Reader Comments: Protests Work, #BlackLivesMatter, Standing Rock, Teachers Response to School Reopening; Pulling Down Statutes; Labor and Black Lives; NLRB Attack on Worker Protections; Cut Pentagon Budget; BDS; Concert for Cuba this weekend; more..
Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, AND cartoons - July 16, 2020, xxxxxx
Remember, it took sustained, dedicated protests before India gained its independence, Jim Crow ended in the South, the Berlin Wall, then the Soviet Union itself fell and Apartheid ended in South Africa. The current BLM-led protests are no. different and it will take at least until Nov. and likely until next year (though hopefully no longer) before they bear fruit through political change
"[T]he biggest problem with the We-Must-Persuade-the-Majority argument is that most progressive victories in U.S. history did not enjoy majority support when they were won. In case after case, a radical minority disrupted the functioning of businesses and state institutions, which sought to restore stability by granting concessions and ordering politicians to do the same."
Among the strikers’ specific demands are that corporations and government declare unequivocally that “Black lives matter.” Elected officials at every level must use executive and legislative power to pass laws that guarantee people of all races can thrive, according to a list of demands. Employers must also raise wages and allow workers to unionize to negotiate better health care, sick leave and child care support.
One could argue the historical accuracy of this NY Times headline, but not the importance of what we are seeing and building, or of the facts reported here.
"Across the country there have been more than 4,700 demonstrations - an average of 140 per day, since the first protests began, according to a Times analysis. Turnout ranges from dozens to tens of thousands in about 2,500 small towns and large cities "
Tens of thousands of anti-racism protesters took to the streets in cities across Germany this weekend, in what may be the largest demonstrator turnout outside of the United States.
In Berlin, organizers expected 1,500 people to show up. Instead, an estimated 15,000 protested in Alexanderplatz, Berlin’s city center, with signs that read “Germany is not innocent” and “Black Lives Matter,” German media outlet DW reported. Demonstrators held a moment of silence that lasted eight minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on George Floyd’s neck.
But the protests extended far beyond Berlin, with rallies organized in nine other cities across the country. Munich saw a crowd of at least 20,000 people and 14,000 people rallied in Hamburg. Even German football teams—including Werder Bremen, Wolfsburg, Borussia Dortmund and Hertha Berlin—kneeled in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Protests.
But protesters in Germany are not simply expressing outrage at police violence and racial discrimination happening in the United States, they’re calling it out in their own backyard. Here’s what to know:
How big a problem is racism and police brutality in Germany?
So grateful and with much respect to all the “water protectors” from all the “Nations” who have sacrificed so much in so many ways from the ..beginning. I see you and I stand with you in spirit..Thank you. Someone in Mich., keep on keeping on!
Unfortunately our Governor has proved that he is more concerned about pleasing Trump than his responsibilities to his state. Where we are is a witness to that . Before Trump pushed opening the economy Arizona had a low COVID 19 count. He was so willing to be an atta boy he opened before our state had flattened, now look where we are. Our schools are scheduled to open on August 17 and I don’t anticipate we will see much backbone coming from our Governor.His kids will be safe as he can hire teachers privately in the Governor’s mansion and apparently the rest of Arizona can suck eggs! After all instead of a well thought plan to reopen he played a Trump card ... you mayors figure it out for yourselves! I’m sure that will be his fallback plan for education.
One day he's at a rally telling his lemmings schools are teaching our children to hate America, the following day he's demanding schools reopen as soon as possible.
Bipolar fukk.
Proper precautions is a joke. Transportation issues negate all and any social distancing that might take place in a classroom. And, crowded busses make it unlikely kids won't infect each other.
We have all seen videos of adults screaming “being told to wear masks is un-American” and “told to wear a mask takes away my freedoms.” Imagine having to be the teacher with children of these “fake” adults in their class!!!
Isn’t that great? Valuing good ideas, incorporating concepts and strategies from others to make a plan better? Biden will search out great people, the best ideas, and put together a path to a better, decent place for all Americans. Enough of chaos and corruption - on to decency and competence!
do you believe the impeached 45 is right by letting his rich sycophant buddies off the hook, when they've been found guilty, sentenced, and in some cases, pled guilty, just coz they're his people? Maybe his corrupt gangster wannabe buddies should have acted like human beings? Yeah, exactly who's getting the free passes?
Eh, humans have been tearing down statues and monuments since the beginning of time. Christian's tore down everything to do with Rome, even the things that could benefit them.
