Tidbits - April 27, 2017 - Reader Comments: Peoples Climate March; Science; Korea; Nuclear War Danger; France; Hawaii IS a State; GOP Health Plan; Single-Payer; Fascism Today; Resources; Announcements-MAY DAY; Labor Film Festival; and more....

Reader Comments: Peoples Climate March and a Defense of Science; Korea; Danger of Nuclear War; Marine Le Pen is a Fascist, Not a Populist; Hawaii IS a State - Understand Jeff Sessions; GOP Health Plan - A Disaster; Attraction of Single-Payer; Airline Abuse, Profits and Deregulation; Fascism Today - Portside readers exchange views; Resources; Announcements-MAY DAY; Trump and the Left; Labor Film Festival; Left Forum; Oscar López Rivera is Coming to New York; and more...

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Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources and Announcements - April 27, 2017,Portside
Resources:
Announcements:
 
I like the "square root of negative one" sign.
 
Steve Krug
 
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I'd much rather support Science and scientists, than those who cover their eyes then say "I don't see an issue". It's sad that people always end up electing narrow minded idiots who don't believe in Science.
 
Dan Thirnbeck
 
 
 
 
 
the article hints at the dark side of "science": the scientific community is increasingly engaged in discussions about its social responsibilities (e.g., do scientists have a responsibility to give priority to work/research that would have greatest benefit to society?); the pace of scientific and technological advance is outpacing our efforts to consider the human rights, ethical and legal ramifications of these advances.
 
many of the "advances" of science are appropriated by wall street corporations, industries and their military to suppress and harm the rest of us. most scientist get their paychecks from these sources. worse: the knowledge that indigenous cultures apply has been gathered outside university settings and is often downgraded as superstitious, lacking "scientific" verification while the "scientist" appropriate the information for their handlers.
 
Gilberto de Leon
 
 
 
 
 
You don't get peace by bombing 7 countries and inflicting famine on the poorest people in the world.
 
E. Beth Davis
 
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Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama were all Presidents who chose the military option, dropping bombs on people seems to be a Presidential pass time, perhaps it has become a prerequisite of the job description.
 
Charles Craig
 
 
 
 
 
President Trump tweeted today. April 16, about how great his foreign policy has been. I'm not impressed. Despite a few bombs, the situation is basically unchanged in Syria, Israel/Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan and Korea, to name just a few hot spots. But since Team Trump has declared that 'all options are on the table' regarding the DPRK, let me recommend a few.
 
1. Set aside the superpower mentality and ask to meet, one on one, with Kim Jong Un as a rational, equal head of state. Whether you think he's crazy or not is beside the point. Treat him this way regardless. I don't think he's suicidal, although he may opt for going out in a blaze of glory if he's attacked first.
 
2. Once meeting, initiate talks to end the Korean war. It's well past time, and aim for a mutual pullback of forces from their current hair-trigger status as part of the settlement.
 
3. Once the Korean war is ended officially, aim at mutual recognition and normalization of relations. Then negotiate some mutual trade deals. The North is one of the key sources of tungsten in the world, (The other two are the Congo and Vietnam, which makes me wonder.)
 
4. Then restart the six party talks to move the region toward being a nuke-free zone. That would mean keeping US nuke-armed subs and such out of the area. Otherwise, use deterrence, as we do with China. Do away with Bush's stupid 'axis of evil' concept, which targeted three countries--Iran, Iraq, and the DPRK--that had nothing to do with 9/11.
 
5. Finally, allow talks to proceed between the two Koreas on reunification. It may seem odd, but every Korean I've met longs for it, even if they don't know how to get there. Let them work at it peacefully and patiently.
 
You may find all this rather naive and idealistic. Fine. But I have news for everyone. They are far more realistic than any of the wacko macho bluster solutions being entertained by people who should know better.
 
Carl Davidson
 
 
 
 
 
What a time to be alive--- 
 
I don't wish to alarm you, but right now the majority of the world's nuclear warheads are in the hands of men for whom the idea of using them is becoming thinkable. 
 
