[ Reader Comments: Biden Recovery Plan; US History, Racism and
Struggle for Racial Justice; Heroes But Not Saints; Myanmar; Yiddish,
Immigrants, U.S. left; Book Sale; Puerto Rican Socialist Party;
Climate Change; Pensions; Labor and Media; Zoom events]
[[link removed]]

TIDBITS - MAY 6, 2021 - READER COMMENTS: BIDEN RECOVERY PLAN;
STRUGGLE FOR RACIAL JUSTICE; HEROES-NOT SAINTS; MYANMAR; YIDDISH
IMMIGRANTS; BOOK SALE; PUERTO RICAN SOCIALIST PARTY; CLIMATE CHANGE;
PENSIONS; LABOR AND MEDIA; ZOOM EVENTS; MORE....  
[[link removed]]


 

May 6, 2021
xxxxxx

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

_ Reader Comments: Biden Recovery Plan; US History, Racism and
Struggle for Racial Justice; Heroes But Not Saints; Myanmar; Yiddish,
Immigrants, U.S. left; Book Sale; Puerto Rican Socialist Party;
Climate Change; Pensions; Labor and Media; Zoom events _

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, AND cartoons -
May 6, 2021, xxxxxx

 

Free shots on US! Celebrate Vaccinco De Mayo!  --  cartoon by Lalo
Alcaraz
Re: Last Night Was Joe Biden’s Moment. May There Be Many More.
(Eleanor Roosevelt)
Re: 'We Need to Think Bigger': Jamaal Bowman Delivers Progressive
Response to Biden (Frank Stricker; Louis Guida)
Re: May Day 1971 Was a Day Against War (Daniel Millstone)
Re: It Only Takes a Few People to Change Your State’s Congressional
Seats (Sandy Grubb)
Re: Where the Federal Government’s Charter School Program Went Wrong
(Cliff Gulliver)
Whatever He Says  --  cartoon by Mike Luckovich
Re: The White Republic and the Struggle for Racial Justice (Ethan
Young; Bob Zellner)
Re: Heroes But Not Saints: Why We Shouldn't 'Cancel' Flawed
Progressive Icons (Jose Luis Medina; Sarah Woodhead; Alex Melody
Torres; Judith Mahoney Pasternak; Marta Schmidt; Arlene Halfon)
Re: Gabriel García Márquez and Magical Internationalism (Mike
Liston)

The Science Gods  --  cartoon by  Mike Stanfill
APALA Calls on the Biden Administration to Immediately Impose
Sanctions Against the Military Junta of Myanmar (Asian Pacific
American Labor Alliance)

 

RESOURCES:

Recordings Available: Di Linke: The Yiddish Immigrant left from
Popular Front to Cold War (Cornell University Jewish Studies Program)
Happy May Day! 40% off ALL books - until May 17 (Verso Books)

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Recovering the History of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party in the
United States - May 13 (Friends of Puerto Rico Initiative)
Book Talk - Walter Johnson, The Broken Heart of America - May 13
(Labor and Working Class History Association)
When they push back, we push harder - Pass the Climate and Community
Investment Act - New York - May 18 (Peoples Climate Movement - NY)
Power In a Pension - Labor, Private Equity, and Climate Justice - May
19 (Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies)
Labor and the Media - Labor Adapts Its Message to Changing Media
Environments - May 20 (NY Labor History Association)

 

FREE SHOTS ON US! CELEBRATE VACCINCO DE MAYO!  --  CARTOON BY LALO
ALCARAZ

Lalo Alcaraz
May 5, 2021
Mexican Judge
[[link removed]]

 

RE: LAST NIGHT WAS JOE BIDEN’S MOMENT. MAY THERE BE MANY MORE.
 

As long as members of the working class stand the risk of losing
everything they have from one big unexpected medical bill, all the
nice promises aren't enough.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: 'WE NEED TO THINK BIGGER': JAMAAL BOWMAN DELIVERS PROGRESSIVE
RESPONSE TO BIDEN
 

I know we always need to think bigger, but that guy in the White House
is thinking bigger than any President since LBJ. Hasn't he kind of
seized the moment?  Certainly more than anyone would have predicted.
He seems to be doing quite a few of the things you cats want.

Frank Stricker

      =====

Amen!

