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TIDBITS – MAR.7, 2024 – READER COMMENTS: CEASEFIRE NOW; MITCH
MCCONNELL WATER BOY FOR TRUMP; TRUMP COURTS TEAMSTERS; ALABAMA’S
EMBRYOS; HARRY BELAFONTE CELEBRATION OF LIFE; FILM WORKERS FOR
PALESTINE; 1ST ANNUAL WALTER RODNEY SYMPOSIUM; CARTOONS;  
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March 7, 2024
xxxxxx
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_ Reader Comments: Ceasefire Now; Mitch McConnell Water Boy for
Trump; Trump Courts Teamsters; Alabama's Embryos; Harry Belafonte
Celebration of Life; Film Workers for Palestine; 1st Annual Walter
Rodney Symposium; Cartoons; more..... _

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, AND cartoons -
Mar. 7, 2024, xxxxxx

 

* WHAT WAS HER CRIME  --  MEME  BY SOLIDARITYINFOSERVICE
* WATERBOY  --  CARTOON BY ROB ROGERS
* MITCH MCCONNELL PASSES THE TORCH  --  CARTOON BY CLAY BENNETT
* RE: TRUMP COURTS THE TEAMSTERS  (NORMAN GILL; JOE ALLEN)
* GOP PRESIDENTS  --  MEME
* FAST SHOES
* RE: HARRIS COUNTY SENDS 15 TIMES MORE BLACK MEN TO DEATH ROW THAN
WHITE  (STEVEN WISHNIA)
* RE: PRESIDENTIAL  (MIKE LISTON)
* FROZEN EMBRYOS  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY CLAY JONES

 

RESOURCES:

* HARRY BELAFONTE CELEBRATION OF LIFE | FRIDAY, MARCH 1ST, 2024

 

* FILM WORKERS FOR PALESTINE

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

* THE 21ST ANNUAL WALTER RODNEY SYMPOSIUM  --  ATLANTA -- MARCH 22
& 23  (WALTER RODNEY FOUNDATION)

..
 

WHAT WAS HER CRIME  --  MEME  BY SOLIDARITYINFOSERVICE
 

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SolidarityINFOService
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When you put it all together, the picture of human suffering and
physical destruction is jaw-droppingly devastating.

According to the EuroMed Human Rights Monitor, a quick computation
reveals that one Palestinian is killed or wounded every 2 minutes.  A
child is killed every 15 minutes.

More than 10 children on average have lost one or both of their legs
every day in Gaza since October 7, with many amputations performed
without anesthesia.

SolidarityINFOService [[link removed]]

 

WATERBOY  --  CARTOON BY ROB ROGERS

 

Rob Rogers
March 5, 2024
robrogers.com [[link removed]]

 

MITCH MCCONNELL PASSES THE TORCH  --  CARTOON BY CLAY BENNETT

 

Clay Bennett
March 2, 2024
Chattanooga Times Free Press
[[link removed]]

 

RE: TRUMP COURTS THE TEAMSTERS

(posting on xxxxxx Labor
[[link removed]])
 

All he’s going to do is lie to them.

Norman Gill
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
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      =====

We Have to Draw a Line:  A Reply to Peter Olney

By Joe Allen

March 3, 2024

Peter Olney has been one of the most important voices among labor
veterans in speaking out about the threat of the Far Right, if not,
outright Fascism in the United States. So, I was surprised at the
perspective he put forward in his latest article in xxxxxx, Trump
Courts the Teamsters, where he applauds the approach of the Teamsters'
General President Sean O'Brien to the presidential campaign.

O'Brien personally met former President Donald Trump for dinner at his
Mar-a-Lago estate on the eve of the third anniversary of his attempted
presidential coup, and soon after authorized the donation of $45,000
to the Republican National Committee. Trump later met with a select
number of Teamsters at the International Headquarters in Washington,
D.C., and held a press conference with the Teamster flag prominently
displayed in the background.

Peter defended this as a more open endorsement process than in the
past presidential elections, and could potentially win Teamster
members away from Trump and his horrid political agenda. He wrote:

A more open process could leave some Trump supporters and undecideds
in the union's ranks more open to listening to the Teamsters Union's
statements and endorsements. Will it work? Who knows?

