Tidbits - November 3, 2016 - Reader Comments: How American Politics Has Changed; Labor and Standing Rock; Remembering Tom Hayden; The Cubs; Syria; Resources; Announcements; and more...

Reader Comments: How American Politics Has Changed - Rigging the Election and Defeating Trumpism; Labor and Standing Rock - #NoDAPL; Vietnam Remembers Tom Hayden; Cubs Tribute; Push Obama to Pardon Oscar L¢pez Rivera; Resources: Gender pay gap calculator; How do we move people?; Children's books with social justice themes; African American Pamphlets and Magazines archive; Announcements: New York, Seattle, Washington, DC, Chicago; and more....

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Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources and Announcements - November 3, 2016,Portside
Resources:
Announcements:
 
I wanted to share this kind note from Chau Nhat Binh, a good friend who has been instrumental in building labor solidarity between Vietnam & the U.S.
 
I encouraged Tom to return to Vietnam after many decades, and he agreed.  Binh helped to arrange for his visit to Vietnam, and connected him to many friends he had met on his trip with Jane Fonda during the War.  Tom "was touched to" receive the peace medal during his recent visit to Vietnam.
 
I taught a class with Tom at UCLA on the peace movement, and we held a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Port Huron statement.  Tom was a life long champion for peace and social justice, and I will miss him.
 
Kent Wong
Director, UCLA Labor Center
 
[Moderators' Note: Kent Wong is the director of the UCLA Labor Center, where he teaches courses in labor studies and Asian American studies.  He previously served as staff attorney for the Service Employees International Union. He was the founding president of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the founding president of the United Association for Labor Education, and currently is vice president of the California Federation of Teachers.]
 
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Today [Oct. 28], at the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations (VUFO), we held a memorial service to remember Tom Hayden, well known peace fighter and long standing friend of Vietnam on his passing away. Attending the service were representatives of various government ministries, people's organisations, American Veterans for Peace, Tom's friends in Vietnam including Pham Van Chuong, Pham Khac Lam, Nguyen Van Huynh..who were with him since the first days of his involvement in anti-war activities and connection with Vietnam. There, after the official speech, many people recalled fond memories of his friendship with Vietnam and his devotion to peace and justice. They also expressed  deep appreciation to American friends and people  for  the valuable  support during our struggle for national independence. I was pleased that you are amongst those people.
 
Best regards.
 
Chau Nhat Binh
Member of Council
Vietnam Peace and Development Foundation
 
 
 
 
(posting on Portside Labor)
 
 
LEADERS were WRONG--& Workers Stood Up!
Inspiring!
 
when LEADERS take the WRONG stand then people have to MAKE OUR OWN STAND!
How come HILLARY is SILENT on this???? oh, yeah ,right SHE SUPPORTS BIG OIL
 
Lydia Howell
 
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hell - "progressive" Democrat Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton authorized the use of Hennepin County Sheriffs to go there. They have ben using batons on the Water Protectors
 
Michael J Cavlan
 
 
 
 
 
Stopping or not stopping Dakota Access may be a defining moment for North America. Demand to know where your votes go.
 
Rick Rice
 
 
 
 
 
I am sure I am not the only one to notice the historical inaccuracy in the fourth paragraph. In an otherwise decent, though pedestrian, article, the author repeats the error that the term male chauvinism started after WWII. No. On the left at least, the term goes back decades, just as the terms national chauvinism and great nation chauvinism do (both, unfortunately, accurate terms for many people's attitudes worldwide today as well). A quick Wikipedia search reveals a use of the term in a Clifford Odets play, "Until the Day I Die", and surely he was reflecting more general usage, at least on the left, of which he was a part. He was not known to coin new words.
 
Also, the author repeats the stereotype that the core of Trump's support is non-college educated white men. If that is in fact true, how is it that they have above average family incomes, which repeated surveys have shown? This is overwhelmingly a group of petit bourgeois (very small businessmen, supervisors, foremen, and a smaller layer of skilled and semi-skilled white male workers (and, of course, the folks most influenced by them). Any similarities to the social makes up of the early fascist parties in Europe between the World Wars, is, certainly, coincidental.)
 
