Tidbits - March 8, 2018 - Reader Comments: West Virginia Teachers' Victory; International Women's Day; Climate Lessons; Remembering Pete Seeger; Resources; Announcements; International Women's Day Chronology; and more....

It's also illegal to deprive children of a decent education when government decided to cut resources, funding is a necessity not a luxury if it were TEACHERS would not have to STRIKE!

Sonia N. Cintron
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: What the Teachers Won

¿Valdrá la pena aprender de esta gente?

[Will it be worth learning from these people?]

Aracelis M. Delgado
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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.. Y esto fue en los EEUU, no en Venezuela ni en España !!
Queeeee muuuucho tenemos que aprender !!

[.. and this was in the United States, not in Venezuela or in Spain!!
How much we need to learn!!]

Enrique Rodríguez-Otero
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: West Virginia’s Strike is No “Wildcat”

(posting on Portside Labor)

Very good article by Lois Weiner. certainly opened my eyes about the weak even wet-rag role played by AFT and NEA officialdom in W VA (which lacks public sector collective bargaining, apparently), and she really gets that this is a very deep-rooted militant mass movement, mainly woman-led ...mainly by/based among elementary school teachers.

Breathtaking stuff.

Tom Gogan

Grow Up - cartoon by Mike Luckovich

Mike Luckovich
March 2, 2018
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Re: The Far Right's Toxic Forbears: Super-Wealthy Secessionist Slaveholders

These people are the cancer of Democracy in America. At best, they can be kept in check. They’ve recently gained some strength via the current administration, but they are facing a backlash. Still, they’re not going away

Scott Banks
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: There Are Echoes of the Fugitive Slave Act in Today’s Immigration Debate

Thoreau went to jail rather than pay the tax imposed to enforce the Act. Suppose we all did that. How long would deportations last?

Steve Lane

Re: The Pentagon Budget as Corporate Welfare for Weapons Makers

I know it's not news but the numbers are staggering

Jim Price
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: How New York City Won Divestment from Fossil Fuels

This piece is a great model of strategic and programmatic thinking about a specific issue.--the kind of thinking we need to do on many other issues, both foreign and domestic. Thank you for publishing it!

Meredith Tax

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Nancy Romer neglects to mention the protean efforts of CUNY students in helping to get fossil fuel divestment resolutions passed in most of the university student governments including three resolutions passed by the University Student Senate (USS). In 2015, CUNY Divest received USS's 2015 award at its 2015 banquet for the best new CUNY club.

Anthony Gronowicz

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Public Interest Environmental Law Conference, (PIELC) Eugene OR, Mar 2-5 - The Public Interest Environmental Law Conference is the premier annual gathering for environmentalists worldwide, and is distinguished as the oldest and largest of its kind. The Conference historically unites more than 3,000 activists, attorneys, students, scientists, and concerned citizens from over 50 countries around the globe to share their experience and expertise.The Conference is organized solely by the volunteers of Land Air Water (LAW), a student environmental law society at the University of Oregon School of Law, and is co-sponsored by Friends of Land Air Water (FLAW), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.

Marc Batko

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NYC divests from fossil fuels. Proud to say my union had a part in this.

Gary Goff
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: The Robot, Unemployment, and Immigrants

Roberto Savio https://www.facebook.com/robertosavioutopia/?fref=mentions coulda, shoulda, woulda, almost wrote a really important essay. As it is, it's very good but it is under documented, under argued. We're facing a total disruption in work and society because of looming advances in technology (Well, not new of course, we've been talking about this for fifty years). Jobs in retail, hospitality, transport are on the verge of extinction. How politically we respond to this -- basic universal income? job retraining? -- is one of our central challenges. Thanks to Portside https://portside.org/2018-03-03/robot-unemployment-and-immigrants for the link.

Daniel Millstone
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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The funniest thing about this article is that it required a translator, proofreader, or editor. There were 30 or so errors in it. There may still be a need for human workers.

Heidi Siegfried

Re: Review: When Karl Marx Was Young And Dashing

(posting on Portside Culture)

Sounds like Raoul Peck himself: "an approach to politics and history that still has no peer."

