[ Reader Comments: Bank Failures, Deregulation and Fed-Raising
Interest Rates; Illegal Invasion of Iraq; Slash Pentagon Budget; Jim
Crow South; New Day for UAW; Light Communication; Letters From
Langston; US Policy and Taiwan; How Workers Win]
[[link removed]]

TIDBITS – MAR. 23, 2023 – READER COMMENTS: BANK FAILURES,
DEREGULATION AND FED-RAISING INTEREST RATES; HE ILLEGAL INVASION OF
IRAQ; SLASH PENTAGON BUDGET; JIM CROW SOUTH; NEW DAY FOR UAW; LETTERS
FROM LANGSTON; US POLICY AND TAIWAN; HOW WORKERS WIN  
[[link removed]]


 

March 23, 2023
xxxxxx
[[link removed]]

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

_ Reader Comments: Bank Failures, Deregulation and Fed-Raising
Interest Rates; Illegal Invasion of Iraq; Slash Pentagon Budget; Jim
Crow South; New Day for UAW; Light Communication; Letters From
Langston; US Policy and Taiwan; How Workers Win _

Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, AND cartoons -
Mar. 23 2023, xxxxxx

 

Bank Failures, Deregulation and Fed-Raising Interest Rates

 

* RE: ELIZABETH WARREN: SILICON VALLEY BANK IS GONE. WE KNOW WHO IS
RESPONSIBLE  (RICH HILBUN; WI RODRIGUEZ; JOSEPH GATTO; BEN LEE;
JOSEPH BOYLE; DELORIS LORI BACK-BERGER; KARL SPOOLMAN; KARIN
WEINFURTNER)
* DEREGULATION  --  CARTOON BY NICK ANDERSON

Re: The Illegal Invasion of Iraq: Never Forget  (Daniel Millstone)
Re: The Reagan Hostage Plot That Defeated Jimmy Carter  (Stan Nadel)
Re: 60+ Faith Groups Urge Congress to ‘Dramatically’ Slash
Pentagon Budget  (Larry Duprey)
And Then...The Country Was Saved  -- meme
Re: A Regional Reign of Terror  (Norm Littlejohn;  Van Caldwell)
Re: It’s a New Day in the United Auto Workers  (Timothy Sheard)
Re: Union of Southern Service Workers Is Organizing Low-Wage Workers
Across Industries  (Sam Gindin)
Re: Why Unions Matter So Much  (Charles Wyatt Jr.)
Visions  --  cartoon by Mike Luckovich
Re: The Oscars Were Invented To Breakup Hollywood Unions  (Paul
Buhle)
Re: Tribulations of the US Democratic Left  (Eleanor Roosevelt)
Re: The Too-Large-For Life Harry Bridges  (Charles Patrick Lynch)
Re: What the Saudi-Iran Deal Means for Palestine, Israel, the U.S.,
and the Mideast  (Rob Prince)
Re: Sunday Science: Even With Quantum Entanglement, There’s No
Faster-Than-Light Communication  (Steve Leeper)

Resources:

 

* Book Talk: Letters From Langston: From The Harlem Renaissance To
The Red Scare And Beyond (The People's Forum)

Announcements:

 

* What Should U.S. Policy Towards Taiwan Be? - March 29 (Committee
for a Sane U.S.-China Policy)
* HOW WORKERS WIN: Rebuilding Labor's Power for the 21st Century -
May 5 (CUNY School of Labor & Urban Studies)

 

RE: ELIZABETH WARREN: SILICON VALLEY BANK IS GONE. WE KNOW WHO IS
RESPONSIBLE

 

Maybe if we held the CEO, CFO and others managing these financial
institutions liable for their poor decisions we might not have this
problem.

Top management gave themselves golden parachutes (bonuses) the day
before the collapse. Criminal

Rich Hilbun
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

But deregulation is what the GOP promotes...go figure.

Wi Rodriguez
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

weakening regulations a Trump and Republican mantra is the reason for
this collapse! Regulations are there in all industries for a reasons.
CEO’s get bigger than needed salaries to produce profits to boost
stock prices, dividends and revenue for shareholders. They don’t
give a crap about how they achieve these goals anymore. Many CEOs and
companies have lost their social responsibility

Joseph Gatto
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Remember when Trump said he was a great businessman even though he had
gone bankrupt 6 times?  
Greg Becker, the chief executive of Silicon Valley Bank, was one of
the ?many high-powered executives who lobbied Congress to weaken the
law. In 2018, the big banks won. With support from both parties,
President Donald Trump signed a law to roll back critical parts of
Dodd-Frank. Regulators, including the Federal Reserve chair Jerome
Powell, then made a bad situation worse, ??letting financial
institutions load up on risk.

