Society's ChildS


Question

Ferguson protest leader Darren Seals found dead in burning vehicle (UPDATE)

Darren Seals
Darren Seals
The body of an activist from St. Louis who led protests about the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 was found with a gunshot wound in the charred remains of a vehicle on Tuesday morning, according to the police and news accounts.

The activist, Darren Seals, 29, was found inside the vehicle on Diamond Drive in Riverview in St. Louis County around 1:50 a.m., the St. Louis County Police Department said in a statement. The vehicle had been on fire and he was found after the flames were extinguished.

Comment: From The Root:
This is the second time in less than two years that a young black man with some connection with the Ferguson uprising has been found dead inside of a car after being shot and set on fire.

In November 2014, during the protests that followed a grand jury's refusal to indict Wilson in Brown's shooting death, DeAndre Joshua, 20, was found shot once in the head inside of a burning car. Bloodied glass was discovered on the ground beside his white Pontiac Grand Prix right next to Canfield Green Apartments where Michael Brown Jr. was slain.

-Kirsten West Savali
UPDATE: Activists point fingers at police over suspicious death of Ferguson protester Darren Seals
The violent murder of Ferguson Uprising protester Darren Seals, who was found shot and burned in a charred car Tuesday near the US city of St Louis, has raised "a lot of red flags" for activists, who question the official version of events released by his "enemies," the police.

Many believe it was a targeted attack.

As leading anti-racism campaigner Tariq Nasheed pointed out, a tweet posted by Seals in late July raised "a lot of red flags."
Seals had said he was pulled over by 10 armed detectives pointing their guns at him and his teenage brother, telling him,"choose your enemies wisely."

Local St Louis activist Heather De Mian said she was disturbed by finding various pieces of debris and what appeared to be shell casings left behind by police investigators from the vehicle where Seals had been found.

"The memorial is constructed on top of his car door, which the police just left there," De Mian said, the Washington Post reports. "You would think the car door would be important evidence, that there might be fingerprints, you know. The police just left it there."

Another Twitter user also confirmed De Mian's account and showed images of bullet casings allegedly littered around the crime scene.

What is notable about the killing is that Seals is not the only Ferguson man to have been shot and set alight in a car.

The latest incident makes him the sixth person to be found in such circumstances. In the case of DeAndre Joshua, who was also shot dead before his killer or killers set his car on fire on the November 2014 night of the grand jury decided not to charge Darren Wilson for Michael Brown's death, speculation continues over the murder.



Bullseye

Police helicopter shot down during raid on Mexico cartel

Mexican federal police
© Jose Luis Gonzalez / ReutersMexican federal police officers
Suspected members of a criminal cell brought down a patrol helicopter during a police operation in the southwestern Mexican town of Apatzingan. A pilot and four officers lost their lives in a showdown with the mobsters, the state's governor wrote.

The helicopter was providing air support to the police force operating in the area hardly accessible by land. The officers were on a mission to arrest gang leaders in the city notorious for its thriving drug cartels.

"During the operation, an official helicopter which was supporting the patrol in area of difficult access was shot down," wrote Silvano Aureoles, governor of the state of Michoacan. Apatzingan is located in the western part of Michoacan.

2 + 2 = 4

ITT technical college closes suddenly; over 40,000 students and 8,000 employees in limbo

Itt Tech
The long-running tragic saga of ITT Education Services, which was established nearly 50 ago and operates the ITT Technical Institutes for-profit college chain, finally came to a end this morning with both a bang and a whimper, when it announced that it is shutting down effective immediately, leaving the fate of 40,000 students currently enrolled in limbo, and some 8,000 workers without a job.

The company said the closure is due to an investigation and sanctions by the U.S. Department of Education.

"It is with profound regret that we must report that ITT Educational Services, Inc. will discontinue academic operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes permanently after approximately 50 years of continuous service," the company stated Tuesday. "Effective today, the company has eliminated the positions of the overwhelming majority of our more than 8,000 employees."

