https://portside.org/2019-07-11/tidbits-july-11-2019-reader-comments-building-unity-defeat-trump-concentration-camps

Re: Beating Trump and Building Working Class Power in 2020 (Beth Edelman)
Re: History Has Taught Us That Concentration Camps Should Be Liberated. We Can’t Wait Until 2020. (Melissa Chambers)
Re: Call to Action by Journalists, Academics Urges Americans to Use 'All Nonviolent Means Necessary' to Shut Down Trump Detention Camps (Emory Thompson)
World Cup  --  cartoon by Rob Rogers
Re: ‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’ by Frederick Douglass (Suzanne Fox; Hector Burgos)
Re: A Son’s Memoir of His Father’s Radical Beliefs, Pursuit by the F.B.I. and Ardent Love for America (David Bacon; Adura David; Leonard Lehrman; Bertil Haney)
Re: The Hidden History of the Arnautoff Mural (Beatriz E. Ramírez Betances; Delgado-medina Maria del carmen; Roberto Buxeda)
Re: 140 Scholars Implores SF School Board Not to Destroy Historic Mural (Aida Rivera)
Re:  Henry Louis Gates Jr. on the ‘Stony Road’ for Black Americans (Flagstaff Feminist Art Project)
Re: Jamaica Is Using Bob Marley’s Legacy to Market Austerity (Joe Grogan; Steve Fleischman; Disraelly Gutierrez Jaime)
Re: As Climate Chaos Engulfs Indian Country, Feds Abandon Tribes (Necessity Movie)
Re: A Democratic Think Tank Is Promoting Pushback Against Climate Lawsuits (Fred Solowey)
Re: What the Right Gets Wrong About Socialism (Jenny Kastner)
Re: The Antiwar Movement No One Can See: Will It Put a Crimp in the War on Terror? (Ignacia Olvera)
Re: How Syriza’s Capitulations Allowed the Greek Right to Escape the Dustbin of History (Carl Davidson; Talmadge Wright)
Re: Burying the Nakba (Marian Gordon)
Re: China’s Belt and Road of Science (Michael Munk)
Re: 125 Years After the Pullman Uprising, We Could Be on the Verge of Another Sympathy Strike Wave (Vinnie Rodriguez)
The New Battle Hymn of the Republic  --  song by Mark Roth-Whitworth
Call for Solidarity: Help Us Save “Baricada”, the Main Left-wing Website in Bulgaria (LeftEast)

Resources:

Women’s Suffrage Forged by Founding Sisters: Happy Birthday to Ida B. (Gwen McKinney - BlackPressUSA)
A Dozen Slideshows from the 'Gramsci School Of Thought'. For use by today's Next Left. (Online University of the Left)
Beyond NAFTA 2.0 - Toward a Progressive Trade Agenda for People and Planet (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—New York Office)

Announcements:

Lights for Liberty - nationwide protests - July 12 - 600 Events Worldwide; SEIU, American Federation of Teachers, 150+ Others are Sponsors
Land, Water, Food and Housing - Brooklyn - July 13 (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—New York Office)
Call to Action] Close The Camps, Release Our People, AbolishICE! - July 20 - national action in Lawton, Oklahoma (United We Dream)
CUBA SOLIDARITY! Saturday, July 27 Annual CELEBRATION of Attack on Moncada, Origin of the Cuban Revolution - New York

Re: Beating Trump and Building Working Class Power in 2020

Always glad to see posts by working members of the labor movement. While there's much to find interesting in their post - Peter Only and Rand Wilson focus their attention on the Bernie Sanders campaign as if it were the only candidate to a have an appeal to the left in and out of the labor movement. Conspicuous is the absence of Elizabeth Warren, as if she has not earned a position of some influence and power(left) in this extended primary. What could be the reason? I'll leave it to the authors to clarify. 

As a reader and a left winger I want to suggest that the authors have too narrow a notion of the left and it's impact on this election. No I'm not arguing that the left is the main force, but the left has had a big influence on the politics of many of the candidates. This fact can be attributed to a growing African American movement and electorate, a women's movement that is broad and growing and nascent but grand youth contingent. This is In addition to the extensive mobilization of the Labor Movement - To seed the left as the Sanders campaign is a sure indication that the authors don't see movements as important. The first debate alone indicated to some extent the current moment. 

