Tidbits - Sept. 10, 2020 - Reader Comments: Trump Calls Out White Supremacists; Trump and Military Veterans; Billionaires Plunder Working Folks; Allende Remembered - the Other 9/11; Congress Must Act - COVID Jobs Losses Continues; Lots of Announcements;
Re: Trump's Incitements to Violence have Crossed an Alarming Threshold (Marisol Febo; Felice Sage; Jose Felipe Gonzalez Pabon)
Populism for Dummies -- cartoon by Tim Eagan
Re: The Other Swing Voter (Henry Fnord)
Re: White Supremacists Are Invading American Cities To Incite a Civil War (Ward Duff; Stan Seidel; Wayne White)
Re: Under Trump’s Presidency, Military Veterans and Service Members Have Been ‘Losers’ (Dwayne Robbie)
Re: Unions Fracture Over Climate (Helena Harlow Worthen)
Re: Rebuilding the Economy Will Require Biden to Think Very Differently Than 2009 (Mike Liston)
Re: In the Worst of Times, the Billionaire Elite Plunder Working Class America (Martha Rosen; Florence Punch; Laura Lynch)
Re: Bernie Sanders’s Five-Year War (Laurel Sefton MacDowell)
Re: An Extraordinary Summer of Crises for California’s Farmworkers (Irene Durham)
Re: Labor Day 2020: What Is the Future for Healthcare Workers? (Labor Campaign for Single Payer)
Re: It Has Come to This: Ignore the C.D.C. (Philip Specht)
Re: ‘The Biggest Monster’ Is Spreading. And It’s Not the Coronavirus. (Sarah Grey)
Re: A Win Against Dark Money Eight Years in the Making (Marc Batko)
Different Kinds of Trump Supporters (Kevin Shanahan)
Re: As Nation Fights Systemic Racism, Report Finds Pattern of Exclusion in Illinois Trade Unions (Mark Hein)
Re: Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture (Judith E. Wilson; Francisco Jayo)
Re: I Danced in the Streets after Allende’s Victory in Chile 50 Years Ago. Now I See its Lessons for Today (Sheila Malone; Harry Bowman; Scott Malpass)
Re: Trump’s Secretary of State Tries to Extort Cash from Struggling Sudan (Stan Nadel; Gloria Smith; Pamy Amante)
Re: From Charleston to New York and Back Again: James Campbell’s Long Reach (Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression)
Resources:
The COVID jobs toll is still high—why Congress must act (Economic Policy Institute)
Announcements:
Celebration of Activism and Lincoln Brigade Monument Rededication - September 12 (Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives)
Our Role and Responsibilities as Jews Working for Justice in Florida and Beyond - September 15 ( Jewish Voice for Peace-South Florida)
Global Cooperation or New Cold War? Tobita Chow & Max Elbaum on the People's Foreign Policy - September 16 (Massachusetts Peace Action, Organizing Upgrade and Justice is Global)
From the Streets to the Supreme Court - September 16 (Center for Constitutional Rights)
Book Launch Talk on Slavery by Prof. Madeleine Kars - September 17 (Labor and Working-Class History Association)
Join Us September 21 for the "We Are Many" film's North America Premiere (United for Peace and Justice)
Cuban Doctors Speak: 15 years of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade - September 26 (Cuba Nobel Prize Committee)
Re: Trump's Incitements to Violence have Crossed an Alarming Threshold
His malicious authoritarian and violent government escalates every day.
Marisol Febo
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Fomenting violence and encouraging felonious voter fraud.
Felice Sage
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Jail for him. Is the only answer, the only consideration, the only option. At this point in time everything else is irrelevant.
Jose Felipe Gonzalez Pabon
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Populism for Dummies -- cartoon by Tim Eagan
Tim Eagan
January 26, 2017
There are no f**king swing voters this election, regardless of what they may claim. You're either pro-democracy or pro-fascist.
