Portside

Responses to Trump's State of the Union - Stacey Abrams, Mandela Barnes, Bernie Sanders - speeches and full transcripts
Re: The Green New Deal Is Our Best Hope for Saving the Planet—and Ending Poverty (Aaron Libson)
Virtually Untold story ...Climate Change-Global Warming (Fred Jerome)
Sinking the ship of state  --  cartoon by David Horsey
Re: Senate Pressured to Defeat 'Unconstitutional' Attack on Right to Protest (David Pearce; Asenueh Meritye; Harry Bowman; Lydia Brady)
Re: Kennedy, King and Malcolm Families to Congress: Reopen Probes (Heather Gray)
Ralph Northam  --  cartoon by Rob Rogers
Re: Sorting Through the Lies About Venezuela (Michael Sherraden; Harry Targ; Christopher Martin; Aaron; Charles Ostman; Heather Cottin; David R Smith)
Re: Global Left Midweek - Venezuela Coup Threat (CPUSA; Peggy Dobbins; CCDS)
Re: Ocasio-Cortez Understands Politics Better Than Her Critics (William Kunz; Cher Lunn; Zoi Petrakis)
Redefining Capitalism  --  cartoon by Mike Stanfil (Raging Pencils)
Re: We-Are-Not-Them Exceptionalism: Creating a Global Lost Generation (Mike Liston)
Re: A Labor Movement 2020 Election Strategy (Barbara White Stack)
Re: The Strike As the Ultimate Structure Test (Joe Berry)
Re: Debunking Industry Lies, Analysis Shows Medicare for All Would Cut Costs, Boost Efficiency, and Save Lives (Joseph Maizlish)
Re: Germany to Close All 84 of its Coal-Fired Power Plants (Joanne Osborne)
Re: Olga Benario Prestes: the German Who Fought Fascism, to the Death (Pat Turnbull)
Re: Communists Against the Mafia (Juha Keltti)
Re: Vintage Comics Against War (Dave Kadlecek)
Re: Anti-Vaccination Movement Has Fueled Measles Outbreak in Washington State (Bob Patishnock)

Resources: 

Towards Universal Health Coverage: Expanding Medi-Cal to Low-Income Undocumented Adults (UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education - Institute for Research on Labor and Employment)
Capitalism Has Failed—What Next? (John Bellamy Foster in Monthly Review)
FREE E-book: Socialist Strategy and Electoral Politics (Haymarket Books)

Announcements:

Change in Mexico: Migration Policy, Economic Renewal & New Government - New York City - February 8 (CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies; CUNY Mexican Studies Institute; Center for Mexican Studies at Columbia University)
The Future of American Labor: Initiatives for a New Era - Washington, DC - February 8 & 9 (Albert Shanker Institute)
Free Workshop: Writing While Black - New York - February 13 (National Writers Union)
The Makings of a Progressive Foreign Policy - New York City - March 1 (The Murphy Institute - CUNY School of Labor & Urban Studies)
Linda Sarsour w/ Paula Chakravartty - NYU Skirball Talks - New York - March 25 (A/P/A Institute at NYU)

 

Responses to Trump's State of the Union - Stacey Abrams, Mandela Barnes, Bernie Sanders - speeches and full transcripts

Stacey Abrams

 

Listen here.
Full transcript here. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/us/politics/stacey-abrams-speech.html

Mandela Barnes

Listen here.
Remarks as delivered by Wisconsin Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes on behalf of the Working Families Party (WFP) - read here.

Bernie Sanders

Listen here.
Full transcript here.

 

Re: The Green New Deal Is Our Best Hope for Saving the Planet—and Ending Poverty
 

The Green New Deal should add FDR's Labor Bill of Rights to its campaign. Together they amount to a whole new day ! The latter were being proposed by FDR in the days before he died !

Aaron Libson

 

Virtually Untold story ...Climate Change-Global Warming
 

No question that Climate Change -- what used to be called (and should still be called) Global Warming -- has become a major concern among Americans -- as it should be.  But it would help a great deal -- and probably change the focus of the struggle for survival  -- if people were told who the enemy is, or at least one of the major enemies, those who care first about their profits and as long as the profits go up, it is fine with them if the global temperature goes up too.  This virtually untold story was somehow allowed to get into a piece in the NY Times a month ago, buried in the middle of a story on page 4 of the Business Section:

*"As US manufacturing boomed...emissions from the nation's industrial sectors -- including steel, cement, chemicals and refineries -- increased by 5.7 percent. "Policy-makers working on climate change at the federal and state level have so far largely shied away from regulating heavy industry which directly contributes about one-sixth of the country's carbon emissions."