Louis Guida
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: MAY DAY 1971 WAS A DAY AGAINST WAR
 

Here from five years ago, Rennie Davi
[[link removed]]s, of blessed memory, recalls
the May, 1971 demonstrations against the Vietnam War. In the comments,
via xxxxxx
[[link removed]] &
Jacobin
[[link removed]]
magazine, Steve Early [[link removed]]
recalls those events we worked so hard to put together.

Daniel Millstone
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: IT ONLY TAKES A FEW PEOPLE TO CHANGE YOUR STATE’S CONGRESSIONAL
SEATS
 

Wonder how many of the population changes are due to people being too
scared of deportation etc. to submit info.

Sandy Grubb
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: WHERE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S CHARTER SCHOOL PROGRAM WENT WRONG
 

Um, it was a scam to funnel tax dollars into the pockets of a few and
starve the government of funding. Standard Reaganomics.

Cliff Gulliver
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

WHATEVER HE SAYS  --  CARTOON BY MIKE LUCKOVICH
 

Mike Luckovich
May 6, 2021
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
[[link removed]]

 

RE: THE WHITE REPUBLIC AND THE STRUGGLE FOR RACIAL JUSTICE
 

Speaking for myself, having been a longtime proponent of Bob's school
of anti-racist politics, I think there are missing elements in his
characterization of mass movements of the past. Is it true that "The
only period of U.S. history where class was the main animator of a
mass fight for social justice was the 1930s"? There are concrete
reasons that socialists have argued otherwise for 150+ years. 

I agree we should not essentialize class struggle as union organizing
and strikes, ie syndicalism. But I think something else is being
discussed, namely, has cross-racial action by workers been important
outside the CIO years. Alongside this question is the matter of the
role of workers - whose social role is defined by their class, ie
their relation to the process of producing and reproducing capitalist
society - in those cross-class social and political struggles
throughout US history, aka social movements for democracy and social
equality, and the importance of the economic factor in each of these.
Here's Cedric Johnson on the flip side of this issue, not cross-class
anti-racist politics, but interracial working class solidarity:

"From the most cynical view, the pursuit of a working-class,
anti-capitalist politics is always elusive and impotent. Working-class
solidarity, however, like all other forms of alliance and common
cause, is forged through politics, an imperfect and unwieldy process
of discovering and advancing common interests through debate,
conflict, bonding, experimentation, sustained work, failures and
victories. Such solidarity is not given, nor permanent. Its value is
not intrinsic, but rather its worth should be measured by the degree
to which anti-capitalist solidarity alters the balance of class forces
in a progressive way, and imposes more just, non-alienated,
non-exploitative modes of working and living. Differences of opinion
and passion are preconditions of political life. We should not be
uneasy about these social realities, or unnerved by the difficult work
of building counterpower."

Ethan Young

      =====

Bob Wing describes our current government as a White Republic or less
provocatively as a racist authoritarian government.  It should not be
an occasion of glee, however, to see the unraveling and destruction of
one of our two political parties, the GOP.  In their headlong rush to
set up a white dictatorship and do away with the need for a messy
voting system, the fascist right wing has captured the once
progressive party of Abraham Lincoln. During many years of the long
civil rights movement, the Democratic Party was the party of slavery
and race hatred (the party of George Wallace and Strom Thurman) while
the Republican Party was the progressive dependable ally of African
Americans (the party of Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Harriet
Tubman). Ronald Reagan changed all that when he opened his
presidential campaign in at the Nashoba County Fair in Philadelphia,
Mississippi in 1980, where our civil rights workers, Chaney, Goodman
and Schwerner were murdered by the KKK during Freedom Summer in 1964.
Now, the two parties have switched messages.  One of them is bound to
die.

The GOP extremists are now in the process of carrying out a purge of
the few remaining women and men of reason, like Mitt Romney and Liz
Cheney. Bob Wing puts this situation in stark terms, “Far from
recoiling at Trump’s failed coup of January 6, the GOP is avidly
regrouping around him and launching an even more ruthless campaign of
voter disenfranchisement to seize power. The polarization between
racist authoritarianism and a multiracial democracy is white-hot.”

There may be some positive results of this GOP takeover and their
recent attempt to overturn the outcome of our presidential election. A
majority of the U.S. population has seen the fragility of our
democracy and that democracy, equality, inclusion, and diversity  are
values worth fighting for. It will be interesting over the next few
years to keep track of the final end of the Republican Party.  Will
it become a tiny third party, with tiny Donald Trump as its supreme
leader, or will it go the way of the Whig Party and disappear, maybe
to be replaced by an actual conservative party of believers in small
government, low taxes, and democratic elections?