Henry Fnord
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: White Supremacists Are Invading American Cities To Incite a Civil War
In his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, Barack Obama said: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.”
Ward Duff
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Where is the outrage from the Republican Party?
Stan Seidel
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Trump’s election theme is that Americans won’t be safe in a Biden presidency. The opposite is true. Americans won’t be safe as long as a white supremacist president is leading a movement of bigots to incite a civil war, and attempting to ensure that the majority of Americans with cosmopolitan, egalitarian values remain politically disenfranchised and under the thumb of those who fear and despise them.
Wayne White
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Under Trump’s Presidency, Military Veterans and Service Members Have Been ‘Losers’
Trump says he supports the military. Then there are the facts:
• Trump made his 2nd wife, Marla Maples, sign a prenup that would have cut off all child support if Tiffany joined the military (reported June 4th, 2019)
• On May 27, 2019, Trump turned away US military from his Memorial Day speech because they were from the destroyer USS John S. McCain
• Trump ordered the USS John McCain out of sight during his visit to Japan (May 15, 2019). The ship's name was subsequently covered. (May 27, 2019)
• Trump purged 200,000 vets' healthcare applications (due to known administrative errors within VA’s enrollment system) (reported on May 13, 2019)
• Trump deported a spouse of fallen Army soldier killed in Afghanistan, leaving their daughter parentless (April 16, 2019)
• On March 20, 2019, Trump complained that a deceased war hero didn't thank him for his funeral
• Between 12/22/2018, and 1/25/2019, Trump refused to sign his party's funding bill, which shut down the government, forcing the Coast Guard to go without pay, which made service members rely on food pantries. However, his appointees got a $10,000 pay raise
• He banned service members from serving based on gender identity (1/22/2019)
• He denied female troops access to birth control to limit sexual activity (on-going. Published Jan 18, 2019)
• He tried to deport a marine vet who is a U.S.-born citizen (Jan 16, 2019)
• When a man was caught swindling veterans pensions for high-interest “cash advances," Trump's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined him $1 (Jan 26, 2019)
• He called a retired general a 'dog' with a 'big, dumb mouth' (Jan 1, 2019)
• He increased privatization of the VA, leading to longer waits and higher taxpayer cost (2018)
• He finally visited troops 2 years after taking office, but only after 154 vacation days at his properties (Dec 26, 2018)
• He revealed a covert Seal Team 5 deployment, including names and faces, on Twitter during his visit to Iraq (Dec 26, 2018)
• Trump lied to deployed troops that he gave them a 10% raise (12/26/2018). He tried giving the military a raise that was lower than the standard living adjustment. Congress told him that idea wasn't going to work. Then after giving them the raise that Congress made him, he lied about it pretending that it was larger than Obama's. It wasn't.
