Tidbits - Jan. 2, 2020 - Reader Comments: Finnish Govt Calls for 4-Day-Week; 2020 elections; Medicare for All; Britain's Labour Party; Du Bois and Marxist Schools; Jews in Iran; Watchmen; Renewable Energy; Anti-War Films On-line; Today in History;
Re: Finnish Prime Minister Marin Calls for a 4-Day-Week and 6-Hour-Day for Her Country (Joe Grogan; Wayne Gravelle; Aurora Calderon; Nibia Rodriguez)
Re: Too Close for Comfort - Older Jews Skeptical of Sanders (Ed Glazar; Ted Pearson; Sonia Collins; Cliff Gulliver)
Happy New Year -- poem by Seymour Joseph
Lord Trump -- cartoon by Rob Rogers
Re: A Gangster in the White House (Tania Arias)
Re: I Am a Union Worker, and I Want Medicare for All (Hollis Stewart)
Re: The Citizens United Ruling Broke American Democracy at the Start of the Decade. It Never Recovered (Vern Olson)
Re: Science Under Attack: How Trump Is Sidelining Researchers and Their Work (Hector Burgos)
Re: Britain's Labour Party Faces a Tough Climb Back from a Damaging Election (Dan Morgan; Pat Turnbull)
Re: How America’s Elites Lost Their Grip (Matthew Borenstein)
Sorry Kids -- cartoon by Mike Luckovich
Re: Du Bois and the Jefferson School of Social Science (Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie; Mike Glick; Dina Heisler)
Re: Trump's Holiday Menu: Handouts for Billionaires, Hunger for the Poor (Philip Specht)
Re: “The Shooters Are Coming”: How the War on Terror Has Targeted the Young (Susan Collier Lamont)
Re: From Denialism to Eco-fascism: The Right’s New Climate Change Blame Game (Joe Maizlish)
Re: This Is America - Eleven years after Obama’s election, and three years into the Trump presidency, the threat of domestic terrorism can’t be ignored. - Tidbits - Dec. 26 (Daniel Millstone)
Re: “The Algorithm Made Us Do It”: How Bosses at Instacart “Mathwash” Labor Exploitation (Peter Witzler)
Re: The Fascinating History and Politics of Jewish Life in Iran (Stan Nadel; Elliott Barowitz)
“Watchmen”: Who Will Guard the Guards? (Michael Berkowitz)
Resources:
The Global Price Tag for 100 Percent Renewable Energy: $73 Trillion (E360 Digest)
Important Anti-War Films You Can Watch On-Line (Frank Dorrel, Publisher: ADDICTED To WAR)
Help us record & share the history of GI resistance! (Vietnam Full Disclosure)
Today in History
1905 Conference of 23 unions issues call for Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) founding convention
1920 Palmer Raids arrest 3-10,000 in 35 cities across the country
Re: Finnish Prime Minister Marin Calls for a 4-Day-Week and 6-Hour-Day for Her Country
Wow!! this leader has the right idea; with technology producing an abundance of outcomes, it should be possible to reduce the work day and week with no loss of pay/income for workers and their families. Instead, the technology continues to be used to reduce workers' employment and incomes, to create control and anxiety and to produce more with less. After all, this change now suggested was one of the rosy predictions back in the early 1980s when the digital revolution was introduced.
Joe Grogan
Bolton
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Wages and benefits remain the same?
Wayne Gravelle
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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yes, that’s the point
Aurora Calderon
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Sounds great less hours more efficient workers probably get more done
Nibia Rodriguez
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Too Close for Comfort - Older Jews Skeptical of Sanders
Gonna guess it’s more of a rich vs. poor thing
Ed Glazar
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Bernie’s biggest problem is his inability to strike a chord among Black and Latinx voters. This is the Achilles’ heel of every potentially progressive movement.
Ted Pearson
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Some older Jews despise Sanders. Some older Jews may be skeptical of Sanders. Some are enthusiastic about him. Some have become comfortable financially. Some may have become stuck and rigid. Some are still developing. I do not get the point of this article. It could be about any type of older people.
Sonia Collins
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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What’s more dangerous is the rise of authoritarianism. That usually does not bode well... historically...
Cliff Gulliver
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Happy New Year -- poem by Seymour Joseph
I wish you all a happy year,
One that’s filled with love and cheer.
But it would really be a hoot
If Donald Trump would get the boot.