I think it's time to ditch a narrow lens and see the left as it is developing regardless of union affiliation.

Beth Edelman

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: History Has Taught Us That Concentration Camps Should Be Liberated. We Can’t Wait Until 2020.

“So many things I have always wondered about the Holocaust are becoming clear to me in these times, here and now. All of it. The cruelty. The dehumanization. The politicians. The people "just doing our jobs." The seeming powerlessness of those who want to stop it. Shawn King raises the question -- just how powerless are we to stop this from being done in our name, in our midst? Even as it happens, the seeds of future denial are being planted. Even in out lifetime, we can expect to hear people say -- these camps never happened. It's just something people made up to discredit this administration or the conditions and number of deaths were exaggerated. Doing nothing now -- letting these evil places fester in our midst --- we are already denying that they're happening. The world will forget and it will surely happen again.”

Melissa Chambers

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Call to Action by Journalists, Academics Urges Americans to Use 'All Nonviolent Means Necessary' to Shut Down Trump Detention Camps

All nonviolent means necessary. This is who we are.America is a regressive country and the regressives have always fought hard against justice. Abolitionists, civil rights workers, advocates for native peoples.... these folks have had to fight HARD against (usually older and much richer) entrenched interests. But fight we must.

Believe me, I know how deluded our opposition is.

Emory Thompson

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

World Cup  --  cartoon by Rob Rogers

Rob Rogers

July 8, 2019
robrogers.com

Re: ‘What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?’ by Frederick Douglass

I heard James Earl Jones read this speech on Pacifica radio today... most inspiring!

I love your site by the way!

Suzanne Fox

     =====

THERE are those that refuse to understand the words of Mr. Douglass, so that the truth does not hit then in the face. 

SLAVERY - AMERICAS GREAT SHAME.!!!!

Hector Burgos

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: A Son’s Memoir of His Father’s Radical Beliefs, Pursuit by the F.B.I. and Ardent Love for America

(posting on Portside Culture)

This item is full of red-baiting and even historical falsehoods things we fought for many years:

"So how does such a man end up writing Soviet propaganda under a fake name for The Michigan Worker?"

"Elliott was defending the monstrous Stalin-Hitler pact that triggered World War II"

"When the war reached the United States, Stalin was back on the side of the Allies"

"Maraniss is able to spare some sympathy for the corrupt, drunken Democratic chairman of HUAC at the time, Representative John Stephens Wood, an inveterate racist"

"Just what were his parents, and especially his father, doing in the Communist Party in the first place? This is a question Maraniss cannot answer, because his parents, for one reason or another — shame? embarrassment? an effort to spare their children? — rarely spoke of it."

"this great American spirit ended up stuffing himself into a closet of dreary Russian dogma."

There are many memoirs from children of Communist families that talk honestly about the politics of the left.  This is not one of them.  Thousands of families suffered a lot because of the Cold War and HUAC.  Some went to prison.  Some fled the country.  Many lost their jobs and were blacklisted.

The review itself is full of red-baiting that goes pretty far even for the NYT.  It's more like something we would have read in Time circa 1959.  Talking sympathetically about what this family went through, while perpetuating the red-baiting that led to the blacklisting, is more than a contradiction.  It's a pretty good example of what led to the blacklisting to begin with.

Saludos,

David Bacon

     =====

I find it extraordinary that Kevin Baker fails to understand the commitment of David Maraniss’s parents to the CP. It was the most dynamic force on the Left in the US during the 1930s.

The reviewer needs to read up on the history of the CP, which, tainted as it was by Stalinism, fought well within those limitations.

Adura David

     =====

Reviewer Kevin Baker writes of David Marannis: ""Just what were his parents, and especially his father, doing in the Communist Party in the first place?" If he really wants an answer to that question:  There were many, many very good, hard-working people who saw the Communist Party as the only active group fighting the good fight against racism and reaction, who wanted to believe, and did believe, at least until shown otherwise (at Kronstadt in 1919, in the Doctors' Plot of 1952, in the Khrushchev revelations of 1956) that the Party was a force for good in the universe, worth being in and fighting for. They included my parents, many of their friends, and folks we all admire like Pete Seeger, Marc Blitzstein, et al.

