Tidbits - Jan. 3, 2019 - Reader Comments: Yemen Cut-Off; U.S. Priority: War; Teacher Strikes; Jeff Bezos; Meatpcking and Mine Safety; Migrants and Immigration; Hotel Strike; People's History Lessons; and more...
Re: Major Liberal Groups Silent As Senate Passes Historic Yemen Resolution (Tracy Turner; Jacqueline Wallace)
Re: The United States is First in War, But Trailing in Crucial Aspects of Modern Civilization (Frank Zuback; Dale Jacobson; Rick Hilber; Joe Wylie; Joe Maizlish; Marc Batko; Cary Berkelhamer; Roberto Buxeda; Margaret Treza Moffat)
Re: LOOK BACK 2018: West Virginia Teachers Strike for Better Pay (Daniel Millstone)
New Year on Ice -- cartoon by Rob Rogers
Re: Jeff Bezos Has Enough! (Cliff Gulliver; Allan Goldhammer; Janet K Buck; James Johnson; John Wiesen)
Re: Trump Administration Wages War On Meatpacking Industry Workers (Phyllis Mandel; Linda Lipps; Maria Loizou)
The Bricks in Trump's Wall -- cartoon by Raging Pencils (Mike Stanfill)
Re: Why Hondurans See Migration as an Act of Civil Disobedience (Alan Lemke; Wilf Hanson)
Re: It's Never "Just the Immigrants" (Scotty Jo Richey; Kitty Sheley; Ciara Preston)
Re: Marriott Hotel Strikers Set a New Industry Standard (Harry Brill)
Re: At Last, Divestment Is Hitting the Fossil Fuel Industry Where it Hurts (Jon Evans)
Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands Of Coal Miners. Regulators Could Have Stopped It (Mike Liston)
Re: A Point of Holiday Agreement: Stop Wasting Money on the Pentagon (Melanie Foxcroft)
Re: For a Dead Movement, Labor's Been Showing a Lot of Life (Michael Munk)
Re: It’s Never Just About the Burger: The Ethical Pitfalls of a Food Critic’s Viral Essay (Wendi Galczik; Rob Breeding; Laura Yaros)
Re: I Hate New Year's Day (Dave Ecklein)
Resources:
Ten Most Popular People's History Lessons in 2018 (Zinn Education Project)
Announcements:
Free Screening: Johnson, Nixon & Vietnam: Reversal of Fortune - New York - January 5 (Vito Marcantonio Forum)
Re: Major Liberal Groups Silent As Senate Passes Historic Yemen Resolution
PDA spearheaded the effort!!!! Far from being silent
Tracy Turner
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Whoever did this is right!! Where indeed were the liberals. What are the names of those who remained silent?
Jacqueline Wallace
Portside's Facebook page
Re: The United States is First in War, But Trailing in Crucial Aspects of Modern Civilization
This article demonstrates once again the need for people to vote? and for some standardization in educational achievement (most local school boards have failed miserably at educating their young).
Frank Zuback
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National security: poverty.
Dale Jacobson
Portside's Facebook page
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My wow is that something so obvious is subject of commentary in a major publication, but yes, especially if this one is about the trade-offs.
Rick Hilber
Portside's Facebook page
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Sobering
Joe Wylie
Portside's Facebook page
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Yes, the military primacy does explain the dismal other statistics, but it isn't only the (ab)use of the money. It's the value system which prioritizes the military and "de-prioritizes" everything else.
Being "the richest" results in part from the domination of the resources and economies of other lands, and that involved dedication to military and political/economic intervention. So the distortion has haunted the system from the beginning.
We can change the situation. There have been many who tried and we can join them. At least it will reduce the damage that would be worse without our efforts.
Joe Maizlish, Los Angeles
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Wells Fargo purchased $64 billion of stock and triggered the 1000-point surge. In 2018, corporations bought $1 trillion of their own stock. According to Ralph Nader, corporations have spent $6-7 trillion in stock buybacks since 2005! Nothing to see here!
If you're searching for Russians in your cornflakes or scapegoating immigrants, those responsible for injustice and stealing trillions of taxpayer money have a heyday!
Marc Batko
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Crucial aspects of Civilization don't make the Elites as much money as war.
Cary Berkelhamer
Portside's Facebook page
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You can’t sacrifice fairness, humility and reason constantly and expect to be loved. Many millions punish the US by avoiding their products, even domestically this is occurring and there is no better example than the sale of cars.
Roberto Buxeda
Portside's Facebook page
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Of course! Republicans put us in Never-Ending-Wars to enrich the Industrial war Complex. Those companies get paid to produce, then we have to buy what they produce- needed or not!!. That way the 1% Corporations & their CEO’s can keep pouring money into the Republican “War Chests” to re-elect, or replace, those members of Congress who do their bidding. Trump doesn’t understand the Republicans WANT TO BE THE WORLD’s Police! That’s WHY we spend over 55% of our National Budget for Military uses!