As previously reported, ITT Tech stopped enrolling new students on August 29, just a few days after it was cut off from a significant amount of federal funding by the government. ITT's collapse was catalyzed when the Department of Education effectively killed the company two weeks ago, when it told the company on August 25 that it couldn't enroll new students who use federal financial aid. The school accused federal officials of forcing the closure and denying it due process. The company has been the subject of state and federal probes for various reasons, including its recruitment tactics, lending practices and job placement figures.

Eye 1

Greece is trapped in 'EU nightmare' with no light at the end of the tunnel

Greece debt
European authorities making an example of Greece, maintaining the principal inviolability of debt
As economic and social conditions in Greece continue to deteriorate the country remains politically paralysed, trapped in its Euro nightmare.

Almost exactly a year after my previous visit to Greece, urgent business obliged me to return there for a flying visit at the end of August.

In August 2015, when I was last there, Greeks were still trying to come to terms with the Tsipras government's abrupt capitulation to the EU's terms for the country's third bailout. These terms were actually harsher than those originally offered, which the Greek people had rejected in a referendum just a few weeks before.

The Tsipras government's abrupt reversal of position, accepting even harsher terms than those it and the Greek people had previously rejected, left many Greeks confused. I repeatedly heard confident claims that in return for accepting the EU's terms Tsipras "must have" obtained private assurances of a haircut on Greece's debt, which for "political reasons" could not be announced publicly.

Stock Down

U.S. economic recovery? The one trillion dollar consumer auto loan bubble is beginning to burst

auto loans
© Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press
Do you remember the subprime mortgage meltdown from the last financial crisis? Well, this time around we are facing a subprime auto loan meltdown. In recent years, auto lenders have become more and more aggressive, and they have been increasingly willing to lend money to people that should not be borrowing money to buy a new vehicle under any circumstances. Just like with subprime mortgages, this strategy seemed to pay off at first, but now economic reality is beginning to be felt in a major way. Delinquency rates are up by double digit percentages, and major auto lenders are bracing for hundreds of millions of dollars of losses. We are a nation that is absolutely drowning in debt, and we are most definitely going to reap what we have sown.

The size of this market is larger than you may imagine. Earlier this year, the auto loan bubble surpassed the one trillion dollar mark for the first time ever...
Americans are borrowing more than ever for new and used vehicles, and 30- and 60-day delinquency rates rose in the second quarter, according to the automotive arm of one of the nation's largest credit bureaus.

The total balance of all outstanding auto loans reached $1.027 trillion between April 1 and June 30, the second consecutive quarter that it surpassed the $1-trillion mark, reports Experian Automotive.
The average size of an auto loan is also at a record high. At $29,880, it is now just a shade under $30,000.

In order to try to help people afford the payments, auto lenders are now stretching loans out for six or even seven years. At this point it is almost like getting a mortgage.

But even with those stretched out loans, the average monthly auto loan payment is now up to a record 499 dollars.

That is the average loan size. To me, this is absolutely infuriating, because only a very small percentage of wealthy Americans are able to afford a $499 monthly payment on a single vehicle.

Many middle class American families are only bringing in three or four thousand dollars a month (before taxes). How in the world do they think that they can afford a five hundred dollar monthly auto loan payment on just one vehicle?

Comment: Can you hear it? The USA debt time-bomb is ticking, tick, tock, tick...


Brick Wall

Investigation reveals pedophile teachers escaped jail time due to judges' and prosecutors' ignorance of the law

empty classroom
© AFP
An investigation into teachers convicted of sexually abusing students in the US state of Iowa, has found at least seven cases in the last five years where convicted educators escaped prison time despite a state law requiring them to spend a period behind bars.

The Des Moines Register reviewed cases in the state over this period where teachers were convicted of sex crimes involving students to see if their sentences were in line with the law prohibiting probation in exactly these circumstances.

However, remarks by judges and prosecutors involved in the some of the cases appear to suggest that they are ignorant of the law they are required to uphold and enforce.

All of the cases examined during the review involved victims under 18 years old.

Target

Our pathologically perverse and impoverished society

impoverished
Our inner impoverishment has blinded us to our social impoverishment.