Leonard Lehrman

     =====

I wonder if my kids will write something like this about me after my long struggle for Puerto Rican independence, socialism, and a host of other losing, left wing causes ?

Bertil Haney

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: The Hidden History of the Arnautoff Mural

"But Arnautoff goes further. He shows native people as active resisters to colonization, in their war-dress, ready to battle the settlers. Such resistance was the key to survival. Indigenous historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, speaking of this resistance in California, says, “Without this resistance, there would be no descendants of the California Native peoples of the area colonized by the Spanish.” "

Beatriz E. Ramírez Betances

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

     =====

The mural was created in 1936 by Victor Arnautoff, a Russian immigrant and a Communist, who painted it as a critique of the racist boosterism that was the way high school history was taught in that era (even when I was in high school in the early 60s). The 1930s were the years when the left and the Communist movement were strong in San Francisco. These were the years of the General Strike of 1934, which broke the color line on the docks – the reason the longshore union created in that strike, Local 10 of the ILWU, is a majority-African American union today. These were the years of the organization of the Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association in San Francisco, many of whose members belonged to the Communist Party.

Arnautoff belonged to the Communist Party as well. In that party African American and white longshore and Chinese laundry and garment workers and red painters like Arnautoff would have undoubtedly known each other and talked about the politics they shared. Fighting racism and class exploitation, and supporting revolutionary movements against imperialism, was the common ground among those radicals – the basis of their politics. For an artist like Arnautoff, painting was therefore a political act, a responsibility to oppose racism and class exploitation in the art he produced.

Delgado-medina Maria del carmen

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

     =====

This is a remarkable commentary that I will share with many friends but I must add my critique of the list of countries, Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, because it excludes Puerto Rico which is a bankrupt colony and has the lingering reminder of the savage Admiral Dewey because the capital of one of our municipalities is named for that imperial mercenary.

Roberto Buxeda

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: 140 Scholars Implores SF School Board Not to Destroy Historic Mural

History can not be erased. Young people need to know their past so as not to repeat the mistakes in the future. Getting rid of a mural that depicts the reality of the past is an absurd...no matter how many murals are painted over...history will remain the same.

Aida Rivera

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re:  Henry Louis Gates Jr. on the ‘Stony Road’ for Black Americans

(posting on Portside Culture)

Summer Reading: Highly regarded scholar Henry Louis Gates. Jr's, latest work 'Stony Road' tackles the deep roots of white nationalism as it emerged from conflict surrounding Reconstruction and the failure of post-Civil War governments to stamp down racism and secure genuine emancipation; Penguin-Random House, published April 2, 2019.

Flagstaff Feminist Art Project

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Jamaica Is Using Bob Marley’s Legacy to Market Austerity

One sad and frustrating reality with capitalism (among many) is that its proponents can always find a way to use various themes from otherwise wonderful people/organizations, to promote its destructive and anti-human agenda.  That is why a publication such as yours is so important to point out and reveal contradictions in behaviour and everyday discourse.  Thank you.

Joe Grogan,

Bolton

     =====

What part of Marley’s legacy could possibly be twisted to support austerity. No deficits, no cry??

Steve Fleischman

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

     =====

I shot the sheriff but I didn’t shot no deputy.

The reggae icon would be embarrassed by his country’s attempts to rebrand a disastrous ideology.

Disraelly Gutierrez Jaime

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: As Climate Chaos Engulfs Indian Country, Feds Abandon Tribes

Indigenous communities are among those suffering the most from climate change, although the least responsible for causing it. Previous deprivations become excuses for the US government denying help to those from whom the land was stolen. Solidarity and mutual aid provides the margin of survival and survivance. Article from Portside #ClimateCollapse #NativeLivesMatter #Necessity #HonortheEarth

from the article:
As Climate Chaos Engulfs Indian Country, Feds Abandon Tribes

Necessity Movie

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: A Democratic Think Tank Is Promoting Pushback Against Climate Lawsuits

Article describes it as "center left" but hasn't its mission always been to drag the Democratic Party to the right? "Center left" is way to generous description.

Fred Solowey

Re: What the Right Gets Wrong About Socialism

#DemocraticSocialism works for the 99%.

