Portside

• Re: Friday Nite Videos - February 1, 2013 - all video links are now working
• Re  Immigration Reform? (Roger Toussaint)
• Re: Alt-labor (Laurel MacDowell)
• Re: NRA Defends Right to Own Politicians (Ron Leifer)
• Re: Stand Up for Julian Assange - Nobel Prize Winner Calls for Support (Jim Williams)
• Re: Football, Body and Mind and Dog Tails: The Long and the Short of It (Ruth Misheloff)
• Pirate Party and the Left - Implications For The 2013 German Elections - New York City Forum - Feb. 5
• Hear West Papua leader Benny Wenda, Wed. Feb. 6, New York City

► Re: Friday Nite Videos - February 1, 2013

• All problems with accessing Friday Nite Videos of February 1, 2013 have been corrected.

Each of the four videos is now accessible directly from the email that readers received last night or on the home page of Portside at -- http://www.portside.org/

Moderator

► Re: Immigration Reform?

• As an immigrant American citizen, listening to the debate on immigration from both sides, it is extremely difficult to not feel like one should if you are being humiliated and disrespected to your face while being required to say "Thank You" to your abuser.  Not to mention, being required to be silent in face of the 800 pound elephant in the room - racism, absolute double standards and utter cynicism - masked as benevolence and fairness.

The best offer on the table is agreeing to the criminalization of the hardest working people in America! They are to pay fines and back taxes after spending years being exploited and robbed blind, while deprived of virtually all rights. They must now be contrite, bow their heads and be parolees while they clean our feces!?!

The only real difference between the more recent generation of Immigrants being targeted and all other previous waves of immigrants Americans, nuff of whom arrived without papers (I, of course, am not including American Indians to whom this land belonged and from whom it was taken or to African Americans who were brought here in chains), is the darker color of their skin. That type of discrepancy in treatment based on being non-European and on skin color began with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 but persists to this day, so much so that it seems to have been inherited by successive waves of immigrants and other victims themselves, including some from the family of organized labor and some of color. True the Irish had been treated as lesser beings. And before them, we are reminded of the Italian immigrant who came to America hearing that:  "The streets were paved with gold, only to find out that, not only were the streets not paved, but that they were expected to pave them".

The truth is that in contemporary America, there has been no such vile reaction when faced with waves of European immigrants arriving here also seeking hope.  More often than not, programs were established to facilitate their transition, some of which persist to this day and when quotas entered the equation they were always accorded the better share.  When politics required it, over a hundred thousand Cubans from prisons and mental Institutions on the flotilla found more receptive arms than the most desperate Haitian families fleeing real hunger and the U.S backed dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier.

But I am yet to see records of a requirement to officially and publicly self humiliate as a condition of then going on parole to suit the sick, cynical souls of your benefactors. That did not enter the picture and, as always, history will have the final word on this moment.

Roger Toussaint,
past President of Local 100, Transport Workers Union of America, NY (2001-2009).]

► Re: Alt-labor

• The emergence of workers' rights groups is encouraging and hopefully in the short-term they will gain improvements. The reality is that unions in America have been smashed by conservatives since the Reagan years and the legal framework for collective bargaining has become so time-consuming and rigid that it actually deprives workers of their democratic rights.

The solution to this situation is political. The current government should make it easier for workers to organize unions, to engage in collective bargaining and to gain contracts that define their working conditions. That is part of the democratic process. It helps balance the relations between ordinary employees and their rich powerful employers. The creation of the collective bargaining system in the depression and war years was of enormous benefit to American workers. It worked. But it also raised wages. The reaction against it by employers was fierce, and was supported by conservative politicians of all stripes and by the mainstream media. This coalition has curdled even workers' views of unions.

The reality is you cannot have a strong democratic nation without workers' rights to organize and you can not raise wages without strong unions. Employers don't do that voluntarily.

So what to do? These non-union unions need to not just deal with the immediate situations that create them. They need to then transform themselves into some kind of  collective bargaining organization, or turn to a union to help them make the transformation. Unions themselves increasingly do their jobs but sometimes avoid the NLRB as it is such a time-consuming process. If they have enough strength they can get voluntary recognition from an employer. That is perhaps where these mass movements can help. Keep up the pressure until their people are signed up and then keep up more pressure until there is a contract from an employer. Not an easy job!

But at least workers are on the move and so there is hope. There certainly is reason with wages stagnant for over 30 years!

