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Dear Progressive Reader,
Just days after Earth Day, when climate concerns were receiving national attention, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson chose to display both his ignorance and his selfishness in one short statement. During hearings of the Senate Budget Committee on April 26, Johnson pointed to a report ([link removed]) that indicated deaths (caused by cold temperatures) in his home state of Wisconsin might decrease due to global warming. “According to your study, your concerned if you are in the very hot region of Africa, but in terms of the United States and most of Europe, we’re in pretty good shape.” The report’s co-author, Dr. Michael Greenstone of the University of Chicago pointed out ([link removed]) in response that “there are forty-nine other states in the United States, many of them will suffer more than Wisconsin, that is the nature of climate change, it’s very unequal.”
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas remains under scrutiny for his lavish unreported ([link removed]) vacations with a Texas billionaire and Republican mega-donor. Now, Chief Justice John Roberts has declined ([link removed]) an invitation to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the topic of Supreme Court ethics. But attorney Terri Gerstein is offering to take the bull by the horns in a letter inviting the Thomases to join her family for a road trip in the family station wagon. “While we’re traveling,” she writes ([link removed]) , “I’ll take care to avoid talking about workers’ rights or unions or labor issues, even though that’s what I think about most of my waking hours. I’ll also steer clear of voting
rights or Black Lives Matter. And we should just enjoy the climate, not talk about whether it’s changing.”
Yesterday was Workers Memorial Day ([link removed]) , a day first commemorated in 1989. It is now an international day ([link removed]) of remembrance and action for workers killed, disabled, injured, or made unwell by their work. This week, Jessica Martinez and Marcy Goldstein-Gelb of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health pen an op-ed for our Progressive Perspectives project. “The available data shows that safety problems are getting worse, not better, for America’s 160-million-strong civilian workforce,” they point out ([link removed]) . But, they continue, “Workers aren’t waiting around to get hurt or killed. Instead, they’re organizing to win better working conditions.” One of those organizing examples is at the grocery chain Trader Joe’s, where, as worker Zac Whidby
reports ([link removed]) , “After Trader Joe’s dropped its mask requirement, a few of us crafted a petition demanding the reinstatement of the wage increase we received when the pandemic started, as well as better benefits, and sturdier safety protocols.” And adjunct faculty member Hank Kalet describes ([link removed]) the recent success in organizing at Rutgers University as a “turning point for higher ed.” Finally, labor journalist Saurav Sarkar looks back ([link removed]) at the worst garment factory collapse in history on the tenth anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh on April 24, 2013.
April 24 also marks the anniversary of the Armenian genocide ([link removed]) of 1915-1916. Today, as Elijah de Castro reports ([link removed]) , the people of the region known locally as Artsakh, are being “ethnically cleansed by Azerbaijan, with the military and financial support of democracies around the world, including the United Kingdom, the European Union, and . . . the United States.” De Castro provides firsthand interviews with Armenians in the region and others here in the United States who tell stories of living under the current blockade.
In other international news, Jeff Abbott chronicles ([link removed]) the recent arrest in New Jersey of a former Salvadoran military officer for his role in the 1981 massacre of nearly 1000 civilians at El Mozote. Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies look at ([link removed]) the ramifications of the recent leaks of Pentagon documents about the war in Ukraine. And Paul Buhle reviews ([link removed]) the newly re-released edition of I.F. Stone’s famous 1952 volume The Hidden History of the Korean War, which revealed the truths behind the first major conflict of the Cold War. The book is set for release on May 1 by Monthly Review Press.
Finally, the week has been filled with remembrances of the late cultural worker and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte. Belafonte died ([link removed]) April 25 at the age of ninety-six. Belafonte’s film and singing career are known the world over, but remembrances following his passing have awakened many to his crucial and often unheralded role ([link removed]) in the civil rights movement and, in particular, his support ([link removed]) of the Reverend Martin Luther King. His political activism continued through the most recent issues of the day. The image at the top of this newsletter, by labor journalist and photographer David Bacon, shows Belafonte speaking in Oakland, California, on April 15, 2003, at a tax-day rally ([link removed]) opposing the U.S.
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In November 2016, on the eve of the presidential election, Belafonte wrote in an op-ed ([link removed]) in The New York Times, “Mr. Trump asks us what we have to lose, and we must answer, only the dream, only everything.” Writing in The Progressive in 2017, Phyllis Bennis remembered ([link removed]) Belefonte’s message at an annual human rights awards dinner: “He reminded us of what the leftwing political leader [Paul Robeson] had taught him about how to be both artist and activist. He spoke of passing on what we learn—the lessons, the legacies—of those who have gone before.”
Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S. - The new 2023 Hidden History of the United States calendar is now available. You can order one online ([link removed]) .
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