Tidbits - July 21, 2016 - Reader Comments: Racism in Police Shootings; NLRB More Activist than Labor?; Abdication of the Left?; Free State of Jones; Tair Kaminer Released; Jay-Z and Beyoncé; and more...

Reader Comments: Tair Kaminer Released; Racism in Police Shootings; NLRB Become as More Activist than Labor?; Socialism Comes to Philadelphia; Portside readers have differing views on both the Abdication of the Left and the movie, the Free State of Jones; United States-Land of Terrorists and Massacres; Is Anti-Zionism Inherently Anti-Semitic?; Jay-Z and Beyoncé are donating $1.5m to Black Lives Matter

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Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources and Announcements - July 21, 2016,Portside
Announcement:
 
Tair Kaminer, it was announced this morning, is exempted from service in the IDF by the IDF Compatibility Committee. Tair will be released no later than the conclusion of her present sentence, in another two weeks. A gigantic victory for Tair and all her colleagues. A tremendous victory for peace and an end to the occupation.
 
New efforts are being made to release Omri Barness, who is presently on medical leave.
 
Reuven Kaminer
 
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Tair spoke with her family after receiving the information on her pending release. She stated:
 
"This announcement which comes after a struggle of over seven months is exciting personally and may be seen as a small victory reinstating me as a free person.  But the larger struggle is not over my incarceration but over the oppression of the Palestinian people so that the two nations living here may leave in freedom, equality, security and peace."
 
July 15, 2016.
 
 
 
 
Quick question. With a plethora of new news sources out there, which ones do you consider the most trustworthy, solid, researched, fact checked journalism?
 
And if you have time, how did you come to that conclusion?
 
Thanks!
 
Shems Dance
Query posted on her Facebook page
 
     ====
 
and, one of the answers:
 
I use a mix of radio/podcasts, print, and online sources, including Naked Capitalism The Guardian & Guardian US, the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper, Harry Shearer's Le Show, Portside & Portside Labor, NY Times, LA Times, VICE News, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine...yeah, I think those are most of my regular go-tos.
 
Monica Bee
response posted on Facebook
 
 
 
 
 
The media-led by the New York Times- took an inconclusive study focused on a limited number of cases and made it a national story undercutting the notion that racial bias exists in police shootings
 
George Kaplan
 
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The study stinks to high heaven. In Portland OR, the black population is 4% of the city population. Oregon is startlingly white. But Black people are 24% of those shot, or shot at, by the police in the last 10 years. Golly, why do you think that is?
 
Jack Radey
 
 
 
 
 
Fucking terrifying. At least the proceeds from sale of the book went to some good organizations. But ARGHGHGHGHGHG.
 
Eleanor Bader  
 
 
 
 
(posting on Portside Labor)
 
 
Good questions--and good strategy! While our gains of necessity and of good strategy need to be in the workplace and in the streets, loosening the legal bonds on effective action can make a real difference...
 
David Newby
 
 
 
 
 
Philadelphia has a proud history of struggle.
 
Diane Laison
 
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A great conversation between the past and the present.
 
 
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Great article. By substituting "middle class" for "working class" we have contributed to the diminishing of the working class as the engineers of any real political revolution.  As a "Berner" this has been one of my criticisms of his campaign.  It may explain why so many "working class" people are voting for Trump.  It may well be one of the biggest mistakes the liberal/left has made.  It reminds of the old song:  "Love Me, I'm a Liberal."  There is a difference between a liberal and being a revolutionary.  Liberals make nice.  Revolutionaries make change.
 
Claire Carsman
 
 
 
 
 
This is an important article...
 
John Case
 
     ====
 
As David Ruccio writes, 
 
"Dan Rodrick, like most mainstream economists, wouldn't know left-wing economics if it bit him on the proverbial nose (as I explained in early 2015). What he's really referring to is liberal economics, the left-of-center wing of mainstream economics."
 
