[ Reader Comments: Right Wing Crusade - Cultural War; Bob Moses
Remembered; Olympics, Simone Biles Hero; Masks and Vaccines Because
They Work; Cuba; China; Korean War; Puerto Rico; Black Lung; and more
....] [[link removed]]

TIDBITS - JULY 29, 2021 - READER COMMENTS: RIGHT WING CRUSADE -
CULTURAL WAR; BOB MOSES REMEMBERED; OLYMPICS, SIMONE BILES HERO; MASKS
AND VACCINES BECAUSE THEY WORK; CUBA; CHINA; KOREAN WAR; PUERTO RICO;
BLACK LUNG; AND MORE ....  
[[link removed]]


 

July 29, 2021
xxxxxx

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

_ Reader Comments: Right Wing Crusade - Cultural War; Bob Moses
Remembered; Olympics, Simone Biles Hero; Masks and Vaccines Because
They Work; Cuba; China; Korean War; Puerto Rico; Black Lung; and more
.... _

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, AND cartoons -
July 29, 2021, xxxxxx

 

Re: Culture War in the Classroom (Max B. Sawicky; Harry Targ)
Re: Bob Moses, Crusader for Civil Rights and Math Education (Kipp
Dawson; Bob Zellner; Muriel Tillinghast)
Re: The Human Costs of the Pandemic Olympics (Laura Owen; Judyth
Hollub)
Re: Simone Biles Just Demonstrated a True Champion Mind-Set (Craig
Gauthier)
Because It Worked  --  cartoon by Dawn Mockler
Re: AFL-CIO Union Federation Supports Vaccine Mandates For Workers
(Saul Schniderman)
Re: Benjamin Franklin’s Fight Against a Deadly Virus (Joe Berry)
On the Backs of Amazon Workers and Customers  --  cartoon
Re: Families Wait Years for Housing Vouchers Due to Inadequate Funding
(Joseph Maizlish)
Re: 'Recess Can Wait': 23 Groups Demand Senate Stay in DC to Pass For
the People Act (Jim Coughlin)
Legality is a Matter of Power, Not Justice
Re: Texas Republicans Can't Handle the Truth About the Alamo (Claire
O'Connor; Todd Allen)
Re: The Left Is the Only Reason We’re Talking About Climate Change
at All (Daniel Millstone)
He Just Kept Bringing Up His Rights  --  cartoon
Re: Up and Down The Ballot, Progressives Score Wins in Western New
York (Paul Krehbiel)
Re: What They Don’t Say About Cuba (US Progressive Activists'
Update)
Re: What’s Happening in Cuba? (Jose Luis Medina)
Re: The Three Revolutions of the Chinese Communist Party (John Case)
Re: Penetrating Curtains of Deceit: I.F. Stone’s ‘The Hidden
History of the Korean War’ (Mike Liston; Joanne Forman)
Politicians Know More Than Dr. Fauci  --  cartoon by Rex A. Jones

RESOURCES:

LET CUBA LIVE! — POSTER OF THE WEEK (CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF
POLITICAL GRAPHICS)

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Black Lung: People, Power, and Policy - August 11 (Appalachian
Citizens' Law Center)
NO to Statehood, YES to Decolonization - New York City - August 15
(Friends of Puerto Rico Initiative)

RE: CULTURE WAR IN THE CLASSROOM

I wrote this as an addendum to the Leo Casey post.

The Anti-CRT Campaign is Trumpism by Other Means
[[link removed]]

By Max B. Sawicky

July 24, 2021
DSA North Star Caucus Blog
[[link removed]]

I'd like to underscore the importance of Leo's post. I've had a
ringside seat on this and I've been yelling about it since April, so
I'd like to add a few points, in the nature of friendly amendments.