• He fired service members living with HIV just before the 2018 holidays
• He tried to slash disability and unemployment benefits for Veterans to $0, and eliminate the unemployability extrascheduler rating (Dec 17, 2018)
• He called troops on Thanksgiving and told them he's most thankful for himself (Thanksgiving, 2018)
• He urged Florida to not count deployed military votes (Nov 12, 2018)
• He canceled an Arlington Cemetery visit on Veterans Day due to light rain (Nov 12, 2018)
• While in Europe commemorating the end of WWI, he didn't attend the ceremony at a US cemetery due to the rain -- other world leaders went anyway (Nov 10, 2018)
• He used troops as a political prop by sending them on a phantom mission to the border and made them miss Thanksgiving with their families (Oct-Dec, 2018)
• He stopped using troops as a political prop immediately after the election. However, the troops remained in muddy camps on the border (Nov 7, 2018)
• Trump changed the GI Bill through his Forever GI Act, causing the VA to miss veteran benefits, including housing allowances. This caused many vets to run out of food and rent. (reported October 7, 2018)
• Trump doubled the rejection rate for veterans requesting family deportation protections (July 5, 2018)
• Trump deported active-duty spouses (11,800 military families face this problem as of April 2018)
• He forgot a fallen soldier's name (below) during a call to his pregnant widow, then attacked her the next day (Oct 23-24, 2017)
• He sent commandos into an ambush due to a lack of intel, and sends contractors to pick them up, resulting in a commando being left behind, tortured, and executed. (Trump approved the mission because Bannon told him Obama didn't have the guts to do it) (Oct 4, 2017)
• He blocked a veteran group on Twitter (June 2017)
• He ordered the discharge of active-duty immigrant troops with good records (2017-present)
• He deported veterans (2017-present)
• He said he knows more about ISIS than American generals (Oct 2016)
• On Oct 3, 2016, Trump said vets get PTSD because they aren't strong (note: yes, he said it's 'because they aren't strong.' He didn't say it's 'because they're weak.' This distinction is important because of Snopes)
• Trump accepted a Purple Heart from a fan at one of his rallies and said: “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” (Aug 2, 2016)
• Trump attacks Gold Star families: Myeshia Johnson (gold star widow), Khan family (gold star parents) etc. (2016-present)
• Trump sent funds raised from a Jan 2016 veterans benefit to the Donald J Trump Foundation instead of veterans charities (the foundation has since been ordered shut because of fraud) (Jan, 2016)
• Trump said he has "more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military" because he went to a military-style academy (2015 biography)
• Trump said he doesn't consider POWs heroes because they were caught. He said he prefers people who were not caught (July 18, 2015)
• Trump said having unprotected sex was his own personal Vietnam (1998)
• For a decade, Trump sought to kick veterans off of Fifth Avenue because he found them unsightly nuisances outside of Trump Tower. 1991
• Trump dodged the draft 5 times by having a doctor diagnose him with bone spurs.
• No Trump in America has ever served in the military; this spans 5 generations, and every branch of the family tree. In fact, the reason his grandfather immigrated to America was to avoid military service.
Dwayne Robbie
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Unions Fracture Over Climate
(posting on Portside Labor)
Portside should know better than to reprint without comment an article that identifies the Engineer-Labor-Employer Cooperative as a trade union. Just google it.
Helena Harlow Worthen
Re: Rebuilding the Economy Will Require Biden to Think Very Differently Than 2009
As I read this, it struck me as to just how the current situation of the US reminds me of how the old colonial powers of Europe flailed about helplessly as they tried to hold on to a world, now under the protection of a new power on the scene, that had just simply passed them by, stay negative,
Mike Liston
Re: In the Worst of Times, the Billionaire Elite Plunder Working Class America
People have to start thinking differently about the economy.
Real wealth is not money, but the quality of life of a nation. We may no longer have the kind of jobs we have now but there is a need of a lot of work. If we divide those needs into two.
First in the technology, computer, and research of all sorts fields, we are going to need a huge increase in skilled labor.
Second you have an absolute need to rebuild national industry, manufacturing, and non agro business agriculture as well rebuilding infrastructure...schools, health care facilities, parks, waterways, water management, bridges, roads, rail roads and other efficient mass transportation systems, energy grids etc.This is going to require huge amounts of skilled well paid labor.
The stock market is not a real measure of a healthy economy but on how well speculators can speculate.
Martha Rosen
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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And Mitch’s only concern is that employees who contract COVID during employment not be able to sue their employers and people still believe that him and his party care about the ordinary person
Florence Punch
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Helen Mary Caldicott tweeted: via Portside: IN THE WORST OF TIMES, BILLIONAIRE ELITE PLUNDER WORKING CLASS AMERICA. The WSJ reports a recent study found, “nearly half of U.S. employers that furloughed or laid off staff because of COVID-19 are considering additional workplace cuts in the next 12 months.” The companies say low-paid workers will be the first cut. In the midst of a global pandemic, unprecedented economic collapse, mass unemployment, hunger and desperation, the stock market is booming and the richest of the rich are richer than ever before.
