https://portside.org/2018-01-18/tidbits-january-18-2018-reader-comments-nuclear-disarmament-trumps-racism-radical

Re: Trump Administration to Ease Constraints on Use of Nuclear Weapons (Leanna Noble; Jay Schaffner; Marilyn Albert; Pam Johnson; Carlos Arias-Reyes)
Re: It HAS Happened Here (Frank Emspak)
My response to the racist-in-chief's contemptible language toward my African and Haitian brothers and sisters (Stella Adams)
Trump's White House - cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz
Re: Martin Luther King's "Call to Conscience" - Beyond Vietnam (Judith Ezekiel; Buffie Gold; Lisa Bilander-Gray)
Revisiting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1965 Commencement Speech at Antioch College (Jocelyn Robinson)
Re: "How We Get Free": Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on Lessons of Radical Black Feminism in the Age of Trump (Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression)
Re: The Lefty Critique of #TimesUp Is Tired and Self-Defeating (Ethan Young; Salvador Beano)
Re: Climate Change Meets Mass Incarceration: California's Incarcerated Firefighters (Robert Bridger Adams)
Re: Why a Successful Union Organizer Thinks Traditional Organizing is a Lost Cause (Marti Garza)
Re: It's Time to Pay the Tab for America's College Athletes (Tom Caves; Frederick E. Wendt; George Fish)
Re: From Spinoza to Vilkomerson, Jewish Voices for Peace Have Long Been Banned- by Jews (Dan Laurier Beaulieu)
Re: How to See a Memory (Capn' Steve Krug)
Re: Donald Trump Goes to the Movies (Cliff Gulliver; Michael Thelen; Susie Goorman)
Re: Oprah Rocks! - Real Message Was About Us (David Raun; Humberto Pagan)
Re: Melinda and Sandy and Oprah (Joyce Parkes)
Re: How Langston Hughes Brought His Radical Vision to the Novel (Ronald A. Tyson)
Grim Times in Austria: Update January 2018 (Stan Nadel)

Announcements:

The '60s: The Years that Changed America - New York - January 14 - March 24
In Concert for Puerto Rico - New York - January 21
School Segregation is One of the Biggest Threats to Education Today - Washington, DC - February 7 (The Century Foundation)
A CALL TO ACTION: “War or Peace with North Korea?” - February and March (Historians for Peace and Democracy)

 

Re: Trump Administration to Ease Constraints on Use of Nuclear Weapons

This criminal atrocity along with recent "false alarm" in Hawaii along with CDC "duck and cover" bullshit makes me remember my long dead bomber pilot father (died early maybe because of all the toxics in military?) coming home in the late 1950s telling my family to forget our escape plans...willing to admit that there is no real survival from nukes. PERIOD. No more nukes! No more war in the name of capital!

Leanna Noble
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I grew up opposed to nuclear weapons; marched to Ban the Bomb; demonstrated against the war in Vietnam - every year in Chicago we had marches on either Hiroshima or Nagasaki Day; and I will continue to oppose the development and spread of nuclear weapons. This occupant of the White House has to be stopped. We need a movement for impeachment - to make the 2018 election a referendum on the legality and rationality of the Trump Administration. This one has to go..

Jay Schaffner
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Everyone must see or read "Command and Control" recently on PBS and on Netflix DVD - story of one of many nuclear warhead accidents from which pure luck permitted our collective escape.

Marilyn Albert
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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He's already shown that he has no regard for the nation, and little enough for his family. He's a sociopath, and they really have no concern for anyone but themselves, and not much ability to fear consequences.

Pam Johnson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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He's crazy, the Congress must stop him or at least to limit his access to those weapons

Carlos Arias-Reyes
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: It HAS Happened Here

Well done and very helpful.

