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Egypt - Year One Anniversary - "Day of Dignity" Friday; Some Lessons; Generals Still in Charge
1. Excited Revolutionaries to Return to Tahrir With 'Day of Dignity' Friday (Ekram Ibrahim in Ahram Online)
2. Year One of the Egyptian Revolution: Some Lessons (Roger Owen in Egypt Independent)
3. Generals Still in Charge - Tough Days Ahead in Egypt (Carl Finamore) [...]
Killing Pensions to Benefit the 1 Percent
by Lee A. Saunders
Huffington Post
January 12, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-a-saunders/wall-street-journal-pensions_b_1200101.html
Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, the Pravda of the 1 percent, is at it again, continuing its push to gut the retirement security of millions of middle class workers across the country while enriching the Wall Street moneymen who just three years ago took our economy over the cliff. [...]
Bill Mardo, Writer Who Pushed Baseball to Integrate, Dies at 88
By Richard Goldstein
New York Times Published: January 24, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/sports/baseball/bill-mardo-writer-who-pushed-baseball-to-integrate-dies-at-88.html?_r=1
Bill Mardo, a sportswriter for the Communist Party newspaper The Daily Worker who fought major league baseball's color barrier in the 1940s when the mainstream American news media was largely silent on the subject, died Friday in Manhattan. He was 88. [...]
The Occupy Effect
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
TheNation.com Blog January 26, 2012
http://www.thenation.com/blog/165883/occupy-effect
I don't know how Occupy Wall Street will impact the 2012 election, but one thing seems pretty clear: it's changed the national conversation.
A few short months ago, the corporate media and inside-the- Beltway chatter was all debt and deficits, all the time.
Occupy changed that. It reset the media narrative so it's more aligned with the true crises of our times - income inequality, downward mobility, and economic fairness. It's also renewed attention to corporate accountability and the corrosive role of corporate money in politics. [...]
The State of the Union and the GOP Response - Carl Davidson and Laura Flanders
1. We're All in the Same Boat? - On the Topic of Obama, the GOP Can't Even Blush Anymore (Carl Davidson)
2. Not a Peep About the President's Praise for War (Laura Flanders)
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We're All in the Same Boat?
On the Topic of Obama, the GOP Can't Even Blush Anymore [...]
At MoMA
Hal Foster
LRB . Vol. 34 No. 2 . 26 January 2012 pages 30-31 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n02/hal-foster/at-moma [follow the link for several mural reproductions]
It comes as a surprise to learn that the second artist given a major show at the Museum of Modern Art was Diego Rivera, for when the exhibition opened in December 1931, the 45-year-old Mexican was already a celebrated Communist. Just as surprising, given that the museum was founded by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and friends, is what Rivera chose to display: five fresco panels devoted to Mexican history from the perspective of the recent revolution, and [...]
AFL-CIO's Trumka Acknowledges Labor's Divisions Over Keystone Pipeline
by Mike Elk
Working In These Times January 17, 2012
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12552/afl-cios_trumka_acknowledges_labors_divisions_over_keystone_pipeline/
On Thursday January 12, at the UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke publicly about divisions in the labor movement over the proposed Keystone Pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico if built. [...]
Greece: Independent Left MP--"The Rulers Are Scared"
Sofia Sakorafa interviewed by the Greek journal Marxist Thought
translated by Christos Kefalis and Afrodity Giannakis for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
http://links.org.au/node/2705
At the October 26, 2011, European summit it was agreed to slash Greece’s debt on the condition that a new, draconian austerity package and “memorandum”be carried out by the Greek government. After the agreement and a mass wave of protests on October 28, a referendum was announced by Prime Minister George Papandreou, only to be revoked a few days later. There then followed an endless series of negotiations, which [...]
Egypt's Anti-SCAF Protests Eclipse Tahrir Square Anniversary Festivities
By Bel Trew Ahram Online January 25, 2012
After hundreds of thousands converge on flashpoint square, some revolutionary groups hunker down for open-ended sit-in against military rule
http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/32814.aspx
[ Video: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentMulti/32815/Multimedia.aspx ]
As the first anniversary of the Egyptian revolution draws to a close, hundreds of thousands of protesters remain in Tahrir Square, which, many claim, saw a bigger turnout today than on 11 February of last year - the day that longstanding president Hosni Mubarak stepped down. [...]
1 Gingrich's Anti-Muslim Sugar Daddy Funded Film Shown To NYPD
2 Jewish Groups Condemn NYPD's Use of Anti-Muslim Propaganda =========================================
1
Gingrich's Anti-Muslim Sugar Daddy Funded Film Shown To NYPD
By Adam Serwer Tue Jan. 24, 2012 9:00 AM PST http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/01/gingrich-anti-muslim-adelson-clarion
The New York Police Department, currently facing criticism from Muslim and civil liberties groups over a CIA-advised program that involved "mapping" the city's Muslim enclaves, showed an anti-Muslim training video to thousands of officers, the New York Times reports. The film purports to describe the centuries-long process by which Muslims are seeking to dominate the planet, and in particular [...]