Laura Lynch
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Bernie Sanders’s Five-Year War
This is an informative article. Bernie accomplished a lot and inserted good policy ideas into the national political dialogue. To implement such ideas, which are govt. policy in most liberal democracies and so not very radical, the democratic left will have to form a third party or take over the Democratic Party. It will be a long hard fight.
As a Canadian social democrat I know this. We have had a party since 1932. In that time we have been the official opposition once in federal politics and have formed a fair number of provincial governments over the years. We have not had much support from the press. We always are short of money. But we have had ideas and as a result got the old age pension for seniors and got a universal public health care system for all Canadians. We have had some inspiring leaders. We have had the support of the labour movement. But we have never had the perks of the other parties or sometimes the recognition either. It is a hard slog. But Bernie has made a difference and if you want more progressive policies and legislation, you have to push against the status quo.
As for Trump he is an aberration and an awful person. So be unified in the upcoming election and vote him out. But then start building for a better future as effectively as possible.
Laurel Sefton MacDowell
Re: An Extraordinary Summer of Crises for California’s Farmworkers
I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to work in the sun like this all day.
Irene Durham
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Labor Day 2020: What Is the Future for Healthcare Workers?
A #LaborDay2020 feature from Portside: The challenges healthcare workers are still facing months into fighting COVID-19 — including lack of sustainable supplies of PPE, hospital understaffing, and unique risks for home healthcare workers — and what a better future looks like.
"To repay health workers for their sacrifices during our national crisis, their right to form a union must be fast-tracked, with innovative organizing approaches and new legal rights. Single payer health care [will also have] numerous advantages for health care workers.
Let us build a great new future for health care workers! They deserve it!"
Labor Campaign for Single Payer
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: It Has Come to This: Ignore the C.D.C.
Apparently the CDC has decided that it is politically impossible to control COVID-19, so they are just going to try to minimize the damage.
Philip Specht
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: ‘The Biggest Monster’ Is Spreading. And It’s Not the Coronavirus.
This is difficult to read. The devastating effects of the ongoing covid pandemic are more far reaching than we realize from the bulletins. The implications for future global health are frightening
Sarah Grey
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: A Win Against Dark Money Eight Years in the Making
Once 90% of investment was productive; now 90% of investment is speculative. In the 1990s, the financial markets made themselves independent. Funds that once went to the real economy now flood the financial markets. Cities and communities suffer from revenue shortfalls. The concentration of wealth has increased as the big fish devour the smaller fish. A state focused on the public interest would respond to the enormous needs for affordable apartments and living wage public sector jobs.
Marc Batko
Different Kinds of Trump Supporters
Kevin Shanahan
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: As Nation Fights Systemic Racism, Report Finds Pattern of Exclusion in Illinois Trade Unions
(posting on Portside Labor)
duh.
Unions are born by bringing people in.
Then they decide to die, by keeping people out...
Mark Hein
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture
(posting on Portside Culture)
Thank you for sharing this information. I’m going to read the book. I remember reading one small paragraph about Toussaint Louverture In a high school history book. Then there was an Italian film where MARCELLO MASTRIANI (sic) was a union organizer , he said “...It all started with Spartacus.” From all that and much more , I assumed that justice, greed, revolt, are eternal struggles. We’re at a small crossroads
Judith E. Wilson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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A complex figure that defeated Napoleon and forced him to sell a large part of what today is the United States.
Francisco Jayo
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
This article brought back so many memories as I was a university student when Allende won the election. Our student group was cheering and we staged a solitary march with the Chilean people around the campus. Our organization was in touch by phone with people in Chile the day/time the US military assisted the Chilean military physically and politically in removing Allende from the Presidential palace. "We" heard people shouting and screaming about US military members being among the soldiers before the phone line went dead.