For Kim Jong-un, it's thinkable; for Vladimir Putin, it's so thinkable that every major Russian wargame ends with a "nuclear de-escalation" phase: that is, drop one and offer peace. On 22 December last year, Trump and Putin announced, almost simultaneously, that they were going to expand their nuclear arsenals and update the technology.
 
Chuck Weed
 
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Dictators with Nuclear Weapons know that they will die anyhow if they are overthrown, so they have nothing to lose with threatening the world with Nuclear War, or using Nuclear Weapons whenever they feel like they are going to be annihilated by their enemy. But, But will the world submit to any Country just to keep from having citizens killed, only to be killed just the same.
 
James McClure
 
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To justify spending a trillion dollars on new nukes we have to use the old ones.
 
Michael Smith
 
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The problem is the ease and complacency with which people talk about nuclear war. Using it as a simplistic solution while ignoring the devastating side effects does everyone a disservice. During the Cold War, it was used as a deterrent -Not a first strike option.Gen. MacArthur lost sight of that position. Apparently, DT is oblivious to that fact along w/ his N. Korean counterpart. We should be "cooling down" rather than ratcheting up the rhetoric
 
Harry Kooyman
 
 
 
 
 
It would help more if the article stated WHY LePen is a fascist. What specific policies- so it could be forwarded. This article is only helpful as history. We need something for NOW!
 
Mike Glick
 
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Thank you so much for this article.It has been concerning to me how they throw "populism" around as if it applies to both the Right and the Left - as if it just means all people. It doesn't. Leave it to the media to muddy the waters.  They do get paid to do that.  But there is a history of populism that goes back to farmer-labor unity.  Again, thank you for this article. 
 
Claire Carsman
 
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Populism, from the beginning, has always had a right wing and left wing. Consider the case of Tom Watson, or even Andy Jackson. The difference is important. Populist tent to divide people into two, the producers, ie, the people, and the non-producers, ie, the parasites. While the left mainly aims at the parasite on top, the right wing version also aims, to a considerable degree, to the 'parasite below,' ie, immigrants, Blacks, and so on. Their are certainly fascists among the rightwing populists, but it would be inaccurate to both terms to see them as identical. If you can find a copy, read 'Right-Wing Populism in America. You will learn a lot, all of it very relevant.
 
Carl Davidson
 
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She feeds off the fears of the paisans in the villages bereft of immigrants.
 
Ron Thibodeau
 
 
 
 
 
Donald Trump campaigned on all the great things he was going to accomplish in his first 100 days in office. Well, here we are and there is far more bad than good that has come out of this White House.
 

 
 
Rob Rogers
April 25, 2017
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hell he thinks the KKK is a fraternity
 
Earl Marty Price
 
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What an outrage.  Hard to believe this racist and know nothing is Attorney General.
 
Ray Markey
 
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It makes sense if you think about it. He wants America to be like it was in 1950 and Hawaii wasn't a state then so it makes perfect sense
 
David D. Huebsch
 
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Maybe republican god-fearing law and order officials and judges want a corrupt and oppressive federal government.
 
A.G. Jeff Sessions wants to jail anybody who is black or brown. It's an old Alabama 1880's reconstruction scam to put them in jail for any minor infraction. Any parking ticket or jay-walking charge, anything! Just so they can't vote. Sessions' pal, the deeply Christian enraptured VEEP Mike Pence wants health plans to stop paying for birth control! In addition to extreme suppression of gay rights, what all the Trump republican god militants like Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions really want is a return to strict abortion laws.
 
The republican god militants really, really believe that the hard-shell doctrine of christian religion is the final solution to all our problems. Asked about abortion, Mike Pence's eyes glaze over and his rapture takes him to talk about those little baby fetuses and how the little pea-sized globs of molecules should be buried. Mike Pence even wants pet cemeteries for fetuses like they have in Indiana.
 