For years I have followed Bob Wing’s writings, learning from his
theories of social and political change.  My sociological and
historical abilities sadly are not up to a response to all that he is
saying in this essay, but I do think that CHANGING THE CULTURE OF
POLICING will be a large part of restoring our country to democratic
rule.

The Chauvin verdict, for instance, is not complete justice. George
Floyd can’t be brought back to life, but it might prove to be a
hard-won first step, that of accountability. Take a look at what it
took to get him indicted, tried and convicted. Minnesota Attorney
General Keith Ellison, the Minneapolis Mayor, the chief of police and
the whole criminal justice system in the state of Minnesota apparently
decided that they really wanted an indictment, trial and conviction in
the George Floyd case as a signal to rank in file police that such
outrageous behavior in public can no longer be tolerated. The
resulting guilty verdict also depended on clear filmed evidence,
national and world demonstrations, the total mobilization of the
state’s criminal justice system and wall to wall tv coverage.  When
they mobilized in earnest to convict, the authorities in Minnesota
were saying to the cops on the beat, “don’t be fr+king stupid, you
can’t do this sh+t in public, with cameras running.”  It gives us
a bad name.

There are various reasons it is difficult to reform policing.  Daily
Kos says this about Police unions: “More than 85% of police
contracts in major cities around the country include language limiting
oversight or discipline of officers. While police union contracts
provide generous vacation packages and oversee officer salaries, these
contracts also allow for massive budgets and overprotected job
security even if an officer kills a nonviolent person in the line of
duty.” QUALIFIED IMMUNITY in the United States, according to the
dictionary, is “a legal principle that grants government officials
performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless
the plaintiff can show that the accused official violated clearly
established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable
person would have known.  Atlanta rapper, Killer Mike, in an op ed
said, “there will be no fixing… public trust (in policing) – or
the law enforcement system as a whole – without first ending the
legal doctrine known as qualified immunity.”

Police officers have a tough job where they have to make quick,
sometimes life and death decisions.  In the moment they do not have
the hindsight that becomes available to others with slow motion film,
etc.  Qualified immunity protects government employees from being
taken to task for assaults on your constitutional rights – in this
instance, your eighth amendment right against cruel and unusual
punishment at the hands of the state – so long as those employees
did not violate “clearly established” law. “Of all the predatory
elements of American policing,” according to Killer Mike on the
listserv xxxxxx,  “(and there are many, from legal chokeholds to
monthly arrest quotas to the NYPD’s infamous stop-and-frisk policy)
the qualified immunity doctrine is perhaps the single linchpin that
holds the entire machine together.” “Without ending qualified
immunity,” Killer Mike says, “there’s no way to hold bad cops
(individually) accountable for their violent crimes against the
American people. The system will perpetuate itself largely
undisturbed, the violence will rage on and on, and Black communities
all over the country will keep on living in fear of the very people
sworn allegedly to protect them.” Police departments can (already)
be held accountable if the will to do so is there; (individual cops
however,) can not be held accountable, under current law, through
civil suits.

It is also notoriously impossible for District Attorneys to adequately
prosecute their own police.  Special outside prosecutors should
always be used.  This small, common- sense reform has proven to be
extremely difficult if not impossible to achieve.  District Attorneys
feel that they must be on good terms with the police personnel under
their jurisdiction because the DA depends on his or her police
officers to help them win cases in court. Winning cases helps them to
be reelected. Consequently, police officers have gotten used to
getting the benefit of the doubt.  Their word is accepted routinely
over that of the victim.  Citizen’s police review boards are also
incredibly difficult to get passed by city councils.

This causes frustrated community organizers and activists to sometimes
ill-advisedly advocate a slogan calling for the “defunding” of
police departments.  There are also those urging police to be *more*
violent, including at least one President of the United States. They
often deliberately  misunderstand or misinterpret the “defund”
slogan. With proper legislation, however, I think psychologists and
social workers could be funded to respond [along with police] to
domestic violence or psychotic behavior. This kind of legislation
might be seen as funding *to aid the police. *

Radical reforms, being proposed in the wake of the Chauvin trial, may
not be so radical after all.  Patrol officers, for instance, might be
deployed on the beat without deadly weapons, while having swat teams
in reserve. The U.S. averages about 3 police killing per day, over
1000 per year. “How many people do cops kill annually in Denmark,
Iceland and Switzerland combined? Zero.” (according to columnist
Killer Mike on xxxxxx.)