Jenny Kastner

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: The Antiwar Movement No One Can See: Will It Put a Crimp in the War on Terror?

There has always been an opposition to war , not numerous, but is there. In Carpinteria, California there are a few elderly that stand every Friday no matter the weather to protest for wars going on in the country.

Ignacia Olvera

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: How Syriza’s Capitulations Allowed the Greek Right to Escape the Dustbin of History

Varoufakis account is interesting, but he doesn't say what his alternatives were when he argued in the moments before his resignation, save for his hint that being kicked out of the EU or going into default would have been worth it. Without making that case, his further critique of SYRIZA has less weight. I think the only other option was for the prime minister to resign with him. The Troika presented Greece with a brick wall, and the working class was not prepared to taken state power, nationalize all the banks and return to the Drachma. If someone thinks they were, I'd like to see that case made too. SYRIZA was simply defeated.

Carl Davidson

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

     =====

The problem was top down organizing. The masses demonstrated they supported leaving. That would have meant austerity but on the worker’s terms. Mobilization of worker collectives to provide needed commodities as the anarchists did in the Spanish Civil War. But then again that would require a radical mobilization.

Leaving the EU was the only solution. The Left failed to exercise leadership and courage. It failed to mobilize the masses. Radical times call for radical action. Of course they failed, but not moving forward with bold action meant that the blame shifted to them and not the bankers. Once they sold out the current situation was cut in stone. They were not defeated because they were never went to war

Talmadge Wright

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Burying the Nakba

I would refer to this as ethnic cleansing, and racism, on the part of Zionism.  Of course, by its nature – the establishment of a JEWISH (mono-theistic) state, is racist.  Recent, and ongoing, attacks against Israeli Jew from Ethiopia, carry on that racism.

Marian Gordon

Re: China’s Belt and Road of Science

The media led by the NYTimes has been beating the war drums against B&R as part of their China bashing. But it's really China 's challenge to US economic and political hegemony that inspires the fear and fake news. Here's an alternative rational assessment that includes a new look at the difference in pure science investment, both financial and human, between the US and China.-mm

Emanuel Pastreich writes in Foreign Policy in Focus:

"The Belt and Road Initiative has grown by leaps and bounds at the same time that the America’s geopolitical vision has become increasingly isolationist, paranoid, and confrontational. Currently, more than 20 Asian and African Nations have joined BRI, and it has even established a beachhead in Europe with investments in Greece and agreements with Italy."

Read it all here 

Michael Munk

Re: 125 Years After the Pullman Uprising, We Could Be on the Verge of Another Sympathy Strike Wave

(posting on Portside Labor)

Excellent article! “For Debs, an outright struggle between the upper and lower classes appeared imminent as the strike, “has developed into a contest between the producing classes and the power of this country.” “But Nelson believes that general and sympathy strikes are the logical next step In securing more significant wins.”

In Puerto Rico, a new Pullman has risen, The Fiscal Board. They have taken away rights of the working class, have reduced their pensions, have reduced government salaries which were all ready very low, have taken away funds from the only public higher education university, the University of Puerto Rico, where less privileged students attend and some of them having to go hungry in exchange for the education. Some, having to pull out altogether. It will behoove all of us to read it in its entirety.

Vinnie Rodriguez

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

The New Battle Hymn of the Republic 

    mark roth-whitworth, (c) 2019 

Our eyes can see the glory of the People's true accord 

We shall trample down the wealthy, sharing out their golden hoard 

Our foes shall see the shining of our terrible swift sword 

We are marching on. 

Cho. 

   Glory, glory, hallelujah 

   Glory, glory, hallelujah 

   In solidarity forever,

   We, the people, are marching on. 

Great is the Constitution, our Founders' careful words 

We shall take back the power that was stolen by the curs 

Not sold, or bought, or traded, but forever ours 

We are marching on. 

Cho 

We have worked, we have slaved, we have died in mines and mills 

We have given all our labor, and died penniless in our wills 

No longer shall they take from us, they shall pay the bills 

We are marching on. 

Call for Solidarity: Help Us Save “Baricada”, the Main Left-wing Website in Bulgaria (LeftEast)

by BaricadaOrg

July 2, 2019
LeftEast

Dark times have fallen upon the media in Bulgaria. Meaningful journalism has been squashed. Public access to reliable progressive information is barely possible. In just a decade since its 2007 EU accession, Bulgaria has fallen on the media freedom scale from the 36th to the 111th place.