Sorry to seem like a crotchety old historian-guy, but these sorts of sloppy errors give the impression that all history started recently and we have nothing to learn from past generations -- a mistake too many of my own generation, baby-boomers, (including me at times) have made to our detriment.
 
In solidarity,
 
Joe Berry
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thought you'd enjoy this. It's the Oct 14 cover of Private Eye, the leading Brit satire mag.
 
Mike Hirsch
 
 
 
 
 
We've been down this road so many times.  Annie Lennox says it in "Why" and "No More I Love You."  Einstein purportedly said it as the definition of insanity.  And The Left keeps doing it over and over and over again expecting a different result.  If the Democratic Party was truly a party of the people, they would have nominated Bernie Sanders, a truly honest person, instead of anointing Hillary Clinton. Bernie would have wiped Trump's slate in a New York second.  Trump is clearly a fascist and his supporters are threatening to take the Country down if he loses.(Without going into Trump's total craziness - he's not playing with a full deck in the brain department.)  The so called Left bought Hillary, hook, line and sinker.  We were stupid.
 
BTW.  My husband voted for Hillary and I voted for Jill Stein and the Greens.We live in California so we took that option.  A whole lot of folks out here that got screwed in the Primary elections.
 
Claire Carsman
 
 
 
 
 
And to make sure that the election is really rigged, the FBI Director drops the October surprise...
 
Jay Schaffner
 
 
 
 
 
Listen to this wonderful version of the Sam Cooke anthem A CHANGE IS GONNA COME. It will LIFT YOU UP for the struggles we must wage NO MATTER WHO WINS on Election Day.
 
Lydia Howell
 
 
 
 

 
A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request -by Steve Goodman
 
Listen here.
 
Steve Goodman performing "A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request" from one of the Wrigley Field rooftops.
[Steve Goodman's ashes were scattered in Left Field at Wrigley Field Sunday night, after the Cubs won Game 5 in the World Series. Goodman, died in 1984.]
 
 
 
 
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if the defender of the man being beaten by the 4 white policeman starts a fund for suing such people, please let us all know. Thank you!
 
Lois Racz
 
 
 
 
(posting on Portside Labor)
 
 
Roy Cohn, who was finally disbarred, was probably one of the sleaziest lawyers and political deal-makers in U.S. history, a truly horrifying monster. He was Donald Trump's closest mentor and friend for many years. (Yet as Cohn was in hospital dying, Donald was aloof. Cohn was quoted as saying "Donald pisses ice.")
 
Diane Laison
 
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When heard that a few years ago I wasn't surprised.
 
Melvin Pritchard
 
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The biggest asshole and hypocritical people ever!
 
Howie Leveton
 
 
 
 
 
Is there anything we can do to help with this pardon?  
 
Constance Curry
 
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The Free Oscar Lopez Coalition was created to intensify efforts in the United States for the release of Oscar L¢pez Rivera from prison.
 
We aim to educate and dispel misconceptions and misinformation and gather the good faith actions of fellow men and women outraged by the inhumane incarceration of Oscar.
 
 
Moderator
 
    ====
 
Leonard Peltier has served over 40 years and in maximum security !!!!
 
Aaron Libson
 
 
 
 
 
In the same way that the mainstream media seems incapable of asking substantive questions of the presidential candidates, they have done little to garner understanding of what is going on in Syria. This is a good article by journalist Phyllis Bennis, who always does her homework.
 
Barry Kornhauser
 
    ====
 
Bennis uses a lot of words that amount to no more than a wish or a hope.
 
As leftists, our first step would be to simply accept responsibility for a war that is being conducted by the Obama regime in our name and the second is to demand that Obama stop it. Whatever leftists believe about Assad's record, he is actually the Lesser Evil (Hillary supporters on the left please note) alternative to ISIP and other jihadists. We should test the proposals he made in today's NYT interview to end the war. Stop demanding that other nations conform to your standards and accept responsibility for your own nation's wars.
 