Without that courageous group of citizens using cell phones to record
the casual murder of Mr. Floyd, would we ever have heard of Chauvin or
Floyd?

In the civil rights movement we had a freedom song called Freedom is a
Constant Struggle.  After a brief period of Reconstruction following
our first civil war, during which the freedmen were protected by the
13th and 14th Amendments, the southern states launched a sustained
effort to reestablish slavery.  Those amendments outlawed slavery in
the nation, with an important loophole - “Except as punishment for a
crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” This
loophole paved the way for our country's burgeoning prison labor
system, thus creating the world's largest prison population at 2.3
million persons.” Capitalism is good at finding loopholes, so
police, once again, were tasked with arresting as many black men as
possible, in order to have enough convicts for the southern states to
hire out, in the convict leasing system, as forced labor in mines,
factories, and plantations.  This is slavery with another name.

“The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868,
granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United
States—including former enslaved people—and guaranteed all
citizens “equal protection of the laws.” One of the three
amendments passed during the Reconstruction era to abolish slavery
came with a huge caveat,  equal protection was guaranteed but it was
still up to the police to treat all citizens equally. The answer to
the question, where do we go from here, is to give each other a lot of
grace as we seriously undertake the hard work of *ending* our caste
system based on racism and genocide set in stone.

Bob Zellner

 

RE: HEROES BUT NOT SAINTS: WHY WE SHOULDN'T 'CANCEL' FLAWED
PROGRESSIVE ICONS

If we require our progressive and radical heroes to be saints we won't
have many people left to admire.

Jose Luis Medina
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Very informative. Thanks

Sarah Woodhead
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

this is what I have been saying for a long time

Alex Melody Torres
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Good piece 

Judith Mahoney Pasternak
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Does this apply to Scott Stringer right now?

Marta Schmidt
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

This was a wonderful article. I have been thinking for years about who
we "cancel" by removing their statues. I have wondered what would
happen to all the wonderful people, who, as people of their own times
would today be considered misogynist and whose statues we would have
to remove. ALMOST EVERYONE!

Yes, remove the statues of people who were ONLY FAMOUS because of
their despicable actions; like Civil War figures who would never be
known except for their roles in the war. I can also find justification
in removing statues of good people whose statues depict them in
despicable ways, but only those specific statues (like one of
Lincoln). But do not remove the statues of those basically decent
people who did good things but had traits we would now describe
negatively.

Remove Gandhi? He was a misogynist. Remove Douglas? After the
abolition of slavery that the suffragists helped fight for, he didn't
help the Suffragists because he felt Black problems were far more
urgent. The Suffragists eventually won the vote through racist
arguments after being deserted by Douglas. So, remove all the
suffragists that took racist positions? Remove anyone who was
homophobic at any point in their lives? I wouldn't pass that test. And
many of the now-feminist men I know, including my late husband, who
became a feminist very early, had early misogynist positions. As a
matter of fact, I also had some misogynist opinions at one time. Jesse
Jackson, who early on opposed women's reproductive choice and later
supported it because women had supported his Civil Rights work--not
because they deserved to be treated as human beings. AND EVEN Eleanor
Roosevelt, who when a young woman, opposed women's suffrage.

Actually, I can think of very few great men who were known for taking
feminist positions before their times--however, even those forward
looking positions could be seen by some as "misogynist" by today's
standards: Jesus, who had many women in his entourage (they probably
still did the cooking); Mohammed who limited the number of wives a man
could have and prescribed how to treat them all equally; John Stuart
Mill, who made many feminist points in his writings; W.E.B. DuBois who
worked for women's suffrage saying that as long as some people didn't
have the vote, others weren't assured of keeping it; John Lewis, who
compared sexism and homophobia to racism and said that the civil
rights movement fought for everyone;

Margaret Sanger accepted the "science" of her day on racial issues.
She was a wonderful step in the never-ending battle for women to be
considered as human as White Heterosexual American-born Men even as
she accepted then current "facts" about people with various
demographics.