From the days of the first Clinton impeachment scam, Jeff Sessions' and Mike Pence's close pal Dennis Hastert is in jail for child rape. Kenneth Starr has been fired by Baylor University for ignoring the pleas of coeds who were raped by members of the football team. David Petraeus had an extramarital affair with his biographer, and he was convicted of sharing classified documents with her. White House Chief Castrato Steve Bannon has also had three wives, but only one of them reported him to police for domestic violence. At least twelve women have come forth to accuse Donald Trump of sexual harassment.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Watch out - wolf in sheep's clothing. GOP proposals strip away coverage for pre-existing conditions.
 
Jay Schaffner
 
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Marty Comroe
 
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The new GOP healthcare plan. The grand deception. On your guard, America. Don't let this pass!
 
Judyth Hollub
 
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High risk pools!
Universal, the only way to go.
But there's no money in it for these people!
 
Howie Leveton
 
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These scumbags are JUST millionaires. The real culprits are the BILLIONAIRES.Who FUND these scumbags.
 
Cary Berkelhamer
 
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HaH HaH HaH. I hear a corporate board room laugh.
 
Sonia Collins
 
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It's amazing how they can cut taxes from 35% to 15% on business and cut 24,000,000 people from Healthcare. And build a wall costing 30,000,000,000 dollars and cut Food Stamps and Education from children and the working poor. Just in case you don't know many of the people you do know will be without a Health Care program. The Rich get Richer and the poor DIE from lack of Govt Healthcare.
 
Herbert Daley
 
    

 
 
But Trump promised better coverage and less cost for everyone, did he lie to us ?
 
Ed Taylor
 
 
 
 
 
Pooled resources, massive reductions in duplicity & administrative, and no profit margin going to shareholders and executives.

 
 
Bill Ferguson
 
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I want free health insurance. I want the pharmacies to give their drugs away for free. I want the doctors, nurses, & staff to work for free. I want the hospital & all their services to be free. FREE Free FREE! Let the man behind the tree pay for it all.
 
James Alvin Fogleman
 
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Is your comment a sarcastic statement implying that single payer is free healthcare? Because it is not free. We pay for it, but the insurance companies are not profit motivated, as they are now. The money we would pay is for healthcare, not middleman profits. Read the article and learn, you might be pleasantly surprised.
 
Single payer for all would solve their dilemma. Although their corporate sponsors wouldn't like it, so that is why they are not considering it. It would be best for the American people.
 
Patty Ramos
 
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Single payer is for communists. So all those who want this, move to Cuba or Canada.
 
Jacquie Lempka
 
 
 
 
(posting on Portside Labor)
 
 
Gee....think Trump believes in anything so fact based as DEMOGRAPHICS? Think those hateful, aging, white politicians will wake up anytime soon??? Geeee...where is there a workforce ready, willing, and highly capable if only they had some rights and were paid a living wage with benefits to give the economics of the U.S. a boost toward being a healthy, sane society.
 
Susan Thorpe
 
 
 
 
 
And when they turn 70, this population will in large numbers be on welfare because they have no retirement funds!
 
Naomi Lockwood
 
 
 
 
 
corporate profit and police! violence both!
 
Leanna Noble
 
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Excellent article.
 
Margo Smart
 
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United is not alone but seems to be the leader of the pack. In a recent industry-sponsored survey of the best airlines in the world, JetBlue (4# in the world), Alaska Air, and lastly Southwest were the only American airlines to make the list. United, Delta, and American did not even meet the most basic requirements for rating, according to the survey makers.
 
Ahmed González-Núñez
 
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I would be shocked if executives ever sat in a coach seat or walk down that aisle. Wonder who flies the most ordinary people or executives?
 
Linda Fraser
 
 
 
 
 
The problem is not schools and churches... it is mega profit corporations.
 
Nicholas Sea
 
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The Ivies are highly integrated into the corporations, including through interlocking directorates/Boards of Trustees, the tax breaks enable top corporate managers to evade taxes, their major social function is to reproduce the managerial-professional class that runs the corporations and they provide most of the supporting ideological work that legitimizes the corporate structures.
 
Chris Lowe
 
 
 
 
 
Take note of businesses that fire people who participate and don't use their services any longer. Also take note of those that support their employees in this action and support them by using their services. This needs to be big. Today it is unethical application and ignoring of immigration by the new government tomorrow it is your rights and human dignity they will trample on. Support each other. United there is nothing that the people can not achieve.
 