Frank Emspak

 

My response to the racist-in-chief's contemptible language toward my African and Haitian brothers and sisters

By Stella Adams

January 12, 2018
National Community Reinvestment Coalition

My heart is broken as we begin to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The president has defiled our nation and our ideals. While it breaks my heart to see that some neither deny nor condemn his statements – it does not break my spirit.

Fifty years ago, our nation embarked on a war on poverty, not a war on the poor.

People of good will of all nationalities, creeds, and religions stood side by side fighting for racial and economic equality.  But we forget, and gloss over, that each step forward was bitterly fought against by merchants of misery – racists and bigots who believed in violence and hatred.

Yet, we moved forward.

I have betrayed you, if I led you to believe that America’s march towards freedom, justice and equality has been steady. It has not– each step has been a hard climb up the rough side of the mountain.

We are #JusticeWarriors chosen for this moment, for this movement. We must stand boldly against hate, and we must speak truth to power.

To our friends who remain silent, Martin Niemöller reminds us:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

With this in mind. We must stand unapologetically against racism whether it is in the White House, state house or courthouse. We must reject all attempts to pervert our nation’s core values and hold in contempt all who would come to bigotry’s aid.

“Justice Justice we shall pursue!”

Stella Adams

Stella Adams is Chief of Equity and Inclusion at NCRC.*

[The National Community Reinvestment Coalition and its grassroots member organizations create opportunities for people to build wealth. We work with community leaders, policymakers and financial institutions to champion fairness in banking, housing and business.

NCRC was formed in 1990 by national, regional and local organizations to increase the flow of private capital into traditionally underserved communities. NCRC has grown into an association of more than 600 community-based organizations that promote access to basic banking services, affordable housing, entrepreneurship, job creation and vibrant communities for America's working families.]

* My title and employment is for information only, the views expressed are mine and mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer or any other organization with which I am affiliated.

 

Trump's White House - cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz

Lalo Alcaraz
January 12, 2018

 

Re: Martin Luther King's "Call to Conscience" - Beyond Vietnam

Long before King's 1967 Riverside Church speech, check out this one at Antioch College in 1965:
http://wyso.org/post/revisiting-dr-martin-luther-king-jrs-1965-commence…

Judith Ezekiel

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A powerful speech; too bad our President doesn't read; the 5 steps laid out in it are pertinent today.

Buffie Gold
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I was there....it was an incredible speech.

Lisa Bilander-Gray
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Revisiting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1965 Commencement Speech at Antioch College

By Jocelyn Robinson
January 18, 2015
91.3 WYSO

Listen here

Antioch College history Professor Kevin McGruder shares his thoughts on this shift, and the importance of Dr. King's message to the Antioch class of 1965.

"A fair amount of the speech focuses on things he's talked about in other places, poverty, civil rights, but he is particularly giving emphasis to an international viewpoint and what's really interesting about that is this is June of 1965, and a lot of times when people talk about Martin Luther King and his viewpoints, they really don't credit him looking worldwide until 1967 when he gives a speech at Riverside Church denouncing the Vietnam War. But this speech makes clear that that didn't come from nowhere. He was already thinking about that; he talks about Vietnam in this speech and talks about the futility of militarism. And when we look at where that's coming from, some mark that broadening of his vision into the international world to his receipt of the Nobel Prize in 1964, and so about six months later he's in Yellow Springs at Antioch looking at the world. For us now, that speech is remarkably prophetic.

A lot of times when people talk about Martin Luther King and his prophetic voice, and I think they almost use it as a kind of literary flourish or something like that, but there really is a way that he sees the future that most others don't even then or now. What's interesting about this speech, too, he talks about these things and he doesn't say this is your charge to the students but that seems to be what he's implying, you are going out into the world, it's an international world, and he talks about the great World House that we have inherited and we must figure out a way to live together and in 1965 he's saying it. In other places he really uses the concept of Beloved Community, and I think when people hear that they kind of think oh, isn't that nice, but what he really means is that there's work that is done to create a Beloved Community, caring for each other, not allowing someone to live in need when people have things that that person can benefit from, you know, whether it's individual or group by group. And so I think when people heard that and hear it now, the fact that they're saying that's his dream, it's almost like by and by it'll happen, but when we get to his core message, we have to do things to make it happen, and so when we look at the Antioch speech, that's really what he's getting at."