Ben Lee
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

They need to claw back that money. That’s so gross; they just took
people’s life savings and gave it to themselves.

Joseph Boyle
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

The people responsible for the bank's failure should be made to pay
for the bailout out of the bonuses they received. Congress should
repeal the weakening of the Dodd Frank legislation to make sure no
more banks fail in the future.

Deloris Lori Back-Berger
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

They should seize the assets from all the higher ranking bank managers
who drove the bank into the ground. That would definitely discourage
more bank leadership from doing this. 

Karl Spoolman
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Tt was under trump's reign that banking regulations that Obama had put
in place were rescinded. It had nothing to do with President Biden.

Karin Weinfurtner
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

DEREGULATION  --  CARTOON BY NICK ANDERSON

 

We've seen this movie before. The financial industry pushes for
deregulation. The financial industry takes on more and more risk
because it pays in the short run to gamble with other people's money.
Then the gambit eventually fails and these idiots need to be bailed
out in order to protect the larger financial system. Why do we keep
letting these jackasses get away with this?

Nick Anderson
March 13, 2023
Pen Strokes [[link removed]]

 

RE: THE ILLEGAL INVASION OF IRAQ: NEVER FORGET
 

Everything they said about the war in Iraq from "Weapons of Mass
Destruction" to "Saddam caused 9/11" to "The war will pay for itself."
was a lie including "and" and "the." And yet the perpetrators are
walking around free after stealing upwards of $3 trillion from us and
giving them to military contractors. George W. Bush even made fun of
himself on TV pretend hunting for the WMD. Colin Powell, Condoleezza
Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Judith Miller.
Cursed be their names and memories. Thanks to xxxxxx
[[link removed]]
for the link.

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

 

RE: THE REAGAN HOSTAGE PLOT THAT DEFEATED JIMMY CARTER
 

So 2 Republican Presidents were elected by Republicans making promises
to foreign governments to have them influence the election.  It
doesn't meet the Constitutional definition of treason, but it comes
close. So much for their supposed patriotism.

Stan Nadel

 

RE: 60+ FAITH GROUPS URGE CONGRESS TO ‘DRAMATICALLY’ SLASH
PENTAGON BUDGET
 

No profit in peace

Larry Duprey
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

AND THEN...THE COUNTRY WAS SAVED  -- MEME

 

Meme posting all over Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

Lalo Alcaraz Retweeted [[link removed]]
March 19, 2023

 

RE: A REGIONAL REIGN OF TERROR
 

“In the Jim Crow South, for a Black person to step outside norms of
behavior established by whites could be a death sentence. Violence
could erupt at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all. The
“mundane, largely hidden violence” that loomed over Black life is
the subject of Margaret A. Burnham’s new book, By Hands Now Known:
Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners, a work by turns shocking, moving, and
thought-provoking. It merits the attention of anyone interested in the
historical roots of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and, more
recently, Black Lives Matter.”

Norm Littlejohn
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

      =====

Book Reviewed: By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners by
Margaret A. Burnham Norton, 328 pp.,

“Burnham’s account focuses on particularly dangerous locations,
such as Birmingham, where the laws prohibiting homicide, she writes,
“simply did not apply” to the police. Long before the 1963
confrontation between “Bull” Connor’s dogs and fire hoses and
young civil rights demonstrators that marked the high point of the
mass civil rights movement, shootings of Blacks and the bombing of
their homes were shockingly commonplace. Fifty bombings took place in
the city between 1947 and 1965, mostly directed against Black families
who breached the color line by seeking to move into white
neighborhoods. In 1948 alone, according to the Birmingham World, a
Black newspaper, sixteen African American men died at the hands of law
enforcement officers.”

Van Caldwell
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: IT’S A NEW DAY IN THE UNITED AUTO WORKERS

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

Great article on the UAW, thanks so much, 

Timothy Sheard

 

RE: UNION OF SOUTHERN SERVICE WORKERS IS ORGANIZING LOW-WAGE WORKERS
ACROSS INDUSTRIES

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

Very interesting piece on organizing in the south across sectors.
Unfortunately, it had no numbers - can the writer forward that?

Sam Gindin

 

RE: WHY UNIONS MATTER SO MUCH
 

"... Jamelle Bouie, a Times Opinion columnist, captured this asymmetry
when he wrote: “Republicans and other conservatives know who their
enemies are — they know that organized labor is a key obstacle to
dismantling the social safety net...."