Aprl Churchill
 
 
 
 
 
Very good reading. I wonder if most people are aware that slaveowners represented less than 1 % of the population at the start of the civil war, and yet they were more than willing to have others die for their right to own other humane beings.
 
Sonia Martinez
 
 
 
 
(posting on Portside Culture)
 
 
Will read this book. White people's biggest political problem is up to this day to blame Black people for our problems. It is so crazy to blame them instead of the wealthy and powerful, those who make policy day after day, year after year, decade after decade. We should listen and we should unite.
 
Sonia Collins
 
 
 
 
(Portside post from March 30) 
 
This is, essentially, an philosophical idealist vs. materialist examination of fascism. thus the sneering put-down of the materialist definition as "doctrinaire." The basis of fascism is the military accumulation of capital, and is spearheaded by the forces Dimitrov described.  The ideology to justify, impose and defend it is invented and embroidered as the various social forces work out their contradictions.
 
John Woodford
 
     ====
 
Author's response:
 
If every work that was idealist was rejected because the author did not embrace dialectical and historical materialism Marxists would cut ourselves off from a vast store of knowledge of the material world in which we live.  This would, at best, limit our ability to analyze and effectively act upon world events and trends, and would more likely lead us down many dead ends.
 
Paxton is not a materialist and doesn't claim to be one.  The documented history he recounts, however, completely confirms Dimitrov's 1935 materialist assessment of fascism.  Paxton's ultimate "definition" of fascism, while not explicitly class based, is clearly talking about classes and their roles in historical fascist ascensions to power.  I found many lessons for today in this work.
 
To dismiss it on the grounds that it is not presented in a materialist framework is self-defeating, in my opinion.  It would be like throwing out the work of many giants of science who were not philosophical materialists, even though their work establishes a basis for materialist philosophy. 
 
We use the results of their scientific work every day in the many things we now take for granted like cell phones and the Internet, in action to change the world based on knowledge and a deeper understanding of politics.  We can utilize Paxton's contribution the same way if we can see around our philosophical blinders.
 
Ted Pearson
 
 
 
 
 
 
Your readers should click on this:
 
MIT expert claims latest chemical weapons attack in Syria was staged
Theodore Postol of MIT says there is no concrete evidence linking Assad to the attack.
By Tareq Haddad
Updated April 18, 2017
 
My comment:
 
Donald Trump makes my stomach turn.  While  he was almost crying for those poor children foaming from their mouth after the horrendous  chemical weapons attach in Syria, he was exalting those American pilots who four weeks ago bombed a mosque in Iraq and killed hundreds of people, including children.
 
He  was  praising the military for attacking civilians in Iraq where hundreds of children were killed.
 
The  attack  on  the airport in Syria  took place, on the pretext of the chemical weapons attack,  when his  approval rating was 35 per cent, the lowest approval rating for any President doing his first 100 days.
 
This  man is dangerous.  He will even sell his mother to make a dime. If he is not impeached he will drag the world into war.
 
Reno Calleja
Malta
 
 
 
 
 
Making an invisible history visible
 
 
 
 
The first initiative to document historic and cultural sites associated with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in the five boroughs. Sites illustrate the richness of the city's LGBT history and the community's influence on America. Learn more in our video intro. 
 
 
This website is a scholarly project meant to serve as an educational resource for anyone who is interested in learning more about existing historic and cultural sites associated with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in New York City. We are continuously adding sites after conducting thorough research. View list of all historic sites currently included on our website.
 
Entries have been written using various resources in order to be as accurate as possible in documenting each site's LGBT significance. On historic site pages, the names of LGBT people are indicated in bold. Due to the sensitive nature of identifying certain historical figures as LGBT, each site page (where applicable) includes scholarly sources and guidebooks that we referenced in determining the individual's inclusion on our map.
 
 
 
 
 
The project, the Global Jukebox, has more than 6,000songs from 1,000 cultures - including many songs from Alan Lomax.
 