While the phone lines gave one of us a chance to talk with eyewitnesses, this was the first time most of us had ever experienced real-time events in other parts of the world. While phones were "primitive" they were just beginning to allow people a sense of connectivity to actual events around the world as they were happening. Today's cell phones are allowing people to witness atrocities that have been going on since the dawn of time and hopefully will lead to the downfall of the US police/military horrors here in the US and worldwide.
Sheila Malone
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Not really. Pinochet was more of a sycophant to the ideology of "capitalism" than a believer. Certainly he did not for one second consider reversing the nationalization of the mines. And for the "anti-Communists", actual economic practice doesn't matter to those freaks. Torturing Communists makes them so happy they will excuse ANYTHING.
His downfall was still closely connected with the ideological biases of his advisers: they were too busy with "theory" to deal with the peculiarities of the actual Chilean economy. Chile is subject to occasional agricultural and fishing catastrophes in years of El Niño, and the only organization capable of maintaining stability in the face of that threat is the state. A particularly brutal El Niño occurred in 1982 at the same time as a depressed copper price, which was due to the recession induced by the Volcker disinflation. His advisors refused to devalue and as a result ended up in a classic currency peg collapse, leading to revolt and several years of endless negotiations over the return to constitutional order.
Harry Bowman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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As for Pinochet and his followers, a "Communist" was anyone who disagreed with Pinochet.
They dealt in torture and murder.
Do you want to see what will happen in the U.S. if Trump is re-elected??
You already have armed nutbags in the street vowing to "kill Democrats".
Trump says, ""If you want the violence to end, elect me."
He wants you to forget that the violence is happening under his watch!!
Scott Malpass
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Trump’s Secretary of State Tries to Extort Cash from Struggling Sudan
“We opposed the regime and overthrew it. Now we have to pay for what it did wrong,” he said. Well, that's the line we hear from Germans opposing paying reparations to Holocaust victims and from Poles opposed to restoring properties that were stolen from Jews by the Nazis and kept by Poland after the liberation. And of course some white Americans say the same about reparations for Slavery and Native American genocide. Countries don't get off the hook for past crimes just by changing governments. And, as for Sudan, the military leaders responsible for the genocide in Darfur are still in power there. The US has no clean status in such matters, but saying that the victims should be screwed because Sudan is poor doesn't impress me.
Stan Nadel
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Trump and his cronies think that if he/they can get Muslim led countries to be friends with Israel trump will get a peace prize.
Gloria Smith
=====
"Pompeo told Sudanese leaders that the United States would consider removing them from the list of state sponsors of terrorism — if Sudan pays us $330 million."
Frigging pos!!
Pamy Amante
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: From Charleston to New York and Back Again: James Campbell’s Long Reach
EXCERPT
Soon, Campbell, was designing the program for what he and Malcolm called a Liberation School, where small groups of students could learn about the African liberation movement, capitalism’s impacts and the power of enlightened thought.
One day, not long after Malcolm’s house had been firebombed, Campbell invited Malcolm to breakfast so he could meet Jack O’Dell. They chatted casually about this and that. Campbell asked Malcolm about his family.
“Brother, let me give you Betty’s telephone number, because you are someone I want her to stay in touch with,” Malcolm said, concerned for his wife and sensing his days were numbered. About one week later, he was murdered at the Audubon Ballroom.
Campbell had been studying the writings of Julius Nyerere, the Tanzanian anti-colonial activist and politician, and decided in 1973 to go abroad.
He spent nine years there, teaching English first in Bihawana and then at the International School in Dar es Salaam.
Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
The COVID jobs toll is still high—why Congress must act (Economic Policy Institute)
Millions still face economic suffering amidst the pandemic
When the pandemic hit, health officials and policymakers urged businesses across the country to shutter their doors and mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. Over 22 million jobs were lost and unprecedented numbers of workers filed for unemployment. Job losses disproportionately hit women, Latinx workers, and certain low-wage sectors of the economy, notably leisure and hospitality. The effects have been particularly devastating for Black workers and their families, who are less able to weather job losses. With the expiration of the extra $600 unemployment insurance benefit, millions of workers across the country are facing eviction and hunger, and the resulting loss in demand will undoubtedly slow the recovery.
