Published on Portside (https://portside.org/)

Tidbits - December 25, 2014- Holiday edition

https://portside.org/2014-12-24/tidbits-december-25-2014-holiday-edition
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Re: Farewell, Colbert Nation

I appreciated this cheerful end of the year tribute to the truthiness of Colbert. A good sign of sanity on the part of Portside. (Maybe a careful reading will reveal horror at the fact Kissinger was in the finale - but I hope not)

Happy Holidays to the folks there and, given my own background, "Merry Christmas!"

David McReynolds

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If we could only lose Fox instead of the Colbert Report....in fact, if properly organized, we could!

Ken Luckhardt
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Is It Bad Enough Yet?

The N.A.A.C.P.'s Rev. Dr. William Barber II, a leader of the Moral Mondays movement in North Carolina, captures the national yearning this reflects. "I believe that deep within our being as a nation there is a longing for a moral movement that plows deep into our souls," he writes. "We are flowing together because we recognize that the intersectionality of all of these movements is our opportunity to fundamentally redirect America."

Kathryn Hopping
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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This is the time for change. Enough of the rich taking it all and not sharing with the rest of us. It is not a free society in terms of a free place to stay of free food. If you are at that point, you are in the arms of misery and despair. We need a free society, which means no police killings of unarmed people, better jobs, less consideration of the wealthy and a government that is not involved in plots against its own working people.

Kelvin Sandridge
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Ralph Nader used to talk about, "when do you reach your breaking point?"

Todd Boyle
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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All the big chefs are getting in line to protest in the streets against Monsanto, Bayer, etc. for their horrible attacks on our food supply. Bless them all for taking such a loud and aggressive stand on such an important issue. Almost sounds strange for a chef to be involved in street politics but it sure is welcomed and appreciated !!

Gayle Neville Muskus
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Since I recently posted (in favor of protesting) "Some people don't realize that what they love about this country came about due to protest - and what they hate about it will go away due to protest.", I was glad to see the last line of this article say - "True citizenship is people continually protesting."

Christopher James
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Nice piece.
"...to truly change the food system you really have to change just about everything: good nutrition stems from access to good food; access to good food isn't going to happen without economic justice; that isn't going to happen without taxing the superrich; and so on. The same is true of other issues: You can't fix climate change or the environment without stopping the unlimited exploitation of natural and human resources.

Bud Burridge
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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An important article from am important and worthy people's news service. Please enjoy and share, and if you are able, consider contributing to Portside. Needed now more than ever.

Kipp Dawson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: 70 Years Later, Judge Rules 14-Year-Old Boy was Wrongly Executed

Wrong on so many levels... How many more like him???

Angie Jackson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I'm speechless

Michele Lefante Perkins
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Cuban President Raul Castro Delivers Speech on Cuba-US Relations

How will Cuba maintain Assata's safety, if US citizens have less restrictions to roam around the country? Many are concerned about that...

Mike Siviwe Elliott
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Assata is safe. They wont let amerikka touch her. I used to live in Cuba. Far far better country than amerikka. And lets be clear that usaid spy Alan Gross was sent home due to humanitarian reasons. There was no exchange. Vive Cuba! Vive La Revolution! HSSTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!

Rachel Barr
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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The statement by Raul Castro needs to be shared.  US Media - the NY Times, LA Times is crowing about the fact that Fidel is now a relic resigned to museums.  Upon hearing Obama's speech, I was skeptical.  The surge in the Stock Market yesterday reinforced that skepticism.  Today's Business Pages today show American Big Business walking pen-in-hand to open up ways to rip off the Cuban people.

Stay true, Raul y todos los cubanos. No pasaran y venceremos!

Claire Carsman

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"As we have reiterated, we must learn the art of coexisting with our differences in a civilized manner." -Raul Castro

Christopher Frederic Lapinel
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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The meaning of social justice is definitely a part of why the walls separating Cuba and the U.S. are starting to crumble. But the ruling circles in the U.S. will try to attach a different meaning to what is happening all over the world. There are many movements that are seeking ways to join hands to make a very powerful and sane push for justice.