The Right is whining that education on race introduces turmoil in
schools and classrooms. Actually it is their own agitation that will
do that. Rabid denunciations of teaching on elementary matters of race
by adults will echo in classrooms. A race-blind pedagogy will render
U.S. history more remote to POC and lead to the opposite result for
which they clamor: less identification with U.S. citizenship.

But the campaign is not motivated by any of that. One of the original
epicenters was in Loudoun County, Va., where I live. This has national
strategic significance, in three ways. 1) it pressures teacher unions,
one of the lynchpins of Democratic Party power nationwide; 2) it
agitates Trump voters in Virginia, a key source of Democratic Party
electoral votes; 3) it fuels the home-schooling movement.

On (2), the former head of the Loudoun County school board is using
this issue as a springboard for his gubernatorial campaign. The state
government went all-Democratic in recent years, and this issue, along
with hype over gun control, has lead to frenzied public meetings of
crazed voters. The gun control agitation was based in the rural
counties. The CRT noise is focused in the biggest, wealthiest
counties. Put them together, and you have the basis for Republican
victory.

On (1) and (3), CRT hype promotes separation from public schools
altogether, not unlike the formation of racist 'academies' in the
South after Brown vs. Board of Ed. One can find talk locally by
parents of hiring teachers to teach in their home to groups of five or
so students. There are enough people here with the financial means to
cause a non-trivial drain on public schools, leading to generalized
lack of funding that will have disparate, negative impacts by class
and race.

On ways to fight back, here are a couple of additional considerations.

This is a Trumpist movement, and Trumpists have substantially
discredited themselves with their actions on Jan 6. Such antics would
be likely to have their greatest negative response in precisely the
middle-class localities where the CRT issue has been amped up. Jan 6
should be a millstone around the necks of the GOP everywhere.

In Loudoun Country, the school board is not up for election this year,
so the Right is trying to set off a recall election. Here school board
elections are formally non-partisan. Of course all electeds have some
known party identification. Nevertheless, voters may resent being
dragged into elections for those they have already approved at the
ballot box, all the more so if the campaign is based on rubbish.

One added element locally has been protest over protocols on treatment
of transgender students. The bathroom issue is rearing its head again.
Parents of these students tend to be among the most energetic in
response. There has also been flak over 'dirty books' being assigned
for reading. (Actually they're not dirty and they have not been
required reading.) Middle-class moderate parents are unlikely to be
moved by these issues, so the campaign has the effect of energizing an
excitable minority, but also isolating them.

Finally, I note that DSA in Virginia has been totally asleep at the
switch on all of this. In my rudimentary understanding of organizing,
politics entails talking about what others are talking about, not just
what you want to talk about. Here the preferred issues are a pipeline
that would run through the state, and the PRO act. If the R's retake
power in the state, pipelines and labor rights will take their place
alongside other, equally-critical problems.

      =====

see:

THE CONTRADICTIONS FACING 21St CENTURY HIGHER EDUCATION: THE CASE OF
“CIVIC LITERACY” AT PURDUE UNIVERSITY
[[link removed]]

By Harry Targ, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, Purdue
University and Dan Morris, Professor of English, Purdue University

Harry Targ
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: BOB MOSES, CRUSADER FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND MATH EDUCATION

Gratitude to xxxxxx
[link removed]…
[[link removed]]
for this set of tributes to (and stories about) our #BobMoses.

Here's how xxxxxx
[link removed]…
[[link removed]]
heads this collection: "Bob Moses was teaching math at the Horace Mann
School in the Bronx when scenes of Black people sitting at lunch
counters across the South inspired him to become an activist. "

Kipp Dawson
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Bob Moses memories

My head was full of Bob Moses from the time I joined SNCC. From the
beginning there was debate and some tension between two factions that
were beginning to develop.  Moses was the name most associated with
the voter registration side.