*Only the Times would use the term "shied away from" to describe the government's complicity in causing the disaster we all will have to live with -- or not.

*Isn't it time to focus the struggle on a real enemy -- big-business?

Fred Jerome

Americans’ Concern About Climate Change Surging to Record Levels

Watch here.

Dr. John Kotcher of George Mason University discusses a new poll about climate change and says improvements in media coverage have helped spur the public’s concern about the issue

 

Sinking the ship of state  --  cartoon by David Horsey
 

David Horsey
July 15, 2010
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[David Horsey (born 1951) is an editorial cartoonist and commentator in the United States. His cartoons appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from 1979 until December 2011 and in the Los Angeles Times since that time. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1999 and 2003.]

 

Re: Senate Pressured to Defeat 'Unconstitutional' Attack on Right to Protest
 

How is that even a thing ? How would the government go about enforcing it ? And if I wanted to buy a widget and I chose the Japanese widget over the Israeli one, how long before the police show up at my door ?

David Pearce
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

States make you sign an oath, as a condition of getting employment or disaster assistance you are not, nor do you plan to engage in a boycott of Israel or threaten their economic interests.

Asenueh Meritye
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

So, if boycotting Israel is going to be illegal, what will it be mandatory for me to buy from there?

Harry Bowman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

Go do it now and save your Nation. Protect your rights to speak out.

Lydia Brady
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Kennedy, King and Malcolm Families to Congress: Reopen Probes
 

Here https://portside.org/2019-01-31/kennedy-king-and-malcolm-families-congr… is a listing of the one of the most profound collaborations in America's history to, finally, call for Congress to reopen investigations into the assassinations of American leaders John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X . Please see the sizable list and biographies below of all those calling "for a Truth and Reconciliation Committee to get to the bottom of these tragic murders". 

I personally thank all of those signing on to this initiative and was thrilled when I saw this declaration below to investigate the painful loss of America's leaders who worked and advocated for justice.

Heather Gray
Justice Initiative

 

Ralph Northam  --  cartoon by Rob Rogers
 

Rob Rogers
February 5, 2019
robrogers.com

 

Re: Sorting Through the Lies About Venezuela
 

I greatly value your postings.  However, in this case we are presented by an article by a dreamy lefty, unwilling to face the simple fact that the rhetoric of the left can also be used to subjugate, steal from, starve, and kill "the people".  Maduro in Venezuela is a thug.  He is destroying "the people".  But the author seems unaware of this.  Before setting pen to paper, the author should visit and talk with actual people--not government stooges or other dreamy lefties--in Venezuela.

I am not sure how Portside can screen articles might be able to screen out like this.  An essential first step would be not to assume that, just because it is from the left, it is a worthwhile contribution.  Is some form of external review possible?

Again, I think Portside is, overall, an excellent resource, and I thank you for that.

Michael Sherraden

      =====

I have been reading many articles on the Venezuelan crisis. Even the better ones, such as Marjorie Cohn’s piece in Truthout, I think leave out important elements of the story. The linked article from Portside talks about the system of “duel power” that was institutionalized in Venezuela, beginning at the dawn of the 21st century. It discusses communal political and economic institutions initiated by the Bolivarian Revolution to empower the grassroots base of the revolution. In 2006 at the CCDS https://www.cc-ds.org Convention in Chicago we heard from a guest speaker who was a mayor of a modestly-sized city in Venezuela, discussing duel power. The traditional city council, largely controlled by the locally rich and powerful, was challenged by a communal council. The BR had given power to these communal councils to have input in the allocation of local resources. 

I have no expertise on the magnitude and effectiveness of these grassroots developments and I do not know about the author of the Portside article but he does describe this reality. I did see an excellent documentary on the Pink Tide, then in Brazil, Bolivia, and Venezuela. It showed a scene where one of these communal councils demanded government resources for local housing construction. The people in the community raised hell and forced Chavez to allocate resources that his government had originally vetoed. In other words, as the Portside article suggests, there may have been and still exists people power that remains the source of support for the Bolivarian Revolution.