There is no diversity in media ownership. Almost all newspapers, websites and TV channels are owned by the oligarchy. The national TV and radio have been crippled by budget cuts and practically become extensions of the ruling party.

The means of subsistence of any sort of media are limited. Especially if the media is a progressive leftist website. There are no public grants to media outlets, nor sufficient advertising to allow a sustainable life.

The main left-wing website in Bulgaria, Baricada, is in danger of losing the battle against the capitalist forces and is in dire need of help to continue producing quality journalism. Created in 2016, Baricada has a growing readership and is becoming a driving power not only on the Left in Bulgaria but among workers as well. We simply cannot afford to lose them, as they are the media that places issues such as workers’ rights, austerity policies and marginalization on the agenda that reaches beyond the Left circle in Bulgaria.  Unfortunately, as it has been proven time and again, readership alone is not capable of fully financing media outlets. Thus, we need your help!

Help Us Save This Independent Media Outlet as an Indispensable Tool of Democracy!

We, in dVERSIA, know very well what financial independence means and how difficult it is to survive with a small budget. The time has come to lend a helping hand.

If only one tenth of all readers gave 1 euro per month, we would be able to sustain the website and pay journalists their salaries.

You can donate by Paypal or become a Patron here 

Women’s Suffrage Forged by Founding Sisters: Happy Birthday to Ida B.

By Gwen McKinney

July 4, 2019
BlackPressUSA

Ida B. revered the Black press as an organizing tool. Though her newspaper The Memphis Free Speech was destroyed by racist mobs, she was never silenced. During her life, she would publish three newspapers and authored “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases” and “The Red Record,” investigative reports that remain definitive sources on racist violence more than 100 years later.

Read full story here. 

A Dozen Slideshows from the 'Gramsci School Of Thought'. For use by today's Next Left. (Online University of the Left)

From the ideas of Gramsci himself, through studies of slavery in the US, how our Constitution was shaped and changed, and many more. 

• Studying Gramsci: A Video Webinar organized by Carl Davidson
• The US Constitution, Then And Now
• Shaping the ‘Rust Belt’ Working Class: How ‘Our Neck of the Woods’ Came To Be What It Is Today
• After Capitalism: presentation of the main points of the book by David Schweickart
• 21st Century Socialism - 11 Talking Points
• Gramsci and Radical Education - Organization is the Central Task, Radical Education Is the Key Link
• Strategy, the Left and Doing Battle in the Electoral Arena
• The Half Has Never Been Told’ - Racializied Capitalism - 5-PART SLIDESHOW
• ‘Slavery by Another Name’ - 3-PART-SLIDESHOW
• ‘The New Jim Crow’ - 3-Part Slide Show
• The Green New Deal - What Makes It Necessary, What It Is, and How We Can Get It
• Democracy in Chains - Powerpoint on the book by Nancy MacLean, connecting the Kochs to roots in John C. Calhoun

For a table of direct links to each webiner,powerpoint, go here.

Prepared by Carl Davidson for the Online University of the Left. Contact him directly via FB for him to do the presentations, Zoom or with face-to-face groups.

Online University of the Left - Changing Our Thinking, Changing Opinion, Changing the World

Beyond NAFTA 2.0 - Toward a Progressive Trade Agenda for People and Planet (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—New York Office)

BEYOND NAFTA 2.0 

Toward a Progressive Trade Agenda for People and Planet 

Ethan Earle, Manuel Pérez-Rocha, and Scott Sinclair, eds. - July 2019

With ratification of NAFTA 2.0 still up in the air in the U.S. and Canada, a new international report contrasts the deeply flawed agreement with proposals for a more progressive and truly fair trade regime.

“Beyond NAFTA 2.0: A Trade Agenda for People and the Planet” is jointly published in English and Spanish by the Ottawa-based Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), the Washington, D.C.–based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s New York office. It includes contributions from trade experts and activists from all three North American countries. The report calls for a radical transformation of the rules governing North American trade in goods and services, intellectual property rights, e-commerce, investment and other matters.