Mike Munk
 
 
 
 
(posting on Portside Labor)
 
 
for those of you who think the TPP TiPP are not a big deal...
 
Nathaniel Mulcahy
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Economic Policy Institute's new interactive gender pay gap calculator calculates how much you could be earning-when accounting for age, gender, and education. Users of the calculator will see that the typical woman earns 83 cents for every dollar earned by her male counterpart and growing inequality affects nearly everyone who works. The calculator shows that if the gender wage gap had closed and the economy's gains were more broadly shared, women's median hourly wages could be 69 percent higher today. EPI has proposed solutions to closing both the gender wage gap and eliminating inequality, such as allowing workers to organize, increasing wage transparency, and expanding paid family leave.
 
1225 Eye St. NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-775-8810 -- epi@epi.org
 
 
 
 
 
We are so excited to launch the new BeyondtheChoir.org website, designed by Revolution Messaging! We're happy to finally have a website that reflects our current work. We hope you'll snoop around the new site.
 
 
 
 
#AllofUs: Millennials disrupt a tired old narrative. Under the banner of #AllofUs, Millennials are pushing a racial and economic justice agenda for the homestretch of the 2016 election, and then beyond.
 
 
We find ourselves in the midst of a social movement renaissance.
 
Across the country, people are coming together to demand change to a political order that's been rigged against them. From immigrant Dreamers to Occupy Wall Street to the climate justice movement, from Black Lives Matter to movements for gender justice and sexual liberation, from the army of Bernie 2016 volunteers to the defiant disrupters of Donald Trump's bigotry, the makings of a new broad and powerful progressive political force are all around us.
 
But if we are to win meaningful change, we need to build bigger and bring in more people. Toward that end, we launched Beyond the Choir as one piece in a larger political intervention. Our name captures the core of our mission: in order to build movements capable of winning real change, we need to do more than just "preach to the choir."
 
Our work falls under three categories: partnerships, initiatives, and training.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"If we can show children how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, why can't we show them how they can transform the world into a more just and a peaceful community?" 
- Ann Berlak
 
Hard Ball Press is offering unions and other social justice organizations a 20% discount for orders of 10 or more, 40% for orders of 50 or more for the holidays.
Please look over the books, which are listed on my web site, and let me know if you wish to order any for your organization, they make wonderful gifts and can be sold as a fund raiser.
 
 
TITLES:
 
Joelito's Big Decision, about fast food workers and the Fight for $15
 
Hats Off For Gabbie! Gabbie refuses to accept the coach's rule, "No girls can play baseball." - about a little girl who is told only boys can play on the little league team, so she comes back dressed as a boy and makes the team.
 
The Cabbage That Came Back: about a hungry, cold rabbit who finds 2 cabbages in the snow and gives one to his friend, Mr. Hedgehog, leading to a delightful surprise.
 
Manny & the Mango Tree: Manny organizes the children in his Miami apartment building to protest the owner's treatment of them when the frightened parents won't take a stand because many are undocumented.
 
Margarito's Forest: A gorgeous story of a Mayan village in Guatemala that preserves its ancient love for the forest - a timely reminder for a planet in peril.
Mayan village in Guatemala preserve their love for the natural world.
 
Tim Sheard, editor, Hard Ball Press
 
415 Argyle Rd., Suite 6A
Brooklyn, NY 11218
917-428-1352
 
 
 
 
 
Georgetown history professor Maurice Jackson donated hundreds of magazines and pamphlets to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, some of which speak to the nation's civil rights movement, lynching and the black power movement dating back to nearly 100 years ago.
 
A couple of university-related artifacts are also nestled among the more than 3,000 items on display as the Smithsonian Institution's new museum opened this fall.
 
"I knew the museum was collecting items for various exhibits, and they knew I had a collection of pamphlets that I had been gathering since I was probably about 17 or 18 years old," Jackson recalls. "I had long wanted to donate these items to a repository that would make good use of the artifacts, and they were just delighted to have them."
 