 

Re: "How We Get Free": Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on Lessons of Radical Black Feminism in the Age of Trump

Forty years ago, the Combahee River Collective issued an extraordinary manifesto on Black feminism. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor edits -- and offers perspective -- on the document and the collective that had a profound impact on today's Black feminism and Black liberation movements.

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

 

Re: The Lefty Critique of #TimesUp Is Tired and Self-Defeating

(posting on Portside Culture)

Hollywood women coming to the aid of social movements needs no defense. They have money - we need it. Some of them are artists - art is good. But we should not ignore how poisonous the culture of celebrity worship is for democracy. The ability to attract cameras, whether through talent, charisma, or notoriety, should not be placed on an equal or higher basis than mass participation in politics. Our goal is winning, but we have to ask what winning means - promoting a celeb with our politics (or, as in the case of Oprah, occasionally sounding like us), or empowering working people to push for the good stuff.

Ethan Young
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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agree... Cyntoia Brown's case is a point in hand... do people care about the injustice this girl face or the celebs who back her? Justice isn't a trend... you're in it for the long haul

Salvador Beano
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Climate Change Meets Mass Incarceration: California's Incarcerated Firefighters

All prison labor, at least as it stands now, is an exploitative labor practice. Prisoners get paid next to nothing and, working is often mandatory or the prisoner is punished, often by extending the sentence - understand that this means that for profit prisons are in a position to increase their profit at the prisoners expense. This criticism has nothing to do with whether or not prisoners should have to work or not, or what type of penalty's there should be for disobedience, it has to do with a system that makes money off of it. And the fact that the current system discourages rehabilitation (not only is there no reason for a prison to want to release a prisoner early, there are, as I mentioned above, financial incentives to keep them longer, and longer, and longer). No one should be making a profit off of forced labor or encouraged to incarcerate anyone for as long as possible - period!

Robert Bridger Adams
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Why a Successful Union Organizer Thinks Traditional Organizing is a Lost Cause

(posting on Portside Labor)
https://portside.org/2018-01-16/why-successful-union-organizer-thinks-t…

As a subscriber to Portside and a long time (20 years in and counting) union organizer, I find it offensive that a piece of class collaborationist snake oil such as this would be published and promoted on the Portside platform.

Martí Garza
Alexandria, VA

 

Re: It's Time to Pay the Tab for America's College Athletes

Colleges should pay them out of their profits....... Either that or we should ban sports from public schools.

Tom Caves
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Athletes get a free education. Also, who makes the grade?

Frederick E. Wendt
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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It's time to dismantle this whole rotten enterprise of sports hoopla, mindless gladiator-glorification, & get back to basics--intelligence, knowledge, education! Time to praise anthropologists, not college athletes who spend "college" time grooming for the pros.

If college athletes are "paid," pay them ONLY what anthropology grad students are paid!!!

George Fish
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: From Spinoza to Vilkomerson, Jewish Voices for Peace Have Long Been Banned- by Jews

The idea that a whole religion has but one opinion, is nonsense. Judaism is no exception.

Dan Laurier Beaulieu
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: How to See a Memory

This is both equally cool and very scary: Think of what will happen when we can trigger/create memories and Cambridge Analytica gets hold of the tech...

Capn' Steve Krug

 

Re: Donald Trump Goes to the Movies

(posting on Portside Culture)

He is the eruption of the putrid, not a new putrefaction.

Cliff Gulliver
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Trump is the evil face of America.

Michael Thelen
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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This is coming out of Hollywood? Where they've protected scum like Weinstein for decades? Give me a break....

Susie Goorman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Oprah Rocks! - Real Message Was About Us

Back in 2002 she helped cheerlead the US into war.