 
Alan Lomax, in 1992. As computer technology progressed, Lomax envisioned a searchable database for music from around the world. 
Credit G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times 
 
 
The Global Jukebox explores connections between families of expressive style. One can travel the world of song, dance and language through the Wheel Chart and the Map. Thousands of examples of the world's music, dance and other expressive behavior will now become available. The Global Jukebox is presented as a free, non-commercial, educational place for everybody, students, educators, scholars, scientists, musicians, dancers, linguists, artists and music fans to explore expressive patterns in their cultural-geographic and diasporic settings and alongside other people's. By inviting familiarity with many kinds of vocalizing, musicking, moving, and talking, we hope to advance cultural equity and to reconnect people and communities with their creative heritage.
 
There are many ways to explore and listen, experimentally or systematically, with searches or randomly. Visitor's may read the description of each selection and view the codings, or learn to make codings themselves. Journeys by area specialists and tradition bearers will take visitors into the heart of particular traditions and cultures, and certified Lesson Plans for K through 12 offer historical, ethnographic and educational ways into musical and dance worlds.
 
We hope the Jukebox will become an interactive center for discovering, exploring and researching expressive culture, with links to past and present work in the field, the ability to enlarge the samples of song, dance, and speech, and guidelines for coding each dataset.
 
The site will host teaching systems for both Choreometrics and Cantometrics, and links to information on these projects. With the guidance of experienced music and movement analysts, these resources can enable committed students to learn these systems of analysis at to an extent that suits their needs. We work with curriculum consultants to develop K-12 curricula and college course material. A more profound understanding of expressive culture will help to produce truly global citizens.
 
Contributors
 
Most of the collectors credited herein agreed to allow Alan Lomax to use their material for his study of expressive style and an unpublished project entitled World Folk Song, as well as Cantometrics, A Method in Musical Anthropology, published by University of California Extension Media. Their recordings and films were those the expressive style carefully chose and coded for Cantometrics, Choreometrics, Parlametrics, Phonotactics and the other studies herein, and then are now in The Global Jukebox. Physical copies are presently housed within the Alan Lomax Collection at the American Folklife Center at The Library of Congress in Washington D.C. We thank the individual collectors, institutions and archives that have permitted us to stream their recordings here; the Smithsonian Folkways and the International Library of African Music; and the Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie of the CNRS, France for lending help and support in contacting rights holders in their archives. Above all we thank the many artists and tradition bearers who have lent their voices to posterity.
 
Twenty-three Australian Cultures and sixty-five Indigenous North American Tribes in Canada and the United States are represented in our Archival Materials. Audio and video recordings of these peoples will not be published on the Global Jukebox until we have obtained permission from their Tribal Representatives.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Monday, May 1 at 5 PM - 7:30 PM
 
Foley Square
111 Worth St, New York, New York 10013
 
 
 
May Day history: Celebrating May 1st as May Day started in Chicago in 1886 as part of the labor movement's fight for the eight-hour work day. May Day, the international workers' holiday, was born in the United States!
 
5:00 PM: May Day Celebration in Manhattan
At 5:00 p.m. New Yorkers from across the city will converge in Manhattan to stand together and resist the policies of the Trump Administration. Join us as we hear from musical performers who represent the diverse communities of New York City and directly from people impacted by Trump's bigoted and anti-worker policies.
 
ALL DAY: May Day activities throughout the City
Throughout the day on Monday, May 1st, events will be happening across the city, in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. Check back soon for a full list of events.
 
 
ABOUT:
We are a coalition of immigrant rights groups, labor, faith and allied organizations coming together to say in one voice that we stand together and we resist together. We demand that President Trump end his attacks on our immigrant, refugees and Muslim communities. We demand good jobs and the right to organize. We demand Congress pass a federal budget that reflects our priorities, that doesn't include a single dollar for a border wall or unjust immigration enforcement.
 