Jackson's gifts are among the more than 34,000 artifacts in the museum's stored collections. Eventually Jackson's historical pamphlets will be digitized and made available to the public.
 
One of the pamphlets, created in the 1930s, was designed to defend nine black teenagers who were falsely convicted of assault and raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama.
 
 
 
 
Freedomways Journal
 
The full set of historic Freedomways journals, published from 1961 to 1985 and considered the primary journal of 20th-century black arts and intellectual movement in the United States, is also among the artifacts Jackson donated.  
 
The journal set holds a special place in the Georgetown professor's heart because it was started by activist and scholar W.E.B. DuBois, activist and entertainer Paul Robeson and Esther Cooper Jackson, Jackson's godmother. Cooper Jackson served as a founding editor of Freedomways.
 
 
 
*Georgetown history professor Maurice Jackson poses with his fist in the air in front of a display featuring a "Free Angela" pamphlet that his family donated to the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Photo credit: Georgetown University
 
Read more here. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Nancy Mitchell will discuss her new book Jimmy Carter in Africa: Race and the Cold War (Stanford University Press, 2016) on Wednesday, November 9 (6:00 PM) at the Tamiment Library. A reception with wine and cheese will follow the lecture. This event is sponsored by the Center for the United States and the Cold War. 
 
Nancy Mitchell received her PhD from the School of Advanced International Study at Johns Hopkins University, and is a professor of history at North Carolina State University where she was elected to the Academy of Outstanding Teachers. Mitchell is the author of The Danger of Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America, 1895-1914. She contributed the chapter on "The Cold War and Jimmy Carter," in The Cambridge History of the Cold War and that on "The United States and Europe, 1900-1914," in American Foreign Relations since 1600: A Guide to the Literature Online.  
 
Copies of Jimmy Carter in Africa will be available for purchase.
 
Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
70 Washington Square South, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10012
 
 
RSVP: email tamiment.events@nyu.edu with guest name(s) & title of event.
 
 
 
 
 
"Spain: The First Battle of World War II," talk by Adam Hochschild - University of Washington (Seattle) - November 9
 
 
"Memory of Fire: The Spanish Civil War, 80 Years After," to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). 
 
November 9, 2016 -- 7:00pm to 9:00pm
 
Kane 110
University of Washington
Seattle
 
Free and Open to the Public
 
Professor Adam Hochschild, University of California, Berkeley, and author of the acclaimed book, Spain in Our Heart: Americans in the Spanish Civil War (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/adam-hochschild/spain-in-our-hearts will speak on "Spain: The First Battle of World War II."
 
The talk is sponsored by the following units: UW Le¢n Center, Department of History, School of Drama, Simpson Center for the Humanities; Aula Cervantes; Center for Spanish Studies; Honorary Consulate of Spain.  It is part of a larger series, "Memory of Fire: The Spanish Civil War, 80 Years After," to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). 
 
Click here for full schedule of activities, November 4 - 9. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 7:30pm - 9pm 
 
Mount Sinai Beth Israel Ambulatory Center
10 Union Square East @ E 14th Street
2nd Floor Auditorium
 
 
Featuring: 
  • Ben Day, Executive Director, Healthcare NOW; 
  • Mark Dudzic, National Organizer, Labor Campaign for Single Payer; 
  • New York State Nurses Association (invited); 
  • Moderator: Martha Livingston, PhD, board member, PNHP NY Metro 
 
  • Join PNHP NY Metro and national single payer health care advocates to discuss national, state, and local electoral results and what they mean for our movement. 
  • What health care reforms will the next President and Congress support? Will a "public option" be on the table?
  • What happened in Colorado where they took universal health care to the ballot? What can we learn from it?
  • Could New York be the first state to pass and implement universal, single payer health care?
  • How can we build a movement to win improved Medicare for All in this political context?
 
 
RSVP is not required, but is requested. 
 