Seymour Joseph
Lord Trump -- cartoon by Rob Rogers
Rob Rogers
December 27, 2019
robrogers.com
Re: A Gangster in the White House
“In the meantime, though, the country is left once again with the problem of a president who refuses to obey the law. Trump is organizing from the White House a conspiracy to revenge himself on the person who first alerted the country that Trump was extorting Ukraine to help his reelection: more lawbreaking to punish the revelation of past lawbreaking. Impeaching a president whose party holds a majority in the Senate obviously presents many grave practical difficulties. But Trump’s post-Christmas mania confirms House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s prediction that Trump would impeach himself.
Donald Trump will not be bound by any rule, even after he has been caught. He is unrepentant and determined to break the rules again—in part by punishing those who try to enforce them. He is a president with the mind of a gangster, and as long as he is in office, he will head a gangster White House.”
Tania Arias
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: I Am a Union Worker, and I Want Medicare for All
(posting on Portside Labor)
Ashley and 1021 members keep up, no intensify the fight for all of us in the US to have medicare4all. Back in a day, 1980s I was in SEIU790 and an exec board member and on negotiation teams, (think it merged with other SEIU locals to become 1021) and we fought like hell to get decent medical benefits and wages. The other side then as now tries to divide us against each other so they can deprive us of the value of our labor -- we pay for every darned dollar and benefit that we get but the bosses like to treat us as though we are asking for give aways, not for OUR BENEFITS.
I am still an activist, I am in Union Forever, the SEIU retirees organization and damned proud of it and the fight you members out on the front lines of the fight for a better life are there for us. As you point out, Medicare4all would change the workplace and bargaining AS WELL AS MAKE EVERY CHILD AND FAMILY MORE SECURE AROUND MEDICAL PROBLEMS AND NEEDS!
THANKS TO EVERYONE -- ALL OF YOU MAKE ME SO PROUD TO BE A WORKING PERSON RETIREE. Hasta la victoria, siempre!
Hollis Stewart
It gave the oligarchy unlimited power and removed accountability for purchasing political favoritism. It officially made our government the best that money can buy.
Vern Olson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Science Under Attack: How Trump Is Sidelining Researchers and Their Work
This wanton disregard for science is part of the plan to undermine learning and critical thinking in America that will eventually lead to the U.S. losing its standing in world affairs. It's already happening to the detriment of American democracy. Wake up America before it's to late. The Barbarians reside in the White House.
Hector Burgos
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Britain's Labour Party Faces a Tough Climb Back from a Damaging Election
To abandon Labour's left-wing policies would not 'risk undercutting its popularity', it would kill it. The policies are popular. Corbyn was demonized, especially for his anti-imperialism but that was a challenge to be faced and overcome, which many right wingers in the party did not do. Most seats Labour lost, over 43, were where voters chose to leave the EU in 2016, and the Tory and Brexit Party votes increased while the LP's slumped. The change from pledging to respect the referendum result to almost supporting 'remain' greatly damaged the LP in its midlands and northern heartlands.
The ONLY possible candidate for Labour leader mentioned who would continue the very popular left-wing policies is Rebecca Long-Bailey. The others are not supportive of Corbyn's policies, contrary to what this article says. Reconciling both positions is impossible, and we in the left majority know this, after the years of the back-stabbing of Corbyn we have witnessed. The left will win and the right will have to choose to remain in the party and support its policies, or leave.
Dan Morgan
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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Funny to see Owen Smith described as a former prominent MP. I don't think most people had even heard of him until he contested and lost (to Jeremy Corbyn) the election for leadership of the Labour Party. I wonder what his credentials even are for writing for the FT? Apart from him being a consistent opponent of Jeremy Corbyn, and a consistent supporter of the European Union like most of the British ruling class, of course.
Pat Turnbull
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: How America’s Elites Lost Their Grip
This from an editor of Time magazine - a mainstay of the propaganda media - is truly surprising & revealing !
Matthew Borenstein
Sorry Kids -- cartoon by Mike Luckovich
Mike Luckovich
December 24, 2019
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Re: Du Bois and the Jefferson School of Social Science
Denise Lynn’s piece on the Jefferson School of Social Science in NYC during the 1950s was very interesting. Readers might be interested to learn that it served as the inspiration for a similar school called the Philadelphia Marxist School located on South Street, Philadelphia. It offered academic courses, a political space for speakers, a venue for mobilization, and a general hang-out space for people - young, old, white, black, male, female - who were looking for alternatives to the existing social system in the US, I taught several courses there while completing graduate work at Penn during the late 1980s. We were always small and there were the usual personality clashes, but we were serious, committed, and made a modest contribution to making our world a better place. We need more of these spaces nowadays where bodies meet in person rather than type away in the comfort of their homes (oops!).