The rest of Ruccio's analysis basically follows Rodrick's analysis of the failure of the liberal wing of mainstream economics. Let's just be clear that the varieties of liberal Keynesianism are not "the Left." Ruccio concludes his piece, "[i]f, as Rodrick explains, 'the right thrives on deepening divisions in society - "us" versus "them,"' and liberalism looks to enact 'reforms that bridge' those cleavages, the Left aims to overcome those cleavages by creating new, noncapitalist ways of organizing economic and social life. Not just managing the cleavages but actually eliminating them."
 
Dr. Lapin
 
     ====
 
We need a definition of "Left."  Presumably, the author considers himself part of the Left, but only suggest reform prescriptions -- an abandonment of neoliberalism through a "refashioning" of capitalism. The new great reform (and utopian) movement will be led by the economists, such as the author, and including Piketty, who admitted he never read a page of Marx's Capital.  Rodrick and other economists whom he cites, represent the ideology of a petty-bourgeoisie suffering from the ever-increasing domination of Big Capital, not only at the expense of the working class but the middle class as well.
 
Joseph Kaye
 
     ====
 
Our job is not to refashion capitalism, but to replace it with socialism.
 
Matthew Borenstein
 
 
 
 
(posting on Portside Culture)
 
 
If you haven't go see this movie. Yes there are weaknesses (Knight making decisions, not consulting wit African Americans; but this is a Hollywood movie (funded by Chinese investors. )). But I took away something else - the centuries long struggle against racism, first led by slaves -African Americans - and native peoples, in which whites participated. The struggle against racism, multi-national and multi-racial, is very much a part of the history and present day of our country.
 
Jay Schaffner
 
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Loved this movie.
 
Doug Harvey
 
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I liked this movie quite a lot!
 
Leslie Cagan
 
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I did not love it. I liked a lot of it, but felt it could have so easily been tweaked to have decreased the "white savior" picture to more of one of inter racial collectivity and African American leadership and knowledge. A missed opportunity, I think, although still an important story was told.
 
Judith Eisenscher Schaffner
 
     ====
 
Thought it was a great film.
 
Marc Beallor
 
 
 
 
 
The chickens coming home to roost today have been on a very long journey. Sadly, the Republicans are convincing the great while unwashed in our country that its all new, while trying to blame the killing and the retaliations on President Obama. Even more sadly, its working. Trump is the progenitor of the Golden Age of Hate in America...and that golden age will be the last age for our once great nation... UNLESS....everyone who still stands for truth, history and freedom...cries out loud and clear this November by rejecting this orange comb-overed neo fascist carnival barker and..... in his stead, votes all the haters out of office in the Senate, the House and most importantly, the White House. And perhaps the most horrible thing about our current golden age of hate....
 
I can barely even remember which massacre Orlando underwent! So many killings we cannot even keep track of which city is the newest to be bathing in blood. We are already making the mental transition to accept mass murders and massacres of women and children as the new normal in America...we are no longer surprised by the terror we have resigned ourselves to live with from now....on. You think I am overstating it? Just wait until tomorrow...or the next day...or the next. Damn the Haters! 
 
John G. Hertzler
 
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If we in the UK got Jeremy Corbyn and you in the US got Bernie Sanders, what a fantastic opportunity for society it might be. As it stands? Well, I'm worried about the apparent support Trump has and we've an unelected (by the people at any rate) leader at the helm, with a nation divided over the EU referendum result, with a slight majority putting us on a course to leave despite the 'Leave' campaign having lied their way through the precursor to the vote. What a world we live in...
 
Paul Young
 
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That's what I said earlier in the day about the chickens coming home to roost. You reap what you sow. And Trump is busy sowing hate and discord.
 
Eric Koenig
 
 
 
 
 
Zunes has it mostly right, but when anti-Zionism becomes a call to wipe Israel off the map, a call that has no parallel for any other settler state--just the one where Jews resettled their ancient homeland, then it is inherently Anti-Semitic.
 