Salvador Beano
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Recalling Pete Seeger’s Controversial Performance on the Smothers Brothers Show 50 Years Ago

BRAVO for this on a man who changed my life......With Peace.....

Bob Carpenter

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"During the blacklist years, Seeger scratched out a living by giving guitar and banjo lessons and singing at the small number of summer camps, churches, high schools, colleges, and union halls that were courageous enough to invite the controversial balladeer."

One of those (but which banned off campus publicity) was Reed College in 1954. After that, as McCarthyism began to lose its grip on the nation, he gave another three concerts at the school. Check out that period of his history at

https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/seeger_pete_in_oregon/#.Wpo-4mr…

Michael Munk

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when Clancy Bros came to US, were to play Carnegie. Pete was on the venue, but wasn't there. asking Ian was told he was blacklisted. they unanimously agreed, and stated, they wouldn't go on if Pete was kept of, and walked out! (they were not known here then, a newer group, showing real courage)

Bruce Bostick
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Tommy Smothers was an ace ping pong player. He used to challenge the censors to ping pong games - if he won, he got to have a certain controversial guest on. I can't remember if he used this ploy to get Pete on the show. Does anyone remember when, one evening on the show, Tommy turned to the camera and said, "Folks, there's a beautiful sunset going on right now. I suggest you go outside and take a look. That's just what we're going to do right now. And he and his brother and most of the crew walked off the set to go watch the sunset for a minute. Of dead air. Live. The TV producers were going apoplectic backstage, but it was lovely.

Jack Radey
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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This was a huge moment in the development of the opposition to the Vietnam War. Just 15 days after this courageous performance on prime time national television, with its unmistakable identification of Lyndon Johnson as "the Big Fool" pushing the U.S. deeper into the quagmire of war, voters in the New Hampshire Democratic primary upended the political world by giving antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy 42% of the presidential vote.

I was watching this in my parents' living room on February 25, 1968, a high school senior a few weeks short of age 18. When Pete finished, I knew I had just witnessed something extraordinary.

Alan Hart
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Saw him perform in a small-town high school cafeteria back in the early '90s. One of the most memorable nights of my life.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I love Pete's music and the man. He moved me to take a stand against war. His work will live on. Peace be with him.

Russell Fedorka
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I will never forget his "Sloop" festivals in Beacon, NY. He was admirable and so down to earth.

Yvonne Carrillo Figueroa
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I sat on stage with Seeger at Orchestra Hall in 1972, when he invited all the SRO people in the hall to join him, to sit and relax. A beautiful man.

Bill Brown
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: The Soul-Crushing Legacy of Billy Graham

I see it being asserted on the web that Billy Graham bailed Martin Luther King out of jail during the civil rights movement. This sounds to me like "fake history." The Billy Graham I remember was largely AWOL during that period. I am sure he would have been welcome at the March on Washington, or the march from Selma to Montgomery, or the funeral of the four young girls killed in the Birmingham church bombing--but he was a no-show, even though many, many ministers, priests, nuns and rabbis marched alongside Dr. King in those years.

When I follow up on the footnotes to these assertions, I find sources that say nothing of the kind. And the assertions say that it happened in 1960, or 1963, or in Albany, Georgia, or in Birmingham, Alabama. Unless Billy Graham was running a bail bond agency on the side, I think it unlikely that this ever happened. I looked at Taylor Branch's monumental trilogy of books about Dr. King and find several references to Billy Graham, but none saying that he bailed Dr. King out of jail.

Could you look into this and see if it is factual, or the beginning of a myth? It seems to me like an effort to posthumously polish the reputation of a man who had the decency, in his later years, to state his regret that he had not done more for civil rights. In the days since his death, it seems that some would like to rewrite history to make him the leader of the civil rights movement

David Nolan

Re: The Robot, Unemployment, and Immigrants

The labor saving, job killing future.