Laurel MacDowell,
Toronto, Canada

► Re: NRA Defends Right to Own Politicians

• I AM A STRICT INTERPRETER OF THE CONSTITUTION AND I BELIEVE IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT OF EVERYONE TO OWN A FRONT LOADING MUSKET. in my opinion, it is a very liberal interpretation to think that our forefathers meant the right to own assault rifles and automatic pistols with thirty round cartridges, since they didn't exist in 1779
 
ron leifer

► Re: Stand Up for Julian Assange - Nobel Prize Winner Calls for Support

• I am glad for the work that Assange has done. But until these charges of sexual molestation are resolved, I feel creepy about supporting him as a person.

Jim Williams

► Re: Football, Body and Mind and Dog Tails: The Long and the Short of It

• I just sent a mildly complaining post about the inclusion of an article about docking dogs' tails in Portside.  Now I'm wondering about another item -- the long piece by Joel Anderson about "his history with America's favorite pastime," football,  in the Feb 2 articles.   Why is this on Portside?

I don't want to be curmudgeonly, but what was the article about dog's tails doing among the Feb 2 Portside postings???  Excising dogs' tails may be inhumane but what does it have to do with left politics???

Ruth Misheloff

► Pirate Party and the Left - Implications For The 2013 German Elections - NYC - Feb. 5

• **FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC**

In the lead up to the September federal elections in Germany, the Pirate Party has celebrated some significant electoral victories. But what do the Pirates stand for politically? Do they act as a progressive party? And how does the Pirate Party fit into the broader European political landscape?

On Tuesday, February 5, at 6pm at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - New York Office, Raju Sharma and Halina Wawzyniak, members of the German federal parliament and the Left Party's Executive Board, will discuss the Pirate Party, its relationship to Die Linke, and the upcoming German elections.

RSVP to guarantee your seat: www.rosalux-nyc.org/whats-left

Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - New York Office
275 Madison Avenue, Suite 2114, New York, NY 10016
info@rosalux-nyc.org

► Hear West Papua leader Benny Wenda, Wed. Feb. 6, New York City

• The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network invites you to join West Papuan leader Benny Wenda for a discussion of current issues in West Papua
 
Wednesday, February 6, 6:30 pm - 9 pm
339 Lafayette St., 3rd flr, New York, NY
(between Bleecker and Bond Streets)
SUBWAYS: Bleecker St. on 6 train; Broadway-Lafayette on B, D, F, M trains; Prince on R, N trains

contact: ETAN, etan@etan.org, 917-690-4391

Benny Wenda campaigns for the self-determination of his people on a wide range of fronts. His village was bombed by Indonesia when he was a child and many of his family were killed. Later, he began to campaign peacefully to free his people. For this 'crime' he was arrested, tortured and threatened with death. Following his escape from custody while on trial, he gained political asylum in Britain, where he set up the Oxford-based Free West Papua Campaign in 2004 to spread awareness of human rights violations in West Papua and highlight the right of self-determination for its people.

He helped found the International Parliamentarians for West Papua and International Lawyers for West Papua. Benny travels tirelessly, meeting with political officials, journalists, others and giving talks at universities, local action groups and festivals, raising awareness about the plight of his people.

In 2011, the Indonesian Government issued an International Arrest Warrant for Benny through Interpol. This move was widely regarded as an attempt to silence him. Fair Trials International led an appeal to have the Red Notice removed so that he could once again travel freely. In August 2012, in a landmark case Interpol removed the Red Notice, after an investigation concluded that the Indonesian Government had abused the system in a politically motivated attempt to silence Benny.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/335304036574279/

More on Benny Wenda
http://www.bennywenda.org/

Read the West Papua Report
file:///D:/etanweb3/issues/wpapua/default.htm

interested in helping to organize or host an event in the New York Area, contact etan@etan.org, 718-596-7668

Shop ETAN. Order books and more from ETAN http://etan.org/resource/books.htm

2012 Recipient of the Order of Timor (Ordem Timor)

John M. Miller, National Coordinator
East Timor & Indonesia Action Network (ETAN)
Phone: +1-718-596-7668   Mobile phone: +1-917-690-4391
Email: etan@igc.org Skype: john.m.miller
www.etan.org
Twitter: @etan009     Blog: http://etanaction.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/134122?recruiter_id=10193810

Send a blank e-mail message to info@etan.org to find out how to learn more about East Timor and Indonesia on the Internet