CCPA senior trade researcher Scott Sinclair sums up the new approach as “insisting on trade rules that give priority to human rights and the rights of nature over corporate rights.” The report advocates a new system of fair trade that is “equitable in the distribution of its benefits, respectful of the Earth’s ecological limits, and accepting the right of countries in the Global South to pursue and prioritize local and national economic development and of all citizens to have access to good jobs and high-quality, universal public services,” says co-editor Manuel Pérez-Rocha of IPS. Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Executive Director Andreas Günther adds, that this framing allows us to relate “on the global stage to the fulfillment of UN Sustainable Development Goal 10, ‘to reduce inequality within and among countries.’”

The report’s key recommendations call for future trade agreements to:

• Fully eliminate investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms that allow foreign investors and corporations to contest public policy decisions through private international arbitration;
• Enshrine binding, enforceable obligations to combat climate change and safeguard greenhouse gas reduction initiatives from trade challenge;
• Replace excessive intellectual property rights with balanced rules that encourage innovation while supporting user rights, data privacy and access to affordable medicines;
• Establish a floor of strong, fully enforceable labour rights that enable workers to take complaints to independent international secretariats, which can proactively investigate labour rights abuses;
• Recognize and respect gender and Indigenous rights, including prioritizing women’s employment and economic well-being, and recognizing Indigenous title to land and resources;
• Pursue regulatory co-operation that respects jurisdictional autonomy and aims to harmonize to the highest standards;
• Fully protect the right to preserve, expand, restore and create public services without trade treaty interference; and
• End the current secrecy in trade negotiations and privileged access for vested interests.
• The report strongly condemns the bullying trade tactics of the Trump administration, such as threatened tariffs on Mexican products unless its government cracks down on Central American migrants.

“Our approach to trade issues could not be more different than Trump’s,” says co-editor and Paris-based trade consultant Ethan Earle. “We embrace international co-operation but want to reorient it so that it stops serving only the needs of global corporations.”

“If Trump’s disruptive antics have one silver lining it is that they underline the fact that trade rules are not preordained or immutable,” says Sinclair. “Corporations wrote them for their own narrow interests, and citizens can rewrite them to suit more socially and economically worthy ends.”

Beyond NAFTA 2.0: A trade agenda for People and Planet is available for download on the CCPA, IPS and RLS–NYC websites.

For more information, please contact Alyssa O’Dell, CCPA Media and Public Relations Officer, at alyssa@policyalternatives.ca, +1 613-563-1341 x307 or cell +1 343-998-7575.

Manuel Pérez-Rocha, Associate Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies, +1 240-838-6623.

Aaron Eisenberg, Project Manager, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Aaron.Eisenberg@Rosalux.org, +1 917-409-1044.

Download this press release here.

Full report available for download here. 

Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Inc.

275 Madison Avenue, Suite 2114

New York, NY 10016

Lights for Liberty - nationwide protests - July 12 - Lights for Liberty Approaches 600 Events Worldwide; SEIU, American Federation of Teachers, 150+ Others are Sponsors

Watch video here.

Lights for Liberty: A Nationwide Vigil to End Human Detention Camps is proud to announce that it now has events scheduled on five continents and in nearly 600 locations worldwide for this Friday night from 7 pm to 9 pm local time.

Beginning at 7 p.m. on July 12th, advocates, activists and impacted persons will speak on the issue of human detention camps in the United States. At 9 p.m., around the country and around the world, participants will light candles in a silent vigil for all those held in US detention camps to bring light to the darkness of the Trump administration’s horrific policies.

Sponsors now include SEIU, American Federation of Teachers, American Farm Workers, Dolores Huerta Foundation, New Sanctuary Coalition, Fair Immigration Reform Movement, Border Network for Human Rights, Witness Homestead, numerous frontline immigration advocacy organizations, a multitude of faith-based organizations, the Women’s March, and Indivisible.

Numerous impacted persons, advocates, and activists are expected to speak at events nationwide. Ravi Raghbir, Linda Sarsour and Rosie O’Donnell are among those expected to speak at the NYC Lights for Liberty Vigil. Randi Weingarten and Hope Frye are among those expected to speak at the DC vigil.

Seeking Asylum in the U.S. is LEGAL.