Willie Williamson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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America needs to clean up its own act before it even starts to judge Cuba. How many more decades are we going to continue to delude ourselves Into thinking the embargo will work. Only hurting ourselves. End the last vestige of a Cold War.

Jerry Coleman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

How America's Relationship With Cuba Will Change

By Alicia Parlapiano
December 17, 2014
New York Times

Read more here

Re: It's Not Cuba That Has Just Decided to Rejoin the Modern World - It's the US

Clemenceau's additional remarks at Versailles about peace vs. empire, quoted by Lincoln Steffens' in his Autobiography as quoted by Ralph T. Templin in "Democracy and Nonviolence:"  [by the way, note the mention of Cuba]

**"'One moment, gentlemen,' he said.  'I have been hearing much talk about a permanent peace.  There has been a great deal of talk about a peace to end war forever, and I am interested in that. But I would like to know whether you mean it, this permanent peace.'

"He looked at his colleagues, and they nodded. 'And you have counted the cost of such peace?' he asked.  Then there was some hesitation.  'Well,' continued Clemenceau, 'if we give up all future wars, we must give up our empires and all hope of empire. You, Mr. Lloyd George, will have to come out of India; we French will have to come out of Africa; you Americans, Mr. President, must get out of the Philippines and Puerto Rico and leave Cuba alone, and Mexico.  We shall have to tear down our tariff walls and open the whole world to free trade and traffic.  These are some of the costs of permanent peace; there are other sacrifices we, the dominant powers, will have to make.  It is very expensive, peace. We French are willing, but are you willing, to pay the price, all these costs of no more war in the world?'

"The President and the premiers began to protest that they did not mean all that, that it was not necessary, not all at once.  No, they had not meant exactly that.  'Then,' said Clemenceau, sitting up straight and striking the table sharply, 'talk as you may, you don't mean peace.  You mean war!'

Little in Clemenceau's statement needs changing to apply it to the non-standard forms of "war," embargoes, sieges, economic exploitation.

Joe Maizlish

[MILLIONS MARCH NYC]

On behalf of the Millions March NYC, we express our condolences to the families of the officers who were killed earlier today. Our march last weekend was a peaceful outcry that senseless violence in our society is harmful to trust, community, and security. This recent tragedy is in no way connected to our march, or ongoing protests against police brutality, discrimination, and profiling--and we condemn, and are disappointed with any entity that would try to imply such connection. As New Yorkers, we will continue to march for a peaceful society, where trust between communities and law enforcement is finally established.

Black and blue, we all bleed red.

Center for Constitutional Rights

At a moment when grief and anger at injustice could bring us together, PBA President Pat Lynch and others instead have declared war on the public and the protesters. Lynch exemplifies the "us versus them" mentality too endemic in too many police forces -- the very reason the protests exist and the reason they must not stop until systemic problems of police violence and discrimination are addressed and police "protect and serve" ALL our communities.

It is unconscionable that people are exploiting the tragic shooting yesterday for cheap political gain. It dishonors the dead to be used as a mere political prop in an attack on a nonviolent movement whose very purpose has been to end the killing of innocent human beings.

Re: Angela Davis: `There is an unbroken line of police violence in the US that takes us all the way back to the days of slavery'

I have been in awe of this woman since my twenties. She is amazing!

Patricia Finley
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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The police force has its origins in the slave patrols, in this country.

Lawrence Ha
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Thanks for this much needed post

Chad Dion Lassiter
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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when i was born, there were lynchings - what is the difference between what we see happening now. i see no difference. when i saw the video of the murder of Eric Garner in staten island, i realize this is even worse than i had thought. i could go on and on! Thank you, Angela, and i am sorry i will not be able to see you when you come to Portland on January 21. The events where she is speaking are both 'sold out'. but i am glad that so many people will hear her!

Beverly Swan
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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She is a visionary goddess, I am not surprised whites are offended, deal with it racists

Barry Banks
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Despite this correct historical appraisal, apologists for the status quo including this President will have you believe that it takes time and one should be patient. What really this problem requires is admission of the truth which has been staring us in the face for centuries and a change in morality.