David Raun
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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So you are tired of a billionaire man in power and want a billionaire woman instead?

Humberto Pagan
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Melinda and Sandy and Oprah

(posting on Portside Culture)

Kitty Kelley is clearly an angry person. As such, she is not plausible as a biographer - authorized or not. While I don't exactly take to Oprah's simplistic utterings, I must say that where a biographer is unable to speak of a subject's flaws and felicities, our world would be a better place.

Joyce Parkes

 

Re: How Langston Hughes Brought His Radical Vision to the Novel

Hughes was not part of the class of people he thought black artists should write about. His ancestors on his mother's side were 19th-Century black elites and political/social activists.

Ronald A. Tyson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Grim Times in Austria (Austrian Update-January 2018)

Well Austria's new government is now up and running so it is time to take a look at it in operation.  The Austrian People's Party (+VP)-Austrian Freedom Party (FP+) coalition has been putting on a very good show of happy cooperation between the two parties and seems to be putting off as many details about implementing their program until after the state elections due in the next few months—especially those that will cut away large parts of the Austrian welfare state..  But we see the outlines already.

When it comes to economic and social policies the neo-liberals of the People's Party are in the driver's seat and the supposedly “social homeland” principles of the Freedom Party are being thrown overboard—along with the interests of most of their voters (the FP+ has claimed to represent the little guys against the elites and has won the support of the largest portion of the Austrian working classes away from the Social Democrats).  The new government has moved to change the limits on the legal working day from 8 hours to 12, and on the legal working week from 40 hours to 60—in the name of increasing “flexibility” for employers and workers. Now they are changing the law for unemployment insurance to force the long term unemployed off the insurance and on to welfare.  The FP+ Social minister said publicly that she would not allow a change similar to the one in Germany that requires the long term unemployed to give up everything they own in order to be eligible—so the +VP Chancellor and FP+ vice-Chancellor have taken away her authority over this program change and committed the government into doing what she said she wouldn't allow. Given the fact that there is no age discrimination law in Austria there is a high rate of long term unemployment among workers over 50 (being over 50 makes you virtually unemployable here) and so this will screw tens or hundreds of thousands of FP+ voters. Speaking of the over 50 unemployed, the last government implemented a program to create jobs for 20,000 of them and the new regime just canceled the program. For the +VP neo-liberals and their FP+ partners anyone who doesn't have a job is to blame for their own unemployment—even when there are far more of them than there are jobs.

When it comes to learning the lessons of history the new Chancellor (who is only 31 years old and who never completed his university studies) and his advisors have gone off the deep end.  Ever since the creation of the Second Republic after WWII it has been a fundamental principle of all coalition governments in Austria that the two ministries that control the use of force, the defense ministry (the army) and the interior ministry (the police), should never both be in the hands of the same party. But now the far right Freedom Party has been given control of both ministries.  That puts them in charge of all the Austrian intelligence and anti-subversion agencies, so neo-Nazis and their friends are now in charge of watching out for neo-Nazi subversives—and will be given a free hand to hunt for left wing, green, and animal rights activists in the name of hunting subversion.

Speaking of the interior ministry, the new FP+ interior minister has just called for moving asylum seekers out of private and NGO quarters and putting them in (more expensive) large government controlled centers—to “concentrate them in one place” he said. He didn't go so far as to call that place a concentration camp, but some of his fellow FP+ members have called for reopening Mauthausen for that purpose.

In the meantime, the Justice Minister, who is now with the +VP but who started his career with the FP+, has called for revising the entire law code in Austria.  Every law passed before the year 2000 would be canceled automatically unless the ministry concerned decides it should be kept in effect. That would let them virtually dismantle the entire welfare state and the democratic structure of the country at the whim of the current ministers.