This brings me to the second point. I think the drive for oil as an explanation is exaggerated. Sure it is force. But in my judgement, what the Bolivarian Revolution or the “pink tide” represents (or represented) is as fundamental challenge to US economic and political hegemony in the hemisphere. It is the same fear ruling classes have about workers, peasants and farmers, the precariat, women, people of color rising up to take power, even in the United States. And as the recent Wall Street Journal report suggests, the ultimate prize in Latin America is overthrowing the Cuban Revolution.

So in my opinion, solidarity should include a discussion of the gains and visions of the Bolivarian Revolution and a clear argument that its defeat will not only be a defeat for Latin Americans but ultimately for all of us.

I look forward to discussion on this.

In solidarity,

Harry Targ

      =====

this is a fantasy, considering current conditions.

Christopher Martin

      =====

While U.S. backed Right-Wing countries in Central and South America are driving millions out as refugees, our government is using illegal means to punish and threaten Venezuela (and Cuba) !

The unspoken assault on poor and working peoples is threatening the economies and lives of millions!

Aaron

      =====

This is possibly the strangest and most delusional article I've ever encountered on the topic of Venezuela.

The inflation is over 1,000,000% / yr, the currency is absolutely worthless.

Caracas ranks among the deadliest cities on the planet, violent crime and gang warfare is completely out of control.

People are fleeing by the millions.  This is the shining example of the people's socialist paradise?  Really???

Of course, you did not mention anything about the years of intervention by China (no, not the US, China).

China has "invested" over $70 billion in various projects, with the proviso that this debt be paid in oil.

Of course, because of incredible mismanagement and corruption, combined with the falling price of crude on the open market, China has become evermore anxious to preserve the current dysfunctional and corrupt government, knowing all too well it will probably never recover its owed debt should the current regime change.

And change it will, as is happening now.

But no, you just want to on endlessly about the workers committees and various experimental governance agendas that bear no semblance at all to what life is really like there.

It's very sad to be so hopelessly delusional.

I do hope eventually the people of Venezuela can eventually rescue their country from this ridiculous current situation . . . and get out of debt to China.

Is this to real for you?

Just wondering . . .

Charles Ostman

      =====

The U.S. overthrew the Guatemalan government and instituted what would become a 40-year nightmare of state-organized mass murder that ultimately cost 200,000 lives. The Chilean effort to build a humane economy was ended with the overthrow of Salvador Allende and the installation of Augusto Pinochet and his murderous regime that immiserated Chileans. Dissimilar results can hardly be expected if the U.S. were to succeed in overthrowing the Venezuelan government and installing a right-wing government that would reverse the many gains of the past 20 years. Hands off Venezuela!

Heather Cottin
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/Portside.PortsideLabor

      =====

I read your most recent post from a link in Naked Capitalism. It's good insight into what the revolution has done for poor people, and yes of course you don't fail to mention the harm caused by US sanctions. But you attribute Maduro's own shortcomings to only "poor management." Not a word about the Mafia Gangster Nation Venezuela has become in the past few years.

David R Smith
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Global Left Midweek - Venezuela Coup Threat
 

what is this?  provoking and deepening division by repeating days late translation of Marina Catucci / Il Manifesto Global (Rome)
Only the Democratic Socialists of America put out an explicit statement condemning Trump’s move.?

Hands off Venezuela!

"The Communist Party USA calls on all our members and friends to immediately contact their senators and representatives to demand an end to this illegal and dangerous intervention in the affairs of a sovereign nation which has done nothing to harm our country or its people."

Peggy Dobbins

      =====

CCDS CALLS ON PROGRESSIVES TO OPPOSE US INTERVENTION IN VENEZUELA

Statement of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS)
January 31, 2019
 
There now should be no doubt that the Trump Administration is pulling out all the stops to overthrow President Nicholas Maduro and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). 

This week US State Department Secretary Mike Pompeo announced Venezuelan bank accounts in the US will be turned over to right wing oppositionist and self-proclaimed president Juan Guaidó. National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that revenues of the Venezuelan-owned oil company PdVSA and its CITGO subsidiaries in the US – worth billions of dollars – are henceforth seized

 

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Understands Politics Better Than Her Critics
 

Not only is it realistic, it is absolutely necessary. Only the corporate class and neo-liberals contest it.

William Kunz
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

According to your own history, this is still lower than it was in the 60s. When your economy was doing great.