While jobs have started to return—the BLS reported an increase of 1.4 million jobs in August—the U.S. economy is still down 11.5 million jobs from where it was in February, before the pandemic hit. And the 1.4 million jobs added represents a steep slowdown in job growth compared with June and July. With this kind of slowing in job growth, it will take years to return to the pre-pandemic labor market. Read the Economic Indicators report »
Total initial UI claims have risen in each of the last four weeks
In the week ending August 29, 1.6 million workers applied for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits: 881,000 applied for regular state unemployment insurance, and 759,000 applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). This was the fourth week in a row that total initial claims have risen. Further, it was the 24th week in a row total initial claims were far greater than the worst week of the Great Recession. Read more »
Economic Policy Institute
1225 Eye St. NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-775-8810 • epi@epi.org
After many years of working to rebuild the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Monument in San Francisco, it has finally been restored. The monument is a tribute not just to the Lincoln Brigade, but also to the life-long struggle of activism and social justice.
This virtual event will include presentations by Isabel Allende, Bill Fletcher, Walter Hood, Susan Schwartzenberg, Catherine Powell, and Brian McWilliams; dramatic readings from the monument text, including writings of Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes, Harry Bridges, Albert Camus, Martha Gelhorn, and others; music performed by Velina Brown and Dave Rovics; and poetry by Rafael Jesús González and others. Hosted by Richard Bermack.
The event will be streamed on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives Facebook page, September 12, at 2 pm PDT, https://www.facebook.com/AbrahamLincolnBrigadeArchives/
Note: You do not need to have a Facebook account.
Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives
239 West 14th Street, Suite 2
New York, NY 10011
Email: info@alba-valb.org
Phone: 212-674-5398
Find us on Facebook and Twitter.
Please join us for a panel with progressive Jews in Florida and nationally about what this moment means for:
• our organizing for social, racial, & economic justice across movements & communities;
• strengthening our work, together with others, to challenge the attacks on those fighting for Palestinian justice; and
• understanding our role and responsibilities as Jews fighting for justice.
Panelists:
- Martha Schoolman, Associate Professor of English, Florida International University;
- Alan Levine, civil rights and constitutional lawyer;
- Lesley Williams, writer and member, JVP Jews of Color and Sephardi/Mizrachi caucus & coordinating committee, JVP-Chicago;
- Jonathan Mendoza, Jewish and Mexican-American activist, spoken word poet, social justice educator, and musician
- Moderator: Rabbi Brant Rosen, writer; co-founder JVP’s Rabbinical Council; Rabbi, Tzedek Chicago
Join us on Tuesday, September 15th - 7-8:30 PM (ET)
Register here: http://bit.ly/JVPsouthflorida
Jews in Florida are often presented as a monolith. Article after article reports that the Jewish community supports candidates whose priority is protecting Israel and who believe that supporters of Palestinian rights are antisemitic. This view is echoed by Florida's reactionary politicians, including from the Governor. Right-wing Jewish politicians and organizations accuse Palestinians and Jews who speak on panels supporting Palestinian rights of antisemitism; a Palestinian Muslim student leader is accused of being antisemitic because of his support for Palestinian freedom; and Florida is one of the only states that has codified legislation that equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
But, like everywhere, the Jewish community in FL is not a monolith and many of us, in partnership with other communities, support a politics rooted in a commitment to human rights, racial and economic justice, opposition to antiMuslim racism and all forms of injustice, and support for Palestinian rights. We oppose attempts to conflate criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian human rights with antisemitism and also believe it minimizes actual antisemitism when it occurs.
Wednesday, September 16 at 4 PT / 7 PT
What strategies can U.S. social justice movements use to fight back against policies of intervention, confrontation, and war, both before and after the election in November?