In solidarity,
Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie
Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History
Howard University
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My dad taught there! Philosophy I think.
Mike Glick
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
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My mom loved the courses she took with Annette Rubinstein. It opened up whole new worlds for her.
Dina Heisler
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: Trump's Holiday Menu: Handouts for Billionaires, Hunger for the Poor
Hungry people don't work harder or better - if anything, they will be looking for ways to slack off during working hours. It's just a way of blaming poor people for their poverty.
Philip Specht
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: “The Shooters Are Coming”: How the War on Terror Has Targeted the Young
I'm proud of my alma mater, Brown University, for its Costs of War Project. Our local Veterans For Peace has created a Costs of Perpetual War presentation for schools - we've presented at Sonoma State and Santa Rosa High School multiple years - and we use information from the Brown project in our presentation.
I graduated in 1970, the year that finals were canceled after the killings at Kent State and Jackson State. I will be at Brown, with my roommates, in May for our 50th reunion. I hope that there will be mention of the Costs of War Project. I'm going to write to the reunion committee to push for it.
Susan Collier Lamont
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: From Denialism to Eco-fascism: The Right’s New Climate Change Blame Game
How very much the "eco-fascism" Maurice Mitchell describes shares the pattern of the immigration opposition itself: Blame and oppose with state violence those who are refugees, whose coming bears living witness to the dominant system's (1) destructive effects on the economies and environments of the migration source countries, and (2) immense contribution to climate change's compounding of the destabilization of life in those source countries.
Rather than name and confront and reverse the causative systems with international sharing and actual solutions, the choice promoted is to confront the people made desperate by that system. It is suppression of testimony and intimidation of the witnesses.
Joe Maizlish,
Los Angeles
Re: This Is America - Eleven years after Obama’s election, and three years into the Trump presidency, the threat of domestic terrorism can’t be ignored. - Tidbits - Dec. 26
Try this important, scary set of essays on the rise of the racist right, why don’t you? We have some very difficult paths ahead of us. The Klan, the Nazis and their allies present a serious challenge. It can happen here. It has been happening here. Happy new year. Thanks to Portside for the link.
Daniel Millstone
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: “The Algorithm Made Us Do It”: How Bosses at Instacart “Mathwash” Labor Exploitation
(posting on Portside Labor)
”Coined by tech-entrepreneur Fred Benenson, the term “mathwashing” can be used to describe attempts to use math terms like “algorithm” to gloss over a more subjective reality.”
Peter Witzler
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
Re: The Fascinating History and Politics of Jewish Life in Iran
This is a whitewashing of Iran's history of Antisemitism and persecution of it's Jews in the 20th century. Why leftists, and a Jewish leftist to boot, would serve as a propagandist for a theo-fascist regime is hard to understand. And it is hard to understand why Portside would decide to serve as an outlet for spreading this theo fascist regime's propaganda. Lenin warned us against this foolishness when he said: "It is particularly important to bear in mind: The need for a struggle against the clergy and other influential reactionary and medieval elements in backward countries; … the need to combat Pan-Islamism and similar trends, which strive to combine the liberation movement against European and American imperialism with an attempt to strengthen the positions of the khans, landowners, mullahs, etc." That's Iran in a nutshell.
Stan Nadel
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Wonderful article, but you must know that recent documents have shown no sources of children being adopted. if you don't believe me look at the report by Yaacov Lozowick
Elliott Barowitz
“Watchmen”: Who Will Guard the Guards?
HBO’s “Watchmen” is a stunning achievement for television. It is an unblinking look at American right wing populism and racism, through the eyes of lead Black characters in a science fiction comic book super structure, a genre in sore need of the energy, creativity and political commitment that Watchmen brings.
The original “Watchmen”, written in the 1980s by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons, was more concerned with the threat of Cold War nuclear destruction. Through a series of 12 comics, an award winning, highly praised graphic novel (1987) and a popular, though controversial movie (2009), Watchmen created a parallel, alternative history in an even more extensive way than Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic reinterpretations.
