Tidbits - Dec. 31, 2020 - A People’s Agenda; Trump Guilty of Sedition; Anger Over Trump Pardons; Union Members Who Voted for Trump; Leo Panitch; Fred Hirsch; Labor’s Untold Story; People’s History Books; The Chicano Revolt

COVID-19 relief that “meets the scale of the crisis” and directly addresses the pandemic’s disproportionate harm to Black, Indigenous, people of color and “other vulnerable communities”;
Programs to put people back to work, with a focus on moving the economy to clean, renewable energy—but also restoring and expanding worker rights, including union rights;
Ensuring health care for all;
Defending and expanding voting rights—including proposals to end gerrymandering and rein in corporate money in electoral campaigns;
Attacking institutional racism and white supremacy;
Turning away from militarism and “endless wars” in favor of a commitment to peaceful diplomacy;
Rejecting corporate greed and ending corporate monopoly.

Marlena Santoyo

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Trump Is Guilty of Sedition and Must Be Brought to Justice

Scary stuff, but unfortunately not easily dismissed.

Daniel M. Rosenblum

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

Abramsky's article about Trump's "sedition" would have been better, I believe, if he had included how the word has been used against radical anti-racism organizers over the years.

In Kentucky, for example, it was passed in 1919, in the wake of the Soviet revolution, to "stop Bolsheviks" from Union Drives in Harlan County. It was used to arrest Theodore Dreiser, who had organized several reporters to come to Harlan and see the abject poverty of the miners.

It was dusted off again in 1954, in the wake of Brown, when my good friends Carl and Anne Braden were arrested for helping a Black family buy a house in a white working class section of Louisville. Domestic terrorists (the new term for the Klan) dynamited the Black family's home, and Carl was arrested and convicted for the crime of "sedition." (He decided to deal with his love of drinking while in jail, organized an AA group with the warden's permission, and used it to win some of his white brothers to a more enlightened view of the structural racism.) Anne became an expert on Sedition and How to fight back when racist prosecutors, and much of the mainstream media, turn words and acts inside out.

Thirteen years later, in 1967, Margaret Herring, Joe Mulloy, the Bradens who we were working with, were all arrested for Sedition in Pikeville, Kentucky. Google McSurely v. Ratliff and McSurely v. McClellan to learn how our lawyers--Bill Kunstler, Arthur Kinoy, and Mort Stavis--fought back for a 20 year old legal saga.

I write on Christmas Morning, thinking of Art Young's Wanted Poster

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Joy to the World.

Civil Rights Lawyer Al McSurely,

Carthage, NC

=====

“He’s violating his oath to protect the Constitution, and every day that he’s allowed to remain in power, the threat to our democracy grows.

There are constitutional provisions to remove such a person from power: He could be re-impeached by the House for his efforts to subvert the Constitution and immediately convicted by Mitch McConnell’s Senate; or he could be removed via the 25th Amendment.

Both scenarios would be extraordinary with only four weeks to go until the inauguration; but as the Trump drumbeat to not abide by the peaceful transfer of power gets louder, so too does the need become ever more immediate to find ways to neuter Trump politically before he can do even worse, even more irreparable damage to American democracy.”

Opitz Patty

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Suicide Bomber -- cartoon by Rob Rogers

Rob Rogers

December 30, 2020
robrogers.com

Re: No, Joe, Don't Roll out the Red Carpet for Torture Enablers

These rat bastard assholes are unspeakably the worst, pardon my grammar. What's the difference between these kinds of crimes and what the Nazis did to the Jews, the Gays, the Communists, the Gypsies, themselves and so on? I'm sickened and often have the worst of bad dreams, as for the rest of you, Yi Lu Ping An,

Mike Liston

Re: 'Our Blood is Cheaper than Water': Anger in Iraq Over Trump Pardons

Some of my worst fears coming to fruition.

Cindy Hartzell

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

Trump and the Republican Cult party are nothing but TRAITORS!

Louis Peluso

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

This is horrible he pardoned them! Why would he???

Marilyn Herzik

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

money talks way louder than life

Leigh Shelton

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: The US Government Can Provide Universal Childcare — It’s Done So in the Past

it's shameful really it is!

Beth Emma Goldman

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Have a Peanut -- cartoon by Mike Luckovich

Mike Luckovich

December 29, 2020

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Re: These Stories Aren’t Heartwarming They’re an Indictment of the System

Thanks to Nathan J. Robinson and Portside for this important reminder that behind heartwarming stories of people helping each other out are stories of appalling injustice thrusting people into desperate need in the first place. Mutual aid and charity help us when we’re down and out. But. We need to confront the system that puts us in need of rescue.

Daniel Millstone

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: How Science Beat the Virus

Cuba has four COVID-19 vaccines, China at least two, and Russia has begun using its own. This in-depth article needed to look and think globally.

Sandy Eaton, RN

Re: The Year That Labor Hung On By Its Fingertips

(posting on Portside Labor)

"The “gig economy” is not just Uber and Lyft and Instacart and other companies that exclusively work in that space — it is an economic force of nature pushing every company, including yours, to get your job off its books, and to turn you into something less than a full employee. Countering this force is probably the single most important legal and legislative issue for labor as a whole, because this process inherently acts to dissolve labor power. Unfortunately, the most important thing that happened on the issue this year was the passage of Prop 22 in California, legislation specifically designed to empower the gig economy companies to the detriment of workers. Scarier yet is the fact that the successful legislation in California will now be used as a blueprint for state legislation around the country. Companies are prepared to spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on this issue, because they save far more money on the back end and preserve their business model, which depends in large part in extracting wealth that once went to workers and redirecting it towards investors. Either America will have a national reckoning with what the gig economy is doing to us, or we will continue barreling towards a dystopian future of the Uberization of every last industry. Including yours. If ever there were a good time to launch a worker coop, it is now."

Bryce Phillips

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

Good summaries of 2020. Thank you Portside.

Brandon Mouser

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: The Union Members Who Voted for Trump Have to Be Organized—Not Ignored

Please let Ms Isser know that her first fact concerning the number of working class Trump voters is not correct. The exit polls show that 35% of ALL voters earned less than 50k. Of that 44% voted for Trump. So only 15.4% of Trump voters earned under 50k.

thx

Les Leopold

Ex Director, The Labor Institute

=====

how naïve the left has always been around the ideals of union members . there has always been significant members in the unions who have always believed in right wing politics and who are proud of that culture and this has not just started with trump unfortunately. and yes there is misogyny and racism to boot among members . sure they are for union wages and lower health costs because they see how that benefits them, but the inability to see the exploitation of immigrant labour, or the cruelty of denying a women an abortion reflects their ignorance about others needs.

Eileen Oxendale

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

There is no excuse for supporting fascism. The union members who voted for Trump -- overwhelmingly white -- betrayed their brothers and sisters of colour and the many white union members who refused to be conned by the Orange Clown.

The main reason they voted that way was racism: the defense of white privilege against the coming minority/majority America.

Before they can be organized, they must be defeated -- not just in the recent election, but within unions and in their communities. The time for reconciliation is when they understand that white privilege is NOT their ticket to prosperity and self respect; that solidarity across racial and other lines is the only sure way to make the changes the working class needs and aspires to.

After the Civil War, and after the imposition of Jim Crow by force and violence, white Americans from the North and South reached out to each other in reconciliation. Heartwarming parades of civil war veterans from both sides made it seem like Americans had moved past the old enmities.

It wasn't true. Jim Crow remained. The "reconciliation" had not included Black Americans -- their interests and rights were sacrificed on the altar of a fake "reconciliation".

Unions shouldn't try to pull the same stunt. Organizing Trump supporters can only be on the basis of real solidarity among all workers, real equality, and common commitment to fighting for those ideals inside and outside the House of Labor.

Lee Zaslofsky

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Please, Can We Have Some More -- cartoon by Mike Stanfill

Mike Stanfill

December 28, 2020
Raging Pencils

Re: Whitewashing the Great Depression

This is awesome

Amy Villarreal

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

The "American at 300" project.

The more interesting, true story of America is the story of the ignored. Who survived. Who overcame.

That is the story of America.

Paul Eichhorn

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

Great article, and to see fabulous SF photos, open the last link called In Focus about Japanese internment. Every link is filled with great info, I love the work this group does!

Susan Raycraft

Re: To Save the Planet, We Need to Make Purposeful Strides Towards the Right to Repair

This is important and will result in a positive sea change and a shift and increase in economic activity while reducing waste of material and energy.

Jon Lubar

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

#RightToRepair “… Voices calling for a system change around repair had been growing louder over the past years. Among them, European consumers who are increasingly disappointed at the overly short lifespans of their products as well as the European businesses working in reuse, repair and refurbishment that face a growing range of unwarranted barriers.…”

George Lessard

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: The Activist Roots of Black Feminist Theory

What is the wellspring of Black feminist theory? It is important to provide a corrective to the misperception that intersection theory has its genesis in the academy, or, worse still, that it can be attributed to a single discipline...or individual.

Jose Luis Medina

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Leo Panitch (1945–2020)

"Because he recognized that the era of revolutions had long passed, Leo was forced to keep his feet on the ground, to think about practical strategy, a real road to working-class revival — instead of only discussing in general terms the need for a revolutionary rupture from capitalism."

Leo, may he rest in peace, may have kept his feet on the ground but his head was somewhere else when he "recognized that the era of revolutions had long passed." I didn't know there was a time limit. Considering the continuing failure of efforts to work within the limits of capitalism to improve the lives of the masses in the European social democracies, it seems both presumptuous and premature to declare an end to the "era of revolutions."

Michael Kaufman

Re: Fred Hirsch: Doing the Work That Needed To Be Done

(posting on Portside Labor)

Remembering is organizing -- bringing to the newer members of the left the information they need to understand what organizing has accomplished and how important their work is in preserving progress and fighting for more!

Hollis Stewart

Re: Don’t Subject Your Kids to Rudolph

I like that Rudolph perseveres no matter what. That's the message.

Ralph Stephens

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

Santa in that film is a perfect example of exploitative and racist monopoly capitalism. And I always assumed that Yukon Cornelius is secretly a red, out to liberate the working class. You can tell from the moustache.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Why Workers Everywhere Should Read Labor’s Untold Story

(posting on Portside Labor)

Excellent advice. Important to me some 45-50 years ago too

David Newby

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

I agree. Labor's Untold Story is an amazing, beautifully written book of labor history through the 1950s, weaving in wonderful personal stories to put a human face on the subject. I once encouraged Steven Greenhouse to update it. Instead he wrote his own amazing book on labor, Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor.

Peter Dreier

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

=====

and it's recently been republished by UE

Thurman Wenzl

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: The Marketisation of Truth

The writer's opening words betray his/her youth. Let's go back to Richard Nixon's press secretary, Ronald Ziegler, who frequently had to announce that his boss's previous statements were "inoperative.

Sterling Vinson

Re: Media Bits and Bytes - December 29, 2020

No other single source of thought-provoking news rivals Portside for me. I subscribe to their daily emails, but you can find them at their website or on Facebook. They share timely articles from a wide variety of sources. This "media bits and bytes" email is one of several today, and in and of itself does a fine job of giving us things to learn from, think about, discuss.

Kipp Dawson

Posted on Portside's Facebook page

People’s History Books in 2021 (Zinn Education Project)

Here is another reason to look forward to 2021 — new people’s history books.

We highlight below a few upcoming 2021 titles and invite you to events we are hosting for The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks: Young Readers Edition (January 11) and How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America (May 10).

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks: Young Readers Edition

By Jeanne Theoharis and Brandy Colbert

In story after story, Jeanne Theoharis and Brandy Colbert breathe life into the rebellious Mrs. Rosa Parks, a fighter for justice who will intrigue and inspire young people. And for all of us who want to teach honestly about Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement, this is an essential resource.

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

By Clint Smith

An examination of how monuments and landmark tell myths or truths about the central role of slavery in U.S. history and its legacy today.

Teacher Unions and Social Justice: Organizing for the Schools and Communities Our Students Deserve

Edited by Michael Charney, Jesse Hagopian, and Bob Peterson

An anthology from Rethinking Schools with more than 60 articles documenting the history and the how-tos of social justice unionism.

Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre

By Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Floyd Cooper

This children’s picture book centers the history of the thriving Black community of Greenwood before the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.

Zinn Education Project

A collaboration between Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change

PO Box 73038 Washington, D.C. 20056

Phone: 202-588-7205 | Email: zep@zinnedproject.org

Panel Discussion/Webinar: The Chicano Revolt from 1969-1971 - January 31 (The Chicano Movement Symposium Series)

"Our love and support should come from each other" - Chicano leader Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales once said.

Chicano Movement Symposium Series next 50th Anniversary

We are proud to announce the Fifth Chicano Movement Symposium Series, 50th Anniversary event #5. Titled: "The Chicano Revolt from 1969-1971." Canciones del Movimiento Chicano/Songs of the Chicano Movement by musician Jesus Chuy Perez. Moderator: Manuel Lopez, Radio Personality on "Manny In The Morning" Show - The Duck 94.3 FM/102.5 FM.

The acclaimed authors, activists-historians Mike Davis and Jon Weiner will join the panel discussion, their recent book "Set the Night on Fire: LA in the Sixties" in two chapters the book covers the 1968 East LA Walkouts and the Chicano Moratorium marches and rallies in Los Angeles.

Panelists confirmed:

Diane Valverde-Hernandez, Chicana Educator & Activist
David Sanchez, PhD, Founder/Prime Minister of the Brown Berets
Ralph Ramirez, Founding member/Former Brown Beret Minister of Defense & Discipline
Arturo "Bone's" Rodriguez, Denver Chicano activist
Shirley Rodriguez, a Chicana activist
Richard Soto, a Brown Beret medic on January 31st
Bob Elias, one of the original organizers of the Chicano Moratorium Committee,
and many more will participate in this panel discussion/webinar

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2021 AT 2 PM EST – 5 PM EST FREE!

This year marks the 50th anniversary of several significant event's in Chicano history that are critically important to the advancement of civil and human rights for all. The Chicano Movement Symposium Series and Peace and Dignity Project will host a presentation commemorating the 50th anniversary of January 31,1971 Chicano Moratorium Rally.

The presentation will include digitized documents, photo images in a virtual gallery, rare archival footages, news articles, and statements made by the former leadership.

Presenter's will include Chican@ activists involved on the January 31, 1971 Chicano Moratorium Rally. Panelists will share the suppressed and forgotten history of the Chicano Moratoriums through their eyewitness accounts of the turbulent times from 1969-1971. The Chicano Moratorium rallies began on December 20, 1969, February 28, 1970, July 18, August 29th, September 16th, January 9, 1971 and January 31, 1971. This event is one of several 50th anniversary programs that make up the "Chicano Movement Symposium Series."

The Series will bring together activists, dignitaries, scholars, historians, photographers, artists, and writers who will engage in correcting the historical narrative as the participants share their eyewitness accounts of the turbulent times of the 60's and 70's. Old and new findings based on research, teaching, activism and other forms of political action rooted in the Chicano Movement will be discussed within the context of how this relates to today's political struggles.

Our Call To Action: Our goal is to energize the audience, inspiring in them a commitment to defend civil and human rights by combating the injustices they see today. To be silent is to be complicit.

The Chicano Movement Symposium Series; A People's History Project is produced, researched and facilitated by Anthony Ortega and Peace and Dignity Project - C/S 2020-2021

Support our next program and donate today: