[ Reader Comments: Afghanistan - What Next?; Organizing Amazon;
Stanley Aronowitz; Cuba Today; China; Food Industry and Meat; Ghosts
of Amistad; Peru; Global Supply Change; lots of announcements;
more....] [[link removed]]

TIDBITS - AUG. 26, 2021 - READER COMMENTS: AFGHANISTAN - WHAT NEXT?;
ORGANIZING AMAZON; STANLEY ARONOWITZ; CUBA TODAY; CHINA; FOOD INDUSTRY
AND MEAT; GHOSTS OF AMISTAD; PERU; GLOBAL SUPPLY CHANGE; LOTS OF
ANNOUNCEMENTS; MORE....  
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August 26, 2021
xxxxxx

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_ Reader Comments: Afghanistan - What Next?; Organizing Amazon;
Stanley Aronowitz; Cuba Today; China; Food Industry and Meat; Ghosts
of Amistad; Peru; Global Supply Change; lots of announcements;
more.... _

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, AND cartoons -
Aug. 26, 2021, xxxxxx

 

Re: Not Everyone Wanted War in Afghanistan. We Should Listen to Them
Now. (Jerry Neal; Craig Gauthier; Robert Egelko; Michael Valentia)
Re: Washington’s War in Afghanistan Is Over. What Happens Now?
(Ralph Stephens)
Our Mission  --  cartoon by Rob Rogers
Re: Debacle in Afghanistan (Jessica Benjamin)
The nonsense of accusing the Taliban for 9/11 (Roz Ashby)
Re: Generations of Struggle: Lessons on Defending Democracy (Jose Luis
Medina)
Mask Shootings  --  cartoon by John Darkow
Re: Amazon? There Has to be a Better Way (Eleanor Roosevelt)
Re: Stanley Aronowitz Knew That Freedom Begins Where Work Ends (Junius
Williams)
Re: Children's Teeth, Collected Decades Ago, Can Show the Damage of
Nuclear Testing (Bernie DiNardo)
Re: Cuba Today: Homeland, People, and Sovereignty (John Magisano;
Marlena Santoyo)
Re: MSNBC Staff Votes to Unionize With Writers Guild East (Alvin
Mitchell)
Re: Massachusetts Nurse Strikers Aren’t Blinking (John Pace)
Re: Too Hot to Work (Mike Liston; Georgia Wever)
Re: China, 2049 A Climate Disaster Zone, Not a Military Superpower
(Miriam Haiman-González; Michael Valentia; Michael Dunn; Ralph
Kreider)
Re: No "Fixing This Industry" (Alice Chan)
Re: Deborah Madison is done with cookbooks. Now, she’s making corn
dogs and fried chicken. (Judy Bertelsen; Susan Barzallo)

 

RESOURCES:

GHOSTS OF AMISTAD: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE REBELS (UNIVERSITY OF
PITTSBURGH)

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

A Conversation with Héctor Béjar, Peru's former Foreign Minister -
August 31 (Alliance for Global Justice, Alberto Lovera Bolivarian
Circle of NY)
Regulating Global Supply Chains to Empower Workers  - Starts
September 1 (Global Labour University)
Working in DC - September 2 (Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the
Working Poor)
It Didn't Start at Amazon: A Conversation about the History of
Organized Labor in the American South - September 9 (Atlanta and North
Georgia Labor Council, United Campus Workers of Georgia, Labor and
Working Class History Association, Southern Labor Studies Association)

RE: NOT EVERYONE WANTED WAR IN AFGHANISTAN. WE SHOULD LISTEN TO THEM
NOW.

So our country’s absurd investment of over half of discretionary
federal spending on destructive weapons, and recruiting and training
young Americans to use them, does not make us safer. It only
encourages our leaders to unleash pointless violence and chaos on our
neighbors around the world.

Most of our neighbors have grasped by now that these forces and the
dysfunctional U.S. political system that keeps them at its disposal
pose a serious threat to peace and to their own aspirations for
democracy. Few people in other countries want any part of America’s
wars, or its revived Cold War against China and Russia, and these
trends are most pronounced among America’s long-time allies in
Europe and in its traditional “backyard” in Canada and Latin
America.

