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When Herman Benson writes about the labor movement, I read with interest what he has to say, knowing that his last 50 years as head of the Association for Union Democracy (AUD) represent only the most recent part of an even longer career in the labor movement that began when he was a machinist in the auto industry and a member of the United Auto Workers after World War II.
If you’re a friend of labor, liberal or radical, Rich Trumka’s invitation applies to you. He’s asking for your thoughts on how the AFL-CIO can get ready for the future. (As you know, unions have not been doing so well these days, and maybe someone can come up with some good ideas.) Toward that end, he posted questions on the internet submitted by seven presumed notables, including former labor secretary Robert Reich and In These Times labor editor David Moberg. Within a few electronic moments, over a thousand comments poured in.
A reform caucus in the Newark Teachers Union (NTU) made remarkable gains in the union election that ended on Friday. Out of about 3,000 members eligible to vote, 1,200 NTU members cast their ballots. (Sadly, that proportion is about par for US unions.) The New Visions candidate for President lost by only 9 votes to the long-time chief, Joe Del Grosso, who will now serve his 10th two-year term.
The execrable Maggie Thatcher, erstwhile British prime minister, passed on April 8 with much rending of clothing by her nation’s Right but with something approaching joy by much of the nation’s rest. The following sendoff appears in the Summer 2013 Democratic Left, minus its last graf slapping the endlessly slappable Slavoj Zizek for writing that the Left could learn from her.
The following letter from me was published in the Boston Globe on June 26, 2013.
June 18, 2013
The Boston Globe
To the Editor:
During the past two years, the Campaign for Peace and Democracy has released official statements in broad support of the Syrian revolution: CPD Salutes Syria’s Courageous Democratic Movement and Message of Condolence and Solidarity from U.S. Peace Activists to the Syrian People. What follows, however, is not an official position but rather a personal statement by CPD’s co-directors about the current situation.
Book Review: David Black and Chris Ford. 1839: The Chartist Insurrection. Foreword by John McDonnell, M.P. London: Unkant Publishers, 2011. 233 pages. Chronology. Illustrations. Appendices. Index. £10.99.
[Mass protests have been taking place in all the major cities of Brazil for the past week, beginning with a demand to reduce bus fares and expanding into a mass movement that demands improvements in all public services, health, education, and working peoples’ rights.
Our country was at the forefront of social and political struggles in the 1980s, and succeeded in preventing the introduction of neoliberalism in Brazil, so that Latin America’s “lost decade” was, for social movements and popular politicians in our country, exactly the opposite.
Maybe we are not organized, but we are neither apolitical nor without ideology. We were only afraid, because we are the daughters and sons of a generation, killed and tortured to death just before and after the military coup of September 12, 1980 in Turkey. But, we have now learned that cowards die many times before their deaths. We went beyond the fear threshold and achieved the collective confidence that one smells in the air.
Havaar: Iranian Initiative Against War, Sanctions and State Repression is a grassroots group of Iranians, Iranian-Americans and allies who have joined together to categorically oppose any military action and the U.S.-led sanctions against Iran. They stand in solidarity with the Iranian people’s struggle against war and sanctions and against state repression; all of these forms of violence, they insist, hurt the lives and aspirations of ordinary Iranians.
Human trafficking is an issue so entirely abhorrent, it seems that it would be impossible to inappropriately address it. And yet a forthcoming paper (to be published in by Dr. Hebah Farrag, Richard Flory and Brie Loskota) argues that often religious organizations fail to get the job done right.
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