Great to demolish or contextualise symbols of oppressions. Ideally, demolish first then contextualise. The confidence that arises from demolishing a hated insult with one’s own hands strengthens the movement.
If only you would learn, study your own history of racism, maybe, just maybe you’ll overcome your prejudices and accept that the only way to move forward, is to make peace with yourselves and grow intellectually enough, to embrace the facts of your demise! Give it a try, love and peace will make u better and the best thing is... that it feels good,
Radical thought - instead of attacking police unions for having strong contracts that make it difficult to fire their members, maybe we should fight for all unions to have strong contracts like that?
I believe it’s time every decent American understood that not just defeating, but CRUSHING, Trump and the Republican Party (the 'GOP' - Greedy Old Predators) is a matter of survival, as well as a patriotic duty. They are not just trying to create a dictatorship based on an ideology of hate – and conspiring with foreign dictators to do it. They are trying to kill us – by inciting terrorist murders; by screwing up counter-measures against the epidemic; by constantly trying to destroy Medicare, Social Security, the CDC and the Affordable Care Act; by trashing the planet we all live on, poisoning the air, water and food; and in many other ways. Oh, and of course they are robbing us blind. Mustn't forget to mention that !!!!
you had asked earlier if the demonstrations helped the progressive agenda. If we combine your prior article with this one, it would be reasonable to conclude that workers rights and civil rights have to be renewed in every generation. A progressive victory in 1968 does not mean that the legislation or the civil right won as a result of that victory can’t be chipped away as the Trump administration is doing.
This is a plan that is over a century old. Getting rid of trade unions is good for bottom lines while removing any workers' rights! The USPS is just the latest target, and this war will never end. Wake up America! Its time to stop being sheep!
Trump is enamored of any system of government which allows men to do exactly as he described in the infamous "grab their pussies" tape with no repercussions, and the domination of white people over everyone they don't like or consider to be inferior to themselves. A complete patriarchy with submissive women and children. The confederacy is a wet dream for him and his ilk, without even what passed for "southern charm and manners"
I grew up in the south and I can tell you that 99.9% of the people who display the confederate flag are indeed racists. Dressing this up as states right might make you feel better about yourself but the bottom line is that the CSA was about preserving slavery, and if you are for that then you are a racist, case closed.
The most fascinating thing about this novel is not how cleverly fictionalizes the era in which it's set, but how accurately it portrays the mood of the country at that time. Fascism was literally at the door in the early 1940s, and there were many millions of Americans all too willing to invite it in.
Nilson Barahona-Marriaga inside Irwin County Detention Center seen on video visitation software called “GettingOut”
Type Investigations and Josh Begley
The Sidney Hillman Foundation announced today that Seth Freed Wessler has won the July Sidney Award for “Fear, Illness and Death in ICE Detention: How a Protest Grew on the Inside,” an account of a desperate hunger strike and work stoppage at a private ICE detention facility in Georgia. His winning investigation is published by Type Investigations and the New York Times Magazine.
Coronavirus is ravaging correctional facilities of all kinds and ICE detention centers are no exception. As of late May, only 2600 ICE detainees had been tested for the virus, but more than half had tested positive. A number of detainees and at least two guards have died of the virus, system-wide.
Social distancing is impossible in cramped prison facilities, but the Trump administration refuses to release most older and medically vulnerable detainees due to the pandemic. Even before COVID-19, a report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found “egregious violations of detention standards,” including medical care, at ICE facilities.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which didn’t even exist before 9/11, has grown into a sprawling detention empire. Until the 1980s, people with pending immigration issues lived in the community awaiting the disposition of their cases. ICE detainees are not serving prison terms. Officially, they are only being detained to make sure they show up for their hearings. ICE has vast discretion to simply parole detainees.
In early April, inmates at the Irwin County Detention Center, a private facility in south Georgia operated by LaSalle Corrections, stopped eating and working. Their demands were simple: release elderly and high-risk detainees and protect the remaining detainees from COVID-19.
Here are 15 reasons to support the BDS movement for Palestinian rights on its 15th anniversary:
Because BDS is an ethical appeal from the largest coalition of Palestinians living under Israel’s military occupation, apartheid, and denial of refugees’ right.
Because BDS works!
Because I believe in a world with equal rights for all and not privileges for some.
Because I was against apartheid in South Africa and will not accept apartheid in Palestine.