Finally reining in America’s out-of-control militarism would be a
wise and appropriate response to its epic defeat in Afghanistan —
before the same corrupt interests drag us into even more dangerous
wars against more formidable enemies than the Taliban.

"As we act, let us not become the evil we deplore.”

Barbara Lee

Jerry Neal
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

And it's revealing how the so called liberal media is trying to tear
apart Biden for doing the right thing, blaming him for the chaos, not
acknowledging the real truth, Iraq, Iran,Vietnam and every other
little dirty war,

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

      =====

I've admired Ferencz, but had never seen these comments before, among
others. Thank you.

Robert Egelko

      =====

Cambone wrote that Rumsfeld wanted, 

”best info fast. Judge whether good enough to hit S.H. (Saddam
Hussein) at same time — not only UBL (Usama Bin Laden)… Go
massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”

“The only member of Congress who had the wisdom and courage to vote
against the 2001 AUMF was Barbara Lee of Oakland. Lee compared it to
the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution and warned her colleagues that it
would inevitably be used in the same expansive and illegitimate way.
The final words of her floor speech echo presciently through the
20-year-long spiral of violence, chaos, and war crimes it unleashed:
“As we act, let us not become the evil we deplore.””

Michael Valentia
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: WASHINGTON’S WAR IN AFGHANISTAN IS OVER. WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

IMHO China wants the rare Earth minerals. Taliban want total control
and that takes money. A whole lotta spendin' money. Projected value of
Afghanistan deposits are in the 3.1 trillion dollar range. Maybe more
as one auto maker after another closes up shop due to no computer
chips. America is hand in glove with the Chinese on this. The Russians
want a piece of the action so they are going to play nice, for now.

Ralph Stephens
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

OUR MISSION  --  CARTOON BY ROB ROGERS

Rob Rogers
August 26, 2021
robrogers.com [[link removed]]

RE: DEBACLE IN AFGHANISTAN

This is vulgar leftism at its most typical. . Millions of children
went to school. Hundreds of thousands graduated university. So many
teachers and schools that will now be closed. Clinics were opened in
every district. Women as well as men medical staff. All will be
attacked and closed. When will Leftists learn to hold contradictions
and recognize that the Liberal bourgeoisie brings some things that we
can’t do without, like freedom from slavery for women?

How impressive that Ali is a stern critic of the Taliban. Maybe he is
a stern critic of the Khmer Rouge too. The Left has to be smarter than
this. The only thing worse than the invasion of Afghanistan is
invading them and then leaving the millions of people who worked to
create civil society in the lurch. Looked at from the point of view of
Afghans what does this purist outrage do for them? I think a practical
Marxist view is incompatible with such disregard for teachers nurses
and social service workers. They are certainly radical leaders here in
our country.

Jessica Benjamin

THE NONSENSE OF ACCUSING THE TALIBAN FOR 9/11

The attack on the US on 9/11 was headed by a Saudi Arabian Ben Laden,
carried out by young Saudis and none of the Taliban doing.  The Talib
(students is what the word means) were encouraged by the US as a
counter to Russian educated and supported Afghan government and the
invasion of Northern Afghanistan by Russian troops.  The blind
ignorance of Americans is appalling.  And the information is readily
available if people choose to look beyond.  The Talib offered Ben
Laden to US.  But the then president preferred war.  Excellent
article that xxxxxx presented.  How can people who lost loved ones
or survived 9/11 be so blind.  It was known close to immediately that
it was Saudis.

Roz Ashby

RE: GENERATIONS OF STRUGGLE: LESSONS ON DEFENDING DEMOCRACY

Poor People's Campaign members understand that what's really underway
in this country is a struggle between democracy and potential
autocracy or, as Martin Luther King once put it, between community and
chaos. 

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

MASK SHOOTINGS  --  CARTOON BY JOHN DARKOW

John Darkow
August 22, 2021
Columbia Missourian

RE: AMAZON? THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY

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

Repeal Taft Hartley and bring back CIO-style sit-down strikes. Let's
see if Wal-Mart will roll out tanks and bayonets to clear out a store
full of workers who've had about a damn nough.