"If Trump loses in November and can be forced out of office, building opposition to U.S. militarism and the foreign policies of a Biden administration will likely be the social justice movement’s biggest challenge," writes Max Elbaum in Organizing Upgrade. Meanwhile, both the Trump Administration and the Biden-led Democratic Party are moving on a path of confrontation with China, writes Tobita Chow in The Nation.
Max Elbaum was a member of Students for a Democratic Society. has been active in peace, anti-racist and radical movements since joining SDS in Madison, Wisconsin in the 1960s. The third edition of his book, Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che, was released by Verso in 2018. He was editor of War Times, a free antiwar weekly during the anti-Iraq war movement of the early 2000's, and is now a member of the editorial collective of Organizing Upgrade, founded in 2017 to gather left organizers to discuss strategy and share organizing models that respond to the profound dangers and the real opportunities of this political moment.
Tobita Chow is the director of Justice Is Global, a special project of People’s Action that is building a movement to create a more just and sustainable global economy and defeat right-wing nationalism around the world. Tobita has been organizing campaigns for corporate accountability and racial and economic justice in Chicago since 2009. He was a key leader in bringing Moral Mondays to Illinois and served as Chair of the Board of Directors of The People's Lobby. He holds a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from the University of Chicago and a Master’s Degree in Divinity from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
Cosponsored by Massachusetts Peace Action, Organizing Upgrade and Justice is Global
From the Streets to the Supreme Court - September 16 (Center for Constitutional Rights)
We’re just a few weeks away from Supreme Court arguments in Tanzin v. Tanvir, our case brought on behalf of American Muslims who were placed or kept on the No-Fly List by the FBI for refusing to spy on their communities. Join the Center for Constitutional Rights and CLEAR for a virtual panel discussion, From the Streets to the Supreme Court: Protecting our Communities from Federal Repression, on Wednesday, September 16, from 5 - 6:30 p.m. ET.
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What happened to the Tanvir plaintiffs is part of a long history of federal agents abusing tools at their disposal to target Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. A history that is ever-present. We are seeing in real time the dizzying expanse of tools used by federal agents to target, suppress, and surveil individuals and movements across the country. Speakers will discuss how communities are fighting back and holding federal agents accountable using litigation, advocacy, and public education resources. Our panel features:
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Center for Constitutional Rights
666 Broadway, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10012
A breathtakingly original work of history that uncovers a massive enslaved persons’ revolt that almost changed the face of the America.
On Sunday, February 27, 1763, thousands of slaves in the Dutch colony of Berbice—in present-day Guyana—launched a massive rebellion which came amazingly close to succeeding. Surrounded by jungle and savannah, the revolutionaries (many of them African-born) and Europeans struck and parried for an entire year. In the end, the Dutch prevailed because of one unique advantage—their ability to get soldiers and supplies from neighboring colonies and from Europe. Blood on the River is the explosive story of this little-known revolution, one that almost changed the face of the Americas.
Drawing on nine hundred interrogation transcripts collected by the Dutch when the Berbice rebellion finally collapsed, and which were subsequently buried in Dutch archives, historian Marjoleine Kars reconstructs an extraordinarily rich day-by-day account of this pivotal event. Blood on the River provides a rare in-depth look at the political vision of enslaved people at the dawn of the Age of Revolution and introduces us to a set of real characters, vividly drawn against the exotic tableau of a riverine world of plantations, rainforest, and Carib allies who controlled a vast South American hinterland.
An astonishing original work of history, Blood on the River will change our understanding of revolutions, slavery, and of the story of freedom in the New World.
Prof Kars will talk for half an hour starting at 7pm (EST) on Thursday, Sept. 17th, and then will take questions for half an hour. Any interested listeners, including students, are welcome to join the call.
