Tidbits - Aug. 29, 2019 - Reader Comments: Sanders Political Revolution; Global Authoritarianism; Immigrant Workers; Jews Disloyal; David Koch; Puerto Rico; Kashmir; Neoliberalism; Socialist Labor Activism; Climate Strike; Fall Calendar;
Re: What Sanders' Political Revolution Looks Like in Real Life (Daniel Millstone; Peggy Powell Dobbins; Laura White Krome; Frank Giger; Suzanne Prescott)
Re: The Rise of Global Authoritarianism (Lilliam Lizardi; Barry Cuthbert)
Re: The Misguided Attacks on 'This Land Is Your Land' (Matt Berkelhammer)
Chosen One -- cartoon by Rob Rogers
Re: Statement from the AHA on Domestic Terrorism, Bigotry, and History (Jan Horowitz)
Re: White Supremacy Is Terrorism, Not a Difference of Opinion (Carl Davidson)
Re: Why It's Immigrants Who Pack Your Meat (Bridget Cheeks; Bryan Bates; Randy Templeton)
Re: `New' NAFTA Fails Workers on Both Sides of Border (Aida Rivera; Jeff Bast)
Re: What Republicans Really Mean When They Call Jews Disloyal (Richard Loschinkohl; Judyth Hollub; Joanna Levine)
Re: David Koch Escaped the Climate Hell He Helped Create (John A. Inani; Ted Auerbach; Robert Politzer)
Re: A Soccer Game Becomes an Anti-Fascist Demonstration in Portland (Carole Travis)
Re: Workers of the World Unite - --At Last (Allan Hampton)
Re: Puerto Rico: The Shift from Mass Protests to People’s Assemblies (Matt Owen; Neneth Labay)
Re: Global Left Midweek - Latin America: The New Red Wave (Dan Morgan)
Re: Kashmir on the Edge of the Abyss (Phyllis Aldrich; Jay Schaffner; Javier Rivera)
Re: A GI Rebellion: When Soldiers Said No to War (Joe Berry)
Re: Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China (Noah Harvey;Luis Nando Velez)
The Greed -- cartoon by Nick Anderson
Re: The Sunset of Neoliberalism (Frederick Warren; Jim Price; Nataliya Yanyuk; Robert Supansic; Terry Evans; Mary Anne Merrill-Ramirez)
Re: Neoliberalism: Political Success, Economic Failure (Dale Jacobson; David Peterson)
Re: A Year of Organizing Freelance Journalists (Fred Solowey)
Re: Democratic Socialists Look To Take Over New York's Powerful Labor Unions (Paul Friedman; Daniel Robie; Marilyn Albert; Kurt Stand)
Disloyal Jew poem by Irwin Keller
Resources:
Get Ready for a Climate Strike Q & A - September 20 (350.0rg and #StrikeWithUsNYC)
Announcements:
RISE UP: FALL 2019 ACTION CALENDAR (L.A. Kaufman)
Justice for Muslims Collective Launch of Timeline Exhibit on 9/11: "Shattering Justice & Re-Making the Muslim Threat: A Visual Timeline of the War on Terror," - Washington, DC - September 11
The People's Forum One Year Anniversary is Around The Corner! - New York - September 13
Supermajority Bus Tour - Starts September 15 - October 2 -- Atlanta, GA; Birmingham, AL; Tallahassee, FL; Columbia, SC; Hampton, VA; Washington, DC; Pittsburgh, PA; Columbus, OH or Cincinnati, OH; Detroit, MI; Milwaukee, WI; Iowa TBD; Austin, TX; Denver, CO; Albuquerque, NM; Phoenix, AZ; Las Vegas, NV
This Week in History - Paul Robeson, Peekskill, White Supremacy and Fascism - 40 Years Ago (Joel Feingold in Jacobin)
Re: What Sanders' Political Revolution Looks Like in Real Life
What makes the Bernie campaign valuable, imo, is not just (or especially) his policy proposals. The campaign has what my mother would call a "mass line." It seeks to engage Bernie supporters in day to day struggles not just the election. Of course the Warren campaign is quite wonderful but (at least so far as I have heard) does not engage in this way. Do you know more or different? Thanks to Portside for this useful report.
