Tidbits – Jan.9 – Reader Comments: Greenland, Panama Canal, Gulf of America and He Still Hasn’t Taken Office; Trump Voters’ Rude Awakening; Jimmy Carter; AHA Votes To Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza; Academy for Socialist Education NYC Spring Classes;

Reader Comments: Greenland, Panama Canal, Gulf of America and Still Hasn't Taken Oath of Office; Trump Voters' Rude Awakening; Jimmy Carter; Historical Assoc. Votes to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza; Academy for Socialist Education NYC Spring Classes;

Portside
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Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, AND cartoons - Jan.9, 2025,Portside

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First Press Conference - Four More Years of Dumbest Sh-t You've Ever Heard Interspersed With Acts of Mass Harm  (Feminist News)

 

Feminist News
January 7, 2025

 

Re: Trump Voters Are In for a Rude Awakening
 

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)

Trump sold them countless, often conflicting fantasies. In 2025, he’ll face political reality. For many, he was whoever they wanted him to be—a choose-your-own-candidate. Voters projected their wishes onto his candidacy, regardless of his stated policy program.

They remembered positive aspects of his presidency and either memory-holed the negative parts (his deadly mishandling of the pandemic, say, or his nomination of Supreme Court justices who eliminated abortion rights) or simply didn’t blame him for them. But Trump’s rhetorical slipperiness made this possible. His relentless lying, flip-flopping, and vagueness about his plans made it difficult to pin him down, thereby attracting voters from both sides of certain issues.

Jose Luis Medina
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Yet they’re anti awakening?

Benjamin Amos Gerber
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Election Certification  --  Cartoon by Clay Bennett

 

Clay Bennett
January 6, 2025
Chattanooga Times Free Press

 

Way of Life  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Rob Rogers

 

New Orleans was in the process of replacing the security bollards for the Super Bowl. When our security is threatened in any number of ways, society and government do everything in their power to fix it. I wish I could say the same response was afforded the threat from guns.

Rob Rogers
January 3, 2025
TinyView

 

Re: How Trump Nominees Could Make Project 2025 a Reality
 

In the days after his victory, Trump picked major architects of the Heritage Foundation’s vision for key posts in his next administration, setting the stage for them to implement a conservative Christian agenda that has the potential to reshape the federal government and redefine rights long held by all Americans, though likely to disproportionately impact women, LGBTQ+ people and vulnerable populations like the elderly and disabled.

One of these architects is Russell Vought, whom Trump has again tapped to lead his Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, an under-the-radar entity to most Americans that wields immense influence over the federal government by crafting the president’s budget. If confirmed by the Senate, a very likely outcome, Vought will be optimally positioned to inject Project 2025’s priorities — many of which reflect his career-long push to dismantle programs for low-income Americans and expand the president’s authority — across the federal agencies and departments that OMB oversees.

Lynn Hamilton
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Lying in State  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Rob Rogers

 

Jimmy Carter promised the American people he would never lie to them. He kept that promise. Meanwhile, Donald Trump told 30,573 lies in his first term. We miss you, Jimmy.

Rob Rogers
January 7, 2025
TinyView

 

Re: Jimmy Carter Was Right About Israel’s Apartheid
 

No US president has ever been willing to call the system imposed by Israel on the Palestinians what it is: apartheid. Except Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter was a champion of peace who also foresaw the perils of apartheid in Palestine.

Banbose Shango
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Jimmy Carter Was No Friend of Union Workers Like Me

(posting on Portside Labor)
 

As a worker of that era, I had high expectations for Jimmy Carter, but ultimately felt betrayed. The administration was far less supportive of unions and workers than we had hoped, and many of the policies of that era disappointed me and my union colleagues.

Sophia Anna
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

Good description of Jimmy Carter. I was Chief Job Steward in Teamsters Local 968 at the GAF tile factory during his tenure.
From that time on I have supported the idea of a worker's party.

In Solidarity,

Pancho Valdez, Retiree
CWA Local 6186
San Antonio, Texas

 

New Orleans  --  Cartoon by Bill Bramhall

 

Bill Bramhall
January 3, 2025
New York Daily News

 

Re: History’s Lessons on Anti-Immigrant Extremism
 

The scale of what Trump has promised is difficult to fathom and without recent precedent. A century and a half ago, however, a movement to cast out a different group of people began to accelerate in the United States.