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

RE: STANLEY ARONOWITZ KNEW THAT FREEDOM BEGINS WHERE WORK ENDS

I want to thank Jamie for that full-bodied portrayal of Stanley
Aronowitz, my dear friend, although I didn't see him for the last
50-55 years. Stanley grew up in Newark, NJ, and was responsible for
the SDS chapter there through his invitation to Tom Hayden and others
to come to town in 1964, which resulted in a group called the Newark
Community Union Project (NCUP), one of the last experiences in
building an interracial movement of the poor.

I came to Newark in 1965 to join NCUP, upon Tom's invitation. Stanley
was like a big "Old Left" mentor, although he was accepted by the New
Left quote readily.  Through the years, I came to appreciate the wit
and wisdom you describe, and you are right: he was always the loudest
voice in the room (or outdoors).  When I set about writing my memoir,
called Unfinished Agenda, Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power,
Stanley was the first person I interviewed in 1989, for context about
NCUP, for his experiences in community organizing in the Clinton Hill
neighborhood in Newark, and about his general thoughts about writing
such a book. I had been promising myself to find him and at least talk
on the phone, but the thought died, and now, so has he.  One day I
will find that tape and go back and listen to his pearls of wisdom and
appreciate all that he was.

Junius Williams

RE: CHILDREN'S TEETH, COLLECTED DECADES AGO, CAN SHOW THE DAMAGE OF
NUCLEAR TESTING

Disturbing read.

Bernie DiNardo
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: CUBA TODAY: HOMELAND, PEOPLE, AND SOVEREIGNTY

Thank you, xxxxxx! I'm quite disgusted with so much of the left's
knee jerk defense of the regime. Yes, the embargo must end. AND the
regime must stop stifling dissent and silencing diverse voices.

John Magisano
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

An extremist sector of the Cuban exile community in the United States
has called for U.S. intervention. They finance violent acts,
deliberately spread fake news, and encourage people to commit arson,
loot property, kill police officers, and join the battle from their
cell phone trenches. However this situation works out, and whatever
the suffering endured by people in Cuba, those extremists will stay
where they are.

Marlena Santoyo
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: MSNBC STAFF VOTES TO UNIONIZE WITH WRITERS GUILD EAST

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

Congratulations that’s great news.

Alvin Mitchell
Senior Representative
Teamster Local 542

RE: MASSACHUSETTS NURSE STRIKERS AREN’T BLINKING

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

YES!!!!

Get what you're worth----FINALLY!!!!!

John Pace
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: TOO HOT TO WORK

In China, outdoor workers in agriculture and construction were usually
somewhat protected from the coldest weather as the big Chinese New
Year holiday, which can be weeks long for common workers, is often at
that time of year which is often the coldest. However, the heat has
been an increasing problem. I know in Beijing where I live, the
government instituted a policy that forces employers to pay workers
more when it's hot, but even more importantly, this encourages outdoor
workers in the city including construction, infrastructure maintenance
and an army of street cleaners to begin work early in the morning when
it's cool, take a long break at the middle of the day when it's at its
hottest and then work in the late afternoon until evening.  Of
course, it's not perfect, but it's something, 

Mike Liston

      =====

Michael's, a chain craft store, is not air conditionings its stores,
apparently. The employees started a petition on FB.  Many of its
stores are below street level and enclosed. This is dangerous for
Covid spread as well as horribly uncomfortable for working and
shopping folks.

Georgia Wever

RE: CHINA, 2049 A CLIMATE DISASTER ZONE, NOT A MILITARY SUPERPOWER

Like the burning, flooding, heating United States. And the rest of the
world...

Miriam Haiman-González
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

“By 2049, the Chinese military will be so busy coping with a
burning, flooding, churning world of climate change — threatening
the country’s very survival — that it will possess scant capacity,
no less the will, to launch a war with the United States”

Michael Valentia
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

and a demographic time bomb on top of this. Their one child policy set
them up for a massive, massive mind, population decline over this time
frame.