Margaret Treza Moffat
Portside's Facebook page
Re: LOOK BACK 2018: West Virginia Teachers Strike for Better Pay
(posting on Portside Labor)
One of the biggest changes in the political and social landscape in 2018 was the rash of teachers' strikes. It is essential to look at those stirring events in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona and to learn from them. Here, via Portside, a report from West Virginia. Speaking for me? I want more. How did teachers do this? Did the NEA and the AFT play any role here or elsewhere? Will the mass efforts that were so successful dissipate or be built upon?
Daniel Millstone
Portside's Facebook page
New Year on Ice -- cartoon by Rob Rogers
Rob Rogers
December 29, 2018
robrogers.com
Didn't we sort of have that in the pre Reagan tax code? The one that created the American Dream?
Cliff Gulliver
Portside's Facebook page
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What is a wage? With so many words describing how money flows in, it will surely find it's way around the feeble blockade of a wage limit. Commission, bonus, unearned income, windfall, dividend, fee.
Allan Goldhammer
Portside's Facebook page
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Tax code in the 50's & 60's created the middle class. Now we have a bunch of Gordon Gekko's running the corporations and our government that don't care about anyone but themselves. Witness the shrinking of the middle class in America.
Janet K Buck
Portside's Facebook page
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All great ideas, however when you let the criminals write their own law you sit and wonder why only criminals know were the loopholes are.
James Johnson
Portside's Facebook page
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And the problem is not just CEO pay, which is really a symptom of the nature of our current corporate environment. Amazon, Google, and Facebook for instance have become new forms of monopolies with nearly unchecked power. Lax anti-trust enforcement has led to anti-competitive oligopolies in industries across the board. Airlines, media, agriculture, and on and on.
John Wiesen
Portside's Facebook page
Re: Trump Administration Wages War On Meatpacking Industry Workers
(posting on Portside Labor)
Wasn’t there a famous book written 100 years ago, exactly about the foul (no pun intended) practices of the meat packing industry. A senior moment, makes me forget the name!
Phyllis Mandel
Portside's Facebook page
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Upton Sinclair, The Jungle?
Linda Lipps
Portside's Facebook page
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Yes, Thank you! That’s the book.
Phyllis Mandel
Portside's Facebook page
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With all due respect, can eliminate many of these problems by turning vegan
Maria Loizou
Portside's Facebook page
The Bricks in Trump's Wall -- cartoon by Raging Pencils (Mike Stanfill)
Mike Stanfill
December 29, 2018
Raging Pencils
Re: Why Hondurans See Migration as an Act of Civil Disobedience
Not simple and not false news but is apparently a good overview of relevant Honduran history. Around the world exploited people are looking for Better Lives and have to leave their countries to find it. Wonder why? We should wonder and ask our leaders for more than refugees are bad guys
Alan Lemke
Portside's Facebook page
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Most people in these countries have TV's now and see what life is like in the developed world . Why would they not want a part of it
Wilf Hanson
Portside's Facebook page
Re: It's Never "Just the Immigrants"
It's illegal immigrants that are the problem. Love legal immigrants.
Scotty Jo Richey
Portside's Facebook page
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You're missing the entire point of the article, which makes you a complete patsy for this administration's
machinations
Kitty Sheley
Portside's Facebook page
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It's Scapegoating. Low wages, offshoreing, no healthcare, no educational opportunity. How's that immigrants fault?
Ciara Preston
Portside's Facebook page
Re: Marriott Hotel Strikers Set a New Industry Standard
(posting on Portside Labor)
But not a word about the Oakland settlement in this article or any article I have seen. What's the scoop?
Harry Brill
Re: At Last, Divestment Is Hitting the Fossil Fuel Industry Where it Hurts
Hawaii State Retirement System is still deep in fossil fuel investments . Why? The fossil fuel industry has been conspiring for decades to hold back renewable's. How is it that the state is supporting them? Governor Ige?
Jon Evans
Portside's Facebook page
Re: An Epidemic Is Killing Thousands Of Coal Miners. Regulators Could Have Stopped It
If President Big Brain is impeached, I think, and I'm sure others would agree, he should be sentenced to spend the remainder of his days just. you know, shooting off his big mouth until the coughing shuts him up, in an active coal mine, let justice be served,
Mike Liston
Re: A Point of Holiday Agreement: Stop Wasting Money on the Pentagon
Yes, Pentagon should pass a fiscal audit, reform their accounting, before they get $1 more of money tax dollars!