Sep 17, 2020 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAvcuuhrzItEtQ4Uvp8i3650ryI0nvLCvR0
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Labor and Working Class History Association (LAWCHA)
226 Carr Building (East Campus)
Box 90719
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708-0719
Email: lawcha.office@gmail.com
September 21 is the UN International Day of Peace
Enter the livestream and chat at any time
Stream begins September 21, 2020 8:00 PM EDT
Virtual Screening Event on International Day of Peace
100 Cities. One Night for Peace.
Monday, September 21
8 PM EDT (New York); 5 PM PDT (Los Angeles)
(For worldwide territories – purchase of a ticket includes a 48 Hour rebroadcast window starting on September 22 so you won’t miss out on the event)
"The only film I’ve ever watched where the audience started clapping halfway through”
-Huffington Post
Area 23a Films and Iambic Dream Films
Present
WE ARE MANY
THE NEVER-BEFORE-TOLD STORY OF THE LARGEST DEMONSTRATION IN HUMAN HISTORY,
AND HOW THE MOVEMENT CREATED BY A SMALL BAND OF ACTIVISTS CHANGED THE WORLD.
This special live-stream event will feature exclusive music performances. The movie will be followed by Q&A panel discussion including the movie’s director, Amir Amirani, cast members and leaders from key activist organizations.
Directed and Produced by: Amir Amirani
Featuring interviews with:
- Noam Chomsky (Philosopher and Activist)
- Ron Kovic (Veteran and Author of Born on the Fourth of July)
- Medea Benjamin (Code Pink Co-founder)
- Bill Fletcher Jr. (Activist and Author of They’re Bankrupting Us!)
- Mark Rylance (Oscar-Winning Actor Bridge of Spies, Dunkirk)
- John le Carré (World-Renowned Author of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
- Dr. Hans Blix (former UN Weapons Inspector)
- Lindsey German (Stop the War Coalition Founding Member)
- Jesse Jackson (Founder of Rainbow/PUSH)
- Danny Glover (Actor Lethal Weapon, The Color Purple, To Sleep with Anger)
- Ken Loach (Director I, Daniel Blake, Sorry We Missed You)
Executive Produced by: Pippa Harris (Former Chair of BAFTA, BAFTA Winner and Oscar Nominee), Callum McDougall, Signe Byrge Sorenson (BAFTA Winner and Oscar Nominee),
Omid Djalili and Taghi Amirani (Director of Coup 53)
Consulting Editor: Walter Murch (Academy Award-Winner and Editor of Coup 53)
On February 15th, 2003, up to 30 million people, many of whom had never demonstrated before, came out in nearly 800 cities around the world to protest against the impending Iraq War. WE ARE MANY is the never-before-told story of the largest demonstration in human history, and how the movement created by a small band of activists changed the world. This fearless, thought-provoking documentary is the remarkable inside story behind the first ever global demonstration, and its surprising and unreported legacy.
This is a Virtual Screening & Benefit. This screening, on September 21, the UN International Day of Peace, will benefit UFPJ and other participating organizations.
For the film trailer, click here
And to purchase tickets, click here
The Henry Reeve Brigade will celebrate its 15th anniversary next month! Yes, it will have been 15 years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and prompted then-Cuban president Fidel Castro to offer to send doctors to help treat patients in the storm’s aftermath. The US government refused this offer, but Cuba was not deterred from wanting to show the world some much needed solidarity.
Since its founding, the brave women and men of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade have given emergency medical assistance to more than 3.5 million people in over 50 countries. To honor their compassion and commitment, we will hear directly from Cuban doctors working on the frontlines of the pandemic.
What: Cuban Doctors Speak: 15 years of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade
When: Saturday, September 26 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT
Where: Online via Zoom, YouTube and Facebook.
In friendship,
Alicia Jrapko and Medea Benjamin
Co-Chairs of the Cuba Nobel Prize Committee
Nobel Peace Prize for Cuban Doctors
666 G Street, NE
Washington DC 2000
(202) 248-2093
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