Cher Lunn
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

The 70% is at the 10 million mark and over.. if you hit the 10 million mark in profits I bet 100% you have dogged paying taxes on most of that already.

Zoi Petrakis
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Redefining Capitalism  --  cartoon by Mike Stanfil (Raging Pencils)

Mike Stanfil
January 30, 2019
Raging Pencils

 

Re: We-Are-Not-Them Exceptionalism: Creating a Global Lost Generation
 

Is it any wonder we have our own students slaughtering their peers in our neighborhood schools-Amerika, land of...what? Remind me, I forgot. ORGANIZE, GO BERNIE! (or whoever he most sincerely endorses) we can fix this

Mike Liston 

Re: A Labor Movement 2020 Election Strategy

(posting on Portside Labor)
 

“Civil Rights, Immigrant Rights and Women’s Rights”

Right. But what about LGBTQ rights?

Barbara White Stack

 

Re: The Strike As the Ultimate Structure Test

(posting on Portside Labor)
 

This is great piece.  I remember reading other work by Steuben back in the day. Nice to know his personal history too, though hardly surprising. I am sorry that McAlevey feels the need to dis those organizing among contingent workers (gig workers) and people who are organizing demonstration strikes. They are not useless and can be useful buildups to real power strikes, as she herself mentions in the UE example (or the more recent CWA tactic “just practicing”). Her list of the basic industries that employ key elements of today’s US working class is spot-on (logistics, education and health care) as is her analysis of who is in these sectors. She might well have linked this to the casualization of all three of those sectors (if not the gig economy, certainly more and more contingent workers) with contingent college faculty (and even K-12 teachers and staff), traveling nurses and health care workers, the massive logistics warehouse with mostly subcontracted workers and the misclassified-as-independent-contractors port-truckers. 

Joe Berry

 

Re: Debunking Industry Lies, Analysis Shows Medicare for All Would Cut Costs, Boost Efficiency, and Save Lives
 

Because I see no mention of what happens to those currently being paid for pushing papers around as workers in the insurance/payment/non-payment system, I assume that part of the savings would come from dis-employing them.

Is that correct?

And if their disemployment is part of the claimed cost savings, what would it cost to help them move to other employment, or support them during their attempt to find other employment?  And where will that payment come from?

Society and economy suffer from fragmented thinking, with claims of savings in one place with silence about the costs they impose on another, and too little comprehensive discussion.  It's ONE big interactive systems.

Do the Single-Payer or Medicare for All campaigns have something in mind for those many thousands to be displaced?

I like Single Payer / Medicare for All; I'd like them even if there will be NO savings to government or society from instituting them.

And I believe the campaigns for them would be all the stronger if advocates could show what they have in mind for the employment casualties.

Joe Maizlish, Los Angeles

 

Re: Germany to Close All 84 of its Coal-Fired Power Plants
 

So if renewable energy sources will provide electric for 65% to 80% needed electric, from where does the other 20% to 35% come?

Joanne Osborne
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Olga Benario Prestes: the German Who Fought Fascism, to the Death

Ruth Werner's powerful book 'Olga Benario' was an inspiration to me as a young woman, and her daughter is right, Olga's story can inspire young women today.

Pat Turnbull
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Communists Against the Mafia
 

Since the last decade of the nineteenth century, the struggle against the mafia has been a struggle against the power of both the ruling classes and their allies; indeed, the mafia itself has over time merged the two categories.

Juha Keltti
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Vintage Comics Against War
 

Interesting review from Monthly Review distributed by Portside in yesterday's email blast. There was one curiously problematic item in the review, "[in] the Preface, Noel Paul Stookey (Paul of Peter, Paul and Mary) recalls sitting with his dad listening to a radio report of the Atom Bomb test in 1945, and a few months later sharing joy at the American victory over Japan." 

The thing is, the Atom Bomb test in 1945 that was a few months before the American victory over Japan was conducted in secret, at a remote location with a cover story that a remote ammunition magazine on the base had exploded. Only that cover story (and reports of what civilians had seen from far away) made local news at the time of the test, and it wasn't reported nationally. Information on the test was released and widely reported after the bombing of Hiroshima, but that was days before Japan's surrender, not months.

Dave Kadlecek
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Anti-Vaccination Movement Has Fueled Measles Outbreak in Washington State
 

The authorities in the State of Washington should pursue legal action charging the parents of these children. 