 
WHO WE ARE
Sponsors: 32BJ SEIU, Make the Road New York, New York Immigration Coalition, New York Nurses Association, New York Central Labor Council
 
Co-sponsors: 78 LIUNA, 79 LIUNA, African Communities Together, ALIGN NY, Arab American Association of New York, Building Trades Employers' Association: NYC's Alliance of Union Contractors, Central Labor Council, Chhaya Community Development Corporation, Citizen Action of New York - New York City Chapter, Community Voices Heard, CAIR-New York, CWA Local 1180, DC37 - Local 983, Faith in New York, Food & Water Watch - New York, Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, Hispanic Federation, The Interfaith Center of New York, Iron Workers Local Union 46 JATC, Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice [JFREJ], LatinoJustice PRLDEF, Laundry, Distribution Food Service JB, Associated Musicians of Greater New York, Local 802 AFM, Make the Road New York, Mason Tenders, MinKwon Center for Community Action, Muslim Community Network, NICE, NY Communities, New York Civil Liberties Union - NYCLU, The New York Immigration Coalition, New York Professional Nurses Union, New York State Nurses Association, Progressive Cities, PSC, Rural & Migrant Ministries, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), SEIU 1199, SEIU 32BJ, New York State AFL-CIO, New York Teamsters, Syria Solidarity NYC, TWU, UFT - United Federation of Teachers, U.S. Labor Against the War NYC Chapter, WITNESS , Workers United, Workers United New York, The Workmen's Circle, and Writers Guild of America, East, Lab/Shul. (list in formation)
 
 
Find an event near you - click here for events in other cities in New York. 
 
 
 
 
 
Join us for a panel discussion on the 2016 election, Trump presidency, and what comes next for the left on Wednesday, May 3 (4:30 PM) at the Tamiment Library. 
 
Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
70 Washington Square South
10th Floor
New York, NY 10012
 
 
A reception with wine and cheese will follow the lecture. This event is sponsored by the Frederic Ewen Center.
 
Moderator: Greg Grandin is Professor of History at NYU and the author of a number of prize-winning books, including The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World, which won the Bancroft Prize in American History. He is also the author of Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan 2009) and most recently Kissinger's Shadow (Metropolitan 2015). He has published in The New York Times, Harper's, The Nation, The Boston Review, The Los Angeles Times, and The American Historical Review. 
 
Panel participants:
 
  • Amber A'Lee Frost is a writer and musician in Brooklyn. She is a contributor to Rosa Luxemburg: Her Life and Legacy and False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
  • Deva R. Woodly, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the New School. A former fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study (2012-2013), she is the author of The Politics of Common Sense: How Social Movements Use Public Discourse to Change Politics and Win Acceptance (Oxford 2015). Her current book projects are #BlackLivesMatter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements, and What We Talk About When We Talk About the Economy, a broad investigation of American economic discourse and its implications for politics and policy in the post-Great Recession era. 
  • Fredrik deBoer is an academic and writer. He works at Brooklyn College in the City University of New York system.  His work has appeared in numerous publications such as Jacobin, the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. 
  • Sarah Leonard is a senior editor at The Nation and co-editor of The Future We Want: Radical Ideas for a New Century. She is a contributing editor to Dissent and The New Inquiry.
 
RSVP: email tamiment.events@nyu.edu with guest name(s) & event title.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thursday, May 4th, 2017
6:00pm - 9:00pm
 
Cornell ILR Conference Center
16 East 34th Street, 6th Floor, New York City
(between 5th and Madison)
 
This event is free but seating is limited!
 
 
El Pueblo se Levanta/The People Are Rising (1971)
 
Introduction led by Iris Morales, former central committee member of the Young Lords Party, filmmaker and author of Through The Eyes of Rebel Women: The Young Lords, 1969-1976; She will be joined by filmmakers Peter Barton, Bev Grant and Florrie Summergrad.
 
In the late '60s, conditions for Puerto Ricans in the US reached the boiling point. Faced with racial discrimination, deficient community services, and poor education and job opportunities, Puerto Rican communities began to address these injustices by using direct action. This film focuses on the community of East Harlem, capturing the compassion and militancy of the Young Lords as they implemented their own health, educational, and public assistance programs and fought back against social injustice. Sponsored by Third World Newsreel. [50 minutes]
 
The Long Ride (2016)
 
Introduction by Patricia Campos-Medina, a former organizer of Immigrant Worker Freedom Rides and current extension faculty at The Worker Institute.
 
