Tidbits - August 17, 2017 - Reader Comments: Time to Stop Honoring Traitors Who Fought for Slavery; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Colin Kaepernick; Growing Up White in America; DSA Convention; Democrats, Single-Payer, future elections; lots of resources; and mor

Reader Comments: Time to Stop Honoring Traitors Who Fought for Slavery - Take Down ALL Symbols of Hate - Sign the petition; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Colin Kaepernick; Growing Up White in America - Unlearning the Myth of American Innocence; DSA's Convention - initial reader responses - what do you think?; Will Democrats Support Single-Payer in future elections; The Forgotten World of Communist Bookstores; lots of resources; and more....

Portside
Printer friendly  
Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources and Announcements - August 17, 2017,Portside
Resources:
Announcements:
Sign here.
White supremacists killed someone in Charlottesville yesterday. Friday night they marched through Charlottesville and the University of Virginia grounds, carrying torches that evoked a history of violent racial terrorism intended to intimidate a community that had recently renamed Robert E Lee Park to Emancipation Park. 
Saturday, white supremacists took the step of ramming into a crowd of peaceful protesters, killing at least one person and injuring more than a dozen others in the name of "honoring" their heritage of hate.
As Tampa and New Orleans are in the process of removing these symbols after sustained organizing, we see why it's so important to keep fighting to remove these statues in honor of slaveowners. After the election of Donald Trump white supremacists have been emboldened and ever more threatening. We must continue to fight to reclaim our public spaces removing all confederate symbols and let white supremacists know they have no place to rally in our country. 
It is past time that we nationally stop the veneration of people who committed treason in the name of slavery! We can no longer coddle white supremacists and indulge their lies about heritage. The Charlottesville murder has to be the moment that forces us to reckon with white supremacy! The continued display of white supremacist symbols in places of honor only serves to further signal that white supremacy is not only tolerated in America but celebrated.
White supremacists are rallying around Confederate statues and using them as a pretext to commit terrorism and murder. Since the Dylann Roof massacre we have seen a national movement to remove symbols of the Confederacy across the nation. As we have been able to find success in cities like Tampa and New Orleans white supremacists have become more desperate as they've been emboldened by Trump.
We cannot allow these white supremacist terrorists to intimidate us from confronting and working to dismantle symbols of white supremacy. Confederate statues are a symbol of white supremacy and its current political power. Terrorists in Charlottesville understood this and were willing to kill in the name of their symbol, we must be determined to persist in the face of this white supremacist terror. We saw in New Orleans what the sustained effort of Take Em Down NOLA has already accomplished as they organized members of the community and launched a campaign on OrganizeFor which has already brought down several monuments. We must continue this effort and Take Em ALL Down everywhere across the country. 
Until justice is real,
--Rashad, Arisha, Johnny, Thomas, Kristen, Chad and the rest of the Color Of Change team
Solidarity Info Services 
4654 Congress Ave., Oakland, CA 94601
Let's not kid ourselves. The fascist right is on the rise in the USA. We must unite to defeat them and their supports even if this includes the so-called President of the U.S. This man is a bad dude and he must be exposed at every opportunity!!!!
Peter Schnall‎
Seriously, Americans have heard of the "pull out" method, right? It's not 100% effective, but it's safer than going without protection  :>)
Josh Davis
Rob Rogers
August 13, 2017
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Call. Write. Talk it up. Share it. Write to sportpage/TV. Marshawn This is opportunity for dialog. Kap is d
Pass it on. Great young man. Courage of his convictions. Pretty good ball player. Two superbowls. Opportunity for good discussions?. Right on Kareem . Right on Kareem
Brian Obrien
    ====
Good question..hummm?
Janvie Cason
    ====
Kareem is very special human being. Great article. We should all stand up, speak up--talk with friends, neighbors, editorials, etc. The struggle continues.
Carole Kennerly
    ====
Everything is find as long as you remain a commodity; however, if you dare become an individual to think for yourself, then we have a problem. Black players represent 70% of the NLF players, a statement has to be made; it will come at a great price. Don't depend on your white counterparts, 100% of the owners are white, remnants of the old south.
Rudolph Greenidge
    ====
"This preference, mostly in the NFL, for “headless” athletes who remain quiet about politics during one of the most tumultuous times in American history is a throwback to an era when athletes were expected to "shut up and stick to sports."
Allan Schnarr
Very interesting, perceptive, how U.S. is viewed in other countries, but also how isolated many white people are growing up in our country.