Daniel Millstone
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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This is what my Bernie friends must mean when they insist I recognize Bernie shows what "It takes all of us" means.
Peggy Powell Dobbins
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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His campaign is a new kind of campaign that mobilizes people at the grassroots level. It really is from the ground up and that is not getting measured by the polling.
Laura White Krome
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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It's no secret what kind of revolution he wants, as he makes no secret that he's a Socialist.
Frank Giger
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Frank Giger -- Wow! - 200 CEOs have expanded the mission of corporations and a much needed correction that's better late than never.
Sorry Milton Friedman, your time is up.
Suzanne Prescott
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Rise of Global Authoritarianism
"An important factor contributing to the rise of the authoritarian and radical right is the limitation of social-democratic projects: a) of a post-neoliberal sort, in other words the redistribution of social wealth in a situation of very limited democratization, but above all with no reconstruction of the bases of production and reproduction (from Venezuela to Brazil), b) of a progressive neoliberal sort, in other words the preservation of (limited) freedoms and progressive gains, without intervention in the meteoric transformation of the economic structure, and without downward redistribution (social democracy, left-liberals, and sometimes Christian democracy in the North). The disappointment over social democracy and/or the post-neoliberal Left, as well as the inefficacy and exhaustion of radical ruptures (the various liberation movements) and failed revolutions (North Africa), has led in many places to a rightward turn by parts of the subalterns, but even more frequently to a demobilization that is asymmetrical in terms of class politics, and to electoral abstention (in those countries where elections are still taking place)..."
Lilliam Lizardi
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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The Conservative Party is a part of that fascist rise in Canada
Barry Cuthbert
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Misguided Attacks on 'This Land Is Your Land'
In the 1960’s & 1970’s, I remember playing and singing this added verse to “This Land is Your Land”:
“This land is our land, it isn’t your land
Until we sold you Manhattan island
You pushed our nations to the reservations
This land was SWIPED by you from me!”
Matt Berkelhammer
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Chosen One -- cartoon by Rob Rogers
Rob Rogers
August 23, 2019
robrogers.com
Re: Statement from the AHA on Domestic Terrorism, Bigotry, and History
I will always remember when my dad pulled up at a cafe in Missouri and we all piled out of the car...suddenly he says, "Everybody back in the car. If Terri can't eat here, neither can we." Teri was our black dog, and the sign said "Whites Only." I was in 4th grade so it was sometime in 1959-60.
Jan Horowitz
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: White Supremacy Is Terrorism, Not a Difference of Opinion
I'd like to know more about this. Was the 'identitarian' booth selling vegetables or farm products? Or was it a political table? What were the terms for having any table at the market? Generally, I'm for mass counter-mobilization to deal with fascists and the like. The police should be used when advocacy goes beyond the laws of libel and the high bar of 'fire in a crowded theater' and turns to incitement and direct threats of violence. Otherwise, we set precedents for the police to be used against us as well. Yes, everyone has rights. If we abandon that position, we're on a road to perdition.
Carl Davidson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Why It's Immigrants Who Pack Your Meat
(posting on Portside Labor)
This is a good read. So this company won't buy from black farmers huh? I guess I may have to look into that more. Somebody wont be getting my business anymore.
Bridget Cheeks
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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And of course no charges were filed against the companies federal felonies for hiring undocumented individuals. As well as charges against federal agents that try to arrest individuals for a misdemeanor while ignoring a felony.
Bryan Bates
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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I worked in packing house in 1977-78 - $11 per hour before they broke the unions. They don't pay for or respect hard work anymore
Randy Templeton
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: `New' NAFTA Fails Workers on Both Sides of Border
American companies will always search for countries where labor costs are far lower than US so as to maximize their earnings.