Philip Specht
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Schoolchildren - Outside of the GOP Mainstream - Raging Pencils Cartoon by Mike Stanfill

Mike Stanfill
Raging Pencils
February 23, 2018

[Raging Pencils is a thrice-weekly progressive comic developed and created by Dallas-area illustrator Mike Stanfill, sometimes known as "Lefty", sometimes not.]

Re: A Chilean and American Monument to Pinochet Bombing Victims Rises in Washington

A tribute to Chilean hero ORLANDO LETELIER, whose brutal murder was ordered by AUGUSTO PINOCHET.

Multi Facet Fables
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I remember those days. Allende was the first Latin American socialist ever elected president by popular vote in Chile. It was not an armed revolution, it was a free election. The armed struggle came later headed by general Pinochet who murdered and disappeared many Chileans as well as some foreigners and established a dictatorship with the assistance of the CIA .

Aida Rivera
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Yes, well documented American terrorism no one likes to admit or talk about. Shock Doctrine in use.

Brad Fendentz
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Of ‘Broken Backs’ and Mighty Pens: How Radical Black Women’s Writings Shaped Social Movements

It would be nice to see Sarah E. Wright, author of the magnificent novel This Child's Gonna Live, included among the list of powerful Black women writers -- the first in modern times to stop straightening her hair, the first to organize a major forum on the depiction of Black women in US fiction, friend of Paul Robeson, a trail-blazer in the tradition of Zora Neale Hurston in presenting Black heroes from the dirt-poor Jim Crow South.

Joseph Kaye

Re: Kill a Communist and Receive £340, Philippines Leader Duterte Tells Nation

Wow. Everybody who needs money is going to be out murdering their neighbors!

Carol Lister
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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This guy must be stopped soon.

Rafael Rivera
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Algún día este payaso estará frente a un tribunal internacional por genocidio

[Someday this clown will be in front of an international tribunal for genocide]

Francisco Guzman Rivera
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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This is how thousands of innocent Iraqis ended up arrested and in prison. Pinpointed by neighbors looking for bounty, their neighbors land or revenge. Look it up.

David Denson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Yep - US occupiers offered a bounty for information: denouncing one's neighbors to the Americans became a cottage industry.

David Weinshenker
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: US Lawmakers Predictably Take Aim at Petro

The entity which imposes sanctions here and there for any but principled human rights reasons is likely in the end to find that it has in effect sanctioned itself, and left space open to its replacement by others. But it's probably too much to expect an empire engaged in ingracious and blustery retreat to realize it.

Joe Maizlish,
Los Angeles

Re: Will the Venezuelan Masses Still Stand with Maduro at Election Time?

Thanks to Lucas for the article...I am amazed that the Revolution has served with the deck stacked against the Bolivarian revolution. I must repeat what I said last year...the U.S. oil companies development of fracking supported by Obama to flood the world oil market was deliberately aimed at undermining the economies of Venezuela and Russia. It was good to read a clear analysis of what is happening in Venezuela.

Lincoln Smith

Re: Unionism Must Be Internationalist Or It Is Bullshit

The writer states that " Only by opposing the depredations of capital over there can we defend ourselves from the depredations of capital here." He has it backwards. Switch "here" and "there".

The primary weakness in the U.S. is the lack of class consciousness and class struggle. This lack has fostered class collaboration, careerism, reliance on the Democratic Party and a drift to the right. Until working people realize that U.S. capitalists are their enemy, not African American or Hispanic workers or workers in foreign countries, international solidarity is unlikely to increase. Class solidarity begins at home.

John Gallo

Re: Russia Is Trying to Bury This Video—And Might Shut Down YouTube to Do It

Is Portside succumbing to the "Russia-gate" madness by reposting the semi-hysterical Mother Jones article? I hope not. Russia- gate has two sources First, the national security apparatus which is unhappy with Trump's attitude to Russia. Even if only for corrupt motives, Trump seeks normal relations with Russia instead of demonization , thereby depriving the military-industrial complex of a big foreign "enemy" state. Billions of dollars are at stake. Second, the Democratic Party establishment finds it convenient to blame Russia for its pathetic 2016 performance. With Russia-gate explaining everything, there is no need for top Democrats to explain why in 2016 millions of working people, desperate for change, gave up on the Obama and Clinton policies which had done little or nothing to ease their plight.