Errol Brewster
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I remember her from my college days in San Diego. That great lady opened the eyes of millions of people of all colors. Gotta love her.

Steve Tait
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Profits and more profits from the only folks whom profit!
When pulling weeds, you must pull from the root! The root of the problem is greed!

Stacey Ives
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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There has always been a phenomenon with blacks being killed in this country since the beginning. Certainly over a course of time...a black person has killed a white person. However you must ask yourself does the hunted have right to be angry or right to kill the hunter? If America will publicly apologize for our treatment and acknowledge it inhumane treatment to us to the UN and let the world know, perhaps a true healing can begin. But unfortunately American whites mostly patronize blacks by saying " it's old news or get over it".

Yusef Shakur
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I just watched about half of the documentary Free Angela and All Political Prisoners. It's quite good and instructive in so many ways. For some odd reason (downloaded from iTunes) the movie just stopped and shut down half way through. Conspiracy?? Seriously, this is important history and oh so relevant to today. Highly recommend.

Madge Kaplan
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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this may be true but there are good people in the police who want to help and take their jobs seriously. I think it's so dangerous to "lump" all of them or us into narrow boxes. Leaves no room for creativity and progress

Deborah Marks
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Of course there are good people, as well as bad people. She's making reference to a larger system that transcends individuals. It's so counterintuitive to the individualism we're taught in the U.S. that it is challenging to even conceptualize what's she's discussing.

Wally Weaksauce
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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There will always be bullies who are attracted to positions of power. It does not mean that all in power are bullies. But power does attract those who would like to abuse it for their own ends. Those ought to be weeded out from the beginning. And then what to do with the bullies?

Lisa Pingree
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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"Good guys" police don't get assigned to patrol communities of color.

Le Rod
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: In the Struggle Against Police Violence, the Youth Shall Lead

This article "....the Youth Shall Lead" written by a young leader, describes the mass mobilization of young people leading in street protests calling for radical/revolutionary change in the struggle against racist police violence.The article warns that this movement must not allow "Black mis-leaders" like Rev Al Sharpton co-opt these mass rallies. Rev Sharpton called forth the rally in DC. Youth leaders took over the speaker's platform and challenged Sharpton's establishment position as both MSNBC news broadcaster, and as having a significant seat at POTUS's informal cabinet table. The article presents a very solid analysis of strategy and tactics for radical mass mobilization.

Larry Aaronson
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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...first things first. Not getting harassed, shot, choked to death on the way, to from school etc is a good start. We must not be over obsessed with this big picture over the smaller picture of vice-versa. Consciousness comes in small ripples more likely than giant waves. This is a small ripple, but I hope in looking at this situation they will understand some of the other societal issues that create these situations !!

Derrick W Kimbrough
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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The young people's presence there us why I still have some hope that this nation can change.

Frances Jarvis
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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The youth always do lead movements for change.

Georgia Blotzer
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Until all life matters we the people will march and fight for Black life in America.

Ellen Rollins
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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But many of us old folks will be backing them up!

Jenny Kastner
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Revolutions are multi-generational or they do not happen.

Paw Le Bear
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: The Power of Political Athletes to Puncture Privilege

I'm reading some of the comments and they don't think it matters, or it is just so so, but if any of those men that lost their lives due to police violence were your father, brother, husband, or son I positive that you would not take this matter as so so or some of it being true. I read the essay and I feel that unless it impact[s] you directly it does not matter to you, but once you are on my dime that is when I scream that brings me back to "By Any Means Necessary"', to make others understand. Good job. I sometimes think that some of you are to young to know what my, or our people has gone through over not years but centuries. We must learn to use everything possible to educate one another to the whole truth.

Yvonne Joyner
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: The Police Aren't Under Attack. Institutionalized Racism Is

Mr. Abdul-Jabbar is correct. His is an intelligent, rational assessment of the issues surrounding the deaths of those New York police officers. What the general public has to understand (and apparently hasn't so far) is that the massive demonstrations are not about protesting the police in general. The demonstrations are about protesting bad (and illegal) actions by the few cops who commit them.