Aida Rivera
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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MAGA strikes again. The whole idea was to reduce wages and maximize top profits. It had nothing to do with "fairness", just larger bonuses for the top.
Jeff Bast
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: What Republicans Really Mean When They Call Jews Disloyal
We should not be giving Israel $10 million a day or funding Israel's occupation of Palestine.
What is even more concerning that what comes out of Trump's mouth are the laws that are past to stifle criticism of Israel.
Richard Loschinkohl
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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From this article:
"National defense hawks ... see [Israel] as our bulwark against Iranian aggression in the Middle East. Islamophobes see it as part of a struggle over civilization itself. And an entire generation of evangelical Christian Zionists ... believe that Israel is part of a divine plan, God’s instrument on earth."
Judyth Hollub
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Good article. In my view, another major consequence of Trump’s remarks : in the collective mind of the general public, any criticism of Jews easily applies to all Jews ... and contributes to the anti-Semitic attitudes and attacks we are seeing more and more of. The general public is not gonna parse out the intricacies of the arguments ...
Today in Novato, an East Bay suburb of San Francisco, not a town known for extremists, the town was saturated with anti-Semitic leaflets... seems to be spreading pretty rapidly from the fascist far right to middle America.
Joanna Levine
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: David Koch Escaped the Climate Hell He Helped Create
Comedienne Jackie 'Moms' Mabley often said:
"My momma always told me to say something good about the dead.
He dead. Good!"
John A. Inani
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Not really, it is much hotter where he is going.
Ted Auerbach
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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In so many ways, David Koch was a profoundly evil Human Being. He had so many millions of dollars to throw around and avoid paying Taxes on that he could donate many of those millions to the very institutions that oppose everything that Koch Industries is about, most notably being Climate Criminals. So go to the Natural History Museum in NYC and then up to the Dinosaur Exhibit and you will see that it is sponsored by, you guessed it, David Koch. He also loved to sponsor Lincoln Center and to have his name loudly proclaimed in front of its prestigious steps.
Robert Politzer
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: A Soccer Game Becomes an Anti-Fascist Demonstration in Portland
This is reminiscent of the demonstrations during the beginning of World War I when Woodrow Wilson proposed to invade the newly formed Soviet Union. Wilson showed up to Seattle and a huge parade was planned. Washington State was a Red (not Republican, Communist Party) stronghold.
The entire parade route had silent crowds lining the street with their backs turned to the President. Shortly after that he had a mental breakdown. I am not claiming a connection. But I am raising the brilliance of this kind of action as one to keep in one's play book.
Good job Northwest Soccer Fans!!!
Carole Travis
Re: Workers of the World Unite (At Last)
(posting on Portside Labor)
"I am for free commerce with all nations, political connection with none, and little or no diplomatic establishment. And I am not for linking ourselves by new treaties with the quarrels of Europe, entering that field of slaughter to preserve their balance, or joining in the confederacy of Kings to war against the principles of liberty."
--Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799.
"We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country, nor with the general affairs of Europe."
--Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, 1793.
Allan Hampton
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Puerto Rico: The Shift from Mass Protests to People’s Assemblies
Constructing authentic democracy, the basis of authentic socialism rather than of bureaucratic state capitalism...
Next step: these popular assemblies send deputies to a Popular Congress...
Matt Owen
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Thru peoples assembly they can recall any govt officer if they loose trust. The peoples assembly will decide to de thrown a govt.
Neneth Labay
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Global Left Midweek - Latin America: The New Red Wave
Some very good articles. J Pedro Stedile's analysis of Brazil is, as usual, excellent and a profound political analysis. A good, long read.
The article on Honduras seems to come from an anarchistic perspective. There's much more resistance than from students who want de-centralization. Nothing here on party political action.
Dan Morgan
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Kashmir on the Edge of the Abyss
Final solution? Sounds all too familiar
Phyllis Aldrich
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Modi's "final solution," sounds just like what the Nazis put into practice, or what other countries advocate for national minorities within their own borders. Trump's concentration camps, separation of families, ripping children from mother's breasts, and refusal to treat or vaccinate infants is in practice a "final solution."
