Paul Robeson, Spain, 1938 – “The artist cannot hold himself aloof”
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Author Archives: wibailoutpeople
The Grass Is Greener: On the 2nd anniversary of Charlottesville, we decided to examine white supremacy and fascism
UFCW: Protecting your constitutional rights during a workplace raid
http://www.ufcw.org/2019/07/16/raids/
n the United States, every person — whether documented or undocumented — has the constitutional right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions of the police, FBI, or ICE, whether on the street, in a car, or at home.
Under the law, ICE must have proof you are not from the United States to deport you.
If you are questioned by ICE, you are NOT required to reveal any information, such as your name, address, or home country. If you are questioned or detained, however, it usually is a good idea to give your name so that friends, family, or your attorney can locate you.
To report a raid use United We Dream National Raid Hotline 1-854-363-1423 or send a text message to 877877
Teamsters Stand in Solidarity with UFCW, Condemn Mississippi Raids on Workers
WASHINGTON, Aug. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — The Teamsters Union stands with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) as it works to protect its members against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that are tearing families apart. Federal authorities raided two Mississippi food processing plants represented by UFCW yesterday and arrested scores of union members there.
“The Teamsters Union is speaking up in support of hardworking union members and their right to a fair and secure workplace,” said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters General President. “The assault on workers must stop now. We want UFCW members and all our brothers and sisters in the labor movement to know that we support you. Our strength is in our unity, and we are calling for an end to policies that hurt workers and tear families apart.”
Hoffa noted that it is more important now than at any time in recent history that unions and workers stand up for workplace rights, due process and justice.
“An attack on any one worker is an attack on our shared goal of lifting up all workers in our country,” Hoffa said. “We need comprehensive immigration reform, but we also need humane policies that respect workers and their families.”
Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit for more https://teamster.org/https://teamster.org/. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and “like” us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/teamsters.
CWA Statement on Mass Raids in Mississippi
https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/cwa-statement-on-mass-raids-in-mississippi
Friday, August 9, 2019
Washington, D.C. – The Communications Workers of America released the following statement in response to the raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Mississippi of a Koch Foods, Inc. plant in Morton and a Peco Foods, Inc. plant in Canton:
This week’s act of rounding up nearly 700 working men and women – and members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) family – is an assault on all working people. Families have been ripped apart and children have been left without parents on their first day of school. Donald Trump’s single-minded focus on attacking working-class, immigrant communities further exposes the deep racist and anti-worker policies of his administration.”
Breaking up families should not be America’s immigration priority. Workers across the country live in fear of standing up for their rights to report wage theft, dangerous work conditions, sexual assault, trafficking or criminal or workplace issues. Administration actions like today’s only increase fear, push working families into the shadows and do not make America safe or “great.”
CWA urges all union and non-union, immigrant and non-immigrant workers to call on their members of Congress and the President to fix our nation’s broken immigration system and immediately stop the use of raids as an anti-worker tactic against immigrant families.
Press Contact:
Amy Fetherolf
(202) 434-1168
afetherolf@cwa-union.orgBeth Allen
(202) 434-1168
ballen@cwa-union.org
In Defense Of Our Lives: On the 2nd Anniversary of Charlottesville
Follow IN DEFENSE OF OUR LIVES: Build a unified movement against white supremacist/fascistic forces, for a Peoples’ Platform and a mass spring mobilization to announce our new unity.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Indefenseofourlives/
Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/Indefenseofourlives/
__________
“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause?”
The above words are part of the final statement given by Sophie Scholl on February 22nd, 1943, before she was executed by the Nazis for distributing anti-Nazi propaganda. She would end in contrasting the brightness of the day with the dark fate that awaited her and her cohorts, including an older brother, before acknowledging the importance of self-sacrifice. A bold and courageous stance and act in face of Nazism; a tragic fate for someone so young, not yet 22; a beautiful self elegy.
However, what value is there in empty memorializing? The German Nazi regime may have been defeated, but the conditions that gave birth to Nazism remain, and, in fact, the political and material reality that exists today present a far greater threat to the planet. And, from whence the Nazis sprang, the current crises too owe their existence.
Two years ago, in Charlottesville, Virginia, ultra right protesters under the slogan Unite the Right led a large contingent of racists through the UVA campus and the next day in Lee Park, one of them driving through a crowd of progressive people marching to quiet the ultra right, really fascistic threat, and in the act, a young woman, Heather Heyer was killed and several people, including DeAndre Harris, severely beaten by Confederate flag waving, Nazi waving thugs.