The Long Ride is a timely new documentary about the 2003 Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride which sparked the new movement for immigrant workers in the United States. Alarmed by increasing workplace abuses, more than 900 immigrants and allies traveled from ten cities across America to focus public attention on the plight of immigrant workers and call for reform of the broken immigration system. They were inspired by the 1961 Civil Rights Movement Freedom Riders who risked their lives fighting to end segregation. The film chronicles their journey and the on-going fight for immigrant rights to this day. The Long Ride follows the journey of more than 100 Riders from Northern California. Directed by Valerie Lapin. [77 minutes]
 
Read the interview with director Valerie Lapin & narrator Rigo Valdez 
 
 
Presented in collaboration with the Workers Unite! Film Festival, Third World Newsreel and Radical Film Network: Global Gathering. This screening is free but seating is limited.
 
 
The Worker Institute at Cornell engages in research and education on contemporary labor issues, to generate innovative thinking and solutions to problems related to work, economy and society. The institute brings together researchers, educators and students with practitioners in labor, business and policymaking to confront growing economic and social inequalities, in the interests of working people and their families.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cinema Village
22 East 12th Street, New York, NY 10003
 
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
 
 
CWA, proudly fighting for workers' rights against AT&T, helps sponsor this evening of the film festival.
 
CWA Fights for Fairness Against AT&T & Bargaining with AT&T Mobility & Why A Union? - We're all in for a fair contract at AT&T Mobility. Bargaining starts January 25 and we are united and ready to do whatever it takes for good jobs, fair wages, and real job security. CWA international president Chris Shelton came to San Jose, California at an AT&T Mobility store protest on April 9, 2017. It was the one year anniversary of the expiration of the contract for 17,000 CWA District 9 AT&T workers who are trying to negotiate a new contract without concessions on healthcare, outsourcing and pensions. (2017, 5 min)
 
Ludlow, Greek Americans in the Colorado Coal War - The story of Greek immigrants who were brought to the Colorado coal mines to work under inhuman conditions and who, together with immigrants from 22 other countries, revolted and wrote a proud page of American labor history, known as the Colorado Coal War of 1913-14. (2017, 1 hr 11 min)
 
 
 
Welcome to the Film Festival for the 99%
 
 
The Workers Unite Film Festival is a celebration of global labor solidarity in New York City each May.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Left Forum 2017 Opening Plenary - "Challenging State Repression"
 
June 2nd @ 7:00pm
 
John Jay College
New York, NY
 
 
As crony capitalists and corporate behemoths work to suck the last iota of profits and resources from a planet in crisis, they make intensified use of strategies like border walls, militarized policing, surveillance, incarceration, deportation, and the racism that garners support for them, to repress and re-channel dissent. But today we also see the rise of movements that challenge these repressive institutions and discourses, linking them with the exploitation they enable and with racial, gender, and class politics at home. Join us as we explore these obstacles, as well as, the movements and strategies that have been employed to challenge them.
 
Featured Speakers:
 
Linda Sarsour is a working woman, a racial justice and civil rights activist, every Islamophobe's worst nightmare, and a mother of three. Ambitious, outspoken and independent, Sarsour shatters stereotypes of Muslim women while also treasuring her religious and ethnic heritage. She is a Palestinian Muslim-American and a self-proclaimed "pure New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn!". She is also named among 500 of the most influential Muslims in the world, most known and well respected for her intersectional coalition work and building bridges across issues of racial, ethnic and faith communities.
 
Sarsour has been active in many organizations including the Arab American Association of New York, The Justice League NYC, and she is a co-founder of MPOWER Change and Muslims for Ferguson. She has been at the forefront of major civil rights campaigns including calling for an end to unwarranted surveillance of New York's Muslim communities and ending police policies like Stop and Frisk. She was co-chair of the 2017 Women's March, as well as, the Day without a Woman protest and strike. She has won numerous awards and honors include being named a "Champion of Change" by the White House. Sarsour was introduced to New York Times readers as a political force who, in their words, is "mixing street smarts, activism, and her Muslim identity" and profiled on the front page of the New York Times Metro Section as a "Brooklyn Homegirl in a Hijab."
 