It shouldn't surprise anybody to learn that the official Austrian Jewish community has just resolved to refuse to have anything to do with the FP+ or its government representatives because of the frequent Antisemitic utterances of various FP+ officials and members.  The FP+ charm offensive in claiming to be pro-Israel has fooled some Jews elsewhere into thinking that the FP+ has changed its spots, but the Austrian Jewish Community knows better. A recent study of on-line hate postings and campaigns in Austria and Germany has found a significant difference between the two countries.  Postings using Nazi vocabulary and images—like so-and-so “belongs in a gas chamber” or “should be gassed” and the country “should re-open the concentration camps” for asylum seekers or Muslims, and such like—are, it seems “typically Austrian” and are rarely found in Germany (away from football matches anyway). When the first baby born in Austria in 2018 was pictured in the news in the arms of a new mother wearing a headscarf a flood of racist, sexist, and obscene postings swamped the on-line comments sections of the news and social media. Tens of thousands of others then contributed positive messages of congratulations to a volume presented to the new parents in order to counter the bigots.

All in all these are dangerous times in Austria but there is a great deal of opposition developing to the government.  The Social Democrats are trying to retool from being a long term governing party to being an effective opposition. The Greens virtually self-destructed last year and aren't even represented in the parliament, but they have been effective in opposition in the past and may make a comeback if they can overcome their internal divisions. The far left here is small and isolated; there is no real counterpart to the German Left Party. So we wait and watch.

Stan Nadel

 

The '60s: The Years that Changed America - New York - January 14 - March 24

Inspired by Robert A. Caro

It was a time of turmoil. It was a time of change. A nation looked inward, reevaluating what it was and what it hoped to be. Half a century later, the cultural and social upheavals of the 1960s in the US and abroad inform nearly all aspects of our lives. For the first time, Carnegie Hall has looked to a figure outside the music world—Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert A. Caro, famed biographer of Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson—for inspiration in creating a festival, turning our attention to this singular decade.

Listen here.

The festival inevitably touches on the turbulent spirit of the '60s: the quest for civil rights, equal rights, and social justice; the empowerment of a young and restive generation; the division wrought by a distant war; and the emergence of a radical new aesthetic in reaction to modernism. Music was at the center of all these struggles and a meaningful vehicle to inspire change.

Among Carnegie Hall's offerings, two programs in the festival explore the nexus of music, protest, and social change: one featuring David Crosby with Snarky Puppy and guest artists, and the other led by composer, music director, and producer Ray Chew with a lineup of prominent fellow artists. There is also a performance by the Philip Glass Ensemble and new works premiered by the Kronos Quartet—one referencing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech, and the other based on the work of author and activist Studs Terkel. Pianist Matthew Shipp and the legendary Roscoe Mitchell—a proponent of the free jazz movement that flourished in the '60s and a founder of the groundbreaking Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians—perform together for the first time. Other highlights include performances by Icelandic psychedelic pop band múm, the socially and politically minded singer-songwriter Bhi Bhiman, and a multimedia concert that focuses on musical responses to the Vietnam War.

This special exploration of the 1960s extends citywide with music, lectures, panels, exhibitions, films, and more, thanks to partner programming created by leading cultural institutions, including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Apollo Theater, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, Keyes Art Projects, The Museum of Modern Art, New York City Center, New-York Historical Society, The New York Public Library, New York University, and The Paley Center for Media.

To understand where we were then, to understand where we are now, The '60s festival provides a guide to the years that forever changed America.

To Download click here.

 

In Concert for Puerto Rico - New York - January 21

With Bomba Yo, The Peace Poets, The Real Stormin' Norman, The Brooklyn Women's Chorus, Bev Grant, Frank Negron, Vincent Cross, Judy Kass, Mike Glick

Sunday, January 21, matinee show, 2 to 5 pm

Hostelling International
891 Amsterdam Avenue @ 103 Street
Manhattan

Co-sponsors: Hostelling Int'l NY; Peoples Music Network; Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County NJ; Folk Song Society of NY and Ethical Brew Coffee House, Teaneck NJ

Donation: $15 in advance; $20 at the door ($17 for seniors, students)
Click here. 