Jay Schaffner
    ====
really good writing (plus, James Baldwin citing)
Jim Price
Democratic Socialism is the future of our homeland and of humanity.
Alberto Lozada Colón
Puerto Rico
Thanks for reporting on our national convention.
As a point of correction, ‎"Egyptian President Mubarak’s National Democratic Party" ceased to exist over half a decade ago, so it isn't a member of the Socialist International.
In solidarity,
Enrique Calvo
    ====
Saying this:
Meanwhile, the convention’s endorsement of BDS has also unleashed controversy, with strong condemnations from former members who had joined DSA when it held a softer position on Israel. One member wrote “Michael Harrington (the founding leader) would not recognize DSA today"
While ignoring the chant "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free" is a lie by omission that covers up the reason why there is such strong condemnation of the move--it isn't just the support for BDS as an alleged move to promote peace, it is outrage over the call for eliminating Israel and the implicit support for the mass murder of tens of thousands of Jews that would be the only way Israel could be eliminated.  Michael Harrington and most of the other founders would indeed be shocked by such a development at DSA.
Stan Nadel
You do realize that California canned this idea because they could not find the money to pay for it
John Ambrose
    ====
Of course they can find the money. The care is being paid for now only the burden is on those that are sick. Single payer simple means everyone pays into it and the needs of all its citizens are met. If all advanced democracies in the world can pay for care for all then America certainly could. Time to join the civilized world.
Iris Parker
    ====
During primaries, we should try to get the most progressive candidates we can, and we can and should then reunify for the general election. But there are a few "Democrats" who vote like Republicans on many issues, and primary challenges for some of them may be worth doing. This is going to be a turnout election: you don't win by flipping a few people in the middle (the middle hardly exists these days). You win by getting your base to turn out, and you do that with candidates that the base supports. Republicans haven't been winning with moderates. They win with people who throw red meet to their base and make them think it will be the end of the world if their side doesn't win.
Joe Buck
    ====
What is the problem? There should be a health care plan for all. It would distinguish the Democrats from the Republicans.As for Sanders, too bad the Democratic Party didn't let him win the nomination. He would have cleaned Trump. It would have been a very different election and would have engaged the millennials. The neo liberals still in control are obsolete. Time for the Democrats to remake themselves into a truly alternative party to the right wingers.
Laurel MacDowell
(posting on Portside Labor)
It's not YOUR union, brother. It belongs to ALL your members. It's the union of which you are a member.
Ross K. Rieder
Pacific NW Labor History Association
Racism and Bigotry in the hands of politicians and some economic interests applied a form of Apartheid and Racial Cleansing against the Japanese mainly on the West Coast based on a disposition written by the Pres. Never forget that the Jewish refugees that were fleeing the Nazis were turned away by the USA. While some Native American were punished, including executed, just because they were hunting outside the designated Reservation grounds. Can't forget the Slavery System, and subsequent lynchings by White Supremacists. The good thing about these events is that being a relatively open society changes for the better have occurred, with still too much to be done and the ever present dangers such as the Trumpism, Big Capital eternal hunger for more $$$, even if it takes "sleeping with the enemy", etc etc etc...
Jesus Rodriguez-Noble
This is great! Not enough about the 1965-1975 period, though. Communist bookstores were go-to places for all radicals during those years, and going to one was a peculiar experience in and of itself. While other left parties had bookstores, too, none matched the Communists for breadth and depth of their inventory. Global Bookstore in Detroit served as a kind of school for me during my high school and young adult years, as it was for lots of other young black radicals. Most of us wouldn't talk with the people behind the counter, most of whom were white and seemed too old and unapproachable for us. (And as I am now as old as some of those people must have been, I am aware of the irony of the preceding sentence.) But we eagerly bought the books on black history (the Communists were the only source in town besides the one black bookstore, and Global Books was near campus, to boot), as well as other things. I hope, as Joshua Clark Davis's research develops, that he will have something insightful to say about the pivotal pedagogical role these stores had on radicalizing thousands of people, most of whom were not Communists and would never think of becoming actual members of the Communist Party, however much they liked Communist ideas.
Geoffrey Jacques
    ====
Saw this yesterday and immediately thought it seemed Portside-worthy.  Glad they focused in the Oklahoma case.