Jay Schaffner
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Is fascism from above, always been from above.
Javier Rivera
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: A GI Rebellion: When Soldiers Said No to War
See also the very good alternative history novel by Brian King, So Long Viet Nam, about a GI rebellion that won. Portside should review it.
Joe Berry
Re: Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China
Huh, interesting. If what they say is true wouldn't that mean there is a possibility that instigating a game of chicken with China is going to necessitate massive subsidization of workers living needs in America in order to remain competitive?
Noah Harvey
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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This is an excellent read. It underlines capitalism's inability to achieve sustainable growth long term and makes a very reasonable case for democratic socialism. Private ownership of the means of production backed with a strong central planning by the state. The Japanese and South Korean economic model.
Luis Nando Velez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
The Greed -- cartoon by Nick Anderson
Nick Anderson
December 10, 2013
Houston Chronicle
Re: The Sunset of Neoliberalism
Fine assessment here by Max Sawicky.
Frederick Warren
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Really optimistic, hope it’s true
Jim Price
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Absolutely must to read... Incredibly insightful analysis of the current neoliberal discourse. Thank you
Nataliya Yanyuk
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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I am aggravated to tears by the mainstream media’s treatment of the debate within the Democratic Party over policy. It is the “moderates” versus the “far left,” “capitalists” versus the “socialists!”
It is neither. I remember one of the slogans held aloft by East German demonstrators as the Berlin Wall fell. “No more experiments!” It made me laugh because, at that very moment, the U.S. was undertaking an experiment as radical as anything ever proposed by the even the most wild-eyed Bolshevik. It was a new economic dogma called “neoliberalism,” one emanating from the Reagan Administration and the nation’s business schools. It was a dogma never subjected to serious scrutiny. One of its tenets, the accurately-named Laffer Curve, began life as a sketch on a cocktail napkin. And yet it quickly captured the imagination of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party establishment.
Neoliberalism involves three radical assumptions, each running counter to much of conventional economic theory and all of historical experience.
First, neoliberalism claims that the private sector is cheaper and more efficient than government at doing anything and everything. This has justified experiments with the privatization of health care, education, prisons, highways, and even drives to privatize Social Security and the Postal Service. This assumption is the rationale for replacing large chunks of the function of the U.S. military by private contractors. One of those private contractors, Erik Prince, even suggested completely privatizing the war in Afghanistan. Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before?
Sometimes, this assumption is phrased as the inherent superiority of “markets” over government. But in an economy dominated by monopolies and oligopolies, markets do not operate in the way the economics textbooks say they do. Classical markets – at their best, a form of mob rule – are the bane of monopolies and oligopolies.
Second, it is often thought that neoliberalism is a form of laissez-faire, the doctrine that government should not “interfere” in the economy. Certainly, neoliberalism seeks to reduce government “regulation” – the corporate-inspired term for “protections” – especially those which the corporations themselves did not write.
But more broadly, neoliberalism demands that government actively encourage capitalism. Who can forget George W. Bush’s attempt to turn Social Security over to Wall Street? This is the basis for government’s creation of privatized alternatives to public education, even though there is little evidence that the latter actually improve educational performance. The failures of public education were blamed on “greedy teachers” and their unions, just as, years ago, spiraling health care costs was blamed on “greedy nurses.” (The resulting privatization of health care led to health care costs that increased every month for 40 years.) Now, the privatization of the Postal Service is justified by deficits created by the imposition of funding requirements on retiree benefits which no other entity, public or private, have ever had to sustain.
No one has pointed out that the fundamental purpose of Obamacare is to save private health insurance industry from itself. This is why the Republicans, in a fit of colossal stupidity, discovered only at the last moment that they had no alternative to it. They were forced to try to abolish it altogether, restoring untrammeled capitalism to health care in all its glory.