This issue needs to be better thought out. Yes, delete Dr. Seuss'
racist pages and replace them with positive words and images--but
"erase" Dr. Seuss from our children's lexicons: NEVER! And forget what
Margaret Sanger accomplished: NEVER!

Arlene Halfon

 

RE: GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ AND MAGICAL INTERNATIONALISM
 

I first saw the title of this article and it was my immediate thought
to pass it over. I'd figured it was some other useless, overly
academic paean to a famous writer.  Fortunately, I started to read
out of respect for the author, and so glad I did. Not a only a great
writer, but a great person. So much I didn't know. Few artists have
the moral and political stature of Márquez. I salute him, I salute
this article's author and, of course, the  translator, thanks,
xxxxxx, 

Mike Liston

 

THE SCIENCE GODS  --  CARTOON BY  MIKE STANFILL
 

Mike Stanfill
April 27, 2021
Raging Pencils
[[link removed]]

 

APALA CALLS ON THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TO IMMEDIATELY IMPOSE
SANCTIONS AGAINST THE MILITARY JUNTA OF MYANMAR
 

May Day or International Workers Day is celebrated throughout the
world. The workers of Myanmar courageously took to the streets to
protest the military junta that staged a coup on February 1, 2021. 

The Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO, stands in
solidarity with the workers of Myanmar, and calls on the President
Joseph Biden Administration to immediately impose sanctions against
the military junta of Myanmar, including the Myanmar Oil and Gas
Enterprise.

The international community has condemned the Myanmar military’s
coup which overthrew the democratically elected government leaders of
the National League for Democracy (NLD), including State Counsellor
Aung San Suu Kyi. We need to increase economic pressure on the
military junta by cutting off the funding source that is being used to
kill and attack the people of Myanmar.

The Myanmar people, organized by unions and students, have resisted
the military’s take-over and have organized street protests,
strikes, and international campaigns, known as the Civil Disobedience
Movement. The military and police have responded to protests with
violence, including using war-grade weapons and firing live ammunition
into crowds. Over 750 people have been killed, with 4,484 arrested
since February 1, 2021.

Over 10 unionists have been killed and over 80 unionists have been
arrested or have been issued warrants, and labor leaders are now in
hiding as they continue to lead the resistance movement from
underground locations within Myanmar.

There are nearly 200,000 Burmese Americans residing in the United
States.  The Burmese American community is deeply concerned about the
human rights violations in Myanmar, and are calling for the
restoration of democracy.

APALA Organizing and Civic Engagement Fellow and Michigan Chapter
member Dim Mang states, "As a Chin person, I see the military’s
actions as one in a long line of oppression and blatant overturning of
the will of the people of Burma. This is an issue of ethnic solidarity
as well, because though the detained NLD members and other activists
should be released, we must not forget about the decades of armed
conflict and human rights abuses before this coup - a lot of which the
NLD abetted as well. As an organizer based in the United States, this
issue really does fall into a bigger picture of global solidarity
against militarization and in advocacy of self-determination."

Support the movement by donating to this strike fund
[[link removed]] and
learn more by checking out this toolkit 
[[link removed]]created by Dim.

_The Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA)
[[link removed]], AFL-CIO was founded in 1992 as the first
and only national organization for Asian American and Pacific Islander
(AAPI) union members to advance worker, immigrant and civil rights.
Learn more at www.apalanet.org [[link removed]]. _

 

RECORDINGS AVAILABLE: DI LINKE: THE YIDDISH IMMIGRANT LEFT FROM
POPULAR FRONT TO COLD WAR (CORNELL UNIVERSITY JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM)

 

 

After much hard work, the six sessions of _Di Linke: The Yiddish
Immigrant Left from Popular Front to Cold War _are available for
viewing on Cornell Cast.
[[link removed]] The
list of speakers and presentations for each session can be found
here: _Di Linke_ Conference
[[link removed]]. 

We encourage you to share the videos with colleagues, friends and
family members. Let us know if you are interested in contributing to
our oral history project about lived experiences in _Di Linke_’s
larger cultural world. We welcome your feedback and hope to see you at
future programs. Please contact [email protected] for more
information or questions.  