Criminal Mistreatment in the Second Degree is a class C felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $10,000.

Felony 2 causing substantial bodily harm by withholding basic necessities of life.

This anti science , middle ages superstition , mentality should not cause the life or health of one more innocent child to be in jeopardy

Bob Patishnock
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Towards Universal Health Coverage: Expanding Medi-Cal to Low-Income Undocumented Adults
 

Summary

• Undocumented adults are mostly left out of California’s health insurance system and make up the largest group of uninsured in the state. Low-income undocumented adults have an especially high uninsured rate—90 percent—and are more likely to lack a usual source of care than their counterparts with citizenship or documentation, according to UCLA analysis.
• Expanding Medi-Cal to all low-income adults regardless of immigration status would extend eligibility to approximately 1.15 million undocumented adults in 2020.
• Expanding Medi-Cal to low-income undocumented adults would close one of the biggest remaining coverage gaps in the state’s health care system, reducing the state’s uninsured population by as much as one-quarter.
• Research has shown the value of health insurance for health, access to care, financial security, and worker productivity.
• Under a scenario in which all restricted-scope enrollees are automatically transitioned to full-scope Medi-Cal coverage and additional eligible individuals newly enroll, approximately 1.05 million undocumented adults would be predicted to enroll, of which 104,000 are estimated to be young adults age 19-25 and 25,000 are estimated to be seniors age 65 and over.
• Proposed changes to federal immigration rules threaten to have a chilling effect on enrollment in public programs, even among those individuals not directly affected by the proposed rule change. If the proposed “public charge” rule is finalized and the disenrollment rate among undocumented adults is relatively high (35 percent), the expansion would extend full Medi-Cal benefits to approximately 680,000 undocumented adults in 2020.

Background

California’s approximately 2.2 million undocumented residents are integral to our state’s economy, communities, and families. Undocumented Californians are mostly Latino (86 percent) or Asian American (10 percent). In addition, these adults:

• Make up 9 percent of the state’s workforce, commonly employed in industries including leisure and hospitality (16 percent of undocumented workers), manufacturing (15 percent), and business services (14 percent);
• Contribute approximately $3 billion in state and local taxes each year;
• Are commonly long-term members of our communities with two-thirds (66 percent) having lived in the United States for a decade or longer and nearly three out of 10 (28 percent) owning their home;and
• Are commonly parents of citizen children—approximately one out of six children in California has an undocumented parent.

Read full report here (PDF).

UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education
Institute for Research on Labor and Employment
2521 Channing Way # 5555
Berkeley, CA 94720

Phone: (510) 642-0323
Fax:   (510) 642-6432
Email: laborcenter@berkeley.edu

 

Capitalism Has Failed — What Next?
 

by John Bellamy Foster
February 01, 2019
Monthly Review

Less than two decades into the twenty-first century, it is evident that capitalism has failed as a social system. The world is mired in economic stagnation, financialization, and the most extreme inequality in human history, accompanied by mass unemployment and underemployment, precariousness, poverty, hunger, wasted output and lives, and what at this point can only be called a planetary ecological “death spiral.” The digital revolution, the greatest technological advance of our time, has rapidly mutated from a promise of free communication and liberated production into new means of surveillance, control, and displacement of the working population. The institutions of liberal democracy are at the point of collapse, while fascism, the rear guard of the capitalist system, is again on the march, along with patriarchy, racism, imperialism, and war.

To say that capitalism is a failed system is not, of course, to suggest that its breakdown and disintegration is imminent. It does, however, mean that it has passed from being a historically necessary and creative system at its inception to being a historically unnecessary and destructive one in the present century. Today, more than ever, the world is faced with the epochal choice between “the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large and the common ruin of the contending classes.”

Indications of this failure of capitalism are everywhere. Stagnation of investment punctuated by bubbles of financial expansion, which then inevitably burst, now characterizes the so-called free market. Soaring inequality in income and wealth has its counterpart in the declining material circumstances of a majority of the population. Real wages for most workers in the United States have barely budged in forty years despite steadily rising productivity. Work intensity has increased, while work and safety protections on the job have been systematically jettisoned. Unemployment data has become more and more meaningless due to a new institutionalized underemployment in the form of contract labor in the gig economy. Unions have been reduced to mere shadows of their former glory as capitalism has asserted totalitarian control over workplaces. With the demise of Soviet-type societies, social democracy in Europe has perished in the new atmosphere of “liberated capitalism.”

