coup, firms including Monsanto and Rio Tinto, whose incursions into Paraguay had been restricted under Lugo, were quick to move in. [++]

UPDATE: The reactionary oligarch with narcotrafficking inclinations won.

“The two agents concerned have been trained in all methods of assassination known to us,” reads one memo from January 1942. “They intend to carry out this operation whether or not there is any opportunity of subsequent escape.”

In May of that year, the men ambushed Heydrich’s open-topped Mercedes as it cornered a sharp bend.

One man’s Sten gun jammed but the other threw a modified bomb sending shrapnel flying.

Heydrich personally tried to chase down the men but the injuries inflicted that day would eventually claim his life.

Nazi reprisals were savage. In the village of Lidice, thought to be linked to the assassins, 173 men over the age of 16 were killed, every woman was sent to a concentration camp, every child dispersed, every building levelled.

This raises a question - is assassination effective?

(Source: diplobugs)