 
All PNHP-NY Metro forums are FREE, OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, and WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE
 
Physicians for a National Health Program - PNHP NY Metro
155 West 72nd Street, Suite 402
New York, NY 10023
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lori Clune will discuss her new book Executing the Rosenbergs: Death and Diplomacy in a Cold War World (Oxford University Press, 2016) on Tuesday, November 15 (6:00 PM) at the Tamiment Library. A reception with wine and cheese will follow the lecture. This event is sponsored by the Center for the United States and the Cold War. 
 
A New York native, Lori Clune studied at Purchase College and New York University before earning her Ph.D. from the University of California at Davis. She is Associate Professor of History at California State University, Fresno, and has published numerous articles, essays, and reviews on various topics in Cold War history. Clune's first book is Executing the Rosenbergs: Death and Diplomacy in a Cold War World.
 
Copies of Executing the Rosenbergs will be available for purchase.
 
Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
70 Washington Square South, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10012
 
RSVP: email tamiment.events@nyu.edu with guest name(s) & title of event.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
November 17 - November 24
 
Nov 17 at 7:30 PM to Nov 24 at 10 PM
 
Jacob Burns Film Center
364 Manville Rd, Pleasantville, New York 10570
(914) 747-5555
 
Ticket information here
 
 
DISTURBING THE PEACE follows former enemy combatants - Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters - who join together to say: Enough.
 
Please join us Nov. 17 at 7:30 pm for Q&A with co-director Stephen Apkon!
 
SHOWTIMES: 12:00, 2:30, 5:00, 7:30, 10:00.
Tickets: $8 (members), $13 (nonmembers).
 
"I want to live in the world you guys are creating."
-- Michael Moore
 
"I wish I had made this documentary."
--Ted Koppel
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Friday, November 25 at 10 AM - 5 PM CST
 
Water Tower Monument, 806 N Michigan Avenue
 
 
 
In support of our demand that the City Council Enact CPAC we are calling upon all the freedom loving people of Chicago to join us in boycotting the Magnificent Mile in the Loop on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving
 
The introduction of CPAC into the Council on July 20, 2016 by Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa and eight fellow aldermen was historically significant. This was the first time ever that legislation has been introduced that would empower the people in our communities to hold the police accountable.
 
Since the Laquan McDonald video was revealed and the Black Friday protest last November, approximately 20 more people have been shot by the police (up 20%) with 460 people shot at and assaulted with other weapons by police (up 25%), and 3,500 more misconduct complaints filed (up 10%). Zero officers have been fired, the system of fake police accountability continues.
 
On Wednesday, October 5, 2016 Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Civilian Office of Police Accountability (CopA) ordinance passed the City Council by a vote of 39 to 8. The CopA ordinance replaces the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) with a new `independent' body to deal with police crimes and misconduct. It is just another mayor appointed layer of bureaucracy designed to excuse and justify police crimes. CopA is a cop-out, the system of fake police accountability continues.
 
In passing CopA, the City Council and the Mayor have completely ignored the democratic demands of the people of Chicago for an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council. In spite of all the thousands of people demonstrating for CPAC, in spite of the majority of the people demanding CPAC at all the public hearings convened by the City Council's Progressive Caucus, in spite of every strand of the peoples movement demanding CPAC and opposing CopA, in spite of all this public outcry, the Mayor and his cohorts passed the CopA ordinance. Their contempt for the people of Chicago could not be clearer. This is why we are calling for the boycott of the Magnificent Mile November 25, 2016. We demand a real systemic change, we demand CPAC-community control of the Chicago police.
 
The Mayor and his pals have done nothing but delay justice for Laquan McDonald, Bettie Jones, Rekia Boyd, Ronnieman Johnson, Flint Farmer, Reverent Catherine Brown, and all the other victims and survivors of police crimes. On November 21st it will be 365 days and a 400 day cover-up in the Laquan McDonald case. This corrupt, racist administration has proven that we cannot negotiate with them for justice. We must demand justice and fight for it.