All of which raises a question. If capitalism is so natural and so obviously superior as an economic system, why does it need so much help? Indeed, it seems the central task of government at all levels is not to promote the welfare of the people but to make capitalism work.
Third, neoliberalism asserts that the only task of private enterprises is to make money. They have no social responsibility beyond that. The social costs of unemployment, environmental degradation, poverty, and the rest are, according to classical economic theory, “externalities” outside the process of wealth accumulation. This is why, a full generation after the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, we are having that fight all over again. Or consider Reagan’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, allowing media companies to use publicly-owned airwaves to promote their own political agendas without having to entertain alternative views: the creation of Fox News quickly followed.
Full disclosure: I do not believe capitalism can be reformed and transformed into a system that puts the needs of people before the accumulation of wealth by the few. Even if one grants the historic strengths of capitalism – constant innovation and the production of goods and services on an unprecedented scale – down in the fine print one finds much that is disturbing: technological innovation that is often meaningless and wasteful, if not outright dangerous, at a rate that produces widespread anxiety; production under inhuman conditions that generates huge amounts of garbage while billions do without. Indeed, I do not believe that capitalism will survive this century as the world’s dominant form of economic activity.
The striking fact about the current debate in the Democratic Party – presented to us as a conflict between “capitalists” and “socialists” – does not even mention the word “neoliberalism.” More importantly, none of the neoliberal assumptions that have dominated the political life of this country since Reagan has been explicitly challenged. Advocates of Medicare for All do not attack the belief in the inherent superiority of the private sector. Government protections are not defended as part of the necessity of protecting us against capitalism. Governmental promotion of capitalism is allowed to justify huge tax breaks to corporations in the name of “creating jobs.” And the social responsibility of corporations is given, at best, lip service.
If is a high irony that the political “moderates” now defend one of the most radical social experiments ever attempted. (You may verify this for yourself by replaying your recordings of the recent Democratic Presidential Debates.) If there is one thing I have learned from a lifetime of observing American liberalism, it is this: you cannot start with the assumptions of the other side and hope to arrive at a different result.
Robert Supansic
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Neoliberal is a made up term to mock the use of "Neocon".. it was never heard of by the general public until faux news starting using it to make smoke screens when people started using "neocon" as synonymous with Nazi.. during the Bush parade.. and that's exactly what a neocon is.. nazi trash like Trump and Bush and Cheney
Terry Evans
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Both the Clinton years and the Obama years were devastating for Puerto Rico.
Mary Anne Merrill-Ramirez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Neoliberalism: Political Success, Economic Failure
"The economic collapse of 2008 was the result of the deregulation of finance. It cost the real U.S. economy upwards of $15 trillion (and vastly more globally), depending on how you count, far more than any conceivable efficiency gain that might be credited to financial innovation. Free-market theory presumes that innovation is necessarily benign. But much of the financial engineering of the deregulatory era was self-serving, opaque, and corrupt—the opposite of an efficient and transparent market."
The "free" market is a fiction. Supply and demand is real, but that's not the same thing.
Dale Jacobson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Zactlee! There are so many examples where the tenets of capitalism are violated.
Looking at the price/supply of oil, will reveal this.
Supply goes up. Prices also goes up. Demand drops, price increases.
And, as we were told last year, since the embargo and tariffs, the price of fruit and vegetables had to rise here. Because the normal markets were hindered or closed. Hence the producers have to charge us more to cover costs. Great idea, however, supply goes up prices goes up?
I don’t think many economists have sufficient explanation how a capitalist system continually violates the principles upon which it is founded.
Just think if physics, chemistry, or any science operated like economics....
David Peterson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: A Year of Organizing Freelance Journalists
(posting on Portside Labor)
I have been a NWU [National Writers Union] member for 24 years. It is a union that has engaged in considerable grassroots struggle. Running a self-promoting puff piece for the fledgling IWW effort without soliciting comment and/or an article from the NWU made me uneasy. I know there are tons of freelancers in the country to organize, but NWU really does deserve respect from the labor left.