Damon Lindelof, both writer and director of the updated, current Watchmen series links race to its original Cold War apocalyptic roots. The plot lines toggle briskly between past and future, the sets are stuffed with visual threats and cultural references. . . all set against a score both selected and composed as counterpoint and comment to action, thanks largely to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails.
The series begins with the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma, race riots, part of a string of White violence against thriving Black communities across the South and in large Northern cities. The Tulsa riot was aimed at the Black neighborhood of Greenwood, a district so economically successful it was dubbed the Black Wall Street. Three hundred people were killed and thirty-five city blocks were destroyed. The National Guard and private airplanes attacked Black businesses and residences.
The extensive recreation of the Tulsa massacre centers on a small boy in a silent movie theater viewing a film of the legendary Bass Reeves, first Black Deputy U.S. Marshall west of the Mississippi. While Reeves was a notable historic hero, the silent film the boy is watching “Trust the Law” is part of the ironic/fantastic landscape. Lindelof quickly fast forwards to the present where Tulsa Police Detective Angela Abar (Regina King) leads the efforts to combat the modern day racial terrorist Seventh Kalvary supremacists.
King’s strong performance and heroics are aided and thwarted by an excellent cast including Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Jeremy Irons, Jean Smart, Lou Gossett, Jr., Hong Chau and the redoubtable Yahya Abdul-Mateen.
While Detective Abar is challenged to find out who the Seventh Kalvary terrorists are, viewers are challenged to piece together plot, character relationships and cultural references as Watchmen’s futuristic morality play rolls dramatic tension toward political resolution. But the path towards conclusion winds both forward and back, sometimes with humor – Black to be sure – but always sure-handedly.
Will the neo-fascists succeed in their quest to take over the United States? Will we ever learn to live peacefully and justly together? Will there actually be a second season of fighting racism and the alt-right? At least we have Lindelhof’s fine work to binge until then.
Michael Berkowitz
The Global Price Tag for 100 Percent Renewable Energy: $73 Trillion
credit: U.S. Department of Energy // Yale Environment 360
E360 Digest
December 20, 2019
Yale Environment 360
A global effort to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 would cost nations $73 trillion upfront — but the expense will pay for itself in under seven years, according to a new report from researchers at Stanford University. The study also found that the shift to a zero-carbon global economy would create 28.6 million more full-time jobs than if nations continue their current reliance on fossil fuels.
The report, published in the journal One Earth, presents detailed roadmaps for how 143 countries that account for 99.7 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions could successfully transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. The report is a follow up to a 2015 study by the same research team that generated state-by-state plans for the United States, findings that helped lay the groundwork for the Democratic Party’s proposed Green New Deal.
“There are a lot of countries that have committed to doing something to counteract the growing impacts of global warming, but they still don’t know exactly what to do,” Mark Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineer at Stanford and lead author of the new report, said in a statement. “How it would work? How it would keep the lights on? To be honest, many of the policymakers and advocates supporting and promoting the Green New Deal don’t have a good idea of the details of what the actual system looks like or what the impact of a transition is. It’s more an abstract concept. So, we’re trying to quantify it and to pin down what one possible system might look like. This work can help fill that void and give countries guidance.”
Total land required globally for new renewable energy infrastructure. Jacobson et al, 2019
Yale Environment 360
Read full story here.
Important Anti-War Films You Can Watch On-Line
The links to these anti-war films that you can watch on-line sometimes are taken down. So I have included two or three links when possible. I realize that I have listed many films here. There is no need to try to watch all of these films in a short period of time. But the films listed below basically spell out what I like to call: “The True Nature of U.S. Foreign Policy”. These films are the proof that the United States has killed as many as 20 million or more innocent people since the end of World War II - with many millions more being injured, losing their homes and having their way of life ruined. This list is the best way I can think of to help educate yourself and others who might be interested in knowing about this. I believe that the Americans who have died in these wars, have died for lies coming from our government and our mainstream media, which are both owned by the same people who profit from these wars. It is what I call: “The Big Lie”. It is Orwellian and like The Matrix. I do not know what is actually going on now in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Venezuela, Nicaragua or other countries around the world, but one thing I do know is that we cannot trust that the United States will ever do the right thing when it comes to foreign policy. Whatever action this country takes is to benefit the corporations, the oil companies, the bankers and the war machine: also known as: The Military Industrial Complex. The United States is ADDICTED To WAR. It is up to us to try to stop this horrible situation. There are more people now who do understand this to some degree than ever before in history. The films listed below and many books that have been written on this subject are a big reason why this is so. Not to mention the many anti-war/peace groups there are in this country. And the Internet is another big reason there is more awareness about this. I highly recommend watching or listening to Democracy Now hosted by Amy Goodman. Go to: http://www.democracynow.org to hear her on Monday thru Friday. In my opinion, she is the best journalist/broadcaster in the alternative media. To my knowledge, no one else has ever put together a list like this one.