If asked what's intrinsic to human happiness, most people in consumer societies will offer up answers such as money, status, a nice house, etc. But as Sebastian Junger observes in his book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, what's actually intrinsic to human happiness is: meaningful relationships within a community (i.e. a tribe); opportunities to contribute to the group and to be appreciated; being competent at useful tasks and opportunities for authentic experiences.

If we assess our society by these standards, it is impoverished and ill. In the present-day economy, there are only two ways to contribute: 1) earn a profit for some entity in the private sector, usually a large corporation, and 2) perform some task for the state (government) that lives off the wages and profits of the private sector.

If you can't generate a profit or satisfy the state, you're tossed on the trash heap and offered disability, minimum guaranteed income or some other form of subsistence survival.

Book 2

After lengthening school day, Massachusetts elementary school bans homework

Homework
© ABC
More than 550 students at a Massachusetts elementary school will have less to carry home in their backpacks this year.

There will be no homework.

Kelly Elementary School in Holyoke has banned homework for the year with the intention of giving students all the instruction and extra help they may need during the school day, ABC reported.

"We want kids to go home tired; we want their brains to be tired," Jackie Glasheen, principal of the school, whose kindergarten through 8th-grade students are nearly all poor and Hispanic, told ABC News. At home, she said, "we want them to engage with their families, talk about their school days and go to bed."

Glasheen and the team of teachers who came up with the idea to end homework are among a growing number of U.S. educators and parents questioning the value of having children do schoolwork at home.

A Texas elementary school teacher last month drew wide attention by eliminating homework.

Comment: What these children are learning in most public schools can be summed up by this statement by John D. Rockerfeller:
"I want a nation of workers, not thinkers."
See also:


Family

40% of refugees seeking asylum in Switzerland disappear - report

Refugees in Switzerland
© Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters
Up to 40 percent of refugees who asked for asylum in Switzerland over the past three months reportedly disappeared from Swiss reception centers shortly afterwards, with their whereabouts unknown to the authorities.

The country's State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) confirmed that within the last quarter some 20 to 40 percent of refugees who have been assigned to reception centers have vanished from the monitoring system completely, Swiss newspaper Sonntags Zeitung reports.

The migration authority, however, did not provide exact figures for each reception center.
Most of those who disappeared from Swiss reception centers have most likely traveled further into Europe, heading for Germany, SEM spokeswoman Chloe Kohlprath told ATS news agency, as cited by news outlet

The migration authority, however, did not provide exact figures for each reception center.
Most of those who disappeared from Swiss reception centers have most likely traveled further into Europe, heading for Germany, SEM spokeswoman Chloe Kohlprath told ATS news agency, as cited by news outlet 20 Minuten.

Under Swiss legislation, refugees may only enter the country if they apply for asylum. Anyone with no intention of staying in Switzerland is refused entry, and those who do are sent to SEM reception centers while their asylum applications are processed.

USA

Obama defends NFL Kaepernick's right to protest, boycott national anthem

Kaepernick
© Jake Roth/ReutersSan Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick
US President Barack Obama has weighed in on the debate over NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick's controversial boycott of the national anthem. Noting the difficulties with the stand, he ultimately backed the footballer's constitutional right to protest.

Obama made the comments at a press conference following a meeting of world leaders at the G20 Summit in China. The outgoing president recognized Kaepernick's sincerity and said he would rather have young people engaged in the democratic process than not paying attention at all. "If nothing else, what he's done is he's generated more conversation around some topics that need to be talked about," the president said. "Sometimes it's messy, but it's the way democracy works."

Kaepernick sparked major controversy last month when he stayed sitting during the national anthem at a game between his team San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers. The football star later issued a statement saying the act was a protest over racial injustices and police brutality in the US. During another game last week, Kaepernick knelt instead of standing. His actions have divided opinions, with many political figures expressing their views on the 28-year-old football player's actions.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said the sports star should "find a country that works better for him." While Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine said although he would have gone about it differently, he respected people's "ability to act according to their conscience."


Comment: See also: