Tidbits – June 6 – Reader Comments: Trump No Longer Invincible; Mexico: ¡Viva La Presidenta!; the Sympathizer on Hollywood’s Vietnam War Stories; Leonard Peltier Parole Hearing June 10; Webinar: Organizing, Collective Action, the NLRB; More…

Reader Comments: Trump No Longer Invincible; Mexico: ¡Viva La Presidenta!; The Sympathizer on Hollywood’s Vietnam War Stories; Leonard Peltier Parole Hearing June 10; Feminist Foreign Policy for Peace; Webinar: Organizing, Collective Action, the NLRB

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Tidbits - Reader Comments, Take Action, Resources, Announcements AND cartoons - June 6, 2024,Portside

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Re: Trump’s Stunning Guilty Verdict Shatters His Aura of Invincibility
 

I can't wait for the rest of his trials. Unfortunately I'm certain his game plan all along has been to say and do whatever he wants, deny everything, and hopefully die before he runs out of appeals. He will end up with the last laugh when he's gone and all those who've won judgements against him go to collect and find out it was all smoke and mirrors and he's been broke the whole time.

Robert Laite
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)

Re: No One Is Above the Law – Trump Guilty on 34 Counts – Now a Convicted Felon
 

Today a jury found ex-president Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in an effort to subvert the 2016 election. Following the decision, Trump called it a rigged trial, by a corrupt judge. He had also called the 2016 and 2020 elections rigged. The 2024 election is now clearly an election between democracy and fascism, between the rule of law and the attempt to subvert and overturn our imperfect democracy.

George Lessard
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

It's Time  --  Meme

 


 

On The Day The Nazi Died (Chumbawamba)
from Ratatude Demos by Rogue Rats
Free Download
from Ratatude Demos, released March 13, 2012

 

What a Difference 8 Years Makes  --  Meme

 

 

GOP Felon  --  Cartoon by Rob Rogers
 

Rob Rogers
June 4, 2024
robrogers.com

 

Re: NYU Nurse Is Fired After Calling the Gaza War a ‘Genocide’ in Speech
 

I hope she sues her employer and wins!!

Charlene Mitchell- Rodgers

 

Just Defending Ourselves  --  Cartoon by Max Gustafson

 

Max Gustafson
March 1, 2024

 

Re: Handling Hardship: Data on Economic Insecurity Among Amazon Warehouse Workers

(posting on Portside Labor)
 

Are happy days here again? Are the skies above clear again? Well for some of us not so much. Jobs like those at Amazon do not pay enough to keep body and soul together. How long can workers keep up with Amazon's ever increasing demands for moving stuff faster. Here, via Portside and Ann Fawcett Ambia a look at how many of us can be working and sinking at the same time.

Daniel Millstone
post on Facebook

 

Re: Global Left Midweek – June 5, 2024

(posting on Global Left)
 

Some interesting stuff this week.

Ethan Young
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

¡Viva La Presidenta!  --  Cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz

 

Lalo Alcaraz
June 4,2024
pocho.com

 

Re: Forced Labor vs. Forced Idleness
 

Tyler Bowman, an #incarcerated #worker in #NorthCarolina, speaks about working inside prisons and how their exclusion from employee status deepens structural disparities in the U.S. economy for Portside. #PrisonLabor

National Employment Law Project
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: The Military’s Myth of Black Freedom
 

Who are you to declare what Black people are or aren't? Those Black people who see themselves as patriots are just as genuine and honorable as you are. And plenty of them may be more broad-minded than you and less presumptuous.

John Woodford

 

GOP Likes This Flag  --  Cartoon by Dr. James MacLeod

 


 

Dr. James MacLeod
June 4, 2024
MacLeodCartoons

 

Re: Trial Results for New Lung Cancer Drug Are ‘Off the Charts’, Say Doctors
 

There's no mention of Cuba's multiyear success in halting/slowing/reversing lung cancer with its CIMAVAX vaccine. They were the first to offer such a vaccine.

Sam Anderson

 

Re: California Communism and Its Afterlives: On Robert W. Cherny’s “San Francisco Reds”
 

Reviewers Ray and Wranovics call this book "a welcome contribution, and hopefully an opening towards further study of this significant and neglected part of California history."

Tracy Ann Essoglou
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: The Sympathizer Takes On Hollywood’s Vietnam War Stories

(posting on Portside Culture)
 

The points raised by Li Zhou in her review of The Sympathizer about the importance of Vietnamese people interpreting and analyzing their own experience during and after the American War are good ones.  But they are incomplete in an important way.

The Vietnamese experience in the U.S. includes the experiences of the Vietnamese who were living here before and during the war as well.  Overwhelmingly, they were opponents of the war and the U.S. role in it.  The Vietnamese student association, for instance, campaigned against it.  After the war, the most rightwing of the relocated veterans of the Thieu regime organized a terror campaign against them.  Some people were murdered by a group called the frogmen, operating from military bases in southern California, and a hit list was published of student association leaders.  The representative of the NLF in San Francisco was attacked on the street and his wife killed.  A newspaper publisher in Westminster was murdered, along with a state university professor. David Truong was sent to prison, after the war ended, on a charge of espionage that many viewed as a government frameup.

An accusation of being sympathetic to the new government in Vietnam was very scary and people were reluctant to speak out until a new generation came of age, and relations with Vietnam were normalized. Most refugees were poor, working class people, and had to adjust to the reality of racism and exploitation in the U.S., which was not the image people had of life here before they arrived.  Picturing the community as well-off middle class makes invisible the efforts by many Vietnamese working families to confront that discrimination, and to reassess their own ideas about social justice.

It would be good to have an account of the experiences of Vietnamese people in the U.S. that recognized the radical politics of many people, and the price they sometimes paid for them.

David Bacon

 

Leonard Peltier Parole Hearing June 10

 

COMPASSIONATE RELEASE FOR LEONARD PELTIER, NOW!

On February 6, 2024, Leonard Peltier began his 49th year of incarceration, continuing his time as the longest-held Indigenous political prisoner in U.S. history. Peltier was a member of the American Indian Movement during the height of the Red Power Movement and was convicted in an unfair trial that could not prove his guilt. Since his arrest and nearly five decades of incarceration, he has become a symbol of the fight against systemic racism and the persecution by the federal government of community movements advancing justice and equity.

Peltier, 79, has been in prison for the majority of his life, following a trial filled with discrepancies and rooted in racism. NDN Collective and other justice and human rights  advocates, including Native Organizers Alliance, are demanding Peltier be granted compassionate release based on his time served, advanced age, and declining health...

On March 15, seven members of the United States Senate, including Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, submitted a signed letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for the release of Leonard Peltier.

“It is time that the federal government rectifies the grave injustice of Mr. Peltier’s continued imprisonment, and strongly urge you to allow for his compassionate release,” the letter states. “Mr. Peltier, who has been imprisoned for the past 49 years and is suffering from severe health conditions should be able to return home and live out his remaining days among his own people.”

Additionally, more than fifty current and former Tribal leaders have signed a letter urging President Biden to support a compassionate release for Leonard. Those signatories include National Congress of American Indians President, Mark Macarro; former NCAI President, Fawn Sharp; Chairman of the Indian Gaming Association, Ernest Stevens Jr.; Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman, Ryman Lebeau; Oglala Sioux Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out and Traditional Chief, Timothy Swallow; and Obama Medal of Freedom Recipient Suzan Harjo.

You can support by calling your Representatives and Senators and asking them to contact Attorney General Garland and urge him to support a compassionate release for Peltier.

Read more here and here

 

Feminist Peace Summit Recap: Building A Movement-Driven U.S. Feminist Foreign Policy for Peace  (Feminist Peace Initiative and The Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative)

 

 

May 28, 2024
Mobilizing Women for Peace in Korea
WomenCrossDMZ

Women Cross DMZ, along with our Feminist Peace Initiative partners and the The Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative at the Sié Center for International Security and Diplomacy, co-hosted the Inaugural Feminist Peace Summit at the University of Denver. 

Between May 1-3, 2024s, over 200 feminist scholars, activists, movement leaders, and community members discussed ways to advance a new U.S. foreign policy centered on feminist principles of peace, justice, and sustainability, and led by people of color, diasporic communities, and Indigenous Peoples. Plenary topics included why this political moment calls for feminist peace, how feminist foreign policy informed by diasporic wisdom can resolve global conflicts, what anti-militarist grassroots organizing looks like in communities of color, and how feminist strategies can confront growing authoritarianism across borders. In addition, we held over a dozen breakout groups on topics such as Palestine, migration and borders, sex and care work, feminist foreign policy, preventing a new Cold War, building intergenerational movements, Black and women’s nuclear abolition, organizing against the Global Right, diaspora organizing, climate and militarism, linking to policy, building narrative power, and funding the feminist peace movement. 

It was deeply heartening to reconnect with longtime friends and meet new ones, be inspired and challenged by new thinking, and, most importantly, to be in a collective space to witness  and affirm the power of the growing feminist and internationalist demilitarization movement in the United States. 

The summit was guided by three major themes:

1.  CHALLENGE U.S. MILITARISM AND WORK TO REPAIR HISTORICAL HARMS: Feminist foreign policy must go beyond simply getting women into existing patriarchal, militarist systems of violence. Instead, we need a new U.S. foreign policy that advances genuine security by prioritizing care, equity, sustainability, and being in “right relationship” with people and the planet. It must also include reparations for historical harms and injustices caused by U.S.-led wars, coups, and neoliberal economic policies that have stifled democracy and led to extensive violence and corruption around the world. 

2. GROUND FEMINIST FOREIGN POLICY IN MOVEMENTS: In order to advance our vision of a truly just feminist foreign policy, we must center the voices and experiences of those most impacted by war and militarism, democratize the process of shaping foreign policy, and build a popular constituency. 

3.  BRIDGE THE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICY DIVIDE: To build a robust, feminist, demilitarization movement, we must break down the divide between domestic and foreign policy to advance new thinking and organizing. This requires strengthening our understanding of how militarism harms communities at home and abroad. For example, the Biden administration continues to under-resource diplomacy and support for feminist civil society while massively expanding the Pentagon budget. This militarized approach reinforces state-sanctioned violence, especially against communities of color, and siphons resources away from basic human needs. We cannot achieve genuine human security without building power across social movements working on both domestic and foreign policy. 

Instead of hearing from foreign policy elites whose perspectives are steeped in harmful, colonial and militarized thinking, the Feminist Peace Summit amplified the expertise of feminist grassroots leaders who have been most impacted by colonialism, imperialism, and militarism and who are working against war, militarism, violence, repression, and climate catastrophe. Their wisdom and experience are essential to our collective understanding of conflicts and to advance real community-based solutions for peace, security and justice. 

This gathering was a call to action: to strengthen our movement in this moment of radical and transformative political awakening against militarization, to collectively reimagine peace, security, and liberation through feminist values of care, cooperation, and centering the voices of those most impacted. Following the summit, and building on our previous “A Vision for a Feminist Peace,” we plan to produce a Feminist Foreign Policy for Peace Roadmap to outline our vision for bridging domestic and global movements for peace and justice. 

We asked participants a series of questions at the conclusion of the summit. Here are some of their responses:

“What shifted in your thinking after attending the Feminist Peace Summit?” 

  • To centralize an anti-militarization approach in our feminist and foreign policy advocacy, activism, and relationship building
  • More safe and sacred spaces like this to strengthen ourselves and each other
  • Diasporic organizing as a path forward! Building a coalition of progressive feminist diaspora groups committed to demilitarizing the US empire and moving our war economy to a green and caring one
  • We need activists, academics, policy analysts involved and together in this movement, to build connections across and between movements, contexts and sectors
  • Policy spaces can and should be guided by love – and we shouldn’t be afraid to say this out loud! 

“What lessons must we learn in this moment to evolve the feminist peace movement?”

  • We cannot shy away from the halls of power but must understand that change in policy is far more than change in personnel
  • Lean into being uncomfortable and build bridges with groups working on different issues as they are all interconnected
  • We have to learn how to sustain ourselves through care & embrace growing pains as not divisive, but transformative
  • Need more non-aligned mass movement based on feminism to hold liberal feminist structures that serve the state accountable
  • Decenter the self, elevate the community, our source of power
  • Resource this movement and map the ecosystem so that we can prioritize where to lift up power in key positions
  • Be more thoughtful and nuanced than those whose power we are trying to undo

“What commitment are you walking away with to sustain our movement?”

  • Becoming more active in supporting Palestine as it is a flashpoint interconnected with all of our struggles
  • Don’t discount people just because we don’t see 100% eye-to-eye on something
  • Hold space for grief but to also experience joy like Yanar Mohammed reminded us!
  • Remain true to my values and actions of base building and centering directly impacted people on the front lines
  • To keep seeking out radical spaces and connections, to keep expanding the network of comrades engaged in this multipolar work 
  • Build stronger relationships with each other to FREE PALESTINE and all oppressed peoples 
  • Raise feminists

Speakers at the Feminist Peace Summit included: 

  • Christine Ahn (Women Cross DMZ)
  • Marie Berry (University of Denver)
  • Linda Burnham (Project 2050)
  • Diana Duarte (MADRE)
  • Cynthia Enloe (Clark University)
  • Kitzia Esteva (Grassroots Global Justice Alliance)
  • Nana Gyamfi (Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Justice Warriors 4 Black Lives)
  • Toni Haastrup (University of Manchester)
  • Sara Haghdoosti (Win Without War)
  • Lara Kiswani (Arab Resource and Organizing Center)
  • Xochitl Larios (CURY J)
  • Diana Lopez (Southwest Workers Union)
  • Yanar Mohammed (Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq)
  • Margo Okazawa-Rey (San Francisco State University)
  • Kavita Ramdas (Princeton University)
  • Sandy Shan (Justice is Global)
  • Halema Wali (Afghans for a Better Tomorrow)
  • Janene Yazzie (NDN Collective)

Thank you to all of our co-sponsors and donors who made this gathering possible, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Pax Sapiens. We left the Feminist Peace Summit smarter, sharper, and filled with new energy and determination to realize a truly just and peaceful world for all.  

Watch Conference Videos Here

 

List of Universities and Colleges with Encampments and Protests - as of June 01

 

You can remove encampments from their campuses but you will never remove Palestine from their hearts 💕
USA heroes list 🍉✊‼️ updated June 1st
 

 

The Radical History of the United Electrical Workers - An Interview With James Young By Benjamin Y. Fong  (Jacobin)

 

The United Electrical Workers emerged in the 1930s as a democratic union with an independent fighting spirit. It represented the promise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations — until it split from the CIO in an atmosphere of anti-communist red-baiting.

 

Placards spell out the demands of striking CIO United Electrical Workers as employees of the General Electric and Westinghouse plants in Bloomfield hold a mass meeting on the town green on January 15, 1946.  (Photo: Bettmann  //  Jacobin)

An Interview with James Young by Benjamin Y. Fong
May 30, 2024
Jacobin

This interview was conducted for Organize the Unorganized, a podcast from the Center for Work & Democracy and Jacobin magazine about the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

Subscribe to Jacobin Radio to listen to the series (and don’t forget to rate us five stars so we can reach more people).

James Young is professor emeritus of history at Edinboro University and the author of Union Power: The United Electrical Workers in Erie, Pennsylvania (Monthly Review Press, 2017). This interview focuses on the history of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, or UE for short, which was one of the three largest unions in the CIO at its peak, along with the auto and steel workers’ unions.

With its astounding growth in the late 1930s and early ’40s, its radical leadership and democratic structure, and its devastation during the later communist purge, the UE represents well the promise and limitations of the CIO project.

BENJAMIN Y. FONG: How did the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers come to be?

JAMES YOUNG: The UE began largely because of the activities of people at different independent work sites. A General Electric (GE) plant in Massachusetts, another one in upstate New York, a radio plant in the Philadelphia area and also in Buffalo, New York, and so on. These, and some machine shops along the way too, were organized basically independently of each other and scarcely knew anything about each other. But the American Federation of Labor (AFL) refused to work with any of them, and their common rejection from the AFL caused them to start working together more and more.

Read Full Interview Here  

 

Webinar on Organizing, Collective Action, and the National Labor Relations Board  --  June 11  (Economic Policy Institute - EPI)

 

From Hollywood to auto plants in the South, worker organizing is on the rise. These actions were facilitated by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under the Biden administration, which has made significant strides in demolishing the barriers to worker organizing constructed by the Trump administration. 

Please join the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, 2:00–3:00 p.m. ET, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. PT for a webinar discussing recent developments at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and their impact on worker organizing.

NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo will deliver opening remarks on the significant reforms her office has undertaken. A panel discussion about those reforms and their impact on workplace organizing will follow General Counsel Abruzzo's remarks.

The webinar will also discuss a recent EPI report that illustrates measures the NLRB has taken to support workers' organizing and bargaining rights under the Biden administration.

Register Here

Featuring:

  • General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, National Labor Relations Board
  • Larry Cohen, Past President of the Communications Workers of America, Board Chair Our Revolution
  • Cindy Estrada, Strategic Advisor to the President for the Center for Transformational Organizing, AFL-CIO
  • Worker Organizer (TBD)
  • Lynn Rhinehart, Senior Fellow, Economic Policy Institute
  • Moderated by Samantha Sanders, Director of Government Affairs and Advocacy, Economic Policy Institute

Tuesday, June 11, 2024, 2:00–3:00 p.m. ET, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. PT

REGISTER