Read full article here.

 

FREE E-book: Socialist Strategy and Electoral Politics (Haymarket Books)
 

They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. This is too much, even for a joke. But it is not a subject for levity; it is an exceedingly serious matter.”
—Eugene V. Debs

With the far-right on the rise globally, a viable left-wing alternative movement is urgently needed. In the United States, a growing socialist movement seeks to confront and defeat Trump's toxic mixture of racism, misogyny, isolationism, and empty “anti-establishment” rhetoric, as well as the bi-partisan status quo that gave him room to rise. This reborn socialist movement faces many questions about strategy—especially in its approach to electoral politics.  

As a contribution to that conversation, Haymarket Books has collaborated with Verso Books and Jacobin Magazine to put together a FREEEbook, Socialist Strategy and Electoral Politics: A Report, along with a Haymarket Books reading guide on the history, theory, and politics of socialist strategy and the state.

In this collection of new and previously published essays, activists and scholars from across the socialist left seek to grapple with politics in the wake of the election of Donald Trump and the surprising popularity of Bernie Sanders' primary campaign in 2016, as well as the failure of center-left parties across the world to halt the ascent of right-wing populism. They refuse to be satisfied with asking, “Who can we get elected to office?” Instead, they consider how and why socialists should participate in the electoral arena. Some reflect on the possible gains: that through electoral campaigns our ideas might spread and our ranks could swell, or that we might learn valuable lessons for the next fight. Other contributors argue that we should pay more attention to those who are left out of electoral politics—the disenfranchised, the undocumented, the poor—and be wary of the narrowing of horizons that is, in general, the result of governing. Despite these disagreements, the goal of all contributors is to help the left understand where it should go from here, and inspire those not yet organized and active to join the growing socialist movement.

Contributors include Seth Ackerman and Daniel Denvir, Sofia Arias, Sumaya Awad, and Bill V. Mullen, Ben Beckett and Neal Meyer, Eric Blanc, Todd Chretien, Danielle Corcione, Ariel Diliberto, and James Yeun, Meagan Day, Barry Eidlin, Nick Estes, Ted Fertik, Lauren Fleer, Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, Charlotte Heltai, Matthew Karp, Kim Moody, Charles Post, Aziz Rana, Kshama Sawant, Lester Spence, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and the Viewpoint Collective.

Continue to the reading guide...

Download your FREE Ebook

50% OFF Haymarket Books Black Liberation (thru Feb. 28)
 

Haymarket Books

 

Change in Mexico: Migration Policy, Economic Renewal & New Government - New York City - February 8
 

Friday, February 8, 2019 at 1:30 PM – 3:30 PM

The Murphy Institute, CUNY SLU
25 W 43rd Street - 19th Floor 
New York, New York 10036

CHANGE IN MEXICO: Migration Policy, Economic Renewal, and the New Government

A discussion with TATIANA CLOUTHIER (Congresswoman from Mexico; former campaign director for current President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador) and ROBERTO VALDOVINOS (Director, Institute of Mexicans Abroad)

Join us for the exclusive opportunity to learn from and speak with two high-ranking officials from the new Mexican government led by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The speakers will address a wide range of topics relating to U.S.-Mexico relations, migration, economic renewal, and MORENA coalition's approach to leading the new government.

A light lunch and refreshments will be served.

RSVP:  
 

Sponsored by:

CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies
CUNY Mexican Studies Institute
Center for Mexican Studies at Columbia University

 

The Future of American Labor: Initiatives for a New Era - Washington, DC - February 8 & 9
 

The American labor movement is at a critical moment in its history. As workers, advocates, and union leaders chart a path forward, what initiatives, reforms, and organizing models hold the most promise to restore power to working people?

On February 8-9, hear from the nation’s top labor leaders, including AFT President Randi Weingarten President, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, and AFSCME President Lee Saunders, alongside former U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez and Co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), among others, as they discuss and debate the future of organized labor.

“The Future of American Labor: Initiatives for a New Era” is sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute, The Century Foundation, and The Harrison Institute for Public Law. Additional support is provided by The American Prospect, Dissent, Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor Georgetown University, and Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations.