In my memoir, I put it this way, “in the early days, the philosophy
of SNCC was slowly being hammered out, and the heated and strong
feeling on both sides—direct action vs. voter registration—was
becoming quite evident. Some wondered if the organization would split
into two different groups with some people doing what Bob Moses was
doing already - organizing around voter registration in Mississippi.
He had made so many good contacts with older activists there, like E.
W. Steptoe, Amzie Moore, and Medgar Evers, and they were hungry for
help. People were being threatened and killed for attempting to
register.”

I arrived in Atlanta to volunteer for the summer when nobody from the
organization seemed to be in town.  Chuck McDew was the only person
in the SNCC office which I had managed to find on sweet Auburn Avenue.
He said he had to leave to catch a bus, so every thing was said and
done fast.

“Here’s the briefcase,” and he shoved it toward me. I had
assumed that it was his briefcase, but he slid it over to my side of
the desk and said, “Here’s the briefcase, take good care of it.
Everything’s in there.”

“What’s in there?”

“Don’t worry about it.  Just keep it, and when somebody comes,
they’ll know who to give it to. Keep it with you at all times.
Don’t leave it here. If you need anything else, Wyatt Tee Walker
with SCLC is across the street. Moses has a desk over there.”

“BobMoses? Is he there?” “No, he’s in Mississippi.” “When
is he coming back?” “I don’t know, but if you need anything just
go over there and talk to Wyatt, and he’ll take care of it for
you.”

In SNCC we had two great leaders with their eyes on history.  Our
Executive Director James Forman was constantly saying to us, “write
it down, make a record.”  He wanted us to be aware of the necessity
of telling our own story.  Around the time the movie MISSISSIPPI
BURNING came out, Bob Moses said in Jackson, Mississippi, at the
thirtieth anniversary of SNCC—that we needed to start writing our
own stories, because history and historians will either not tell about
it or will get it wrong.

Bob Moses was incensed that the story line of the film Mississippi
Burning made two white savior FBI agents the heroes of the summer of
1964.  The grassroots movement community [African American activists
and their white northern Jewish allies] served only as background for
the Buddy Movie and their homophobic, racist boss –J.  Edgar
Hoover.  This was the exact opposite of the true story, turning
history on its head.

Bob Moses, like Ms. Rosa Parks, was a person of such calm and firm
demeanor that everyone listened when he spoke in his quiet voice. When
Moses suggested that you should do something, most of us young SNCCers
would get right to it.  This is one of the main reasons that my
memoir, THE WRONG SIDE OF MURDER CREEK, ever got written and
published.  Connie Curry and Julian Bond, also listening to Forman
and Moses, made sure the book got done. Then, dreams sometimes do come
true, along comes Barry Alexander Brown and Spike Lee, who made sure a
good movie was done on the story which could reach thousands of young
women and men around the world.

Bob Zellner
Fairhope, Alabama

      =====

Thank you for your reminiscences of SNCC in its earliest days.
 Without a doubt, Robert Parris Moses was one of a kind, a rare and
formidable humanist of extraordinary vision and capability.   He will
be missed.

Muriel Tillinghast

RE: THE HUMAN COSTS OF THE PANDEMIC OLYMPICS

So disgraceful! Putting young people in harms way to make the ‘
Almighty Dollar’, all lawyers should gather up for a class action
suit for reckless endangerment!!!

Laura Owen
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

The Tokyo Olympics are a gigantic folly. Should have waited until next
year, or whenever it would be safer.

To the athletes who say they've been training for this, I say, what's
more important: possibly winning some medals, or staying healthy and
keeping a dangerous disease from spreading?

And as for winning medals, how valid will those medals be if you
haven't competed against ALL of the athletes you would have if many
had not been eliminated by testing positive for Covid? Personally, I
feel that any athletes who win should have an asterisk next to their
names.  WAIT 'TIL NEXT YEAR!!!