Charles Wyatt Jr.
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

VISIONS  --  CARTOON BY MIKE LUCKOVICH

 

Mike Luckovich
March 21, 2023
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
[[link removed]]

 

RE: THE OSCARS WERE INVENTED TO BREAKUP HOLLYWOOD UNIONS
 

I am a little shaky on this history, but it sounds right. The firing
of union activists, in particular left-wingers, was a big operation by
the middle 1930s. Screenwriters would just not get jobs anymore. Until
unionization success that came with wartime.

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

 

RE: TRIBULATIONS OF THE US DEMOCRATIC LEFT
 

At this point, the incipient threat of full-on American Fascism -- not
call somebody you don't like on Facebook a Fascist, but the real
jackbooted deal coming soon to a state near you -- means that whatever
there is of an actual Left in this country needs to get its head out
of its theoretical ass and form an actual and functioning Popular
Front to stop it -- while it [can] still be stopped. Stop wringing
your pink hats over that blubbering lout Trump and get busy now
stopping DeSantis. He, and the movement he represents, is the real
menace in this country.

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

 

RE: THE TOO-LARGE-FOR LIFE HARRY BRIDGES

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

Movies! Movies! We need films and or TV series about people like Harry
Bridges. We have surrendered our cultural heritage to our wealthy
rulers.

Charles Patrick Lynch
Posted on xxxxxx's Facebook page
[[link removed]]

 

RE: WHAT THE SAUDI-IRAN DEAL MEANS FOR PALESTINE, ISRAEL, THE U.S.,
AND THE MIDEAST
 

Solid analysis but...
Don't think that Washington will simply let this pass without throwing
a monkey wrench or ten into the mix. Still, well done

Rob Prince

 

RE: SUNDAY SCIENCE: EVEN WITH QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT, THERE’S NO
FASTER-THAN-LIGHT COMMUNICATION
 

Siegel's insistence that information cannot travel faster than the
speed of light rests, to some extent, on the distinction between
measuring and forcing. He says, as part of the experimental setup:

* You have an observer at the destination look for some sort of
signal, and force their entangled particles into either the +1 state
(for a positive signal) or a -1 state (for a negative signal).

I don't see the need for this forcing, which is the step that destroys
the experiment. However, I'm just curious about this. It's not my
primary objection. That would be to this argument:

* For many, the notion of quantum entanglement, which can be
maintained even over very large distances, leads to the hope that it
could someday be used for faster-than-light communication. 
* But there are fundamental laws for both relativity and quantum
mechanics, and even though entangled quantum states do exist and obey
arcane rules, no information can ever be exchanged
faster-than-light. 
* As a result, faster-than-light communication doesn't occur,
irrespective of what your quantum mechanical setup is. Unless
something very exotic exists, faster-than-light communication isn't
possible.

This simply says, "Nope, there are fundamental laws so
faster-than-light communication is impossible." He does allow for the
possibility of "something very exotic." Unfortunately, he, like nearly
all physicists, refuse to look at the "something very exotic" with
which they do all their work. Despite the effort by quanta to lead
them in the right direction, physicists still have nothing to say
about consciousness, which exists beyond the limitations of space and
time. 

I realize I am speaking heresy here, but until physics grapples
seriously with the phenomena revealed by studies of consciousness, it
will never resolve the conflicts encountered in quantum physics. It's
hard to see how they fail to see that quantum physics is bringing
consciousness into the scientific picture. Physics still clings to its
faith that consciousness is merely a byproduct of physical things
happening in the physical brain. Someday, I hope the consciousness of
scientists can be raised. In the meanwhile, Siegel's declaration that
"there are fundamental laws," sounds like those august scientists who
imprisoned Galileo for claiming the earth revolves around the sun.

Steve Leeper

 

BOOK TALK: LETTERS FROM LANGSTON: FROM THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE TO THE
RED SCARE AND BEYOND (THE PEOPLE'S FORUM)

 

[[link removed]]

Watch here [[link removed]]  

Join us for a talk with editor MaryLouise Patterson, in conversation
with Ruth Wilson Gilmore for a discussion on the life and legacy of
Langston Hughes and the revolutionary spirit of the Harlem
Renaissance.

Langston Hughes, one of America’s greatest writers, was an innovator
of jazz poetry and a leader of the Harlem Renaissance whose poems and
plays resonate widely today. Accessible, personal, and inspirational,
Hughes’s poems portray the African American community in struggle in
the context of a turbulent modern United States and a rising black
freedom movement. This indispensable volume of letters between Hughes
and four leftist confidants sheds vivid light on his life and
politics.

Letters from Langston
[[link removed]]
begins in 1930 and ends shortly before his death in 1967, providing a
window into a unique, self-created world where Hughes lived at ease.
This distinctive volume collects the stories of Hughes and his friends
in an era of uncertainty and reveals their visions of an idealized
world—one without hunger, war, racism, and class oppression.

 

WHAT SHOULD U.S. POLICY TOWARDS TAIWAN BE? - MARCH 29 (COMMITTEE FOR A
SANE U.S.-CHINA POLICY)

 

WEDNESDAY, MAR 29, 7:00-8:30 P.M.(EDT)

Click To Register  
[[link removed]]

What should U.S. policy toward Taiwan be? Can U.S.-Chinese military
operations and tensions over Taiwan be defused? If so, how?

With the U.S. and China engaged in provocative military operations in
and near Taiwan or miscalculation could trigger a catastrophic
U.S.-Chinese war, very possibly nuclear, in which other nations,
including Japan and South Korea, would be involved.

The Biden Administration and a confrontational Congress have
undermined the “One China” policy which since 1979 has served as
the foundation of U.S.-China relations since 1979. The planned visit
of Taiwanese President Tsai to the United States in late March and
early April is certain to further exacerbate U.S.-Chinese tensions.
Meanwhile, in closing China’s National People’s Congress earlier
this month, President Xi Jinping stressed the need for “national
reunification” with Taiwan as the “essence of national
rejuvenation,” making Taiwan’s relationship with China a primary
issue for his third term in office.

Other ways are possible. Join China scholars Zhiqun Zhu, Mike
Mochizuki, and Michael Klare in exploring alternative U.S. policies
that we can press on Congress and the Biden Administration.

* ZHIQUN ZHU is Professor of Political Science and International
Relations at Bucknell University. He was inaugural Director of the
China Institute, and MacArthur Chair in East Asian politics. Dr. Zhu
is a member of the National Committee on United States-China Relations
and is frequently quoted by U.S. and international media on Chinese
and Asian affairs. He is a member of the Cttee. for a Sane U.S.-China
Policy’s steering committee.

* MIKE MOCHIZUKI is the Japan-U.S. Relations Chair in Memory at the
Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington
University. Dr. Mochizuki was director of the Sigur Center for Asian
Studies from 2001 to 2005. He co-directs the "Memory and
Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific" research and policy project of the
Sigur Center. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings
Institution. 

* MICHAEL KLARE is professor emeritus of peace and world-security
studies at Hampshire College, Co-Chair of the Committee for a Sane
U.S.-China Policy, The Nation’s defense correspondent, and senior
visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C. He
is the author of 15 books, including most recently, All Hell Breaking
Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change
[[link removed]].

COMMITTEE FOR A SANE U.S.-CHINA POLICY | 4 WASHBURN STREET, WATERTOWN,
MA 02472

 

HOW WORKERS WIN: REBUILDING LABOR'S POWER FOR THE 21ST CENTURY - MAY 5
(CUNY SCHOOL OF LABOR & URBAN STUDIES)

 

[[link removed]]

HOW WORKERS WIN:
Rebuilding Labor's Power for the 21st Century
 

FRIDAY, MAY 5, 2023 * 9:30AM - 5:00PM E.T.
 

Participate *in-person* at CUNY SLU in Midtown Manhattan 
or *virtually* via Zoom!
 

Join us for a day-long discussion of exciting new developments in the
labor movement, from recent union organizing efforts, to building
power through bargaining and strikes, and to political campaigns
outside the workplace that expand workers’ power.

*** 

Click here to register [[link removed]].
[link removed]

JOIN US FOR A DAY-LONG DISCUSSION OF EXCITING NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE
LABOR MOVEMENT. We begin the day with an exploration of recent
organizing efforts and strategies to establish or expand unions in a
variety of settings, including some of the largest global employers as
well as sectors where organizing is spreading rapidly.  

Winning union representation is only one step towards building worker
power. Beyond winning elections, workers must be able to bargain a
contract and potentially engage in successful strikes. As an
alternative to elections, gains can be achieved through workplace
direct action. Our second panel addresses workers’ efforts to build
power through bargaining, contracts and strikes. 

The third panel features presentations on how workers are building
political power outside the workplace itself, through legislative
campaigns, policy work, and electoral programs.  

The conference also features a keynote address during the lunch hour
by Jennifer Abruzzo, General Counsel of the National Labor Relations
Board, who will offer her reflections on this important moment in
worker organizing.