Luís Torres

Re: Fighting Anti-Semitism and Jim Crow: "Negro-Jewish Unity" in the International Workers Order

Exceptional historical research documenting the difficulties and challenges of achieving unity of the working class.

Carl Finamore
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I have long ties of friendship & affection to the IWO the fraternal and insurance operation killed off in the McCarthy period. Jennifer Young's article (via Portside) brought its honorable anti-racist history mind. Why do you think we new lefties didn't form more stable self-support groups? The communes, collectives, community organizations were, it feels now, weaker for their isolation from one another.

Daniel Millstone
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I was really happy to see this article.  I only wish she had said more about the services the IWO provided to its members, including cemeteries, a summer camp (Kinderland), health and dental clinics, schools that did various kinds of workers and political education programs, and a nonprofit health insurance program, which was so successful the for-profit insurance industry got it closed down during the McCarthy Period.  The combination of community-based political work, education, and service provision is one we urgently need to learn from.

Meredith Tax

Re: When Chicago Tortured

Chicago must be basking in the glory of having pioneered in the development of torturing devices that would later be adopted by the CIA.  What a noble heritage!

Henry Foner

Re: Exposing the FBI

Despite its importance and value to all of us, a  shortcoming of Medsger's book, not mentioned in Wittner's review, is that  she left Rev. Muhammad Kenyatta (formerly Donald Jackson in  Mississippi) out of the story, so that only her own determination  seems to be what brought the documents into public view. Not so, or at least not  exclusively so.

The burglary was March 8, 1971. Kenyatta held a  news conference on March 24 in Philadelphia and distributed copies of the  FBI reports about himself from undercover spies in the Black Economic  Development Conference. He was thus the first person publicly to support  and praise the burglars, and to put the captured reports to use in service to  the movement.

From there, he showed how to apply the new  information in solidarity with other victims. In Chicago a week or two later he  gave me documents that named an FBI undercover agent who had attended meetings  at my home, and did the same for other comrades as he traveled around  the country.

I salute and cherish every participant in the group  of burglars. Although Bill Davidon had been among the first people I had met  when I became active in Student Peace Union in the early sixties, I would  not have guessed his role. But the book should have included the contribution of  Kenyatta's public actions, which drew heat away from the secret burglars,   forced the mass media to report the story as continuing news, and used the  documents to thwart FBI spies in our midst.

Besides omitting Rev. Muhammad Kenyatta's important acts in publicizing and sharing documents liberated by the burglary of the Media  FBI office, I think Medsger was unaware of an important precedent that was probably significant when Bill Davidon conceived his plan.

In 1963, during the annual Easter mass march for nuclear disarmament from Aldermaston to London, a previously unknown  organization called Spies for Peace distributed a mimeographed report titled  "Danger! Official Secret RSG 6," which revealed the British government's secret plan to govern the country from concealed underground RSGs (regional seats of government). The documents had been obtained by a burglary at a secure secret facility.

As quickly as the police confiscated one batch of the report, a barrow full would appear nearby as the distribution continued. The Committee of 100, which had organized the action, led a contingent that veered off from the main march route to the actual location of the RSG 6 bunker and held a demonstration there before rejoining the main march to Trafalgar Square.

So perfectly planned and coordinated was that attack on a closely held and previously undisclosed government scheme to impose  dictatorial rule as part of its nuclear war plan that Spies for Peace arranged for their publication to be distributed more or less simultaneously, though on a small scale, in the United States, during our Easter ban-the-bomb march from Fort Sheridan to the Water Tower in Chicago.

The report electrified Britain, energized peace activists, shook public confidence in the British political system, and  evoked envy on this shore, certainly in my mind. Much of my later work exposing  and organizing against CIA, FBI, Red Squad, and Mississippi State Sovereignty  Commission infiltrating, spying on, and disruption our movement was  modeled on what Spies for Peace had done in 1963.

