[[link removed]]

TIDBITS- SEPT 4 -READERS COMMENTS: DEATH OF VOTING RIGHTS ACT,
GERRYMANDERING, CONFEDERACY WORSHIP, GESTAPO SEIZURES, CAMPS; RFK
INSANITY; ZOHRAN MAMDANI; MARTIN NIEMÖLLER REAL QUOTE; ITALIAN
DOCKWORKERS THREATEN EUROPE SHUT DOWN; NO KINGS 2 – OCT 18  
[[link removed]]


 

September 4, 2025
xxxxxx

*
[[link removed]]
*
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*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Readers Comments: Death of Voting Rights Act, Gerrymandering,
Confederacy Worship, Gestapo Seizures and Camps; RFK Insanity; Zohran
Mamdani; Martin Niemöller's real quote; Italian Dockworkers Threaten
to Shut Down All of Europe; No Kings 2 - Oct 18; _

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, Shorts, AND
cartoons - Sept 4, 2025, xxxxxx

 

* RE: HOW BAD SLAVERY WAS  (BILL AUDETTE)
* RE: THE IMMINENT DEATH OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT  (STERLING
VINSON)
* TRUMP’S TOY SOLDIERS GET SENT PACKING  --  CARTOON AND
COMMENTARY BY NICK ANDERSON
* RE: BERNIE SANDERS: KENNEDY MUST RESIGN  (STEPHANIE CHASTAIN)
* THEY'RE WEARING MASKS  --  CARTOON BY JACK OHMAN
* RE: MAHA MADNESS: BOB KENNEDY’S CRUEL NEW GOSPEL OF
‘FITNESS’  (STEVEN MIZRACH)
* RE: OPINION: ZOHRAN MAMDANI WILL MAKE NEW YORK CITY WORK FOR
WORKERS  (BARRY BANKS)
* AI WORKER  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY ROB ROGERS
* RE: FIRST THEY CAME - MARTIN NIEMÖLLER  (KURT STAND)
* MENTION OF REDS  (VICTOR GROSSMAN)
* GOP BROWNIE POINTS  --  CARTOON BY MR. FISH
* RE: THIS WEEK IN PEOPLES’ HISTORY, SEP. 3–9, 2025  (CAP'N
STEVE)
* RFK IS A MORON  --  CARTOON BY MIKE STANFILL

.
 

SHORTS:

* ITALIAN DOCKWORKERS THREATEN TO ‘SHUT DOWN ALL OF EUROPE’ IF
GAZA AID FLOTILLA IS BLOCKED  (POLLY SMYTHE / NOVARA MEDIA)

.
 

RESOURCES:

* VERSO'S BACK TO UNIVERSITY SALE  --  ALL TITLES THROUGH
SEPTEMBER 15TH

.
 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

* SAVE THE DATE: NO KINGS 2  --  OCTOBER 18  (INDIVISIBLE)

.

.
 

RE: HOW BAD SLAVERY WAS

 

Evidently, for Trump, Black people have had things too easy, going all
the way back to slavery times, while whites have been oppressed.

Bill Audette
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: THE IMMINENT DEATH OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT
 

The voting rights act died years ago with Holder vs. Shelby County.

Sterling Vinson

 

TRUMP’S TOY SOLDIERS GET SENT PACKING  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY
BY NICK ANDERSON

 

 

_Pop the champagne—or at least a decent California sparkling
wine—because Judge Charles Breyer just reminded America that even
presidents who cosplay as kings are bound by law. His ruling that the
Trump administration “willfully” broke federal law in sending
National Guard troops stomping through Los Angeles this summer is a
victory not just for California, but for the idea that the United
States isn’t supposed to look like a banana republic with Humvees_.

Nick Anderson
September 2, 2025
Pen Strokes
[[link removed]]

 

RE: BERNIE SANDERS: KENNEDY MUST RESIGN
 

Totally agree. How to do it though? Just writing letters is not
enough.

Stephanie Chastain

 

THEY'RE WEARING MASKS  --  CARTOON BY JACK OHMAN

 

Jack Ohman
September 2, 2025
Jack Ohman’s You Betcha!
[[link removed]]

 

RE: MAHA MADNESS: BOB KENNEDY’S CRUEL NEW GOSPEL OF ‘FITNESS’
 

Yeah, it's increasingly become clear that the dark side of MAHA is it
largely seems to be a eugenic philosophy.

Steven Mizrach
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: OPINION: ZOHRAN MAMDANI WILL MAKE NEW YORK CITY WORK FOR WORKERS

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

New Yorkers can get behind: hardworking New Yorkers deserve a city
that is affordable and safe for us and our families. And we deserve
leaders who are not afraid to call out the forces that are preventing
them from achieving that vision.

Barry Banks
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

AI WORKER  --  CARTOON AND COMMENTARY BY ROB ROGERS

 

 

_Artificial intelligence (AI) no doubt has many positive and good
applications for the future, but there are also some frightening
possibilities. For one thing, AI can start doing for free the kind of
work people used to get paid a salary and benefits for._

Rob Rogers
September 3, 2025
TinyView [[link removed]]

 

RE: FIRST THEY CAME - MARTIN NIEMÖLLER
 

Pastor Neimoller did not say, "First they came for the socialists ..."
but rather he said, "First they came for the Communists ..." The
distinction may seem like semantics, but the change misses something
essential.  First, factually -- it was the removal of Communist
members of parliament and their arrest that gave the Nazi's sufficient
control of parliament that was the first step toward the elimination
of all the other parliamentary parties.  Second, Neimoller recognized
that and his quote in German while he was also alive always began by
referencing Communists.  Third, at some point (post Cold War I
assume) the quotation was changed and it is difficult to believe that
the change was not purposeful.  Communists were no longer
"acceptable" as victims, so best to leave them out.  

By now the change has been normalized, most people don't recall that
it was ever different -- but by changing the text from an
unacceptable," to a more benign victim, the core meaning of
Neimoller's quote -- challenging the borders of who are acceptable
victims -- is lost.  That has facilitated the equation of fascism and
anti-fascism in wide circles in Europe (most disgracefully in Germany)
and is the same logic that for far too long would allow people
otherwise progressive to rationalize or ignore Israeli treatment of
Palestinians.

    For more detail see my article from March 2017 posted on
Stansbury Forum:
 [link removed]

Kurt Stand

 

MENTION OF REDS
 

Two recent items, both important and praiseworthy, share one
interesting deficiency. Niemöller's words about "who they took away
first" (and we did nothing) starts not with "socialists" but – a
meaningful alteration – with communists! This, usually I think, is
not just an error!

And the GM strike at Flint in 1937, seen by some as the most important
in US history, was a key to the big rise in living standards later
used to sell USA capitalist superiority to the world. Ironically - it
was led by Bob Travis and Wyndham Mortimer, both of them Communists!
Also rarely recalled: the leadership by so many then close to or
members of the Communist Party: Harry Bridges (and Bill Bailey) on the
docks, Julius Emspak and James Matles, in electrical appliances, the
big UE, Joe Curran and Ferdinand Smith on the ships, Bill Foster and
Gus Hall in steel, Claudia Jones for domestic workers, Mike Quill in
city transportation, others in farm equipment, mine, mill and smelter,
fur and leather, tobacco - the list is long, amazing and purposely
forgotten.  The destruction of this anti-racist, anti-misogynist
leadership or influence, marked by the defeat of the Wallace campaign
in 1948 and the anti-Robeson Peekskill attack in 1949 led to a decade
of McCarthyite rule at home and the Dulles brothers abroad. The names
and views of those heroic men and women deserve mention and recall.

Victor Grossman

 

GOP BROWNIE POINTS  --  CARTOON BY MR. FISH

 

 

Mr. Fish
September 2, 2025
Mr. Fish [[link removed]]

 

RE: THIS WEEK IN PEOPLES’ HISTORY, SEP. 3–9, 2025
 

Imperial Foods fire, this week in peoples history
[[link removed]]

An excellent book : The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food,
Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives
[[link removed]]

Takes the fire as a starting point and explores the high cost of cheap
food. I've yet to see a book do a better job of summing up how broken
our food system is. The workers at that plant obviously paid the
highest price but practically everyone else gets royally screwed too.

Cap'n Steve

 

RFK IS A MORON  --  CARTOON BY MIKE STANFILL

 

 

Mike Stanfill
August 29, 2025
Raging Pencils
[[link removed]]

 

ITALIAN DOCKWORKERS THREATEN TO ‘SHUT DOWN ALL OF EUROPE’ IF GAZA
AID FLOTILLA IS BLOCKED

 

by Polly Smythe
September 2, 2025
Novara Media
[[link removed]]
Venice dockworkers have voted to join their comrades in Genoa in
resistance.
Italian dockworkers have threatened to “shut down all of Europe”
and block all shipments to Israel if communication with the latest aid
flotilla bound for Gaza is lost. The threat marks a significant
escalation in dockworkers’ long history of industrial action in
solidarity with Palestine.

Speaking at a procession in the port of Genoa – one of Italy’s two
largest commercial ports – on behalf of the Unione Sindacale di
Base (USB), a syndicate of various grassroots unions in Italy and
thought to be the largest of its kind, the dockworker said
[[link removed]]: “If we
lose contact with our boats, with our comrades – even for just 20
minutes – we will shut down all of Europe.”

“Our young women and men must come back without a scratch, and all
this cargo, which belongs to the people and is going to the people,
must reach its destination, down to the very last box.”

“13,000-14,000 containers leave this region every year for Israel.
Not a single nail will leave anymore,” he continued.

In a statement
[[link removed]],
USB said it was “ready to mobilise in defence of the flotilla.
Workers can play a decisive role … we must be ready to react with
all the forms of struggle at our disposal.”

“As many of us are repeating these days, we can’t stand by and
watch … If they block the flotilla, we block everything!”

The Global Sumud Flotilla expedition, which set sail on Sunday
[[link removed]],
is the largest ever naval mission to break Israel’s siege and
deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza, with around 20 vessels carrying
delegates from at least 44 countries (though some have been forced to
turn back due to bad weather).

While ships mainly departed from Barcelona, some vessels also departed
from the Italian port.

Aboard the flotilla is Swedish climate justice campaigner Greta
Thunberg, former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau and Novara Media
contributor Kieran Andrieu. It is the third attempt to deliver aid by
sea this year and the 38th attempt from the flotilla coalition.

Since 2010, all aid flotilla missions have been either intercepted or
attacked by Israeli forces. Aboard the last vessel in July was Chris
Smalls
[[link removed]],
co-founder of the Amazon Labor Union. He and his crewmates were
intercepted by Israel and taken into custody, where Smalls was
reportedly beaten by IDF soldiers.

As well as activists, journalists and politicians, the most recent
flotilla is also carrying large amounts of humanitarian aid. The
Italian aid drive was organised by campaign group Music for Peace and
Calp, an autonomous port workers’ collective affiliated to USB.
While initially hoping to gather 40 tonnes of aid, the drive
eventually collected over 250 tonnes.

An estimated 40,000 people took to the streets of Genoa last Saturday
in a torchlit procession to mark the ships’ departure.

Andrieu said: “I feel as everyone else aboard the flotilla feels
about the announcement: moved beyond words.”

“It’s been clear for a long time now that Israel still has the old
power structures on its side, but the people of the world are for Gaza
and for Palestine – and power structures without people always fall
sooner or later.”

He added: “Like the crowds who showed up in their thousands to see
us off in Barcelona, the dockworkers’ stance is a powerful
expression of love and solidarity for Palestine, and one that we are
carrying close to us as we head towards Gaza.”

The Genoese docker worker’s threat is not a one-off protest. USB
blocked the passage of ships carrying military equipment in June
[[link removed]] and August
[[link removed]],
with workers chanting that they will “not work for war” during
last month’s stoppage.

The USB is not alone in its objections to handling military shipments
to and from Israel. In Greece
[[link removed]], France
[[link removed]] and Morocco
[[link removed]],
dockworkers have mobilised against the genocide in Gaza. In Sweden,
the national deputy chair of the Dockworkers’ Union was fired
[[link removed]] after
the union blockaded military cargo to and from Israel.

In 2024, the Palestinian Youth Movement launched a campaign
targeting shipping giant Maersk [[link removed]],
alleging that it has shipped military cargo to Israel during the
genocide.

Since 2010, dockworkers have been blockading Israeli ships and
military cargo, including in Canada
[[link removed]] and South
Africa
[[link removed]].
In the United States, the San Francisco-based Arab Resource and
Organizing Center [[link removed]] organised port
blockades in 2014 and 2021.

“When the government fails, labour unions are supposed to be the
shield for the working class,” Smalls told Novara Media in an
interview in August.

USB was approached for comment.

_[POLLY SMYTHE is Novara Media’s labour movement correspondent.]_

 

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Ten Books Every Student Should Read
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Whether you’re just starting out, or you’ve been a lifelong
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SAVE THE DATE: NO KINGS 2  --  OCTOBER 18  (INDIVISIBLE)

 

[[link removed]]

In June, we mobilized millions of people to take to the streets and
declare with one voice: America has no kings. Trump’s birthday
parade was drowned out by protests in all 50 states and throughout the
world. His attempt to turn June 14 into a coronation backfired, and
the story of the day was about the strength of a movement rising
against his authoritarian power grabs. 