SESSION I:  "EXPANDING THE LABOR MOVEMENT:  NEW ORGANIZING”

_Chair:  RUTH MILKMAN
[[link removed]] - CUNY School of
Labor and Urban Studies_

ERIC BLANC [[link removed]] (Rutgers
University):

“Do-It-Yourself Unionism: Its Rise, Tensions, and Lessons”

LARRY ENGELSTEIN
[[link removed]] (formerly SEIU 32BJ):

“The 32BJ Experience: Organizing Low-Wage Service Workers, Raising
Wages and Expanding Benefits

— the Role of Market Strategies and Institutional Power and
Resources”

KAVITHA IYENGAR
[[link removed]] (United Auto Workers):

“Revolutionizing Higher Education Organizing: How New Organizing and
Striking Changed an Industry”

TAMARA L. LEE [[link removed]] (Rutgers
University) and MAITE TAPIA
[[link removed]] (Michigan State
University):

“Worker Organizing in Response to Racialized Employment Practices at
Amazon”

_Luncheon Keynote:_  JENNIFER ABRUZZO
[[link removed]]

(General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board)

_Chair:  __ELLEN DICHNER
[[link removed]]__ - CUNY School of
Labor and Urban Studies_

SESSION II: “BUILDING WORKPLACE POWER:  BARGAINING, CONTRACTS AND
STRIKES”

_Chair:  __STEPHANIE LUCE
[[link removed]]__ - CUNY School of
Labor and Urban Studies_

YADHIRA ALVAREZ
[[link removed]] (Workers United,
SEIU):

"Winning at the Bargaining Table: Lessons for New Organizing"

CARLOS ARAMAYO [[link removed]] (UNITE
HERE Local 26):

“When We Strike, We Win? Reimagining the Strike for the Twenty-First
Century”

SARITA GUPTA [[link removed]] (Ford
Foundation):

“Organizing for a Better Democracy through New Models of Collective
Bargaining”

BOB MASTER [[link removed]] (formerly
Communication Workers of America - District One):

"Rethinking the Strike:  Labor's Most Powerful Weapon"

BEN WILKINS [[link removed]] (Union of
Southern Service Workers):

“Whatever It Takes: Building the Union of Southern Service
Workers”

SESSION III:   “BUILDING LABOR’S POLITICAL POWER”

_Chair:  __SAMIR SONTI
[[link removed]]__ (CUNY School of
Labor and Urban Studies)_

JEREMY BLASI
[[link removed]] and AARON GREENBERG
[[link removed]] (UNITE HERE Local 11):

“Organizing L.A.:  Power and Politics in Los Angeles's Tourism
Sector and Beyond”

VEENA DUBAL [[link removed]] (Hastings
College of the Law, University of California):

“Organizing Against Data Extraction at Work:  Lessons from the
On-Demand Economy"

PUYA GERAMI [[link removed]] (Yale
University / SEIU 1199 New England):

“Building Strategic Alignment at the State Level:  A Case Study
from Connecticut”

NIKIL SAVAL
[[link removed]] (Pennsylvania State
Senate):

"Organizing and Elections: Reflections on the Inside-Outside Strategy"

[[link removed]]

CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies [[link removed]]
25 West 43rd Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10036

* Reader Comments
[[link removed]]
* Banks
[[link removed]]
* Bank failures
[[link removed]]
* Silicon Valley Bank
[[link removed]]
* Deregulation
[[link removed]]
* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
* federal reserve
[[link removed]]
* interest rates
[[link removed]]
* Pentagon Budget
[[link removed]]
* GOP
[[link removed]]
* Iraq War
[[link removed]]
* weapons of mass destruction
[[link removed]]
* George W. Bush
[[link removed]]
* jim crow
[[link removed]]
* Jim Crow race laws
[[link removed]]
* South
[[link removed]]
* Racism
[[link removed]]
* African Americans
[[link removed]]
* UAW
[[link removed]]
* United Automobile Workers
[[link removed]]
* Science
[[link removed]]
* Langston Hughes
[[link removed]]
* Harlem Renaissance
[[link removed]]
* Red Scare
[[link removed]]
* U.S. foreign policy
[[link removed]]
* Taiwan
[[link removed]]
* China
[[link removed]]
* Labor Movement
[[link removed]]
* Labor Organizing
[[link removed]]
* Trade Unions
[[link removed]]
* Labor politics
[[link removed]]
* Cartoons
[[link removed]]
* resources
[[link removed]]
* Announcements
[[link removed]]

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

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

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