Stan Nadel
 
     ====
 
Are you a supporter of Israeli Zionism? How about the right of Palestinians to have a state of their own?
 
William Proctor
 
     ====
 
Anti-right-wing Zionists *is *the term. Otherwise, the Zionist entity, and anti-Zionism gets us no where.
 
Elliott Barowitz
 
 
 
 
 
The quest for bigger and better bombs went on for many years after the war. Bikini was only one of the islands dreadfully affected.
 
Ted Plant
 
 
 
 
 
Thank you for posting Professor Al-Arian's sobering lesson on the collusion of liberal groups with the old guard and deep state in bringing about the coup against democratically elected Egyptian President Morsi. We should also remember that one of the supporters of the coup was President Obama and his State Department. The leitmotif of the coup and subsequent dictatorship is the assessment by liberal policy wonks that "the Arab world" (i.e. Arabs) are not ready for democracy, a mantra surely to be found useful by regional powers from Israel to Syria to Saudi Arabia.
 
Robert Jereski
 
 
 
 
 
the ACA is not national health care
 
Jim Price
 
 
 
 
 
Thanks for this article, fits well in to the old joke that as far as bacteria are concerned, we humans are the hangers on..in other words, lets get our shit together!
 
Capn' Steve Krug
 
 
 
 
(Posting on Portside Culture)
 
Would you be interested in sharing my book review?
 
Frank Gerould
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jay-Z and Beyonce
Kevin Mazur/VF15 via beyonce.com // Dazed
 
In the past, Jay Z and Beyoncé have come under fire for not doing enough to help struggling black communities, despite their huge wealth and the far-reaching influence afforded by their mega-fame. Recently, however, it seems the power couple have become more overtly political within the public sphere, using their finance and power to support black rights and help fight social injustice.

On Friday – the same day Trayvon Martin would have turned 21-years-old – it was announced that Jay Z’s global music and entertainment platform Tidal (which is also co-owned by Beyoncé) would be donating $1.5 million to the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as several other civil rights organizations (including Opportunity Agenda, Hands Up United, the Trayvon Martin Foundation and Sankofa.Org amongst others). The streaming service raised these funds at last year’s Tidal X: 10/20 charity concert in New York, which featured performances from Beyoncé,Nicki Minaj, Jay Z and Lil Wayne.

Read more here.
 
 
 
 
 
Watch every Kartemquin film for free in 2016! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
From today until Friday, July 22nd, the free KTQ50 film is At the Death House Door (2008).
 
 
"An impassioned portrait of a quest for truth."
 
Loren King, Chicago Tribune
 
At the Death House Door follows the remarkable career journey of Rev. Carroll Pickett, who served 15 years as the death house chaplain to the infamous "Walls" prison unit in Huntsville, Texas. Pickett ministered to 95 men who were executed, including the very first lethal injection done anywhere in the world. After each execution, he recorded a riveting audiotape account of that fateful day. No inmate's execution would haunt Pickett more than that of Carlos De Luna, a young convict whom he firmly believed was innocent. The film tracks the investigation of two reporters who turn up compelling evidence that suggests Pickett was right. 
Winner of numerous festival awards, and shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, At the Death House Door was directed by Steve James and Peter Gilbert - makers of the landmark Kartemquin documentary, Hoop Dreams - and made in collaboration with the Chicago Tribune, and was originally distributed and broadcast by IFC. Screenings of the film took place around the world in collaboration with the ACLU and the  National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, who awarded the film with a 2009 Public Education Award.
 
At the Death House Door is available on DVD here. 
 
In 2016, several organizations in Chicago and around the country will host a series of screenings and events to celebrate Kartemquin's 50th anniversary. We also invite you to watch all our films for free, week by week, here. 
 
See the full #KTQ50 streaming schedule and more information (click here).

 

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