Joseph Jamison

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OMG, Portside needs to do some housecleaning.

Syd Horowitz

Re: Portside Snapshot - March 2, 2018

A great collection of articles today.
Thanks,

Nelson G. Wight,
Belfast, Maine, 89 yr old

Trump Town -- Tracking White House Staffers, Cabinet Members and Political Appointees Across the Government

by Derek Kravitz, Al Shaw and Claire Perlman
March 7, 2018
ProPublica

The Trump administration has appointed hundreds of staffers to powerful positions across the federal government. Some are old policy hands from conservative D.C. think tanks. Others have little-to-no government experience and come straight from the industries they are now tasked to regulate and oversee. We've collected personnel records for thousands of these appointees. Use this database to search for them by name, former employer and agency.

Search here

Bikes Against Deportation - Ride for Freedom - New York - March 15

Thursday, March 15 at 5 PM - 6 PM

201 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014-4808

RIDE FOR FREEDOM!

In solidarity with allied-groups demanding ICE out of our courts, and in the tradition of New Sanctuary Coalition's weekly vigil at ICE's deportation machine at 201 Varick St., ride with us to show support to our immigrant communities!

Join us this month - or every month for an ongoing ride-action!

Ride safe:
-Follow the leader
-Bring bell and lights
-Ride safe
-Ride with traffic, walk against traffic, circle the building

Don't have a bike? There are Citibike docks in the area!

Also join the Legal Aid society at 4 pm in Foley Square for their rally against ICE in the courts

New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City

The New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC is an interfaith network of congregations, organizations and individuals, standing publicly in solidarity with families and communities resisting detention and deportation in order to stay together.

Commemorate the 107th Anniversary of the Triangle Factory Fire - New York - March 23

This year marks 107 years since the tragedy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, where employer greed and gross negligence resulted in a deadly fire that killed 146 workers—mostly young immigrant women. The aftermath of the fire sparked mass strikes and lead to the formation of state and national health and safety regulations.

On Friday, March 23rd, from 11:30am – 1:00pm, please join us for the Official Commemoration of the 107th Anniversary of the Triangle Factory Fire at the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street, NYC, the site of the 1911 fire.

Promising Practices: Labor and Community Fighting Sexual Harassment in the Era of #MeToo - New York - March 23

image - Promising_Practices

Friday, March 23, 9am-12:30pm
Co-sponsored by the Murphy Institute, CUNY and The Worker Institute at Cornell ILR

An interactive program bringing strategies, resources, and creativity together to create an equity framework for fighting harassment in the workplace and community.

9:00-9:15 am – Welcome and Intro Exercise

KC Wagner, The Worker Institute, Cornell ILR, NYC
Jenny DeBower, Center for Anti-Violence Education – Finding and Raising your Voice!

9:15-9:30 am – Presentation on the Political and Legal Landscape

Maya Raghu, National Women’s Law Center

9:40-11:20 am Panel – Promising Practices

Unions and Legislative Strategies - Sarah Lyons and Roushaunda Williams, UNITE HERE Local 1, Chicago
Community and Union Engagement - Quentin Walcott, CONNECT
Leveraging Worker Voice - Catherine Barnett, ROCU and One Fair Wage
Stitching Labor and Community Together - Ana Avendaño, The United Way World Wide

11:20-12:30 pm – Closing and Next Steps

KC Wagner, The Worker Institute, Cornell ILR, NYC

FREE -- REGISTER

Manufacturing from the Industrial Revolution to Today - New York - March 23

Book Talk:

Joshua Freeman, author of "Behemoth: The Factory and the Making of the Modern World" and Louis Uchitelle, author of "Making It: Why Manufacturing Still Matters"

March 23rd, 6pm-8pm

Murphy Institute
25 W. 43rd Street, 18th Fl
Manhattan

Joshua Freeman - Distinguished Professor of History, CUNY Graduate Center; Murphy Institute Consortial Faculty
Louis Uchitelle - Journalist and author; lead reporter for award-winning NY Times Series The Downsizing of America
Introduced by Ruth Milkman - Professor of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center; Director of Research, Murphy Institute

RSVP Here.