This was not a lone demonstration. It did not come after years, not days of relative peace, where there existed harmonious equality. The rancor of ultra right wing, white supremacist thought has grown and has more greatly fouled the air, but it has not been in hiding. Those that espouse the reactionary and injurious beliefs have become more vociferous, as they had yet another standard bearer in the White House.
There is power in ideas, and, can come a thing of beauty or wretchedness, freedom or enslavement. So, whence do the prevailing ideas of today come? The wealth of the U.S. and of the western world was begotten by such beliefs as those highlighted above and by the naked aggression of seizing, enslaving and mass murder. One could stand blindfolded before a calendar, press their finger upon it and are likely to land on a day where some dark and tragic event is or should be commemorated—the event due to legal or extralegal violence, the likes of which helped to found the U.S. or to maintain its predominance internationally and the predominance of the White Power structure within.
However, it isn’t inevitable to be stuck in a cycle of violence, racism, crisis, poverty and destruction. It isn’t inevitable that we await another genocide or allow crimes such as the concentration camps of migrants and their families, including small children, the disappearing on indigenous women and the constant police killings of Black and Brown people, and it need not continue the continual disenfranchisement of oppressed people and the poverty that pervades oppressed communities. These things are symptoms of capitalism, just as the destruction of the environment.
There is a power in an idea and the greatest power rests in the hands of people in solidarity with one another, not solely within the confines of the U.S., but extended to the multitude of people on the planet, who suffer the from militaristic and economic violence of the most powerful nations in the western world. Let’s give ourselves to a righteous cause, to a fundamental systemic change, to stand with the oppressed, from El Paso and abroad. It may seem daunting. But, is it any more than the enslaved who dreamed of freedom, more than say enslaved Haitians, at Bois Caiman by the words of Boukman Dutty who ended his prayer calling to the “liberty which speaks in the hearts of all of us.”
__________
Follow IN DEFENSE OF OUR LIVES: Build a unified movement against white supremacist/fascistic forces, for a Peoples’ Platform and a mass spring mobilization to announce our new unity.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Indefenseofourlives/
Twitter: https://www.facebook.com/Indefenseofourlives/
Appleton, August 10, 2019: On the 2nd Anniversary of Charlottesville, Act Against White Supremacy! Honor those massacred in El Paso, Charleston, Gilroy, Dayton, Oak Creek ….
𝗢𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘃𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲 (𝗔𝘂𝗴. 𝟭𝟬-𝟭𝟭), 𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗿: 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗰𝘆 – 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗛𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗖𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀! Honor those massacred in El Paso, Dayton, Gilroy, Charleston, Orlando and too many other locations!
_____EVENT TIMES_____
Protest at Houdini Plaza, 111 W College Ave., Appleton: August 10 at 2 pm central time
Vigil at Houdini Plaza, 111 W College Ave., Appleton: August 10 at 7 pm central time
Appleton August 10 2019 Half Sheet
We hold in our hearts the memory of anti-racist activist Heather Heyer and the dozens injured by the fascists in Charlottesville. While it was a Nazi thug who murdered Heather, it is the bigot-in-chief Donald Trump, endorser of the “very fine” Nazi and Klan scum, who has enshrined their genocidal ideology as his national policy against the disabled, the LGBTQ+ community, and all People of Color.
Migrants at our southern border, who are “engaged in a federally protected activity” of seeking asylum, are having their babies ripped from their parents arms, their children kidnapped and placed in cages, women forced to drink out of toilets. Cages are so crowded that no one can even lie on the floor. Food, soap, even toothbrushes are denied them, all on the orders from Trump because of their “race” and “national origin.” This meets the very definition of a federal hate crime multiplied thousands of times.
Trump is showing off his brutality “stripes” to his rich friends on Wall Street, to show them how tough he’ll be to those who oppose their cutbacks, like the dismantling of Obamacare. We’re supposed to fight over the scraps that they grant us. That’s why they’ve poured more than $100 million into Trump’s re-election campaign. We demand that Congress immediately impeach Trump for hate crimes and dump his whole gang of rich bigots!
We ask that organizations who agree with this message organize and publicize an activity within their community on these dates. Message us to have your group’s name added to this call.