Fred Solowey
Re: Democratic Socialists Look To Take Over New York's Powerful Labor Unions
(posting on Portside Labor)
Please post this as it accords with the way I believe a socialist organization's members should function in other organizations. I strongly disagree with the orientation toward targeted unions that this subgroup of NYC DSA has initiated. It will lead to no good. I remain a member of DSA, but I deeply disturbed over this approach.
This is from the website of The Communist University, which is run by a member of the SACP [South African Communist Party]:
SACP Constitution: Definition and Rules
Clauses 1 to 7
The jewel of the SACP Constitution is Rule 6.5, which says:
“Members active in fraternal organisations or in any sector of the mass movement have a duty to set an example of loyalty, hard work and zeal in the performance of their duties and shall be bound by the discipline and decisions of such organisations and the movement.
“They shall not create or participate in SACP caucuses within such organisations and the movement designed to influence either elections or policies.
“The advocacy of SACP policy on any question relating to the internal affairs of any such organisations or the movement shall be by open public statements or at joint meetings between representatives of the SACP and such organisations or the movement.”
This means that SACP members active in any part of the mass movement, including the workers’ trade unions, and including the ANC, do so in the utmost good faith.
SACP members serve the mass organizations on the terms of those organizations.
This clause is the backbone of the Alliance of the SACP with the ANC and COSATU, including COSATU’s affiliates.
The rule means that SACP members can be trusted, and they are in fact trusted. It is because the mass organisations understand this rule that the alliance has been so solid, for so long.
Paul Friedman
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Your article "Democratic Socialists Look To Take Over New York's Powerful Labor Unions"--especially the headline--is misleading to a surprising extent for a left-wing publication. The linked notes from a DSA meeting say nothing about "taking over" any union. This inflammatory language only encourages the right's anti-labor campaigns. The whole thing looks like a setup for the remarks from Mr. Alvarez of the Central Labor Council. I am not a member of DSA, and I am a member of a union mentioned in the notes, but anyone can see that you should apologize for this article.
Daniel Robie
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The article from two Politico reporters provokes a lot of thought from a socialist who spent 35 years as a rank and file activist in one of New York's largest and most progressive unions. First of all, the piece is suffused with what can only be considered old red-baiting style language about "plotting" and "taking over" unions. What is Politico's agenda here?
Secondly, as a relatively new member of DSA, but now in California, and being unfamiliar with the New York DSAers who produced the paper focusing on certain New York unions, if I could speak with them I would point out:
1) Three of the four unions they discuss in the paper have been the focus of militant rank and file movements over recent decades, which is part of the reason DSAers are interested in them now. I am not sure what is happening in the Carpenters union, but I know the Association for Union Democracy would know. The New York State Nurses Association, of which I have the most direct knowledge, as a nurse, has only recently been transformed from a backward, poorly organized group, to a vibrant one, led by rank and file activists who "did the work" over many years.
It would be good for DSAers who may be new to the labor movement, to seek out the experiences of the activists who had similar goals in our time and who worked in those very unions. DSA is not starting from scratch here, but rather, we can hope, is building the continuum of Left and socialist labor activism in the unions which have long been the focus of "rank and file strategies" but also in other labor formations, old and new.
Marilyn Albert
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This article is unfortunate in its choice of language -- a publicly discussed, debated and voted upon DSA Convention resolution on a "rank-and-file strategy" with a subsequent internal memo written to generate discussion around implementation hardly fits the author's description that a left-leaning group "... was also quietly plotting to penetrate another New York City power source -- labor unions." The bias is all the more apparent insofar as the clause dropped in the ellipse refers to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's election victory which was hardly part of a plot to penetrate a New York City power source, but rather an open and public campaign to involve and engage a largely disenfranchised community to take back power over their lives that has been denied them by our institutions. Other comments and language in the article reflect Politico's hostility to progressive and left politics in any form and thus fails to contribute to a discussion of the DSA resolution nor of the underlying issues facing labor and the left.