Because my government, as well as corporations and institutions based in my country, are complicit in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.
Because I am against all forms of oppression and discrimination.
Because I want to stop corporate complicity in human rights violations.
Because I support the rights of all Indigenous peoples, including Palestinians, over their ancestral lands, cultural heritage and natural resources.
Because I support the global struggle against racism in all its forms, and so does BDS.
Because I believe in people's power to change the world.
Because I stand against pinkwashing, greenwashing, faith-washing, sport-washing, art-washing or otherwise whitewashing Israeli apartheid.
Because I believe that no state, including Israel, should be granted impunity for violating international law and human rights.
Because Palestinian liberation is organically tied to the struggles in my country for Indigenous, social, racial, economic, gender, and climate justice.
Because I subscribe to Martin Luther King’s words that ethically-consistent boycotts entail “withdrawing our cooperation from an evil system,” and that is a basic moral obligation.
Because I cannot and will not stay silent while Israel perpetrates war crimes and crimes against humanity, including apartheid, ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, detention of prisoners of conscience, and the siege and massacres in Gaza.
To be on the right side of history, support our BDS movement for freedom, justice and equality.
Senators Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey, and Elizabeth Warren have introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would redirect TEN PERCENT of the Pentagon budget — $74 BILLION — to communities experiencing poverty rates of at least 25 percent.
These funds would create jobs, and provide healthcare, housing, and educational opportunities.
The amendment could be up for a floor vote as early as Monday, July 20 — we’ve got to act fast to build as much support and momentum as we can.
We refuse to watch as the United States spends more money on nuclear weapons, fighter jets, and bombs. We DEMAND an investment in schools, jobs, and healthcare.
Yet in a moment of national reckoning amidst continuing state violence, record job loss, and a re-surging coronavirus pandemic, Congress seems to think it’s time for business as usual.
And they are about to pass a MASSIVE spending bill that would provide the Pentagon with a record-breaking $740.5 BILLION.
It’s clear that many of our Senators simply don't get it. Luckily, our champions in Congress DO — and we’ve got to show them they’re not alone.
Senators Sanders, Markey, and Warren, joined across the Capitol by progressive allies like Representatives Barbara Lee, Mark Pocan, and Pramila Jayapal in the House, are marking this moment with bold vision. Together, they are leading on a call for a 10 percent cut to the Pentagon budget — $74 BILLION — to create jobs, improve education, and make housing more affordable across the country.
If you agree with their demand, will you join us to flood Senate inboxes with constituent messages for them to find on Monday morning?
We have a critical opportunity to reexamine our values and the political will to begin to build the world we want. A ten percent cut may seem small, but it’s a HUGE crack in the military industrial complex that we will pry open and finally begin getting our priorities back in order.
Let’s seize this moment and have this year’s NDAA be the first — but not last — time we stop letting billions in weapons and war be business as usual.
The Concert for Cuba started as a simple invitation from HotHouse to Raul Cuza to curate an evening of music on our streaming platform, HotHouseGlobal
In less than one month, #Concert for Cuba has mushroomed into an unprecedented world-wide and historic event that will be live streamed exclusively via Twitch.tv/HotHouseGlobal across the planet
With more than 100 individual voices lifting up to praise Cuban medical workers and calling for the end of the inhumane US blockade of Cuba, this is an unprecedented moment when artists and activists - poets and politicians- musicians and muckrakers -have all given so generously of their time and voice, to one EPIC world-wide event.
This two-night only event is presented free of charge, with no pay wall or ticket needed -we do ask however, that folks pre-register here
All of the labor to produce this event and all the talent showcased in the concert has been donated, so that we might reach everyone without barriers
~
We hope that you will support the artists during the show via the links that will be in the chat and comments - We also hope that you will get active with the many organizations working to end the blockade
~
With the concert streamed via many Pacifica radio stations, sent out to networks of solidarity groups across the planet, streamed via our partners Sunfest, Womad Chile and the OllinKan festival in Mexico, streaming in Zimbabwe and broadcast across the nation in Cuba on the Clave station- the anticipated viewership is expected to be in the millions!
We could not have dreamed to pull this off without a dedicated core team of tireless co-creators and we are deeply indebted to the dozen or so folks who have been at the planning and execution of this project for 15 hours a day for weeks.
Please help me thank them by reading the credits linked here
We hope you will share this event even more broadly and use the next couple of days to tweet, post, call, text, and shout it out
On behalf of all of us, we really appreciate your support!