Given my respect for Peter, I found this shocking. "Could it really be
that the Teamsters," Peter asked, "who have not backed a Republican
for President since mobbed-up leaders endorsed Ronald Reagan and
George Bush in the 1980s are capitulating to MAGA? Don't bet on it."
I'm not betting on it either, but he appears to be saying, Don't worry
everything is in good hands. But, the Teamsters are not in good hands.
The O'Brien's legal assault on the dissident Teamsterlink social media
site is the latest in a disturbing authoritarian trend in the union

Inflating O'Brien's track record, as Peter does to provide credibility
to O'Brien's dalliance with Trump, doesn't make us more secure in
their leadership but far less. Has O'Brien really "brought back the
strike weapon in force" as Peter claims, when the Teamster's
bloviating at UPS appears so hollow after the auto strikes. Why is it
so hard for Sean O'Brien to recognize that a convicted rapist, a coup
plotter, notorious racist, and a man that has declared that he will be
 a dictator, and threatens to put opponents in concentration camps
should be treated as a pariah?

Instead of undermining Trump, these dangerous liaisons do the
opposite, they further legitimize him among far too many in the
union's membership and in the wider working class. We, and I mean the
broad left in the U.S., have to argue that the labor movement has to
draw a line on Trump and his ilk, while stop relying on the dying
carcass of the Democratic Party as a shield or savior from them.

_[JOE ALLEN is the author of The Package King: A Rank and File History
of United Parcel Service
[[link removed]].]_

 

GOP PRESIDENTS  --  MEME

 

 

FAST SHOES
 

 

RE: HARRIS COUNTY SENDS 15 TIMES MORE BLACK MEN TO DEATH ROW THAN
WHITE
 

Former Harris County prosecutor Chuck Rosenthal also argued the case
for Texas' sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark Supreme Court
case that struck it down in 2003.

The two main arguments against the law were that it violated people's
right to privacy and that it discriminated against gays and lesbians,
because it prohibited only same-sex oral and anal sex. At the press
conference after the oral arguments, I asked Rosenthal how could it
not be discriminatory, because it only prohibited gay & lesbian sex.
(I was covering the hearings for High Times.)

He answered that it also prohibited heterosexuals from engaging in
that conduct.

I racked my brain for how to word a follow-up question that didn't
include the phrase "get it up." I told him something like, "that
doesn't make sense, because generally you have to be sexually aroused
to have sex, and if you're aroused enough to do it someone of the same
sex, you're either gay or bisexual."

He snapped back: "What if you're sexually aroused by ten-year-olds? Is
that OK?"

So it was poetic justice what he lost his job in a sex scandal. On the
other hand, in his concurring opinion in the Dobbs decision in 2022,
Clarence Thomas argued that Lawrence should be overturned too.

Steven Wishnia
New York

 

RE: PRESIDENTIAL

(posting on xxxxxx Culture
[[link removed]])
 

Is the  poem, 'Presidential' about Trump, Biden, or perhaps most
American presidents?

I'm confused,

Mike Liston

 

FROZEN EMBRYOS  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY CLAY JONES

 

 

I did not create this analogy and it may be pretty common, but I
thought it really fit the latest anti-women situation created by
fundamentalist troglodytes down in Alabama.

Down in Alabama, they don’t believe women should have rights. When
the Supreme Court ruled that states can ban abortion, they didn’t
finish the sentence before Alabama banned it outright. Abortions
aren’t banned in Alabama after 24, 12, or six weeks. Abortions are
banned…end stop. The only exception for an abortion in Alabama is if
the mother’s life is in danger. There are no exceptions for rape or
incest. Alabama believes rapists have more rights than women.

Now, Alabama recognizes frozen embryos as human beings.

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that “unborn children are
‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage,
physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.” This
includes embryos frozen in test tubes.

Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker (not the Colonel who managed Elvis)
quoted the Bible in a concurring opinion, citing the sanctity of
unborn life, which means this isn’t as much of a legal opinion as
it’s a right-wing fundamentalist zealotry opinion. A true right-wing
legal professional would have at least made an attempt to hide that
his opinion was based on fundamentalist nut whackery.

The majority opinion said that an 1872 statute allowing parents to sue
over the wrongful death of a minor child applies to unborn children,
with no exception for “extrauterine children.”

In his concurring opinion, Parker wrote, “Even before birth, all
human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be
destroyed without effacing his glory.” That is NOT a legal opinion,
you fucking zealot.

Later in the day, the state court changed the song _Jesus Loves the
Little Children_ to J_esus Loves the Frozen Embryos._

The case was brought by couples whose embryos were destroyed in 2020
when a hospital patient removed frozen embryos from tanks of liquid
nitrogen in Mobile and dropped them on the floor.

Dr. Mamie McLean, an infertility specialist at Alabama Fertility in
Birmingham, said, “We’re concerned that this ruling has
far-reaching consequences for what we feel is safe to freeze and safe
to discard.” She added, “This ruling is so incomplete and it
leaves those of us who are sitting face to face with patients … with
the inability to comment on what is safe and what is legal for them
right now.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in 2021, more than
238,000 families in the US relied on IVF (In Vitro Fertilization).

In case you’re a fundamentalist zealot, skip the rest of this
paragraph as it contains language that’s not right for the dinner
table on a Sunday morning. The rest of you, calm down. I’m just
talking about words like “ovaries” and “sperm.” During IVF, an
egg is removed from the woman’s ovaries (in case you’re from
Alabama, only women have ovaries) and fertilized with sperm (only men
have sperm) in a laboratory. The fertilized egg, called an embryo
(em-bree-yo), is then returned to the woman’s womb to grow and
develop. During this process, doctors take multiple eggs/embryos and
freeze them to increase the odds that one will attach. Generally, only
one embryo is transferred at a time into the uterus to maximize the
chances of successful implantation and a full-term pregnancy.

Now, doctors and clinics have to question what to do with the unused
embryos. What happens if you donate unused frozen embryos for
stem-cell research? Is that now murder if you do it in Alabama? What
happens to the unused frozen embryos that aren’t viable? The clinic
can’t destroy them because that too would be murder…in Alabama.
Embryos has more rights than women in Alabama unless somehow an embryo
gets raped and becomes pregnant.

Dr. Paula Amato, the president of the American Society for
Reproductive Medicine, said, “The court held that a fertilized
frozen egg in a fertility clinic freezer should be treated as the
legal equivalent of an existent child or a fetus gestating in a womb.
Science and everyday common sense tell us they are not. Even in the
natural world, several eggs are often fertilized before one
successfully implants in the uterus and results in a pregnancy.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the ruling would
cause “exactly the type of chaos that we expected when the Supreme
Court overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for politicians to
dictate some of the most personal decisions families can make.”
She’s right. Despite Alabama legal zealots claiming frozen embryos
are children, it’s still extremely difficult to play catch with a
test tube. It’s nearly impossible to teach one to ride a bike.

Ms. Jean-Pierre also said, “As a reminder, this is the same state
whose attorney general threatened to prosecute people who help women
travel out of state to seek the care they need.” Yeah, Alabama is
one of the states that did that. Alabama is trying to out-yeehaw
Texas.

A patient in Tuscaloosa (Roll Tide) said she miscarried eight weeks
after receiving an implanted embryo and that she and her husband have
three frozen embryos left to try with again. She said, “We have
three embryos. We don’t have three children.”

This adds to Alabama’s legacy of suppression. Keep in mind that
Alabama has given us Kay Ivey, Roy Moore, Mo Brooks, Jeff Sessions,
and Tommy Tuberville which ironically, are people nobody would want to
reproduce with.

Clay Jones
February 21, 2024
Claytoonz
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HARRY BELAFONTE CELEBRATION OF LIFE | FRIDAY, MARCH 1ST, 2024

 

[[link removed]]
 

Watch here
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FILM WORKERS FOR PALESTINE

 

Film Workers for Palestine [[link removed]] is a
call by and for filmmakers and cinema workers to stand for an end to
genocide, and for a free Palestine. Beginning with a statement of
values, FWP will build spaces and infrastructure for organizing in
response to the war on Palestinians and to the censoring of voices
that speak out against Israel's genocidal campaign.