Frank Dorrel
Publisher: ADDICTED To WAR
Bill Moyer’s The Secret Government: The Constitution In Crisis – PBS - 1987
This is the full length 90 minute version of Bill Moyer's 1987 scathing critique of the criminal subterfuge carried out by the Executive Branch of the United States Government to carry out operations which are clearly contrary to the wishes and values of the American people. The ability to exercise this power with impunity is facilitated by the National Security Act of 1947. The thrust of the exposé is the Iran-Contra arms and drug-running operations which flooded the streets of our nation with crack cocaine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJldun440Sk
http://www.topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-secret-government
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75XwKaDanPk
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky & The Media
Produced & Directed by Mark Achbar – Directed by Peter Wintonick – 1993
This film showcases Noam Chomsky, one of America's leading linguists & political dissidents. It also illustrates his message of how government and big media businesses cooperate to produce an effective propaganda machine in order to manipulate the opinions of the United States populous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrBQEAM3rE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vZ151btVhs
The Panama Deception
Won Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1992 - Narrated by Elizabeth Montgomery – Directed by Barbara Trent - Produced by The Empowerment Project
This Academy Award Winning film documents the untold story of the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama; the events which led to it; the excessive force used; the enormity of the death and destruction; and the devastating aftermath. The Panama Deception uncovers the real reasons for this internationally condemned attack, presenting a view of the invasion which widely differs from that portrayed by the U.S. media and exposes how the U.S. government and the mainstream media suppressed information about this foreign policy disaster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo6yVNWcGCo
http://www.documentarystorm.com/the-panama-deception
http://www.empowermentproject.org/films.html
HEARTS AND MINDS
Directed by Peter Davis – Won Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1975.
Peter Davis created one of the most moving accounts of the Vietnam War and the attitudes at home when he produced "Hearts and Minds". The film looks unflinchingly at the nature of power and horrible consequences of war. It is very much a pro-peace film, but uses the people who were there to speak for themselves. It also seeks to probe deeper underneath the American psyche of the times and evolves into a historical document about the violent social rupture that happened between the fifties and the sixties.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGbC3gUlqz0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdJcOWVLmmU
https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/hearts-and-minds
WAR MADE EASY: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death
Narrated by Sean Penn – By The Media Education Foundation – 2007
Based on Book by Norman Solomon titled: WAR MADE EASY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPJs8x-BKYA
War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception & media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. This film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion & exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations. War Made Easy gives special attention to parallels between the Vietnam war and the war in Iraq. Guided by media critic Norman Solomon’s meticulous research and tough-minded analysis, the film presents disturbing examples of propaganda and media complicity from the present alongside rare footage of political leaders and leading journalists from the past, including Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, dissident Senator Wayne Morse and news correspondents Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer.
Cover-Up: Behind The Iran-Contra Affair
Narrated by Elizabeth Montgomery – Directed by Barbara Trent - Produced by The Empowerment Project - 1988
COVER-UP is the only film which presents a comprehensive overview of the most important stories suppressed during the Iran Contra hearings. It is the only film that puts the entire Iran Contra affair into a meaningful political and historical context. The shadow government of assassins, arms dealers, drug smugglers, former CIA operatives and top US military personnel who were running foreign policy unaccountable to the public, revealing the Reagan/Bush administration's plan to use FEMA to institute martial law and ultimately suspend the Constitution. Strikingly relevant to current events.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDdItm-PDeM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOlMo9dAATw
Hijacking Catastrophe: 911, Fear & The Selling of the American Empire
Narrated by Julian Bond - The Media Education Foundation – 2004
The 9/11 terror attacks continue to send shock waves through the American political system. Continuing fears about American vulnerability alternate with images of American military prowess and patriotic bravado in a transformed media landscape charged with emotion and starved for information. The result is that we have had little detailed debate about the radical turn US policy has taken since 9/11. Hijacking Catastrophe places the Bush Administration's original justifications for war in Iraq within the larger context of a two-decade struggle by neo-conservatives to dramatically increase military spending while projecting American power and influence globally by means of force.
Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority
Directed By Sufyan & Abdallah Omeish -2006 - Best Film I’ve Seen about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
A thought-provoking and powerful documentary film on the current and historical root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike any other film ever produced on the conflict -- 'Occupation 101' presents a comprehensive analysis of the facts and hidden truths surrounding the never ending controversy and dispels many of its long-perceived myths and misconceptions. The film also details life under Israeli military rule, the role of the United States in the conflict, and the major obstacles that stand in the way of a lasting and viable peace. The roots of the conflict are explained through first-hand on-the-ground experiences from leading Middle East scholars, peace activists, journalists, religious leaders and humanitarian workers whose voices have too often been suppressed in American media outlets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDK6IfZK0a0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuI5GP2LJAs
Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: US Media & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The Media Education Foundation – 2003
Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land provides a striking comparison of U.S. and international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This pivotal documentary exposes how the foreign policy interests of American political elites--oil, and a need to have a secure military base in the region, among others--work in combination with Israeli public relations strategies to exercise a powerful influence over how news from the region is reported.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiiQI7QMJ8w
Paying The Price - Killing the Children of Iraq
John Pilger – 2000
This documentary by John Pilger shows the appalling reality of what happens to a country under economic sanctions. It’s about the punishment of a whole nation—the killing of hundreds of thousands of people, including many young children. They are all the nameless and faceless victims of their own government and of an endless war that Western nations have waged against them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjkcePc2moQ
Guns, Drugs & The CIA
Original Air Date: May 17th, 1988 – On PBS Frontline - Produced & Written by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn - Directed by Leslie Cockburn
Frontline investigation into CIA drug running to fund foreign operations. Introduced by Judy Woodruff.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/guns-drugs-and-the-cia/
“What I’ve Learned About US Foreign Policy: The War Against The Third World"
by Frank Dorrel – Updated 2014 Edition
https://www.cinemapolitica.org/film/what-i-learned-about-us-foreign-policy-war-against-third-world
Help us record & share the history of GI resistance!
2019 marked 50 years since some of the most important GI resistance actions against the US war in Vietnam took place. To mark the high point of the Vietnam era GI resistance movement, Courage to Resist began producing a podcast series in collaboration with the Vietnam Full Disclosure effort of Veterans For Peace.
So far, we’ve been able to bring you moving first-hand accounts from Vietnam era GI resisters, including: Zels Johonson, Hal Muskat, Michael Uhl, David Cortright, Andy Berman, Mike Wong, Doug Rawlings, Patrick McCann, Gene Marx, Paul Cox, Randy Rowland, Keith Mather, Camillo Bica, Bill Ehrhart, Scott Camil, Dan Shea, Bob Musil, Ahmed Daniels, Eric Seitz, Susan Schnall, Dee Knight, Ray Parrish, Gerry Condon, Suel Jones, John Ketwig, Mike Dempsey, John Catalinotto, Ward Reilly, and Al Glatkowski.
However, we’ve run out of money, and really need your help to complete this project.
Courage to Resist/CCO
484 Lake Park Ave #41
Oakland CA 94610
Note “Vietnam era podcasts” on the check memo line.
Courage to Resist is a project of the Objector Church (CCO), a nonprofit (IRC Section 501c3) charitable organization, EIN 83-1810568.
Your donations are tax-deductible. No goods or services were or will be provided in exchange for your contribution.
January 2nd in History
More about the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) early history - here.
"The Constitution faced a major test on this day in 1920 when raids ordered by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer saw thousands of people detained without warrants merely upon general suspicion. This occurred during the “Red Scare” of the 1920s, a period of anti-Communist fervor in the United States.
Facilitated by a young Justice Department official, J. Edgar Hoover, what became known as the Palmer Raids peaked on the night of January 2, 1920, when between 3,000 and 10,000 people in 35 cities were detained on suspicion of sympathizing with Communists or anarchists.
Earlier raids were smaller and one led to the deportation of anarchist Emma Goldman. “A. Mitchell Palmer, Attorney General, personally directed the raids tonight in radical centers throughout the country,” reported the New York Tribune, repeating Justice Department statements. The department said the arrests were lawful because the suspects advocated the overthrow of the United States government. Specifically, the department said their alleged membership in the Communist Party or the Communist Labor Party qualified them for deportation, subject to final decisions made by immigration officials."
Read more here, at the National Constitution Center's daily blog
Spread the word