 
Glen Ford is a veteran of broadcast, print, and Internet journalism for more than forty-five years. A former Washington Bureau Chief and correspondent for the White House, Capitol Hill, and State Department, Ford co-founded and hosted America's Black Forum, the first nationally syndicated black news interview program on commercial television. He also launched and owned the radio syndications Black World Report, Black Agenda Report, and Rap It Up, the first national hip-hop music show. He has worked as a radio newsman in various markets and produced over 1,000 radio and TV commercials.
 
Ford has edited or served as staff reporter for three newspapers; he founded two magazines and authored a book titled The Big Lie: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of the Grenada Invasion. He co-founded BlackCommentator.com in 2002 and BlackAgendaReport.com (BAR) in 2006, where he currently serves as executive editor. Along with co-host Nellie Hester Bailey, Ford hosts and produces the weekly one-hour Black Agenda Radio program on the Progressive Radio network.
 
 
Jeremy Scahill is one of the three founding editors of The Intercept. He is an investigative reporter, war correspondent, and author of the international bestselling books Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield and Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere across the globe. Scahill has served as the national security correspondent for The Nation and Democracy Now!.
 
Scahill's work has sparked several congressional investigations and won some of journalism's highest honors. He was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk Award, in 1998 for foreign reporting and in 2008 for Blackwater. Scahill is a producer and writer of the award- winning film Dirty Wars, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award.
 
 
Moderator: Laura Flanders
Best-selling author, Laura Flanders interviews forward-thinking people about the key questions of our time on The Laura Flanders Show, seen weekly on KCET/LinkTV, FreeSpeech TV and in English & Spanish on teleSUR (also available as a podcast). A contributing writer to The Nation magazine and a regular guest on MSNBC, she is the author of six books, including The New York Times best-seller, BUSHWOMEN: Tales of a Cynical Species, and Blue GRIT: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians. The Laura Flanders Show aired on Air America Radio from 2004-2008 prior to which Flanders was the founding host of Your Call on public radio in San Francisco, and founder of the mediawatch program, CounterSpin. She has a long record of media appearances, from Real Time with Bill Maher to The O'Reilly Factor. For more, follow @GRITlaura or visit LauraFlanders.com. 
 
 
More information here.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Premier Women's History Conference Comes to the New York City Metro Area June 1-4, 2017 at Hofstra University in Hempstead on Long Island
 
 
 
 
 
Registration is now open.  For more information email BC2017@hofstra.edu or visit the conference website. 
 
Five months after the historic women's marches on Washington, NYC and around the world, the 17th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders, and Sexualities will take place at Hofstra University, June 1-4, 2017. The Berkshire Conference, held every three years, is the world's largest gathering focused on women's history. This year's theme is Difficult Conversations: Thinking and Talking About Women, Genders, and Sexualities Inside and Outside the Academy.
 
More than 1,500 people from 35 countries will take part in over 270 panels focusing on women's, gender, and sexuality history, from the ancient to contemporary period and from the East to West. First held in 1973 at Douglass College, Rutgers University, the Big Berks has always provided an opportunity for scholars and teachers to share research, experience, and insights.
 
The 2017 Berkshire Conference is taking place in a climate where women around the globe perceive their rights to be under attack. The program is taking its cue from the January 21st Women's March which came on the heels of President Donald Trump's inauguration, during which many anti-women sentiments were brought to light.  All over the world, people advocated for legislation and policies promoting women's rights and human rights.
 
To a greater extent than ever before, the 2017 Berkshire Conference is involving K-12 teachers, activists, artists, public intellectuals, writers, performers, veterans, and formerly incarcerated people. The conference has a reputation for being more informal than most academic events and welcomes members of the public to its sessions.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Oscar López Rivera is coming to the NYC Area after 36 years in prison for his struggle for independence and sovereignty for Puerto Rico.
 
Welcome Oscar to NYC Facebook page