The millions of people who turned out in June helped create one of the
largest single days of protest in US history, and their courage and
commitment set an example for others to follow. Since then, we’ve
seen more and more political leaders and institutions choosing to
resist the regime rather than play dead.

But we knew June 14 was just the start. Trump is doubling down on his
authoritarian tactics. He is disappearing immigrants to sprawling
concentration camps, sending troops into our cities, threatening to
interfere in elections, rigging maps to steal power from the voters,
and orchestrating a massive giveaway to his billionaire allies as
families struggle. 

TRUMP IS RAMPING UP HIS ATTACKS ON OUR RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY, BUT
WE’RE NOT BACKING DOWN. ON OCTOBER 18, WE’RE TAKING TO THE STREETS
IN MORE CITIES AND IN LARGER NUMBERS TO REMIND TRUMP, HIS CRONIES, AND
THOSE ON THE SIDELINES LOOKING FOR HOPE: AMERICA HAS NO KINGS. 

Right now, we’re in round the clock coordination with our No Kings
partners to make No Kings 2 one of the largest days of protest in US
history. Next week, we’ll have events up on the map and the ability
to register protests in your area. Until then, here’s what you can
do to help make No Kings 2 as big and powerful as possible:

* CLICK HERE TO LET US KNOW YOU’RE READY TO SHOW UP ON OCTOBER 18.
[[link removed]] Share
the date with your friends and neighbors and sign up to be the first
to know when our map of rallies and protests goes live. 
 
* PITCH IN TO HELP MAKE NO KINGS 2 THE BIGGEST DAY OF PROTEST IN US
HISTORY.
[[link removed]] ORGANIZING
A NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION WITH MILLIONS OF PEOPLE TAKES TIME AND
RESOURCES. BETWEEN THE RECRUITMENT TOOLS, MAP OF EVENTS, SUPPLIES AND
RESOURCES FOR LOCAL PROTESTS AND ANCHOR EVENTS, WE’RE ESTIMATING THE
COSTS WILL BE OVER ONE MILLION DOLLARS. IF YOU’RE ABLE TO, PLEASE
PITCH IN TO SUPPORT NO KINGS 2.

Since June, this movement has only continued to grow. New Indivisible
groups are forming every week, hundreds of thousands have joined our
trainings on strategic non-cooperation, and we’ve launched new
campaigns to resist Trump’s attacks on our elections, universities,
and immigrant communities. 

BUT WITH TRUMP ESCALATING HIS AUTHORITARIAN TACTICS, IT’S CRITICAL
THAT WE RESPOND TO HIS POWER GRABS LOUDLY AND PUBLICLY. We need to
show up with millions of people -- in demonstrations even larger than
June’s -- to show that the resistance is still here and growing. And
every time Trump levies another attack on our rights and democracy,
our movement only grows stronger in response. 

JUST PICKING A DAY ON THE CALENDAR WON’T BE ENOUGH TO GENERATE THE
KIND OF RESPONSE WE NEED IN THIS MOMENT. A national day of protest
takes time and immense resources to prepare -- tech and online
infrastructure, marketing materials, security investments,
staging/sounds, and so much more. 

SO ONCE YOU SIGN UP TO TELL US YOU’RE IN
[[link removed]], PLEASE
CONSIDER CHIPPING IN TO HELP MAKE NO KINGS 2 A HISTORIC DAY OF
PROTEST.
[[link removed]] Together,
we can move complacent politicians into action, bring new allies into
the movement to save our democracy, and show Trump and his cronies
that this movement is growing and getting stronger every day.

In solidarity,
Indivisible Team

[link removed] [[link removed]]

* Reader Comments
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* Voting Rights Act
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* Racism
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* slavery
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* African Americans
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* Supreme Court
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* Fascism
[[link removed]]
* Donald Trump
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* Trump 2.0
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* Trump Administration
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* Martin Niemöller
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* RFK
[[link removed]]
* Robert F. Kennedy
[[link removed]]
* COVID-19
[[link removed]]
* vaccinations
[[link removed]]
* eugenics
[[link removed]]
* public health
[[link removed]]
* Italian dockworkers
[[link removed]]
* Solidarity
[[link removed]]
* Gaza
[[link removed]]
* Ship to Gaza
[[link removed]]
* Israel-Gaza War
[[link removed]]
* Israel
[[link removed]]
* Palestine
[[link removed]]
* Ceasefire
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