One quibble: "The Soviets had directed American Communists and overseen their bookstores for decades."  I think this overstates the case a bit, at least in relation to the CP bookstores.  I helped set up one in Milwaukee in 1970- Solidarity Bookstore & Center- and while we had a lot of help from International Publishers and the Party center, we had lots of leeway as to inventory and activities.  The idea that the Soviets were overseeing our little enterprise is laughable.  Indeed, there were separate dedicated outlets for distribution of Soviet books and literature in the US - Imported Publications in Chicago, Four (or was it five?) Continents on Fifth Avenue in New York, and Universal Books (I think) in Greenwich Village.  Perhaps these had a deeper involvement with Soviet entities, but even there "oversight" might be a bit strong.
John Eklund
    ====
Have only skimmed the piece. Does it mention NYC's Jefferson Bookstore? -- I didn't catch it at first read. I considered myself a Trotskyist of a sort in those days and I still thought "the Jeff" was a great place to browse and shop. I remember Stanley Aronowitz comradely teasing the proprietor for carrying a book edited by Isaac Deutscher. Or Pete Seeger coming in for a title. I was also an editor of Radical America then, a mag that didn't share a whole lot with the Party, but the Jeff carried us without question. Now, if truth be told, the SWP in those days had a pretty good bookstore, too--nothing as ecumenical as the Jeff (not as large a selection)  but history shouldn't leave them out. In the 1980s, the RCP had (I think it still has) a decent bookstore in NY that covered a range of titles that its reigning lord Bob Avakian would have choked on, but like the Jeff and the Trots it tried to spread its net widely.
Mike Hirsch
    ====
And I worked part-time at Jefferson bookshop when I was in high school (1969-72) a job that included going to the basement from time to time bringing up books from previous times (numerous copies of Gil Green's The Enemy Forgotten which was perhaps a sad reminder that indeed it had been forgotten; Foster's Toward a Soviet America, Mother Bloor's We Are Many, old booklets from the 20s featuring Marat and Robespierre) and perhaps encouraging my own "revisionism" with the numerous copies of Marxism Today on sale.  That and literature like Hikmet, Neruda, Broadside Press volumes from Detroit it was an education. Dan Rubell ran the store, gruff at times, but a good guy.
Kurt Stand
    ====
I can NOT emphasize enough all the connections evoked by this piece for me.  I began counting the left bookstores I haunted starting in 1965 in various cities (and small towns) -- what a resource for affordable books, folks to talk to and debate, make cross-generational connections to learn real people's history.  Even with all our splits and dogmatism, left and WOMEN's bookstores were integral to political education and even some organizing.  E-books and on-line chats and webinars ain't the same for this old fart.
Leanna Noble
Funny how you leave out the red-baiting from the "Left" wing of the corporatocracy.
Let's not forget that "progressive" Google has decided to start censoring socialist websites such as WSWS.org 
, either. (at least when it comes to allowing them equal representation in search engine results)
Joe Elegua
(posting on Portside Culture)
Thank you for reposting this poem!
Danielle DeTiberus
View here. 
(2:13:05)
Lucas Koerner speaks on the present conflict in Venezuela and the role of the United States. This program was recorded by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV). (Published on Aug 10, 2017)
Lucas Koerner is a journalist at Venezuelanalysis based in Caracas, Venezuela.
Video time: 2:11:40
 
This video presentation on Theodore W. Allen’s “The Invention of White Race,” which opens with some insights from the life and work of Hubert Harrison, has just passed the 111,000-Viewers Mark. It has much important information – please take time to watch it and to share it!
Jeffrey B. Perry
["The Invention of the White Race" (Verso Books) by Theodore W. Allen, especially Vol. II: "The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America."
This Slide Presentation/Talk by Jeffrey B. Perry, which draws on insights from Hubert Harrison, was hosted by The Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society on January 31, 2013, at the Brecht Forum, when it was still located in lower Manhattan.
On this cold night the building had no heat. The standing room only audience is testimony to the growing interest in Theodore W. Allen's important work and in the struggle against white supremacy.
The video was shot by Fred Nguyen and made available Courtesy Fansmiles Productions.]
By Andy Piascik
July 29, 2017
Seventy years after his initial Broadway success with All My Sons and 12 years after his death, Arthur Miller continues to cast a long shadow over theater in the United States. His plays are staples of high school drama clubs, college and university theater departments and regional theaters around the country, and his best-known works – Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, All My Sons, A View From the Bridge and After the Fall – have been revived many times on Broadway.
Miller’s influence also extends beyond the United States. Death of a Salesman, for example, serves as the backdrop to Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s acclaimed 2016 film The Salesman. And it has been said, perhaps apocryphally, perhaps not, that The Crucible has played continuously somewhere in the world since its debut performance in 1953.