Melanie Foxcroft
Re: For a Dead Movement, Labor's Been Showing a Lot of Life
"Today, just 10.7 percent of American workers belong to a union. "
And many of them are public employees. The more significant measure of union "penetration" is among those working for capitalist bosses.
Michael Munk
Re: It’s Never Just About the Burger: The Ethical Pitfalls of a Food Critic’s Viral Essay
(posting on Portside Culture)
Interesting..sometimes when i read a critical assessment of something that I know something about, I'll wonder if the critic ever actually was there...But I have never actually eaten somewhere on someone's written recommendation..I read food critics in the Guardian for entertainment value, and they never fail to deliver, because they can really write. I do not live in the UK nor plan on going anytime soon, but I do love their restaurant reviews..Perhaps this reviewer's 'mea culpa' was unnecessary.
Wendi Galczik
Portside's Facebook page
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The journalist’s code of ethics remains in effect, even when you’re reviewing a burger dive ...
Rob Breeding
Portside's Facebook page
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Interesting exploration of important issues.
Laura Yaros
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Why did Jacobin publish this? New Year's Day is not a capitalist property, feel free to celebrate it. It makes Gramsci look like a grumpy old sectarian.
Dave Ecklein
Ten Most Popular People's History Lessons in 2018 (Zinn Education Project)
In 2018, teachers across the United States downloaded people's history lessons from the Zinn Education Project website a total of 50,000 times. Here are the ten most frequently downloaded lessons.
1. Reconstructing the South: A Role Play
This role play engages students in thinking about what freedpeople needed in order to achieve and sustain real freedom following the Civil War.
Learn More.
2. Constitution Role Play: Whose "More Perfect Union"? and The Constitutional Convention: Who Really Won?
What kind of Constitution would have resulted from founders who were more representative of the entire country --- including enslaved people, workers, and farmers? That is the premise of this role play activity.
Learn More.
3. The Color Line
A lesson on the countless colonial laws enacted to create division and inequality based on race. This helps students understand the origins of racism in the United States and who benefits.
Learn More.
4. The People vs. Columbus, et al.
A trial role play asks students to determine who is responsible for the death of millions of Taínos on the island of Hispaniola in the late 15th century. (Roles available in Spanish.)
Learn More.
5. 'If There Is No Struggle...': Teaching a People's History of the Abolition Movement
In this role play, students become members of the American Anti-Slavery Society, facing many of the real challenges to ending slavery.
Learn More.
6. The Cherokee/Seminole Removal Role Play
What led up to the Trail of Tears? Students role play the decision to remove the Cherokee and Seminole people from their lands.
Learn More.
7. U.S. Mexico War: "We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God"
An interactive activity introduces students to the history and often untold story of the U.S. --- Mexico War. (Roles available in Spanish.)
Learn More.
8. 'What We Want, What We Believe': Teaching with the Black Panthers' Ten Point Program
How students can use the Black Panther's Ten Point Program to assess issues in their own communities and to develop Ten Point Programs of their own. (Available in Spanish.)
Learn More.
9. The Election of 1860 Role Play
A role play based on the election of 1860 allows students to explore the political debates of the time and the real reasons for the Civil War.
Learn More.
10. COINTELPRO: Teaching the FBI's War on the Black Freedom Movement
Through examining FBI documents, students learn the scope of the FBI's COINTELPRO campaign to spy on, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt all corners of the Black Freedom Movement.
Learn More.
Free Screening: Johnson, Nixon & Vietnam: Reversal of Fortune - New York - January 5
You are invited to join The Vito Marcantonio Forum's (VMF) free screening of the latest installment of Oliver Stone’s multi-part documentary on January 5th
Johnson, Nixon & Vietnam: Reversal of Fortune
About the film: Episode 7: The hellish nature of the Vietnam War causes the American public to see the limits of modern military power, when faced with thick jungles and guerrilla style warfare. Richard Nixon's administration shows its true methods and causes deep introspection in the American political atmosphere.
About Oliver Stone:This prolific and ingenious screenwriter and director has authored numerous award-winning feature films, including Salvador, The Fourth of July, JFK — that have reached millions of viewers with dramatic depictions of historic events that challenge conventional interpretations of critical events of our time. Stone’s official website is oliverstone.com and his official Twitter handle is: @TheOliverStone
Screening of The Untold History of the United States. Chaired by Gerald Meyer, co-chair of the Vito Marcantonio Forum, the film will be followed by an open discussion.
Saturday, January 5th, 2019 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Community Room at the Mulberry Street Public Library
10 Jersey Street. (btw. Lafayette and Mulberry Sts.)
New York, NY 10012
Light Refreshments / Free Admission
Spread the word