ADD YOUR NAME [[link removed]]  

FILM WORKERS FOR PALESTINE STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY

(List as of January 16, 2024 - click here
[[link removed]])

As filmmakers and cinema workers, we are told our words and images
have power, and that our work can help end injustice. For over 100
days, images of Israel’s genocide in Gaza have flooded our screens,
but this has not stopped the continuing atrocities. As human rights
lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh stated at the International Court of
Justice, this is "the first genocide in history where its victims are
broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate, so
far vain hope that the world might do something."

In just three-and-a-half months, the Israeli military has injured at
least 61,000 people in Gaza and killed more than 24,000 people, at
least 9,600 of whom are children, making this one of the deadliest
aggressions in the 21st century. Palestinians in Gaza currently have
no way to flee the bombs that have destroyed 70% of their homes, and
have no access to water, food, fuel and electricity. We are shocked by
the deaths of countless journalists, poets, and other artists who have
been targeted by airstrikes. We mourn this loss of life, as we mourn
the civilians killed on October 7th by Hamas, and those killed by
Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since then.

We join a global solidarity movement to demand an immediate ceasefire
in the region, an end to the 16-year siege on Gaza, and the release of
all hostages and Palestinian prisoners. We echo the calls of
Palestinians to address the root causes of this violence by ending the
occupation and U.S. military funding to Israel. We reject the double
standard that presumes that only the allies of the U.S. have a right
to defend themselves.

We expect our shared cultural spaces to promote safety for filmmakers,
artists and supporters who champion a free Palestine. And yet from
Berlin to Los Angeles, our colleagues have been harassed, threatened,
doxxed, disciplined, censored and fired for voicing their opposition
to a military campaign repeatedly deemed genocidal by human rights
experts. We reject German cultural institutions’ ban on workers who
have supported the Palestinian right to self-determination, just as we
reject the efforts to criminalize pro-Palestinian speech that have
reached the halls of the United States Congress. We reject biased
reporting by mainstream media that dehumanizes Palestinians,
purposefully neglects crucial historical context, and continues to
vilify Arab and Muslim communities. We reject the cynical
weaponization of charges of anti-Semitism that have been used to
silence and condemn those calling for an end to genocidal violence and
apartheid reality. In spite of this intimidation, we refuse silence,
because speaking is the least we can do. We recognize the calls made
by the Palestine Film Institute to hold international film festivals
accountable, and in this moment of urgency we echo their call for
filmmakers to use their platforms during Q&As, talks, and panels to
read statements highlighting the Palestinian struggle. In spaces where
safety and solidarity are lacking, we will create and ensure it.

In our capacity as filmmakers, actors, curators, film critics, and
other workers essential to the international film industry, we stand
for an end to genocide, apartheid, and repression, and we stand for
the liberation of all people. We are aware that one day our community
will create and champion films documenting this horrific genocide, yet
many stay silent now, while we still have the chance to save lives.
Our industry cannot continue with business as usual. We must do more
than watch; we must act with conscience and continue to insist that
Palestinian lives are equal to all others. We will not be complicit
with anyone who acts otherwise.

Film Workers for Palestine

ADD YOUR NAME [[link removed]]  

SIGNED
*This list of more than 6,000 signatories excludes some Palestinian
colleagues who have not signed any petitions for fear of repercussions
for them and their families.

 

THE 21ST ANNUAL WALTER RODNEY SYMPOSIUM  --  ATLANTA -- MARCH 22 &
23  (WALTER RODNEY FOUNDATION)

 

OUR VISION

To champion Walter Rodney’s unwavering commitment to human rights,
racial equity, and social justice.

OUR MISSION

To further Walter Rodney's legacy by sharing his work and fostering
the utilization of his historical analysis and scholar-activism to
effect transformative global change.

OUR VALUES

The Walter Rodney Foundation adopted Walter Rodney's values of ARIES.

Advocacy | Respect | Integrity | Equity | Solidarity

The Walter Rodney Foundation Inc.
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[email protected]

O: 678.597.8754  |  F: 404.601.1885

* Reader Comments
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* Ceasefire
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* Israel
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* Israel-Gaza War
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* Frozen embryos
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* theocracy
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