Judyth Hollub
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: SIMONE BILES JUST DEMONSTRATED A TRUE CHAMPION MIND-SET

We don't need to dance to their music, we have our own music, soul to
soul,😆😆😆💞💞

Craig Gauthier
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

BECAUSE IT WORKED  --  CARTOON BY DAWN MOCKLER

Dawn Mockler
December 16, 2020
dawnymock.com [[link removed]]

RE: AFL-CIO UNION FEDERATION SUPPORTS VACCINE MANDATES FOR WORKERS

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

Thank you very important message. I have circulated to fellow
unionists.

Saul Schniderman

RE: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S FIGHT AGAINST A DEADLY VIRUS

This is an interesting piece and accurate, I suspect, as far as it
goes. However, it omits an important aspect of the controversy, then
and later. Namely that the anti-inoculation forces (then and now some
too) were partly animated by racism since the practice came from
non-white peoples (Africans and Asians) and was then characterized as
“savage superstition”.

Joe Berry

ON THE BACKS OF AMAZON WORKERS AND CUSTOMERS  --  CARTOON

RE: FAMILIES WAIT YEARS FOR HOUSING VOUCHERS DUE TO INADEQUATE FUNDING

Where are they supposed to live while they wait? And where DO they
live while they wait? And with what consequences to health, child
development, stress, etc.?

Joseph Maizlish

RE: 'RECESS CAN WAIT': 23 GROUPS DEMAND SENATE STAY IN DC TO PASS FOR
THE PEOPLE ACT

Fat chance! Nothing is more important than fund raising for too many
elected officials.

Jim Coughlin
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

LEGALITY IS A MATTER OF POWER, NOT JUSTICE

RE: TEXAS REPUBLICANS CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ALAMO

A myth taught in Texas you say. I learned about the Alamo heroes in
St. Paul public schools in the 1960s. In fact, though it was no
surprise to find out, I didn't know about connection to slavery until
a few years ago Duh! I wasn't surprised.

Claire O'Connor

      =====

2.xx&oh=f37033748022f73c72d0d352c8d73a8f&oe=61023974

Todd Allen
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: THE LEFT IS THE ONLY REASON WE’RE TALKING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE
AT ALL

Kate Aronoff [[link removed]] explains how we
have pushed and demanded a Green New Deal strategy. I was in San
Francisco ... when a huge crowd of young Sunrise Movement
[[link removed]] activists confronted Pelosi.
 One result has been that some climate change issues have been
incorporated in the Infrastructure bill. Of course we chattering
leftists are always being instructed to shut up. But we won't. We are
moving on to victory. Thanks to xxxxxx
[[link removed]]
for sending this along.

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

HE JUST KEPT BRINGING UP HIS RIGHTS  --  CARTOON

September 2020

RE: UP AND DOWN THE BALLOT, PROGRESSIVES SCORE WINS IN WESTERN NEW
YORK

A socialist mayor in my hometown! I’ve been out of Buffalo for years
but congrats to India and the gritty, salt-of-the-earth multiracial
working-class of Buffalo!

Paul Krehbiel
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: WHAT THEY DON’T SAY ABOUT CUBA

As the Cuban writer René Vázquez Díaz put it recently, imagine the
army of US government officials who have worked tirelessly since 1960
to make Cuban children, the elderly and the sick, women and men suffer
the unspeakable in a small country that has never attacked its
executioner. Imagine the massive number of US government officials
who, now more than ever, continue to carry out that daily work.

Imagine for a moment the cost of this full-spectrum war that operates
in cyberspace. They connect and share information with all their
operatives working in “real-time” to ensure that the social unrest
passes from a promising potential to something that seems plausible.
This happens without ever mentioning the hand that has rocked the
cradle. And without revealing, of course, that the majority of the
Cubans did not participate in the protests and will not accept, in any
way a “humanitarian intervention” nor the bombs and marines that
accompany it.