To Save the Earth, Curb Militarism! An appeal for Earth Day, 2018 - April 22

Our five organizations, CODEPINK, Environmentalists Against War, Just World Educational, Traprock Center for Peace & Justice, and World Beyond War, invite citizens and organizations around the U.S. to express support for the statement that follows.

We’re hoping to gather as many individual signatures and organizational endorsements as possible between now and Earth Day (April 22.) Please help us to do so! A printable PDF of the text can be downloaded here. The current list of signatories can be viewed here.

If you’ve already read the appeal and are ready to sign, you can do so here.

On Earth Day 2018, we appeal to our fellow citizens to recognize the damage that warfare and preparations for war inflict on our land, air, water, and climate; to commit to educating others about these impacts; and to advocate for the following policies, which can reduce and start to repair the damage that militarism inflicts on the Earth:

Subject the Pentagon and all other security agencies to normal environmental regulations and audits, stopping the exemptions granted to these agencies.
Fully fund the cleanup of U.S. military installations at home and overseas.
Shift our foreign policies from war-fighting to diplomacy, including through support of the United Nations and other avenues for the peaceful resolution of differences.
Dramatically reduce the Pentagon’s global network of nearly 800 bases in more than 70 foreign nations and territories.
Convert weapons industries into industries that meet pressing social needs including mass transit, hazardous waste cleanup, health, housing, education, renewable energy, and further development of energy-efficient technologies.
Reduce the US nuclear arsenal and work with other nations to abolish nuclear weapons.

SIGN THE APPEAL NOW!

2018 UCLA Labor Center Banquet - Los Angeles - May 10

Please join us for an inspirational evening at the 2018 UCLA Labor Center Banquet!

This year we will celebrate the 15th anniversary since the UCLA Labor Center opened its doors in downtown Los Angeles. The Labor Center established a bridge that connects the university to the local labor community and develops collaborative projects between unions, worker centers, and the numerous non-profit organizations dedicated to immigrant and economic justice in this region.

We will officially launch our Build Our Future capital campaign at our annual banquet where we will honor extraordinary leaders of justice:

Reverend James Morris Lawson, Jr.
Luisa Blue - Executive Vice President, SEIU
Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas

Take a moment to register online for our banquet

For assistance or questions, please contact Shukry Cattan at 213-480-4155 x247 or banquet@irle.ucla.edu

There will be no Tidbits April 5 and April 12

Today in History - International Women's Day - March 8

Women of the Industrial Workers of the World march in New York City in support of the Patterson Silk Strike of 1913. Many women garment and textile workers of the 1910s were active in the movements for equal rights and fair treatment in the workplace.

Bettman/CORBIS // Rethinking Schools // Exploring Women’s Rights - The 1908 Textile Strike in a 1st-grade Class

International Women's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political. International Women's Day first emerged from the activities of labour movements at the turn of the twentieth century in North America and across Europe.

Since those early years, International Women's Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. The growing international women's movement, which has been strengthened by four global United Nations women's conferences, has helped make the commemoration a rallying point to build support for women's rights and participation in the political and economic arenas.

Chronology

1909 The first National Woman's Day was observed in the United States on 28 February. The Socialist Party of America designated this day in honour of the 1908 garment workers' strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions.
1910 The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women's Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women's rights and to build support for achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish Parliament. No fixed date was selected for the observance.
1911 As a result of the Copenhagen initiative, International Women's Day was marked for the first time (19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded women's rights to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.
1913-1914 International Women's Day also became a mechanism for protesting World War I. As part of the peace movement, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity with other activists.
1917 Against the backdrop of the war, women in Russia again chose to protest and strike for "Bread and Peace" on the last Sunday in February (which fell on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar). Four days later, the Czar abdicated and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote.
1975 During International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day on 8 March.

http://www.un.org/en/events/womensday/history.shtml