Hardly a New York theater season goes by without the revival of one of Miller’s plays. This summer, the esteemed Brooklyn Academy of Music features a revival of Salesman while earlier this year the Roundabout Theatre staged a three-month production of his1968 drama The Price. Among many attributes, the Roundabout production featured a stellar cast with Mark Ruffalo, Tony Shaloub, Jessica Hecht and Danny Devito as the play’s four characters. While not as well-known as any number of Miller’s works, The Price has been revived on Broadway more times – four – than all of his plays except The Crucible, which has also had four revivals over a significantly longer period of time.
Read full story here. 
Listen here. 
Pink Floyd co-founder and bassist Roger Waters called out fellow musicians for not adhering to the cultural boycott on Israel as part of the BDS movement for Palestinian rights in an interview in Washington DC, Wednesday.
Waters said Radiohead singer Thom Yorke was "wrong" for saying that playing in the country does not endorse the government. Waters went on to claim that any artist who chooses to play in Israeli is "making a public statement that they do endorse the policies of the government whatever they say, because that is what will be reported in Israel and that is what gets reported around the world."
Answering a question on why he doesn’t appear often on mainstream media or on popular late night TV shows, Rogers said "We're not quite sure but it comes from above. So you can figure it out for yourself, it's not rocket science."
The comments came after Radiohead refused to cancel a gig scheduled in Tel Aviv last month after supporters of the BDS movement asked the band to join the cultural boycott. Yorke explained the decision in a tweet, saying “playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government.” He also tweeted "we’ve played in Israel for over 20 years through a succession of governments, some more liberal than others. As we have in America."
Published on Aug 9, 2017
Ruptly is an award-winning international news agency that provides real-time and archive visual news content to all media, from broadcast networks large and small to online content providers, including broadcast, digital and mobile platforms. Ruptly launched into full operation in April 2013 with the mission of becoming a competitive alternative to the status quo news agencies by delivering clients exclusive high impact and viral video, a varied selection of daily live feeds...
Lennestrasse 1
10785 Berlin
Germany
Imagine This Women’s International Film Festival announced today that it is raising funds via rewards on Kickstarter. The Film Festival is set out to raise $10,000 on Kickstarter to help cover the cost for the 2nd annual Imagine This Film Festival at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on November 4-5, 2017. ITWIFF has successfully made it through their first year, setting them apart from a list of other indie women’s international film festivals in New York City. 
Mother and daughter duo Susie and Patrice Francois launched Imagine This Women’s International Film Festival (ITWIFF) with the aim to celebrate and empower independent and aspiring women filmmakers from around the world. ITWIFF held its first film festival at Brooklyn’s Wythe Hotel on November 12-13, 2016. The two-day event featured 29 shorts and 6 feature films from female storytellers across 15 countries, an Opening Night/Mixer and an Award Ceremony. Among the festival selections, 8 films made their international debut and 5 were shown in the US for the first time. A number of films touched on themes related to personal struggles within political and social conflicts across the world.
Submissions have recently closed for the 2017 ITWIFF as the festival has received over 200 films from 35 countries. “We’ve seen a tremendous response, and are quite frankly blown away by the quality of submissions we’ve seen,” said Patrice Francois, co-founder of ITWIFF.
“As aspiring filmmakers ourselves, we understood the obstacles that exist for new and up-and-coming filmmakers. We decided it was important to help cultivate an appreciation for a wide range of unique and compelling stories, especially those from women who have been traditionally underrepresented in film.”   
According to a study by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, there remains a substantial gender disparity in the mainstream film industry, with female directors working on only 7% of the top 250 movies of 2014. The study showed that even among independent films at 23 film festivals from 2014-15, women made up only one-fourth of directors and directors, writers, producers, editors, and cinematographers.
“It’s clear that there is tremendous female filmmaking talent out there but there is still so much work to be done to create an inclusive environment that supports women storytellers,” said Susie Francois, co-founder of ITWIFF. “We hope that audiences from across New York will join us to experience these powerful stories from across the world.” 
Imagine This Women’s International Film Festival is scheduled to launch a 45 day Kickstarter campaign on August 11th, 2017. The goal is to raise $10,000 to help fund the cost of their 2nd annual film festival. To support women and young women filmmakers and storytellers, visit ITWIFF Kickstarter campaign page.
About Imagine This Production
Imagine This Productions (ITP) is dedicated to providing aspiring women storytellers and filmmakers with a platform to encourage and develop new creative projects. ITP strives to support women by sharing their work with the public, promoting equal opportunities, encouraging professional development, and serving as a resource and information network.
To learn more about this Film Festival, please contact 
Patrice Francois
845-477-5441