The resolution itself, unfortunately, lends itself to distortion. Certainly it is positive if DSA members get union jobs -- a union job provides wages, benefits, security relative to non-union jobs as well as providing a framework to facilitate engagement in the struggle for social justice. Those are the reasons why we support union organizing in the first place. And certainly DSA members who join unions should be engaged as rank-and-file members -- they should attend union meetings, join existing union committees, seek to gain the respect of fellow members to serve as effective stewards. By taking an active part in union life and contributing to union workplace strength, DSA members will find a receptive community for the broader notions of solidarity inherent to the socialist movement that ought to be at the heart of that engagement.
However, I would caution those who do so to understand that they have much to learn as well as to contribute, that union members and the fellow workers they will meet have lessons in life and struggle that ought not be dismissed or patronized because coming from different experiences or from a non-socialist world view. Moreover, a rank-and-file struggle that truly embraces the whole rank-and-file will not set itself up against leadership per se, but will seek to work with or challenge existing leadership within the context of ongoing struggles and conflicts. We should never forget that our principle enemy is not our union brothers and sisters, that the divide between members and leadership is not replicative of the divide between workers and management. As socialists we ought to see the structure of capitalist society. and the political structures and ideological constructs that reinforce those structures, as the principal target of our engagement as unionists and as members of the communities of which we are a part.
Kurt Stand
August 21, 2019
Tikkun
I am a disloyal Jew.
I am not loyal to a political party.
Nor will I be loyal to dictators and mad kings.
I am not loyal to walls or cages.
I am not loyal to taunts or tweets.
I am not loyal to hatred, to Jew-baiting, to the gloating connivings of white supremacy.
I am a disloyal Jew.
I am not loyal to any foreign power.
Nor to abuse of power at home.
I am not loyal to a legacy of conquest, erasure and exploitation.
I am not loyal to stories that tell me who I should hate.
I am a loyal Jew.
I am loyal to the inconveniences of kindness.
I am loyal to dream of justice.
I am loyal to this suffering Earth
And to all life.
I am not loyal to any founding fathers.
But I am loyal to the children who will come
And to the quality of world we leave them.
I am not loyal to what America has become.
But to what America could be.
I am loyal to Emma Lazarus. To huddled masses.
To freedom and welcome,
Holiness, hope and love.
Get Ready for a Climate Strike Q & A - September 20
Click here.
Check out NYC youth organizers Xiye Bastida and Daphne Frias, along with their Seattle colleague Jamie Margolin, answering questions about the Sept. 20 Global Climate Strike! [click here]
Sign up here to #StrikeWithUsNYC https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/us-climate-strikes
On Twitter, Fridays For Future NYC
RISE UP: FALL 2019 ACTION CALENDAR
What will it take to dislodge this authoritarian regime and safeguard our collective future? The movements in Puerto Rico and Hong Kong show us the power of multiplicity, repetition, and escalation: We need many tactics, ever-increasing numbers, and above all, ever-increasing nonviolent disruption of business as usual. That could look like huge walkouts, massive turnout at a legally permitted march, or widespread civil disobedience, among many approaches. Here is some of what's being planned, with an emphasis on national and multi-city mobilizations ... add additional events or details in the comments
- Sept 9-13 Welcome Back to Congress actions, DC - Including actions 9/11 on healthcare, 9/12 on immigration and education, + 9/13 on criminal justice reform - Center for Popular Democracy, Housing Works Inc., + partners
- Sept 20-27 All week - Global Climate Strike Week, worldwide
- Sept 20 Global Climate Strike student walkouts, worldwide
- Sept 21 We the People March, DC - Amy Siskind and KA McRae
- Sept 23 United in Outrage March to Protest Trump at UN, NYC Rise and Resist + partners
- Sept 23 Climate Strike, DC
- Sept 27 Climate actions, multiple cities
- Sept 28 Natl Trans Visibility March, DC
- Oct 6 Kavanaugh anniversary action, DC Women's March + partners
- Oct 7 Extinction Rebellion global day of action, actions in multiple cities
- Oct 8 Supreme Court action on LGBT rights, DC Housing Works + partners
- Oct 10-12 National Close the Camps actions
- Week of Oct 14 Extinction Rebellion, actions in multiple cities
L.A. Kaufman
Since the attacks on 9/11, Muslims have been targeted under the guise of the War on Terror. Utilizing the logic of collective responsibility, the US government has employed state violence to crush and subdue the Muslim community. Despite this reality, the discourse of the War on Terror has often excluded and silenced Muslim voices that speak to just how brutal the US War on Terror has been and continues to be.