Main event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2729618263733359/?event_time_id=2729618270400025
ALSO:
Right-Wing Think Tanks, Many Based in Wisconsin, Are Responsible for Racist Climate in the United States Say Activists
Some of the right-wing organizations in Wisconsin:
Americans For Prosperity, 44 E Mifflin, Suite 400, Madison / 528 S Pier Drive, Sheboygan / 703 N Main Street, Oshkosh / 605 S. 24th Ave Suite #30 Wausau
Badger Institute (formerly the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute), 700 W. Virginia St., Suite 301, Milwaukee
The Bradley Foundation, 1400 N Water Street, Milwaukee
The John Birch Society, 770 N Westhill Blvd, Appleton
Mackinac Center: https://www.mackinac.org/
Wisconsin Institute For Law & Liberty, 1139 E Knapp St, Milwaukee
More info: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch
http://realkochfacts.com/the-koch-brothers-and-americans-for-prosperity-in-wisconsin/
Trumpism: The Nature of the Beast – Part 2
Members of the N.A.A.C.P. picket the Republic Movie Theatre in Flushing, New York, against the movie, ‘The Birth of a Nation, which was being shown there’in 1947. | Photo: Library of Congress/Corbis/Getty Images.
By Cassandra Devereaux
By 1913, the Klan had a vocal supporter in the White House in Woodrow Wilson. Wilson screened the detestable Klan “origin” film Birth Of A Nation. This was the film which directly inspired the rise of the second iteration of the organization. The film, which he compared to “writing history with lightning,” owed much to Wilson. The filmmaker admired Wilson as well. He used several quotes from the President’s text A History of the American People on title cards, including:“The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation—until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.”
Wilson (re)segregated a federal government that Blacks were making employment gains in. He fired most Blacks in supervisory positions and many more lost their jobs. Unlike his predecessors, he did not appoint Black diplomats to Haiti and Santo Domingo (today’s Dominican Republic). While presiding over the Versailles Convention of 1919, he declared a Japanese resolution recognizing racial equality defeated because it passed with a simple majority, despite the fact that the governing rules did not require unanimity in a vote. Wilson’s racism was considered beyond the pale even for the day, and journalist Oswald Garrison Villard wrote that the Wilson Administration “allied itself with the forces of reaction, and put itself on the side of every torturer, of every oppressor, of every perpetrator of racial injustice in the South or the North….” https://bit.ly/31t6rj9
PARTS I AND III
https://fighting-words.net/2019/07/21/trumpism-the-nature-of-the-beast/
https://fighting-words.net/2019/08/09/trumpism-the-nature-of-the-beast-3/https://fighting-words.net/2019/08/09/trumpism-the-nature-of-the-beast-3/https://fighting-words.net/2019/08/09/trumpism-the-nature-of-the-beast-3/
Senator Joseph McCarthy (left) with Roy Cohn during a Washington, DC, hearing in April 1954. | Photo: AP
Right-Wing ‘Think Tanks,’ Many Based in Wisconsin, Are Responsible for Anti-Worker, Racist Climate in the United States Say Activists
On the 7th Anniversary, Remember Oak Creek! Solidarity With the Sikh Community! Unite to Smash White Supremacy!
By Kris Hamel
The terror of yet another mass killing struck in the heartland of the United States on Aug. 5, when alleged shooter Wade Michael Page opened fire in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisc. Oak Creek is a suburb of about 35,000, located 12 miles south of Milwaukee. Six people were killed and three were critically injured. According to eyewitnesses, a cop killed Page as he was shooting another police officer….
It is of utmost importance that all progressive forces, including labor unionists, community and political groups, and religious figures, show strong solidarity with the Sikh community and condemn this hateful attack….
In an Aug. 6 press release from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate and bias crimes and movements, Heidi Beirich and Mark Potok called Page a white supremacist and “frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band.”
They stated: “Wade Michael Page was a member of two racist skinhead bands — End Apathy and Definite Hate, a band whose album ‘Violent Victory’ featured a gruesome drawing of a disembodied white arm punching a Black man in the face. In the drawing, the fist is tattooed with the letters ‘HFFH,’ the acronym for the phrase ‘Hammerskins Forever, Forever Hammerskins.’”
The report noted, “The Hammerskins is a nationwide skinhead organization with regional factions and chapters that once dominated the racist skinhead movement in the United States….”
Only a mass, united fightback movement against racism and fascism will stop these elements from engaging in violent, murderous acts of terror.