Michael Dunn
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

lol - America will be the same. It's burning right now.

Ralph Kreider
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: NO "FIXING THIS INDUSTRY "

This. This is the main reason I do not eat ANY meat.

Alice Chan
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

RE: DEBORAH MADISON IS DONE WITH COOKBOOKS. NOW, SHE’S MAKING CORN
DOGS AND FRIED CHICKEN.

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

Your headline on the Deborah Madison piece is misleading and
inaccurate.

Judy Bertelsen

      =====

Wow! I subscribed to xxxxxx because you are progressive. Because
your articles spark change, report on change, and perhaps, motivate
change.

This article does the EXACT OPPOSITE! This is disgusting. We all know
that eating animals is killing the planet. Okay, so everyone is not
ready to be vegetarian or vegan yet... but the slow change is
happening and food technology is speeding up the ease with which
people can be comfortable giving up meat.

This article is about someone going backwards, someone ditching what
is right and finding comfort in not only the slaughter of animals, but
the catastrophic effects that animal agriculture is having on the
earth: global warming, climate change, ocean destruction, rain forest
destruction, slaughter of wild horses.... need I go on?

I am so very disappointed you would highlight this as something people
"on the left" want to read.

Shame on you.

Susan Barzallo
Associate Editor, The Animals Voice Magazine

GHOSTS OF AMISTAD: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE REBELS (UNIVERSITY OF
PITTSBURGH)

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Watch here [[link removed]]

Ghosts of Amistad chronicles a trip to Sierra Leone to visit the home
villages of the people who seized the slave schooner Amistad in 1839,
to interview elders about local memory of the case, and to search for
the long-lost ruins of Lomboko, the slave trading factory where their
cruel transatlantic voyage began. THE DOCUMENTARY IS NOW AVAILABLE
FOR FREE FULL-LENGTH VIEWING IN ENGLISH
[[link removed]], WITH SUBTITLED VERSIONS
IN FRENCH [[link removed]], ITALIAN
[[link removed]] AND SPANISH
[[link removed]] ON BOTH YOUTUBE AND VIMEO.

A CONVERSATION WITH HÉCTOR BÉJAR, PERU'S FORMER FOREIGN MINISTER -
AUGUST 31 (ALLIANCE FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE, ALBERTO LOVERA BOLIVARIAN
CIRCLE OF NY)

REGULATING GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS TO EMPOWER WORKERS  - STARTS
SEPTEMBER 1 (GLOBAL LABOUR UNIVERSITY)

MARK ANNER, DR. EDLIRA XHAFA, DR FRANK HOFFER, ROBERT O'BRIEN,
DR. JANE KELSEY, PETER ROSSMAN, JASON JUDD, CHRISTOPH SCHERRER,
SEBASTIAN HERREROS, PRAVEEN JHA, MEGHNA GOYAL, LARA MERLING, PROF.
DR. HANSJÖRG HERR, JASON WARD, MALINI CHAKRAVARTY, STEFANIE
LORENZEN, AND MS. MARLESE VON BROEMBSEN

About this course

This FREE online course discusses key policy proposal for regulating
global supply chains to empower workers and their organisations. The
course offers a combination of lectures, reading materials and zoom
workshops with top experts from academia and the labour sector.

COURSE STARTS SEPTEMBER 1

Course structure

The course has six content chapters. Starting from 1 September 2021, a
new content chapter will be posted each week. After becoming fully
accessible, the course will remain open for studying the course
materials at your own pace.

_CHAPTER 1:_ Introduction to the course

_CHAPTER 2:_ Towards a fair trade regime

_CHAPTER 3:_ Designing sustainble industrial policies

_CHAPTER 4:_ Building a fair taxation regime

_CHAPTER 5_: Effective Mandatory Due Diligence

_CHAPTER 6:_ Equitable purchasing contracts and practices

_CHAPTER 7_: Worker/trade union - driven social responsibility

Global supply chains; Human rights mandatory due diligence; Fair trade
and taxation regime; Sustainable industrial policy; Worker-driven
Social Responsibility; Fair purchasing contracts and practices

Learning objectives

At the end of the course, the participants will be able to define the
key problems in the main areas affecting global supply chains, such as
trade, taxation, due diligence, purchasing contracts and industrial
policies.