Sincerely,  

Conference Planning Committee  

Elissa Sampson, Jennifer Young, Bob Zecker  

 

RESOURCES: 

* Cornell University ILR School’s Kheel Center, Catherwood Library
IWO/JPFO digital collections landing
page:  [link removed]
[[link removed]]   
* Kheel Center
website:  [link removed]
[[link removed]]   
* Guide to Kheel’s Yiddish Left
collections:  [link removed]
[[link removed]]   
* Cornell combined RMC/Kheel collection
guides: [link removed]
[[link removed]]  
* Collections and services for Special Collections Research Center
at Syracuse University Libraries (the University Archives and Belfer
Audio Archive). Highlights include William Gropper, Earl Browder, and
Langston Hughes papers. Contact [email protected]  
* Queens Museum Gropper
show:  [link removed]
[[link removed]]  
* Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor
Archives:  [link removed]
[[link removed]]  
* Village Preservation (GVSHP), 80
5th Ave: [link removed]
[[link removed]]  
* The Ruth Rubin collection at
YIVO: [link removed]
[[link removed]]  

We would love to tell you more about upcoming events and our
programs. Please click here to sign up for our monthly enews
[[link removed]].  

Support for _Di Linke_ conference was provided by the Central New
York Humanities Corridor [[link removed]], Cornell
Center for Social Sciences
[[link removed]], Catherwood Library Cornell
ILR School Kheel Center
[[link removed]], Cornell Jewish
Studies Program [[link removed]], Syracuse Jewish
Studies Program [[link removed]], Society for the Humanities
[[link removed]], Cornell Departments
of History [[link removed]], Anthropology
[[link removed]], Near Eastern Studies
[[link removed]], and Government
[[link removed]], and the American Studies Program
[[link removed]]. 

Co-sponsors: Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
[[link removed]]; New York University, Tamiment
Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
[[link removed]]

 

HAPPY MAY DAY! 40% OFF ALL BOOKS - UNTIL MAY 17 (VERSO BOOKS)
 

Verso Books is the largest independent, radical publishing house in
the English-speaking world, publishing one hundred books a year.

On May 1, 1886, workers all over the country took to the streets to
demand an eight hour workday and a more just economy. 

The power of the American labor movement is at a low point, but we're
seeing positive signs of revitalization, including an uptick in media
workers
[[link removed]]
(Verso staff among them!) Support the PRO Act
[[link removed]] for worker power and take to
the streets as part of the international movement for working-class
liberation.

To celebrate May Day we have 40% off all books until
Monday, May 17 at 11:59PM EST.

See our May Day reading here
[[link removed]]

Verso Books [[link removed]]
6 Meard Street
London, W1F 0EG
United Kingdom

 

RECOVERING THE HISTORY OF THE PUERTO RICAN SOCIALIST PARTY IN THE
UNITED STATES - MAY 13 (FRIENDS OF PUERTO RICO INITIATIVE)
 

 

BOOK TALK - WALTER JOHNSON, THE BROKEN HEART OF AMERICA - MAY 13
(LABOR AND WORKING CLASS HISTORY ASSOCIATION)
 

The Labor and Working Class History Association Pandemic Book Talks
Presents:

Walter Johnson  --  The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the
Violent History of the United States

THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021 AT 7PM EST

From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in
Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter
Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how
imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to
corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was once also America's most
radical city, home to anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's
first general emancipation, and the nation's first general strike—a
legacy of resistance that endures.

Please register in advance
[[link removed]]
and join us via zoom

Labor and Working Class History Association [[link removed]]
 
LAWCHA
226 Carr Building (East Campus)
Box 90719
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708-0719

EMAIL: [email protected]

 

WHEN THEY PUSH BACK, WE PUSH HARDER - PASS THE CLIMATE AND COMMUNITY
INVESTMENT ACT - NEW YORK - MAY 18 (PEOPLES CLIMATE MOVEMENT - NY)
 

 

We’re in the final stretch to #PassTheCCIA! 

New York State’s legislative session ends June 10th, which means we
have only five weeks to get the Climate and Community Investment Act
[[link removed]]
passed. We need to get the CCIA across the finish line so we can make
polluters pay for the damage they have done to our state and our
communities, and use those dollars to fund a just transition to a
renewable energy economy. The fossil fuel industry is pushing back
against the bill, so we need to push even harder! 

On May 18th, there will be rallies in support of the CCIA all across
the state
[[link removed]].
Join us in front of Governor Cuomo’s office to demand that he and
the NYS Legislature get this bill done this year! 

WHAT:    RALLY AND TAKE ACTION ON-SITE TO #PASSTHECCIA

WHEN:   TUESDAY, MAY 18, 5:30PM

WHERE:  OUTSIDE GOV. CUOMO’S OFFICE, 633 3RD AVE., MANHATTAN

RSVP HERE
[[link removed]].

 

We hope to see you there! Please spread the word!  

And if you’d like to learn more about the plan to get this bill
passed, join NY Renews this Friday, May 7, at 12pm
[[link removed]]
to go over the details and get plugged into the campaign.

Peoples Climate Movement - NY [[link removed]]  
119 West 23rd Street, Suite 900
New York, NY 10011

 

POWER IN A PENSION - LABOR, PRIVATE EQUITY, AND CLIMATE JUSTICE - MAY
19 (HARRY BRIDGES CENTER FOR LABOR STUDIES)
 

MAY 19, 2021 | 10AM - 11:30AM PT |

REGISTER
[[link removed]]

Join us to explore the relationship between labor’s retirement
capital, the climate crisis, and the impacts on communities and the
environment. The forum will bring stakeholders together to discuss how
labor unions, pension fund trustees, and Indigenous rights and
grassroots organizations are working to effect change and explore
avenues for further collaboration.

In the race to mitigate the effects of climate change, there is
growing urgency to interrogate the role private equity plays in
exacerbating the climate crisis, using labor-affiliated pension fund
capital. Even as publicly traded companies begin to commit to net-zero
emissions, private equity firms – such as the Blackstone Group, KKR
& Co., or the Carlyle Group – continue to acquire fossil fuel
assets. This exposes public pension funds, which manage the retirement
of millions of public sector workers, to fossil fuel investments that
are subject to less scrutiny
[[link removed]],
greater bankruptcy risk
[[link removed]],
and poor returns
[[link removed]].


At the same time, the United States has rejoined the Paris Agreement
[[link removed].],
regulatory agencies are seeking to strengthen climate risk disclosure
[[link removed]] and
forecasts are predicting decreasing fossil fuel demand
[[link removed]]. Renewable
energy sources are now cheaper than fossil fuels
[[link removed]],
and there is an increasing awareness of the harms of greenwashing
[[link removed]] and
the devastating costs of global warming on marginalized communities
and the environment
[[link removed]].
Pension fund exposure to fossil fuel assets while the industry itself
faces growing regulatory pressure and structural decreases in demand
are concerning for labor's retirement capital and remain detrimental
to front-line communities and the environment.

 
Panelists include:

* SLEYDO' (MOLLY WICKHAM) - Gidimt'en Checkpoint Spokesperson on
Wet'suwet'en Territory, British Columbia
* SHARON HENDRICKS - California State Teachers' Retirement System
(CalSTRS) Board Vice-Chair, UN Principles for Responsible Investment
Board Member, AFT Local 1521 Treasurer
* EILEEN MORAN - Member of the Environmental Justice Working Group
of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) – CUNY, AFT Local 2334
* PAUL FINCH - British Columbia Government and Service
Employees’ Union (BCGEU), Treasurer
* ALYSSA GIACHINO - Private Equity Stakeholder Project, Climate
Director

The discussion will be moderated by MICHAEL MCCANN, University of
Washington Gordon Hirabayashi Professor for the Advancement of
Citizenship.
 
For additional information please contact Riddhi Mehta-Neugebauer,
Research Director, Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies,
at [email protected].
Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies [[link removed]]
Smith Hall, M266
Box 353530 Seattle, WA 98195-3530

OFFICE 206.543.7946

 

LABOR AND THE MEDIA - LABOR ADAPTS ITS MESSAGE TO CHANGING MEDIA
ENVIRONMENTS - MAY 20 (NY LABOR HISTORY ASSOCIATION)
 

THURSDAY, MAY 20, 2021  --  7 P.M.

Panelists:

* DR. BRIAN DOLBER, Assistant Professor of Communication, California
State University, San Marcos; author of Media and Culture in the U.S.
Jewish Labor Movement: Sweating for Democracy in the Interwar Era
* DR. TOBIAS HIGBE, UCLA Labor Studies Chair and Associate Director
of UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment
* ELANA LEVIN, Director at New Media Mentors (Netroots Nation) and
Co-Founder of Organizing 2.0

Organized by the New York Labor History Association and co-sponsored
by ILCA, the Metro NY Labor Communications Council, United Hebrew
Trades, the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, and the New York
Jewish Labor Committee.

*
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*
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INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

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