Friday, February 8, 2019
12:30PM to 6:00PM

Saturday, February 9, 2019
9:30AM to 4:00PM

Georgetown University Law Center
Hart Auditorium
600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001

Register here.

Panels during the two-day conference include:

•     A Legislative and Policy Agenda for American Labor
•     Sectoral Bargaining Internationally: What Are The Lessons for American Labor?
•     Sectoral Bargaining: America’s Past, Present and Future
•     Public Sector Unionism Moves Forward in the Wake of Janus
•     Teacher Insurgency: What Are The Strategic Challenges?
•     Organizing Millennials Using Digital Communication Tools

Confirmed speakers include:

• Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus
• Tom Perez, former U.S. Secretary of Labor; Chairman, Democratic National Committee
• Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers
• Lee Saunders, President, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
• Mary Kay Henry, President, Service Employees International Union
• Chris Shelton, President, Communications Workers of America
• Becky Pringle, Vice President, National Education Association
• Bob King, former President, The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW)
• Fred Albert, President, AFT-West Virginia
• Kate Andrias, University of Michigan Law School
• Craig Becker, General Counsel, AFL-CIO
• Harvey Bischof, President, Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, Canada
• Kate Bronfenbrenner, Director of Education Research, Senior Lecturer, Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations
• Leo Casey, Executive Director, Albert Shanker Institute
• Larry Cohen, former President, Communication Workers of America (CWA)
• Karen Curtis, Deputy Director, International Labor Standards Department, ILO
• Elizabeth Davis, President, Washington Teachers Union
• Keith Ewing, Professor of Law, King’s College London
• Sarita Gupta, Co-Executive Director, Jobs with Justice
• Carolyn Jones, Director and John Hendy, General Counsel, UK Institute for Employment Rights
• Brent McDonnell, Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees (GAGE)
• Harold Meyerson, Executive Editor, The American Prospect
• Cecilia Nahon, Argentine labor expert, American University
• Sandra Polaski, Independent Expert; former Deputy Director General, ILO
• Mark Zuckerman, President, The Century Foundation

Albert Shanker Institute
555 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Tel: 202-879-4401

 

Free Workshop: Writing While Black - New York - February 13
 

Wednesday, February 13, 2019 at 6 PM – 9 PM

National Writers Union
256 West 38th Street, Suite 703
New York, NY 10018

The National Writers Union invites you to a forum...

WRITING WHILE BLACK: CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES AND REWARDS OF WRITING FROM THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

Featuring:

• Herb Boyd (Moderator), award-winning journalist & book author.
• Bill Fletcher Jr., acclaimed labor journalist & social justice advocate. 
• JP Howard, widely acclaimed poet, author, educator, and curator.
• Yusef Salaam is the author of The Devil & Elijah Muhammad and a children’s book, Elijah Muhammad: Builder of a Nation.  
• Raymond Nat Turner: Poet-in-Residence at Black Agenda Report, WBAI's Morning Metro, Ralph Poynter's "What's Happening?" Blog Talk Radio.
• Eartha Watts-Hicks, award-winning author and marketing consultant.

A Free event open to all writers.

Light Refreshments will be served.

RSVP: sheard2001@gmail.com

 

The Makings of a Progressive Foreign Policy - New York City - March 1
 

The Makings of a Progressive Foreign Policy

Friday, March 1, 2019 – 9:00am-10:30am

CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies
25 West 43rd Street
18th Floor
New York, NY 10036 

Featuring:

• Aziz Rana, Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
• Steve Fraser, Editor-at-Large, New Labor Forum

Progressive activists and political leaders in the U.S. have been slow to elaborate a vision regarding foreign policy. Although anti-interventionism and support for decreases in military spending are widely shared stances on the left, they do not comprise a comprehensive foreign policy platform.

What accounts for the lack of attention toward developing a progressive foreign policy platform? What would such a platform consist of? What would a non-imperial vision of the U.S. in the world look like? What current alliances would such a platform call into question? What are the current possibilities and the substantial obstacles to advancing a contemporary progressive vision for foreign policy? What can we expect from the growing progressive wing of Congressional Democrats?

Join us on Friday, March 1 as Aziz Rana of Cornell Law School presents his take on the potential elements and strategies of a progressive U.S. foreign policy. Steve Fraser of the New Labor Forum will moderate.

Register here.

 

Linda Sarsour w/ Paula Chakravartty - NYU Skirball Talks - New York - March 25

Monday, March 25, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Organizer: A/P/A Institute at NYU

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 LaGuardia Place
New York, NY 10012

Presented by NYU Skirball and the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU. Co-sponsored by NYU Sanctuary, NYU Center for Multicultural Education & Programs, Islamic Center at NYU, and NYU Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies.

Award-winning, Brooklyn-born Palestinian American Muslim racial justice and civil rights activist Linda Sarsour delivers a lecture on migration, refugees, and the politics of sanctuary. Best known for her intersectional coalition work and building bridges across racial, ethnic, and faith communities, Sarsour has been at the forefront of major social justice campaigns both locally in New York City and nationally. She is a board member of the Women’s March on Washington, the former Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York, and co-founder of MPOWER Change, the first Muslim online organizing platform. She is joined in conversation with Paula Chakravartty (NYU Gallatin and NYU Department of Media, Culture, and Communication).

Held weekly every Monday at 6:30 p.m. during the academic terms, SKIRBALL TALKS hosts visionaries from the worlds of politics, the arts, sciences, academia, and more.

TICKETS

Linda Sarsour is an award-winning racial justice and civil rights activist, seasoned community organizer, and 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 the former Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York and co-founder of the first Muslim online organizing platform, MPOWER Change. Sarsour 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. In the wake of the police murder of Mike Brown, she co-founded Muslims for Ferguson to build solidarity amongst American Muslim communities and encourage work against police brutality. She is a member of the Justice League NYC, a leading NYC force of activists, formerly incarcerated individuals, and artists working to reform the New York Police Department and the criminal justice system.

Sarsour co-chaired the March2Justice, a 250-mile journey on foot to deliver a justice package to end racial profiling, demilitarize police, and demand the government invest in young people and communities. She was instrumental in the Coalition for Muslim School Holidays to push New York City to incorporate two Muslim high holy holidays in to the NYC Public school calendar. New York City is now the largest school system in the country to officially recognize these holidays. Sarsour is also a Senior Fellow at Auburn Seminary along leading social justice faith leaders. She was the National Co-Chair of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, dubbed the largest single-day protest in US history. She serves on the executive board of Women’s March, Inc., where she focuses on fundraising and direct action planning.

Sarsour has received numerous awards and honors including the “Champion of Change” from the White House, the YWCA USA’s Women of Distinction Award for Advocacy and Civic Engagement, the Hala Maksoud Leadership Award from the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Andrew Young Foundation’s Annual International Leaders Award, the Shirley Chisholm Award by the New York City Council, and was recognized by the NAACP New York State Conference. Sarsour was named among five hundred of the most influential Muslims in the world, fify of the world’s greatest leaders by Fortune Magazine, Essence Magazine’s WOKE 100,  and featured on the Time 100’s list of the world’s most influential people. Sarsour was profiled on the front page of the New York Times Metro Section, dubbed “Brooklyn Homegirl in a Hijab,” and introduced as, “mixing street smarts, activism and her Muslim identity, Linda Sarsour has become a political force.” She has written for and has been featured in local, national, and international media discussing impact of domestic policies that target Arab and Muslim American communities, criminal justice issues, immigration, and Middle East affairs. Sarsour is well respected amongst diverse communities in both New York City and nationally. She is most recognized for her transformative intersectional organizing work and movement building.

Paula Chakravartty is associate professor in the NYU Department of Media, Culture and Communication and the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Her research and teaching interests span comparative political economy, social movements and global governance, and decolonial and critical race theory. Her books include Race, Empire and the Crisis of the Subprime (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), Media Policy and Globalization (Edinburgh University Press, 2006), and Global Communications: Towards a Transcultural Political Economy (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008). Recent publications include a special issue on “Mediatized Populisms: Inter-Asian Lineages” for the International Journal of Communication (December 2017) and “Infrastructures of Empire: Towards a Critical Geopolitics of Media and Information Studies” for Media, Culture and Society (2016). Her current research focuses on racial capitalism and global media infrastructures, and migrant labor mobility and justice. Chakravartty is a member of the NYU Sanctuary Coalition and the NYU Coalition for Fair Labor. She serves on the executive board of the NYU Association for University Professors (AAUP), and is affiliated faculty at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, South Asia at NYU, and the NYU Hagop Kevorkian Center of Near Eastern Studies.