Rei Naldo
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: One of the Supreme Court’s Most Infamous Cases Is As Relevant as Ever
 

What is amazing to me is how many people of Asian descent are ignorant of this country’s history… no one knows about the Chinese Exclusion Act which prohibited immigration from China for ten years.  The other thing people ignore at their own peril that the statement that all men are created equal included only white, Anglo-Saxon males with property.  All others step to the back of the line…

Silvia Brandon
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Alabama Profits off Prisoners Who Work at McDonald’s But Deems Them Too Dangerous for Parole
 

Alabama With a sprawling labor system that dates back more than 150 years — including the brutal convict leasing era that replaced slavery — it has constructed a template for the commercialization of mass incarceration.

Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Prison labor song
Shoot 'Em In The Leg
https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=14078213

tom neilson
http://www.tomneilsonmusic.com

 

Re: Why Congress Members Face a Lawsuit for Funding Israel’s War on Gaza
 

More than 600 constituents of Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson have signed on as plaintiffs in a class action accusing them of helping to arm the Israeli military in violation of “international and federal law that prohibits complicity in genocide.”

Richard Rosa
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: What Is the Duty of the Israeli Left in a Time of Genocide?
 

Israeli leftists have been more divided and marginalized than ever since the October 7 assault, with joint Palestinian-Jewish struggle at a breaking point. Yet their sights remain set on long-term political change.

Jim Stone
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Sadly, it will never be possible, even for an enlightened Israeli left, to separate the state of Israel from its basis in dispossession of an indigenous population in the last gasp of the age of European colonization. The only people who owed Jews a chunk of land for a state of their own were the Germans, not the Arabs of Palestine where, prior to modern Zionism, Jews had never constituted more than a tiny remnant for centuries. It's unsurprising that a state created in the post WWII 20th century by agreements among western colonial powers drawing maps, as usual, without regard to the inhabitants is proving to be a dead end.

Felice Sage
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Today, As in the Past, Germany Claims the Authority To Define Who Is a Jew
 

"Germany is using a term that was designed to protect Jews as a weapon not only to silence Palestinians, but also to silence Jews and Israelis who criticize the occupation.”

Reawakening ghosts from a dark past, Germany once again claims to have the authority to define who is a Jew. Those who say this are Jews living in Germany who find themselves the target of processes of delegitimization from the moment they criticize Israel. Between Israel and Jews, Germany chooses the Zionist state.

For the philosopher and journalist Martin Gak, “when the German state puts itself in a position to tell me what the opinions of a Jew should be and which expression of antisemitism to condemn and which to protect, the famous phrase of Hermann Göring, one of the main architects of the police state in Nazi Germany, comes to mind: In Germany, I am the one who decides who is a Jew.”

Alice Slater
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

Germany, once again, decides who is a Jew?

Mark C. Rosenzweig
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: The Common Ground Between Labor and Climate Justice Is the Key to a Livable Future

(posting on Portside Labor)
 

The tale of “jobs versus the environment” does not capture the full story.

Mary-Alice Strom
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: The Plutocracy Wins Another Round Against MAGA Nation
 

Trump can get rid of Elon Musk with Just One Phone Call!

Trump has an Ace Up His Sleeve in that he can call the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration at any point he wants to and have them start denaturalization proceeding against Elon Musk for violating his Visa's and Oath of Naturalization!

Elon Musk didn’t come to the U.S. on an H1B.

He came illegally, scamming his way in on a student visa (F1) he never used, then violated its terms to work.

His constant lies about his origin story aren’t just to lecture folks—they’re to protect himself from deportation and avoid the massive fines and asset seizures that could follow an investigation into his immigration fraud.

Lane Ralph
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: This Land Is Your Land: The Story Behind the Song
 

First of all, I appreciate your work so much!

This article about the song This land is your land, is great and interesting.

My question is how can this song be discussed without also mentioning Native Americans, whose land of course it was to begin with? It's a serious omission!

