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Tidbits - June 11, 2015 - Kalief Browder, Criminality of Prisons; Fight for $15; Edward Snowden: Hero; Ronnie Gilbert; Walmart; Suicide in Young Women; Left Strategy Needed; and more...

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Reader Comments: Kalief Browder and Criminality of Prisons; Fight for $15; Edward Snowden - Hero; Ronnie Gilbert; Walmart Anti-Labor Activity; Suicide in Young Women; The Audacity to Win - Left Strategy Needed; Recommended Books - By non-white authors; Announcements: 62nd Memorial of the Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; Brooklyn Peace Fair

BDS and the "Anti-Semitism" Charge; Penalties Will Grow Worse The Longer Israel Persists In Settling - Israeli and Jewish Perspectives

Gideon Levy; Jerry Haber
BDS is neither motivated by anti-Semitism, nor is it, in effect, anti-Semitic. The "anti-Semitism" charge against BDS is false, intellectually lazy, and morally repugnant. The Israelis are fighting for their right to persist in settling, exploiting and stealing land; to continue breaking international law that prohibits settlement. For the sins of occupation, boycotts are a Light punishment. Commentary from an Israeli, American, and Orthodox Jewish perspective.

Fear and Learning in Kabul

Kathy Kelly teleSUR
Physicians for Social Responsibility recently calculated that since 2001 in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. wars have killed at least 1.3 million and quite possibly more than 2 million civilians. Their report chides U.S. political elites for attributing on-going violence in Afghanistan and Iraq to various types of internecine conflicts as if the resurgence and brutality of such conflicts is unrelated to the destabilization caused by decades of military intervention.

UE General Executive Board Statement on Bernie Sanders Presidential Campaign

UE General Executive Board UE
Sanders has been a strong voice encouraging workers to build unions, opposing excessive corporate power and economic inequality; and for measures to curb climate change, notes the UE General Executive Board in a statement urging its members and locals to consider participating in his campaign. The statement also urged Sanders his to offers a stronger critique of US interventionist foreign policy.

Turkey's AKP Doomed by Poverty, Growing Inequality and Its War on Trade Unions

Conn M. Hallinan Dispatches From the Edge
Backdrop to Turkey's elections: Turkish workers have seen their unions dismantled under the AKP government, and many have lost collective bargaining rights. The percentage of unionized workers fell from 57.5 in 2003 to just 9.68 percent today. The Syrian war is not popular with the average Turk. The Army opposes any involvement in Syria, because it sees nothing ahead but a quagmire that would ally Turkey with the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty and Other World-Renowned Economists Demand End to Greek Austerity

Martin de Bourmont In These Times
26 top world economists say austerity is not working, won't and can't. The future of the EU is at stake in the negotiations between Greece and its creditor institutions, now close to a climax. To avoid failure, concessions will be needed from both sides. From the EU, forbearance and finance to promote structural reform and economic recovery, and to preserve the integrity of the Eurozone.

The Brief and Tragic Life of Kalief Browder

Ta-Nehisi Coates The Atlantic
Numbers alone can't convey what the justice system does to the individual black body. Kalief Browder was sent to Riker's Island when he was 16 years old for a crime he did not commit. He spent three years there without a trial.

Assata Shakur on Women in Prison at Riker's Island in the 70s

Assata Shakur History Is A Weapon / The Black Scholar
Assata Shakur writes about her incarceration at Riker's Island in the 1970s. Shakur was a member of the Black Panther Party who went underground to evade police repression, joining the Black Liberation Army. She was captured in 1973 and held as a political prisoner until 1979 (one year after this article was written), when she escaped and made her was to Cuba where she lives to this day, despite increasing pressure from the United States for her extradition.

Racism, a Pool Party in Texas and the Supreme Court

Noliwe Rooks The Hill
The events in McKinney make a stronger argument than could almost any lawyer for why the court should affirm the importance of racially and economically integrated residential areas.