When the Cuban government called the people to defend their
revolution, the signal was given on social media and international
media to turn President Miguel Díaz-Canel into a criminal. They
forgot to mention that the President didn’t call the army to shoot
at citizens or inflict ocular injures or use electric batons and water
tanks with acid or tear gas or any other weapon. The majority in Cuba
know who the actual criminal in this story is.

US Progressive Activists' Update
[[link removed]]
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: WHAT’S HAPPENING IN CUBA?

"Will the current situation in Cuba lead to US-backed violence in
Cuba? To answer that question, we first need an understanding of
what’s happening. There has been ongoing violence from the United
States towards Cuba for 60 years."

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

RE: THE THREE REVOLUTIONS OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY

The arrogance of this US 'leftist' lecture to China is breathtaking;
as is its ignorance of the actual statements, books, and policy
histories of the actual Chinese leaders from Mao through Xi Xinping.
Ouch

John Case

RE: PENETRATING CURTAINS OF DECEIT: I.F. STONE’S ‘THE HIDDEN
HISTORY OF THE KOREAN WAR’

This is why I support xxxxxx. I read Stone's book decades back and
it's informed me ever since. I love my land, but most sincerely don't
love its corrupt technocrats, oligarchs, plutocrats and mafia bosses.
 I.F. Stone was a national hero. Someday, he'll get the
acknowledgement he so truly deserves. As for the rest of those bums,
let them burn,

Mike Liston

      =====

Greetings from an old timer in Taos, NM.

I remember WELL the announcement that Korea would be united within six
months of the end of WW II. Didn't turn out that way, did it?!

Joanne Forman

POLITICIANS KNOW MORE THAN DR. FAUCI  --  CARTOON BY REX A. JONES

Rex A. Jones
June 2020
tweeted by Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease
Control [[link removed]]
July 16, 2020

LET CUBA LIVE! — POSTER OF THE WEEK (CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF
POLITICAL GRAPHICS)

Gladys Acosta
Offset, 1991
Havana, Cuba
No Al Bloqueo Economico a Cuba!
No to the Economic Blockade of Cuba!

The Poster of the Week features a green map of Cuba trapped in the
prison-like stripes of Uncle Sam’s hat. Falling out of the hat are
some of the items targeted by the embargo:

* Petroleum
* Foreign exchange
* Medicine
* Imports
* Exports

Last week, the corporate media praised anti-Cuban government
demonstrations taking place in Havana. They did not cover any of the
pro-government demonstrations that also took place. Even worse, they
used photos from pro-government demonstrations but called them
anti-government protests!* The prominent red and black flags should
have been a clue had they been interested in accuracy. CNN even
recycled a photo from an anti-Cuban government demonstration held in
Miami, and claimed it was held in Havana. They pulled the photo, but
the damage was done.

Meanwhile, President Biden has chosen to tighten the vise on Cuba as
Covid-19 is rapidly spreading throughout the island. Fortunately, 6
million syringes are heading to Cuba, thanks to the organizing efforts
of Global Health Partners, assisted by the Saving Lives Campaign,
CODEPINK, The People’s Forum, the International Longshore and
Warehouse Union (ILWU), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and two
Cuban American groups—the No Embargo Cuba Movement and Puentes de
Amor.     

Today’s NYTimes has an open letter to President Biden to end the
embargo. It was signed by an impressive list of US and international
politicians, activists, artists, and academics.

To see the NYTimes ad and sign the letter:

[link removed]
[[link removed]]

The Guardian (7/12/21
[[link removed]]), Fox
News (7/11/21
[[link removed]]), Boston
Globe (7/11/21
[[link removed]]), Financial
Times (7/12/21
[[link removed]]), Yahoo!
News (7/11/21
[[link removed]]) and
NBC’s Today program (7/13/21
[[link removed]]) 

Sources:

* Media Play Up Protests, Play Down Effect of US Sanctions in Cuba
[[link removed]]
* Successful U.S. Campaign to Send 6 Million Vaccination Syringes to
Cuba
[[link removed]]

Center for the Study of Political Graphics
[[link removed]]
3916 Sepulveda Blvd, Suite 103
Culver City, CA 90230

BLACK LUNG: PEOPLE, POWER, AND POLICY - AUGUST 11 (APPALACHIAN
CITIZENS' LAW CENTER)

August 11th @ 6pm - Register
[[link removed]]

Black lung, caused by the inhalation of coal and silica dust, affects
tens of thousands of coal miners in the United States today. This
disease is incurable, progressive, and deadly.