Labor Takes Early Shots At Romney, Republicans--On and Off Air WEDNESDAY JAN 25, 2012 6:27 PM DAVID MOBERG http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12621/labor_takes_early_shots_at_romney_republicans--on_and_off_air/
Without a Democratic presidential primary contest, unions this year are taking early potshots at Republican primary candidates--especially Mitt Romney--and other GOP leaders through radio and TV ads, as well as other means.
The aim seems less to influence Republican primary voters than to define Romney, who until this week following Newt Gingrich's South Carolina primary victory was the front-runner in the race, and to gain leverage on other labor issues by tying them to high-profile Republicans vulnerable to bad publicity. [...]
Tidbits, January 24, 2012
1 Portside and Earthlink - problems continue - message from Portside Moderator 2 "Can the Labor Movement and Occupy Wall Street March down the Same Road?" - New York City - Jan. 27 3 Re: Fighting a Forbidden Battle: How I Stopped Covering Up for a Hidden Wrong (Nancy Rubin Mikelsons) 4 Re: Controversial Killer Flu Research Paused (Beth Moriarty) 5 Re: Chicago City Council Passes Rahm Emanuel's Anti- Protest Ordinances (Madeline Breslin) 6 Re: Red Tails in the Sunset (Dave Ecklein, Jim Williams) [...]
Historic Online March Celebrates Roe v. Wade
NATIONAL ONLINE MARCH SUPPORTS REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE / HEALTH / RIGHTS
Posted to portside by Ellen Shaffer.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - January 22, 2012- Americans in support of reproductive justice, health and rights are having our say on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade without having to take a plane, bus or car. With just one click on their computers, mobile phones or iPads, marchers from Hawaii to Maine are linking up in a national online march targeting Congress, governors and state legislatures. [...]
Students Step Up Tucson Walkouts
Protest School District Folly and Mexican American Studies Banishment
By Jeff Biggers Common Dreams January 24, 2012
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/24-2
As the nation watches the Tucson Unified School District’s spiral into disarray, hundreds of students walked out of their Tucson schools Monday in a coordinated protest against the banishment of the district’s acclaimed Mexican American Studies program.
Pouring into the downtown Tucson area from Pueblo, Cholla and Tucson high schools, among other institutions, the students brought their march to the offices of floundering Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) administrators. In recent days, administrators and board members have [...]
More Lockouts as Companies Battle Unions
By Steven Greenhouse
The New York Times January 23, 2012 (posted January 22)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/business/lockouts-once-rare-put-workers-on-the-defensive.html
America's unionized workers, buffeted by layoffs and stagnating wages, face another phenomenon that is increasingly throwing them on the defensive: lockouts.
From the Cooper Tire factory in Findlay, Ohio, to a country club in Southern California and sugar beet processing plants in North Dakota, employers are turning to lockouts to press their unionized workers to grant concessions after contract negotiations deadlock. Even the New York City Opera locked out its orchestra and singers for more than a week before settling [...]
Apple's Chinese factories to be audited after violation of working conditions
Local HR practice blamed, but suicides, long working hours and disciplinary wage deductions give cause for concern
By Juliette Garside guardian.co.uk, January 24, 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/24/apple-factories-china-independent-audit
The man's hand is twisted into a claw, crushed, he says by a metal press at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, where Apple's luxury electronics are assembled. He is looking at an iPad - he has never seen one switched on. His mangled hand strokes the screen, bringing it to life. [...]
Not all jobs are equal A lower unemployment rate isn't enough. Americans need work that pays the bills. By Jonathan Tasini Los Angeles Times January 24, 2012 http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-tasini-high-unemployment-is-just-part-of-the-20120124,0,4204870.story
Politicians bickering over private equity's impact on jobs and how to bring down the high unemployment rate are entirely missing the point about the crisis facing working Americans. The predicament we face isn't simply that there are too few jobs; it's also that an increasing number of workers don't have the kind of job that can pay the bills. [...]
(1) Longshore Union, Occupy Poised to Greet Grain Ship by Eduardo Soriano-Castillo Labor Notes January 23, 2012
http://labornotes.org/2012/01/longshore-union-occupy-poised-greet-grain-ship
Conflict is looming over a grain exporter's attempt to use scab labor to load a freighter in Longview, Washington. Occupiers and Longshore unionists-who blocked a train in September-expect a heavily armed police presence, but their own friction is adding difficulties.
Waiting somewhere in the Columbia River is a freighter. The transnational grain exporter EGT wants to use scab labor to load it at the small Washington state port of Longview and send it to Asia. [...]
Obama's Choice on Housing: A Sweetheart Deal for the 1% or a Fair Deal for the 99%
by Van Jones and George Goehl
Published on Monday, January 23, 2012 by Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/23-5
Rumor has it that as early as today, after months of negotiation with big banks, the White House may announce a settlement that would let the banks off the hook for their role in the foreclosure crisis -- paying a tiny fraction of what's needed in exchange for blanket immunity from future lawsuits. [...]
Egypt Today, One Year Later
A Revolution Revisited
By Carl Finamore
January 21, 2012
Submitted to portside
Cairo, Egypt - One year ago in February 2011, getting to Egypt wasn't that easy.
Back then, my London flight crew suddenly refused, in midair, to layover in Cairo. Instead, we touched down in Athens where the airline did not actually even have formal landing rights. As a result, we were confined to the aircraft as it sat on the tarmac. [...]
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