Reflecting on that episode, I'm sure that Bill Davidon would have received one of the copies, and might have been among the  group who arranged for their distribution at our march. In any event, Spies for Peace set a glorious precedent that the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI emulated in 1971. That was probably not a coincidence.
 
Ken Lawrence

A Pause for Mr Claus by Arlo Guthrie

Dedicated to the FBI agents in the audience

Listen here.

"The Pause of Mr. Claus" on Arlo's first album, "Arlo"

Re: Bush Versus Clinton: the Perfectly Illustrative Election

Family dynasties are nothing new in US politics, from the Adamses to the Roosevelts to the Kennedys.  And don't forget that John Kerry was a cousin, on his mother's (Forbes) side, to George W. Bush. George Washington refused to become king, but that didn't mean a huge portion of the population didn't long for (and continue to long for) one anyway.  As Bertolt Brecht put it in the subtitle of his play The Roundheads and the Pointedheads (Die Rundkoepfe und die Spitzkoepfe): The Rich Work Powerfully Well Together (Reich und Reich gesellt sich gern).

Leonard J. Lehrman

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...shows a distinct lack of imagination on the part of both parties.

Tim Janes
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Re: The War to Start All Wars

Excellent history lesson!   Author Grandin not properly credited at the top, only way down at the end.

Tom Gogan

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Grenada was the start of this kind farce,Let alone remember the invasion of Panama !

George Finegan
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

New Resource - Torture, American Style

Historians Against the War (HAW) published a 24-page pamphlet, "Torture, American Style" in 2006. Free downloads of the pamphlet are available at http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/resources/torture/

The pamphlet, which was edited by Margaret Power, contains a foreword and artier on Abu Ghraib by John Cox and articles on the American prison system by H. Bruce Franklin, NIcaragua by Richard Grossman, the tiger cages in Viet Nam by Don Luce, Guantánamo by Jane Franklin, and the torture of prisoners in U.S. prisons by Marjorie Cohn.

Submitted by Margaret Power

New Book by Staughton Lynd - Doing History from the Bottom Up: On E.P. Thompson, Howard Zinn, and Rebuilding the Labor Movement from Below

Dear Portside Labor Moderators,

Sorry, this is not a financial contribution.

But I want to be sure you know that Haymarket has  just published a book by myself entitled Doing History from the Bottom Up: On E.P. Thompson, Howard Zinn, and Rebuilding the Labor Movement from Below.

Most of the book is an attempt to document the development of  a critique of the CIO first expressed to me by steelworker John Sargent in 1969,  and evident now in the campaigns among low-wage workers sponsored by UFCW, SEIU,  and the UE.

Brother Staughton

More about the book:
In Doing History from the Bottom Up, Staughton Lynd laments the passing of David Montgomery, E.P. Thompson, Alfred Young, and Howard Zinn. He challenges academics to see history through the eyes of Native Americans, slaves, and rank-and-file workers. Lynd offers an account of the decline of trade unionism based on the narratives of workers and on his efforts as a lawyer to assist them.

Order the book directly from Haymarket Press

Stevie Wonder on Ferguson & New York grand jury verdicts

Published on Dec 4, 2014
Video by Zoltan Grossman

Last night Stevie Wonder weighed in on the grand jury refusals to indict #Ferguson and New York cops in the killings of two unarmed African American men, as he opened "Living for the City." Stevie was performing at Seattle's Key Arena as part of his "Songs in the Key of Life" Tour, along with India Arie (in white). He opened his 1974 hit with these pertinent words:

"Can you believe that within one month, two secret grand juries declined to indict two policemen for the killing of two Black men? I just don't understand that.

Let me just say this also: I don't understand why a legal system would choose secrecy when there's so much mistrust of what they're saying. I don't understand why there could not have been a public trial where we would be able to hear all sides...I just don't understand that.

I tell you what I do understand. I heard Eric Garner say, with my own ears: 'I Can't Breathe.' And as much as he's apologized, I don't understand why he [the policeman] did not stop...I've heard politicians say, you've got all this black-on-black crime, but my feeling's that guns are too accessible to everybody.