Maybe the Kennedy Center  can not do that for various political reason, but I hope Portside could add a comment about this.

Thank you for all your work!

Eva Pettersson

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    “I saw a sign that said No Trespassing
    But on the other side
    It didn’t say nothing
    This land was made for you and me.”

Lewis Grupper

 

Re: Elvis, the Polio Vaccine, and Us
 

Perhaps the best solution to those who refuse to vaccinate appropriately is to bar them from international travel.  It was done before the general availability of vaccines.  I spent over 700 dollars to get a timely vaccine to return to Italy in 2021.  This would affect the most affluent who would seem to be the most smug.  

Kimberly Breeze

 

Re: Ecuador Hands Over Galapagos Islands To Build U.S. Military Base
 

TRAGIC NEWS!  Ecuadorians will soon discover what giving in to a white supremacist, imperial power will do to destroy their sovereignty.  Have they not witnessed what occurred in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Haiti?  Short term gain for some Ecuadorians, long term loss of sovereignty for all Ecuadorians. Have you not witnessed the African nations that recently castout US military bases from their countries?  Did you look into why?  Pobrecitos!

Velva Spriggs

 

Re: We Need To Talk About Trader Joe’s

(posting on Portside Culture)
 

Unbelievable? Trader Joe's ripping off small retailers? Read on... 

Behind the bubbly cashiers in Hawaiian shirts, craveable snacks, and bargain-basement prices are questionable business practices that have many food brands crying foul at the company’s blatant and aggressive copycat culture.

Jay Schaffner
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

New Political Cartoonist  --  Cartoon by Jeff Danziger

 

Jeff Danziger
January 6, 2025
Rutland Herald (VT)

 

American Historical Assoc. Votes Overwhelmingly to Support Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza  (Democracy Now!)
 

The American Historical Association, the oldest learned society in the United States, has adopted the “Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza,” condemning Israel’s “intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system.” We speak to Sherene Seikaly and Barbara Weinstein, two scholars who supported the resolution and helped push for the groundbreaking vote. Seikaly, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says, “This moment was one I never thought I would experience,” hailing the resolution as an opportunity for historians to “narrate our past and imagine our future.” Weinstein, who teaches at New York University and previously served as the president of the American Historical Association, adds, “Over the years it has become increasingly clear that we can’t have a narrow definition of what our roles are as historians.”

The vote was a vote of 428 in favor and 88 opposed. The resolution was written by Historians for Peace and Democracy.

Listen - Click here

 

Academy for Socialist Education  --  New York  -- starting January 28 - classes run through June  (New York City DSA's Academy for Socialist Education)

 


 

NYC DSA invites DSA members and the broader NYC community to apply to the first of our Winter/Spring 2025 course offerings. Courses below will continue to open to enrollment in early 2025.

The Chapter’s newly launched Academy for Socialist Education just concluded its first semester. Two classes, one on fascism, and one on empire, were great successes in the eyes of both students and teachers. We are excited about the prospects for the future.

The Academy has therefore decided to greatly expand its roster of forthcoming courses. Below you will see the classes scheduled beginning in January and continuing into June. They are designed, in part, to address some of the larger issues raised by the recent presidential election.
 

We are accepting applications now for the first two courses and will continue to open enrollment closer to course start dates. Sign up for the Academy mailing list to receive updates on this and more.

Classes include:

  • The Anatomy of Strikes—How to Build a More Militant and Effective Labor Movement
  • Introduction to Political Economy
  • The Making of Trump Country
  • Socialists and Housing
  • Municipal Socialism in the United States
  • The Rise and Fall of Ruling Classes: Yesterday and Today
  • Capitalism and Democracy

For more information and to register: https://socialists.nyc/academy/

NYC-DSA  
14 Jefferson Street
New York, NY 10002

 

Palestinian Cultural Fair  --  Jersey City  --  January 26  (Ceasefire Now New Jersey)

 

A Palestinian Cultural Festival with vendors, music, crafts, food, and fundraisers for Palestine.

January 26, 2025 @ 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm EST

Grace Church Van Vorst
39 Erie St
Jersey City, NJ 07302

Ceasefire Now New Jersey https://www.instagram.com/p/DCaeNStxyK0/