● On July 12th, Lights for Liberty will shine a light on the horrific abuses of the Trump administration in human detention camps. People will begin arriving at 7pm local time at locations around the nation. At five main locations, legislators, activists, and organizers will speak until 9pm. At 9pm local time, at every detention camp, and in cities, towns, and homes around America, a silent sea of candles will light up the nation.

○ El Paso, TX: where migrants are being housed under a bridge with no running water for months at a time

○ Homestead, FL: migrant child detention facility that has caused mass abuse and neglect

○ San Diego, CA: near the point of entry site from Tijuana

○ New York City (Foley Square) NY: where hundreds of migrants are processed through detention a day

○ Washington, DC (in front of the Capitol building): to demand action from Congress to end human detention and impeach the President.

● The U.S. government is perpetrating unconscionable atrocities upon legal asylum-seekers at sites all around the country:

○ teen mothers and babies held outdoors in “dog pounds”

○ sick and elderly confined to “icebox” rooms for weeks at a time

○ medicine confiscated and medical care withheld

○ children as young as 4 months taken from their parents.

○ LGBTQ and disabled individuals held in solitary confinement

● Refugees are beginning to be moved onto military grounds, where there will be a complete lack of oversight from the media, lawyers, human rights monitors, even drone flyovers.

● Lights for Liberty is being developed in alliance with communities most impacted by the abuse of our immigration system. We’re striving to work in solidarity with grassroots organizations both new and historic, those who are well-funded and those who are on a shoe-string budget.

Lights for Liberty was created by a loose coalition of grassroots activists, with support from long-standing immigrants’ rights organizations and other organizers. More information can be found at http://www.lightsforliberty.org.

Land, Water, Food and Housing - Brooklyn - July 13 (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—New York Office)

As part of the High Level Political Forum, the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—New York Office, Why Hunger, Just Foods and the Global Platform for the Right to the City (GPR2C) present “Land, Water, Food and Housing: A Grassroots Political Forum.”

From July 9-18, the High Level Political Forum will be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. During this time, member states and civil society actors will examine the progress made towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (aka Sustainable Development Goals). This year’s gathering takes place under the backdrop of increasing economic inequality. Therefore, it’s no wonder why this year’s HLPF theme  is “[e]mpowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality” with foci on battling climate change, reducing economic inequality between countries, promoting  sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

In what has become a yearly tradition for our office, we are hosting an unofficial side event in a rotating borough (see our previous events in East Harlem and South Bronx). This year’s iteration will be hosted in Brooklyn. These events are an allow for an exchange between local and international activists on best practices on bringing local to global action. This year’s focus will be on “Land, Water, Food and Water” and will center on how accessing these commons is critical in the fight against poverty, food insecurity, and homelessness. A particular focus will be on the development of social solidarity economies, land trusts and the building food self-determination.

July 13, 2019

East New York Farms!

613 New Lots Ave

Brooklyn, NY 11207

Doors open 12:30, program begins 1:00 PM-4:00 PM. Dinner will be provided afterwards.

Follow on social media #Local2Global

PROGRAM | Land, Water, Food and Housing: A Grassroots Political Forum

Welcoming to the Space: Iyeshima Harris, ENYF!

1:00 PM, First Session | Human Rights vs. Civil Rights 

Kazembe Balagun, RLS–NYC (moderator)

Rob Robinson, Activist

Lorena Zárate, Habitat International Coalition

Rodrigo Faria G. Iacovini, Global Platform for the Right to the City

2:00 PM, Second Session | Land and Water

Alison Cohen, WhyHunger (moderator)

Melissa Miles, Ironbound Community Corporation

Sawdayah Brownlee, Brooklyn Queens Land Trust

3:00 PM, Third Session | Food/ Social Solidarity Economy

Qiana Mickie, Just Food (moderator)

Steph Wiley, Brooklyn Packers

Rae Gomes, Brooklyn Movement Center

Emily Mattheisen, FIAN International

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Call to Action] Close The Camps, Release Our People, AbolishICE! - July 20 - national action in Lawton, Oklahoma (United We Dream)

CUBA SOLIDARITY! Saturday, July 27 Annual CELEBRATION of Attack on Moncada, Origin of the Cuban Revolution - New York