They will also be able to identify some key proposals for each area,
and analyze the merits of various proposals and the policy challenges
to their implementation.

They will be able to relate to key concepts used in each policy area.
Finally, at the end of the course, the participants will be able to
provide arguments about the policy proposals.

What do I need to know?

This is a multi-disciplinary course drawing on the fields of social,
political and economic sciences course. It is at the level of a
Masters’ programme, but the concepts are explained in an accessible
and well-illustrated way, so it is also possible to participate in the
course using skills and knowledge acquired outside formal education.

The course requires a working level of English.

Course workload

The estimated workload is 6-7 hours per chapter if you read also the
key reading for each unit. Certificates

You will be able to obtain either a Certificate of Participation or a
Certificate of Accomplishment for this course. The requirements for
each certificate as well as scholarship possibilities are detailed in
Chapter 1 of the course as well as in the last unit of the course.

Enroll here
[[link removed]]

WORKING IN DC - SEPTEMBER 2 (KALMANOVITZ INITIATIVE FOR LABOR AND THE
WORKING POOR)

 

Whatever your history, work has probably been – or will become -- a
central part of your life. We work to earn a living, but it isn’t
just about a paycheck. A job can be a source of pride and a source of
struggle, a place where we connect with each other or where we feel
invisible or mistreated.

WHEN YOU TELL THE STORY OF YOUR WORK LIFE, WHAT DO YOU POINT TO?
JOIN WORKING IN DC [[link removed]] AND THE KALMANOVITZ
INITIATIVE FOR LABOR AND THE WORKING POOR
[[link removed]] FOR A CONVERSATION ABOUT WORK.

WORKING IN DC
Thursday, September 2 | 5-6:30 pm
Arrupe Multipurpose Room | Georgetown University
RSVP here
[[link removed]]
~~~
Please note: this event is planned as a ON-CAMPUS conversation.
Attendees from the Georgetown community must abide by campus
vaccination and testing requirements
[[link removed]]. All attendees must wear a
mask for the duration of the event. All health and safety protocols
will be strictly enforced. 

With a celebratory performance at BLM Plaza on the streets of DC and
by sharing “the extraordinary dreams of ordinary people” through
the lens of history, justice, activism, and the arts, Working In DC
[[link removed]] brings the spirit of the legendary Studs
Terkel to life for the Washington, DC community. Proudly presented in
collaboration with Labor Heritage Foundation, this project uplifts the
working class during our pivotal time of racial justice reckoning,
COVID-19, and political unrest.
 
Our site-specific, multidisciplinary, outdoor performance of Working:
A Musical is paired with Something To Point To – our civic
engagement and education programming. Join labor leaders and local
artists in this unique and joyful cross-disciplinary celebration of
frontline workers and the American labor movement through the songs of
STEPHEN SCHWARTZ (GODSPELL, PIPPIN, WICKED), JAMES TAYLOR, MICKI
GRANT, and LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA (HAMILTON, IN THE HEIGHTS).

Those who attend the discussion are also invited to the September 11
performance of Working, the Musical, outdoors on Black Lives Matter
Plaza and to join us afterward to talk with some of the performers and
organizers after the show.

The Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at
Georgetown University engages questions of workers’ rights and the
future of the labor movement.

Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor
[[link removed]]
37th & O Streets, NW Maguire 209
Georgetown University
Washington, District Of Columbia 20057

IT DIDN'T START AT AMAZON: A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE HISTORY OF
ORGANIZED LABOR IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH - SEPTEMBER 9 (ATLANTA AND NORTH
GEORGIA LABOR COUNCIL, UNITED CAMPUS WORKERS OF GEORGIA, LABOR AND
WORKING CLASS HISTORY ASSOCIATION, SOUTHERN LABOR STUDIES ASSOCIATION)

 

REGISTER HERE [[link removed]]
 

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INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

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