I do understand that something is wrong, real wrong. And we as family, Americans, all of us of all colors, need to fix it with a quickness, real soon.
I really love you, you know that. This is why this song unfortunately is still relevant today....."

Watch here.

"Living For The City"

"A boy is born in hard time Mississippi
Surrounded by four walls that ain't so pretty
His parents give him love and affection
To keep him strong moving in the right direction
Living just enough, just enough for the city.

His father works some days for fourteen hours
And you can bet he barely makes a dollar
His mother goes to scrub the floor for many
And you'd best believe she hardly gets a penny
Living just enough, just enough for the city..

His sister's black but she is sho 'nuff pretty
Her skirt is short but Lord her legs are sturdy
To walk to school she's got to get up early
Her clothes are old but never are they dirty
Living just enough, just enough for the city.

Her brother's smart he's got more sense than many
His patience's long but soon he won't have any
To find a job is like a haystack needle
Cause where he lives they don't use colored people
Living just enough, just enough for the city...
Living just enough...
For the city..
[repeat several times]

His hair is long, his feet are hard and gritty
He spends his love walking the streets of New York City
He's almost dead from breathing on air pollution
He tried to vote but to him there's no solution
Living just enough, just enough for the city.

I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow
And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow
This place is cruel no where could be much colder
If we don't change the world will soon be over
Living just enough, just enough for the city."

Activists: Ericka Huggins and Nomboniso Gasa

BBC World Service

Photo: Activists Ericka Huggins (left) and Nomboniso Gasa. Ericka Huggins Photo Credit: Peggy Moore // BBC

Ericka Huggins attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 and decided then to devote herself to social action. She was 19 when she became a leader in the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s. In its own words the Party wanted "the power to determine the destiny of the Black and oppressed communities." As well as the political struggle Ericka had to cope with becoming a widow and the lone parent of a 3-week-old baby when her husband, also a Black Panther Party leader, was killed. Her own imprisonment led her to the practice of meditation which is still very much part of her life. Now professor Ericka Huggins teaches sociology at Merritt and Laney Community Colleges in Oakland California.

Nomboniso Gasa's experiences of Apartheid gave her a political consciousness from early childhood and at the age of 14 she was arrested and detained for the first of many times. As a result of living in a segregated society she says "the notion of being non-human stayed with me for a long time". She joined the ANC's underground structure in the 1980s and her work was mainly as a runner between the homelands and the ANC guerrilla fighters, including crossing into Lesotho, disguised as a boy in search of her father. Now based in Johannesburg, Nomboniso is a researcher and analyst on Gender, Politics and Cultural Issues and talks about coping with the aftermath of the violent episodes in her life through dance, gardening and yoga.

"The Invisible Hand": Islamic militants turn West's capital markets into their weapon

"The Invisible Hand."  Written by Ayad Akhtar, directed by Ken Rus Schmoll.
New York Theatre Workshop 79 East Fourth Street, New York City. (212) 279-4200.
Tickets $35 to $75. Running time 2 hours.
Opened Dec 8, 2014; closes Jan 4, 2015.

Review by Lucy Komisar
December 15, 2014
The Komisar Scoop

If only the radical Islamists were just like the people who run the West, capitalists! If you think that's the answer, be careful what you wish for. Ayad Akhtar's clever, ironic, compelling play shows what could happen when a Wall Streeter, kidnapped for ransom, persuades his captors that he is more valuable to them by showing how to manipulate the West's financial system - especially the stock and currency markets.

Ayad Akhtar's play is a financial thriller of the sort you never expect to see on a New York stage. Akhtar won a Pulitzer Prize last year for "Disgraced," about ethnic prejudice among liberal New Yorkers. But it's nowhere near as good or as interesting as this play, which posits, "What if the enemies of America used the Western financial system to bring it down?" - See more here.

Source URL: https://portside.org/2014-12-24/tidbits-december-25-2014-holiday-edition