Tidbits – Apr4 2024 – Reader Comments: Demand Ceasefire, Stop Killing Civilians; Israelis Threatened by Ceasefire?; Worse Than Dobbs?; the Black Scholar Journal: Legacies, Futures of Black Radicalism-Apr 6&7; Celebrating Pittsburgh’s Anne Feeney-May1

Reader Comments: Demand Ceasefire, Stop Killing Civilians; Why Do Israelis Feel So Threatened by Ceasefire?; Worse Than Dobbs?; The Black Scholar Journal: Legacies and Futures of Black Radicalism-Apr 6 & 7; Celebrating Pittsburgh’s Anne Feeney-May 1

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Tidbits - Reader Comments, Announcements AND cartoons - Apr. 4, 2024,Portside

Announcements:

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If You Didn't Want Us to Kill All Those Palestinians  --  Cartoon by Jeff Danziger

Jeff Danziger
March 29, 3024
The Rutland Herald

 

Re: Worse Than Dobbs? Not an April Fool
 

If the court rules against the use of Mifepristone my understanding is that it will potentially carry over to cover the ability of various government agencies like the FDA to establish regulations and protections over all aspects of life, e.g. the EPA. Congress establishes general guidelines and then the agencies and their experts write the guidelines. If the SCOTUS rules against Mifepristone it will undermine a basic functioning of government that we take for granted. Already corporations have a big influence over many of these regulations but this would make it worse. It would be Steve Bannon’s dream of ending the administrative state, much of corporate America’s goal to eliminate barriers to profits.

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EXCERPT:
“On the way to overturning Roe, conservatives made it both harder for doctors to provide abortions and for patients to feasibly access them. Never mind that these policies were shown to drastically increase maternal mortality and infant death because of how they hampered access to reproductive health care, especially for people of color. Conservatives never cared and pressed on, chipping away at access and destabilizing the legal basis of universal abortion access.

That’s where we are now with contraception. Mifepristone is one medication used along the continuum of reproductive care. Destabilize the authorities and processes associated with its distribution and you’ve begun to pave the path for attacks on other reproductive medications: First, mifepristone, then Plan B, then the pill.”

Dave Lott
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Why Do Israelis Feel So Threatened by a Ceasefire?
 

This is a profoundly "spot on" piece. You, Meron Rapoport, have nailed it

Thank you

I do some speaking on this issue - tomorrow in Raton, New Mexico and I shall refer to this piece

R. Prince
robertjprince.wordpress.com

 

World Central Kitchen  --  Cartoon by Nick Anderson
 

Nick Anderson
April 2, 2024
Reform Austin

 

Re: First City-Wide Rent Reduction in the History of New York State Upheld by Appellate Court
 

One of many effects of the election of socialists and progressives to office in NYS has been the expansion of rent regulation statewide. NYS municipalities were allowed to opt into rent regulation in 2019 and Kingston, a lovely city on the Hudson Rivers did so. It voted to lower rents. The story of  decision, upheld by an appellate court, is the subject of John Mage's report here. As Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party seek to expand the power of the left, strong housing and environmental protections are in the balance. Which servants of the land and fossil fuel lords will you work to defeat? Thanks to Portside for circulating the essay which I had missed.

Daniel Millstone
Post on Facebook

 

I Am A Crook  --  Cartoon by Jeff Stahler
 

Jeff Stahler
March 26, 2024 (original cartoon 2019)
Editorial & Political Cartoons

 

Re: Republicans’ New Border Target: Migrant Aid Groups
 

Demonizing migrants, building taller walls, putting up dangerous razor wire, calling for unrealistic mass deportations, and bussing migrants to cities unprepared to meet them or forcing them to remain in Mexico in unsafe circumstances—38 died in a migrant shelter fire in Ciudad Juarez last March, while in recent years thousands have been kidnapped, raped, murdered, drowned or died in the desert—will not make America safer.

The only way to make America safer is to provide enough funding so migrants and refugees can be adequately vetted, cared for, and resettled in communities that want and need their labor.

Dave

 

Ronna McDaniel's New Gig  --  Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

 

Mike Luckovich
March 28, 2024
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

Re: This Week in People’s History, Apr 2–8
 

I very much appreciate these emails. But there is no such thing as snail mail. Real people collect, distribute, and deliver real mail.

Jon Weissman

 

Re: The Forgotten History of Hitler’s Establishment Enablers
 

One point --to consider the "volkisch" movement a form of simple populism leaves out its "blood and soil" elements, the idea that a people and its physical land are inextricably linked. There was a weird mysticism to the "volkisch" movement that has more in common with some of the woo-woo new agey stuff of today than what Americans think of as simple economic "populism." Hence the otherwise bizarre-seeming crossover that produces "crunchy Neo-Nazis."

Eleanor Roosevelt
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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For a focus on Hitler accession to power, try Adam Gopnik's https://www.facebook.com/AdamGopnik review here (courtesy of Portside).