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School Segregation is One of the Biggest Threats to Education Today - Washington, DC - February 7

Wed, February 7, 2018
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM EST

The Abramson Family Auditorium, 
NYU Washington D.C.
1307 L St NW
Washington, DC 20005

Sixty-four years after Brown v. Board of Education, segregation by race and income level continues to persist (and in some cases, increase) in schools of all types across America. But is school segregation one of the biggest threats to education today, or is it merely a symptom of deeper issues, such as inadequate education resources and poor standards?

Join us on Wednesday, February 7, in Washington, D.C., as Professor Sheryll Cashin of Georgetown University and Dr. Howard Fuller of Marquette University debate how we should tackle segregation in education policy. The debate will be moderated by John B. King, Jr., former secretary of education in the Obama administration.

REGISTER - It's Free

FOR THE MOTION - Sheryll Cashin - writes about race relations and inequality in America. She is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University where she teaches Constitutional Law and Race and American Law, among other subjects. Cashin previously worked in the Clinton White House as an advisor on urban and economic policy and was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

AGAINST THE MOTION - Dr. Howard Fuller - Distinguished Professor of Education and Director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University. Dr. Fuller also served as Superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools from 1991 to 1995, and has previously served on the boards of the Black Alliance for Educational Options and the Charter School Review Committee for the City of Milwaukee.

MODERATOR - John B. King, Jr. - President and CEO of The Education Trust, a national nonprofit organization that seeks to identify and close opportunity and achievement gaps, from preschool through college. King served as the secretary of education from 2016 to 2017 as a member of President Barack Obama’s administration.

The Century Foundation
One Whitehall St, 15th Floor
New York, NY 10004

 

A CALL TO ACTION: “War or Peace with North Korea?”

An Olympics Truce Campaign - February and March 2018

Of all the dangers the reactionary Trump administration poses, the most immediately devastating would be another war with North Korea. Such a war would almost certainly go nuclear, with catastrophic loss of life. President Trump’s bluster and instability, matching that of the North Korean president, pose a constant risk of a tense situation getting completely out of control. The public needs to weigh in on the need for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. Peaceful options exist, and they need to be brought to the forefront of public discussion.

Historians for Peace and Democracy (H-PAD) has joined a large coalition of national peace and justice organizations in calling for a multi-faceted campaign of teach-ins, forums, debates, roundtables, film showings, and political actions—on campus and in the community—to raise consciousness about the danger of war and the options for peace.. We want these events to raise the question “Korea: What Are the Options?”

The fact that the Winter Olympics (February 9-25) and the Paralympics (March 9-16) are to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, offers a unique opportunity to use the ancient tradition of an Olympic Truce to achieve peaceful resolution of the U.S.-North Korean confrontation. Already the occasion of the Olympics has reduced tensions, as North and South Korea have reinstituted dialogue, and planned US-South Korean military exercises are suspended. However, without public awareness and pressure, these steps will become just a short-lived peaceful interlude.

WE CAN’T LET THIS MOMENT PASS: WE MUST ORGANIZE!

Nearly fifty regional national groups have signed on to Olympics Truce Campaign including Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, Women Against War, Veterans for Peace, and Code Pink. We encourage H-PAD activists to contact local antiwar-oriented groups, including local chapters of national groups to work together on this campaign. Local affiliates of national groups can be found on the web-for example, local Peace Action groupings can be found here.

 * Call to Action
 * Korean War Broadside by Robert Oppenheim, “North Korea and Nuclear Weapons”
 * Reading List on Korea
 * Korea Speakers List
 * National Calendar of Actions, a Google Doc to list your events to create a national calendar, including requests and contact information
 * A blog for reporting on events and for questions on organizing
 * Sample flyers
 
Historians for Peace & Democracy