We hope that after the event, you will continue to tune in to HotHouseGlobal and stay in touch with our work. Our goal is to build a new cultural center in Bronzeville - perhaps in the post-Covid era we can meet in person in the new HotHouse!
Until then remember....beep beep...no parking on the dance floor and all we ask is that you wear that mask !
Raul Cuza, Marguerite Horberg, Bill Martinez, & The Institute of Cuban Music
Lead Broadcast Producers for HotHouseGlobal are Vedran Residbegovic and Luis "Che" Jahn with support by Bea Cabrera
Communication strategies MK Communications
MAJOR SUPPORT
The Center For International Performance and Exhibition dba HotHouse, Suzanne Thompson, Alicia Zertuche, Melissa O'Brien, MK Communications, (Marilyn Katz and Brian Berg), Alexis Triana, Catherine Murphy, Kimberly Waller, La Rueda Films, VedranRe Films
PRODUCTION HOTHOUSEGLOBAL
HotHouseGlobal Marguerite Horberg, David Offenberg Jonathan Woods, Edward Wilkerson Jr., Dushun Mosley, Bea Cabrera
Recent polls show that Americans have never viewed China more negatively than now. We know for war and aggression to be defensible, the workers in other countries must be demonized. As big business press and corrupt politicians from both sides inflame disgusting propaganda and racism against Chinese and Asian workers, our labor movement must stand for truth, justice and worker solidarity. U.S. corporate power is failing to meet the desperate needs for healthcare, education, housing at home and wants us to point fingers at workers abroad to deflect blame. We refuse.
Why are half of American military bases surrounding China? What are the forces behind the Hong Kong protests? Who provides the funds and who stands to benefit? How does it tie to Black Lives Matter and the wars at home? Why is there such a different impact of COVID-19 in China vs. the U.S.? Why must labor care? Next Tuesday, July 21st at 8pm ET / 5pm PT at our Facebook page, we'll be discussing these questions and more. Don't miss it!
US Labor Against the War will never and has never taken funds from the state department or its many corporate foundations. We’re run by rank-and-file workers and our unions, allowing us to be the genuine international voice for the US labor movement. This means we’re bringing you the undistorted truth – for workers, by workers.
Divest from police, invest in communities. It’s as simple as that.
Millions have taken to the streets with a clear and distinct call to end police violence and to defund police. They have been met with a brutal wave of repression from police departments across the country — and this repression has the unequivocal blessing of the current administration.
After months of uprisings, we know a majority of Americans support redirecting funds from police to other services, something long demanded by Black communities that are impacted most by police terror.
The way to reduce police violence is to reduce the scope, size, and role of police in our communities. Why would we continue to throw money away for something we know is not working? We need those resources in schools, for our health, and for our futures. Yet police departments continue to be rewarded for their bad behavior with outsized budgets that allow them to operate with impunity.
Defunding the police is a critical policy of our Black agenda at the 2020 Black National Convention (BNC), where we will build power and policy in defense of Black lives.
Defunding the police is also a core tenet of our historic civil-rights bill, the BREATHE Act. Introduced to Congress last week by its champions, Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the BREATHE Act is dynamic legislation to fulfill our bold vision for Black lives.
At the 2020 BNC, we will embody this vision through activists, artists, musicians, and community leaders. We will also launch our full Vision for Black Lives, which explores all the ways we can divest from violent policing, criminalization, and incarceration, and invest in Black people and communities.
For far too long, this nation has drained our collective resources on a harmful approach to public safety that promotes violent and racist “law and order” at the expense of Black bodies and Black lives.
We’re calling to defund the police and redirect resources toward real public safety that meets people’s needs. We’re talking about healthcare, education, jobs, mental health, universal basic income, housing—all of which our communities actually require to not simply survive, but thrive.
Defunding the police is a crucial step in building toward Black liberation. Toward a just, liberated society that frees everyone in our nation to live the lives we dream of for ourselves, our families, and our loved ones.
Ready to take action to defund the police? Let’s do this! You know we’re winning, right??!
Text DEFEND TO 90975 to receive our calls to action.
Abolition is about the beauty and joy that come from building the world of our dreams. The one our ancestors laid the groundwork for. The one I wake up and strive to create, every day.
In solidarity,
Kayla Reed, Co-Founder and Political Strategist Electoral Justice Project of The Movement for Black Lives