Daniel Millstone
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Maker of Wegovy, Ozempic Showers Money on U.S. Obesity Doctors

(posting on Portside Culture)

I am quite bothered by this super detailed and lengthy article on Wegovy and the amount of money showered on the medical profession pushing this drug.  It reads more like an endorsement than anything akin to a critical analysis of the politics of the medical industry.  What would have been more honest is a critique of the dangers of almost every drug on the market.  It would have been more informative if it was an analysis of the corporate, profit making structure that is funded by the US taxpayer $$$$$.

It would have been super important to note that more than 50% of all drugs are no better or worse than placebos and everyone of them causes harm, either short or longer term or both.  The data always seem to show how few people benefit and how they are never curative, including this drug which even your article notes has the goal of life long use by patients.

Obesity is not an inherent disease or biochemical defect.  It is a problem of life style, heavily based on toxic and nutrient deficient foods.  It is an environmental problem of assaulting our body with endocrine disrupting chemicals in foods, household cleansers, body products and the general environment that are artificially imposed on people.  The rest of the world does not suffer from obesity unless and until those people are bombarded with the toxic foods from the US like GMO and glyphosate treated foods or agriculture chemicals or other toxic products.  Peoples from other countries with normally slender and healthy people develop the same problems as Americans when they immigrate here and start eating American foods which are deficient and toxic even is they try to eat their ancient diet.  Our soils just cannot
produce the same quality food as they are deficient of critical minerals for the plants and animals.

Without this kind of critical analysis your article reads more like an endorsement of these drugs being pushed onto the public and makes me wonder how much funding you receive from this nefarious industry.

FYI, Ozempic has also come under heavy criticism as it harms when normative body biochemistry can produce a healthier response when fed properly with clean food and supplements and other holistic protocols that are neither harmful nor required for life except for the clean food.

Tanya Marquette

 

Online  -  The Black Scholar Journal : Legacies and Futures of Black Radicalism  -  April 6 & 7

 


 

Scholars and activists discuss The Black Scholar journal , including issues of radicalism, gender, internationalism, media.

9:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Saturday Panel 1:

Christopher J. Lee, Nicholas Grant, Armond Towns, Mohamed Elnaiem, Ray Black ; moderator: Lynn Thomas

12:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Saturday Round Table : Black Radicalism

3:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Saturday Panel 2:

Joe Parrott, Daniel Widener; Ray Black (paper presented by Laura Chrisman); moderator: Raj Chetty

9:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Sunday Round Table 1: Black Radicalism

Sam Anderson, Horace Campbell,Jimmy Garrett, Gerald Lenoir, Jamala Rogers; moderator: Dan Berger

12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Sunday Panel

Julian Glover, Fred Moten, Femi Taiwo, James West, Komozi Woodard; moderator, Avu Chaturvedi

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Sunday Round Table 2 : Black Radicalism

Abdul Alkalimat, Melba Boyd, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Stan West; moderator: Armond Towns

4:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Conference Wrap up

Roundtables:

JoNina Abron-Ervin, Abdul Alkalimat, Sam Anderson, Herb Boyd, Melba Boyd, Horace Campbell, Bill Fletcher, Jr. , Jimmy Garrett, Gerald Lenoir, Jamala Rogers, Akinyele Umoja, Stan West

Paper presenters and topics:

  • Ray Black, Black Masculinity; Pedagogy and Education (two papers)
  • Mohamed Elnaiem, National liberation and decolonization
  • Julian Glover, Theories of Black genders and sexualities
  • Nicholas Grant, Anti-apartheid solidarity
  • Christopher J. Lee, Black engagement with Vietnam/Asia
  • Fred Moten, TBS Interviews and the poetics of the interview form
  • Joe Parrott, Global Third World/Tricontinental issues
  • Olufemi Taiwo, The Erasure of African knowledge in global discourse
  • Armond Towns, Media in Black studies, TBS, and contemporary society
  • E. James West, A Place Apart: The Black Scholar Writes Black Chicago
  • Daniel Widener, Internal colonialism, Cuba, TBS as a Black and Thirdworld space
  • Komozi Woodard, Malcolm X and Revolutionary Women: 21 Sisters in the Making of Black Liberation

Reserve a Spot - Click here

 

Celebrating Pittsburgh’s Hellraiser Anne Feeney  --  Pittsburgh  --  May 1

 

FEATURING EMMA’S REVOLUTION, PITTSBURGH LABOR CHOIR, LIZ BERLIN, EVAN GREER, AND MORE!

Wednesday, May 01, 2024

Doors: 6:00 pm / Show: 6:45 pm

MR. SMALLS THEATRE
Price: FREE! (Suggested Donation $25)

RSVP  

Celebrating the life and music of Anne Feeney.

12pm: Panel Discussion at the Heinz History Museum.

6pm: Concert at the Mr. Smalls Theatre.

This Event Is All Ages

MR. SMALLS THEATRE
400 LINCOLN AVENUE
MILLVALE, PA