A coalition of mine workers, their families, and other supporters are
working to advance government policies that will protect miners from
excessive exposure to harmful dust, and to ensure that the medical and
material needs of those miners who are already disabled with the
disease are met. Namely, the Black Lung Association is calling on
Congress to extend a small tax paid by coal companies in order to fund
medical care and disability benefits for miners with black lung.
Kentucky-based Appalachian Citizens Law Center is petitioning the Mine
Safety and Health Administration to strengthen silica dust regulations
in coal mines.

JOIN US AT 6PM (EASTERN TIME), ON AUGUST 11TH, to learn more about
black lung disease, the grassroots efforts to address this epidemic,
and what you can do to push policy makers in the right direction on
this important issue.

Speakers will include:

* GARY HAIRSTON, coal miner and President of National Black Lung
Association
* FRED PINSON, coal miner and Vice President of East Kentucky
Coalfield Black Lung Association
* DEBORAH WILLS, black lung clinic coordinator based in WV
* REBECCA SHELTON, Director of Policy and Organizing, Appalachian
Citizens Law Center
* WILLIE DODSON, Central Appalachian Field Coordinator, Appalachian
Voices

Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center [[link removed]]
317 Main St
Whitesburg, KY 41858

Main Office: (606) 633-3929
Toll-Free: (877) 637-3929
Fax: (606) 633-3925

 

NO TO STATEHOOD, YES TO DECOLONIZATION - NEW YORK CITY - AUGUST 15
(FRIENDS OF PUERTO RICO INITIATIVE)
 

Declaration of the “NO to Statehood, YES to Decolonization” March
of August 15. 

We affirm that we are Puerto Ricans; that Puerto Rico is our Country
and our Nation. We are a Caribbean people and our language is Spanish.
We are Boricuas who live in the Archipelago of Puerto Rico and who
live in the Puerto Rican Diaspora throughout the world.

We declare that Puerto Rico is subject to a colonial regime that is
not permitted to make its own fundamental decisions. We claim our
right to initiate the process of self-determination and decolonization
of our Country.

We reject Puerto Rico’s conversion into a state of the United
States. We affirm that annexation to the United States is NOT a
decolonizing option for our Country. On the contrary, statehood is the
death of the Puerto Rican nationality; it is illegal under
International Law; and would be the culmination and fatal result of
123 years of dependence and colonial domination.

We reject that an illegal and definitive annexation to the United
States can be imposed on Puerto Rico, based on mere arithmetic
majorities of voters that are subject to colonial dependence.

We declare that the actual colonial government of the New Progressive
Party (PNP) lies when it says it has a “mandate” of the People to
ask for statehood. The result of an imposed consultation, with unjust
and rigged rules, in which the only thing reflected is the wide
opposition to statehood, does not represent any kind of mandate to ask
Washington to make us a state, thereby annihilating our existence as a
Country.

On the basis of the statements heretofore expressed, we, the
organizations and persons who have signed this declaration, call upon
our people to mobilize for the march and activities on Sunday, August
15; and to express in the multiple possible forms that Puerto Rico is
a Nation, that we are committed to a true process of Decolonization
and that we categorically reject annexation and statehood.

PUERTO RICO FOREVER!  YES, TO THE BORICUA NATION!  YES, TO THE
DECOLONIZATION OF PUERTO RICO!  NEVER STATEHOOD!

PUERTO RICO SIEMPRE!

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

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

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