This event is a launch of our War on Terror timeline exhibit that details the many laws and policies that have targeted Muslims. Through our carefully curated poster series, attendees coming to the exhibit will able to better understand what the War on Terror has meant for Muslims both domestically and abroad.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019 at 5 PM - 8 PM
True Reformer Building
1200 U Street
Washington, DC 20009
The event will also feature an interactive session on cultural organizing with The Sanctuaries DC - the incredible organization that created the visual timeline.
The event schedule is as follows:
5:00 PM: Exhibit Open for General Viewing
6:00 PM: Introduction to Justice for Muslims Collective and The Sanctuaries
6:15 PM: Keynote talk by Dr. Maha Hilal
6:30 PM: Interactive Session Facilitated by The Sanctuaries DC
Refreshments will be served.
[The mission of the Justice for Muslims Collective is to combat institutional and structural Islamophobia in the DC metro area through education, grassroots organizing, advocacy, and policy change. ]
Justice for Muslims Collective
dcjusticeformuslims@gmail.com
The People's Forum One Year Anniversary is Around The Corner! - New York - September 13
SAVE THE DATE:
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY
We are celebrating our one year anniversary of building space with working class and marginalized communities in struggle to organize, educate, and create culture.
Join us and save the date to celebrate what we have built together and find out how you can contribute to sustaining the space into the future.
Friday, September 13, 2019 at 6pm.
The People's Forum
320 W 37th Street
New York, NY 10018
Please fill out the form here to RSVP.
In Solidarity,
The People's Forum Team
Supermajority, the new women's membership-based organization founded by Cecile Richards, Alicia Garza and Ai-jen Poo, is launching a cross-country bus tour next month. And we are looking for organizers and volunteers for the adventure!! Also, if you suggestions for key stops along the route, please let us know.
More background: Supermajority aims to affirm and build women's power as a one-stop shop for advocacy, community building, and electoral participation to transform our country and build an intergenerational, multiracial movement for women's equity. And, while most candidate forums bring people to the candidates, the Supermajority bus tour will include bringing candidates to the people. Over two weeks, the bus will roll through a dozen states, meeting women who are part of the vast Supermajority network at rallies, college campuses, concerts, and BBQs along the way. At various stops, presidential candidates will separately join the tour to speak directly to women about the issues that matter-and that will motivate their votes in 2020.
We are starting in Atlanta, heading through the South, including Florida, South Carolina and Alabama, up to Iowa, and wrapping up in Las Vegas on October 2nd.
Here's the route:
September 15: Atlanta, GA
September 16: Birmingham, AL; Tallahassee, FL
September 17: Columbia, SC
September 18: Hampton, VA
September 19: Washington, DC
September 20: Pittsburgh, PA
September 21: Columbus, OH or Cincinnati, OH
September 22: Detroit, MI
September 24: Milwaukee, WI
September 25: Iowa TBD
September 27: Austin, TX
September 29: Denver, CO
September 30: Albuquerque, NM
October 1: Phoenix, AZ
October 2: Las Vegas, NV
Supermajority
P.O. Box 1014
New York, NY 10272
This Week in History - Paul Robeson, Peekskill, White Supremacy and Fascism - 40 Years Ago
The 1949 Peekskill Riots remind us of a period of postwar rebellion and reaction that set the stage for the rest of the century.
Remembering Peekskill
By Joel Feingold
June 22, 2017
Jacobin
Spread the word