Tidbits - December 23, 2010

* Jessie Cagan, 89, A Picketer for Peace Who Never Quit
  New York Legends (Tom Robbins in The Village Voice)
* Re: The Inhumane Conditions of Bradley Manning's Detention
  (Nancy Mikelsons)
* Islamophobia (Stephanie Jennings)
* Re: Largest Prison Strike in US History Ends, Ignored 
  (Gene Glickman)
* Re: Stand Up to the Hostage-Takers! Defend Social Security 
  And Medicare - Correction Needed (Elaine Hagopian)
* Re: Two Calls to End War in Afghanistan (Jerry Gilbert)
* Workers' Centers: Is It Organizing? (Mel Rothenberg and
  Joan Mencher)
* Re: Senate Repeal of DADT in Global Context (Ras Moshe)
* Re: An Historical View from the "Sanctimonious" Left 
  (Sherman Malone and Kathy Lipscomb)
* Re: REWIND - Quote of the Day - Dec. 16, 2010 - re: Jamie 
  Malanowski - Obama and Lincoln (John Case)

==========

* Jessie Cagan, 89, A Picketer for Peace Who Never Quit
New York Legends

by Tom Robbins

Village Voice
December 13, 2010

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/12/jessie_cagan_89.php

Right up until her death on December 5, you would have
spotted Jessie Cagan, one of the city's great fighting
spirits, at any number of rallies for righteous causes. In
October, she was in Washington, D.C., pushing her walker
through the streets for the "One Nation" labor rally at the
Lincoln Monument, the one that drew some 200,000 Americans
but was somehow largely ignored by a media more intrigued by
tea partiers and their wealthy supporters.

That didn't faze Cagan, who was just a week short of her
90th birthday when she died at home on the upper West Side.
She was in it for the long haul, and understood the basics
of organizing, and that media coverage is never the full
measure of how a strong movement grows.

A grandmother several times over, she was a Granny for
Peace, who marched -- or walked -- against wars with her
fellow militant elderly troops. She was a picket line
stalwart opposing conflicts in the Middle East and Central
America. "Peace was her thing," said her close friend and
constant fellow demonstrator Kathy Goldman.

She came by her activism naturally. Born in the Bronx, her
mother was a founding member of the International Ladies
Garment Workers Union. She and her late husband, Ray Cagan,
were social workers, and she worked in human resources for
several nonprofit organizations. She also passed her
militant spirit on to her children. Daughter Leslie Cagan is
the longtime leader of United for Peace and Justice, the
organizer of antiwar rallies here for two decades.

"When we were kids, she was active in the PTA and the
schools to combat segregation," said Leslie Cagan. "Some of
my earliest memories were marching in Ban the Bomb
demonstrations."

Any number of ailments -- she suffered from emphysema and
was fighting lung cancer -- should have slowed Cagan down,
but they didn't. "My mother often out-paced me," said Leslie
Cagan. "She was out there in the world for many years. I
could barely keep up with her, and I am no slouch."

Jessie Cagan leaves three children: Steve, Leslie, and
Karen, and three grandchildren -- Joanna, Shauna, Ray. A
memorial service is planned for late January.

==========

* Re: The Inhumane Conditions of Bradley Manning's Detention

This is a very important article for those not familiar with
the way 'criminal justice' works in this country.  The
conditions of Manning's detention should astonish no one.
Don't people know that Abu Gharib could exist right here in
the USA?  Don't people understand that conditions in
Guantanamo are 'portable'?  What is needed here is outrage
against the Dept of Justice under which the Federal Bureau
of Prisons and the Pentagon are demanding these conditions
for Manning.

Nancy Mikelsons
Oak Park, IL

==========

* Islamophobia

I work with San Diego based MECIC (Middle East Cultural &
Information Center).

We produced the following video in response to the film
mentioned in the article by Max Blumenthal. In it we present
some of the same arguments. We felt that atrocious fear
mongering had to be addressed.

Check out our video entitled "Obsession: a viewers guide" on
YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgVYBURuHcE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Thanks -
Stephanie Jennings
For MECIC 

==========

* Re: Largest Prison Strike in US History Ends, Ignored

It's not quite true that there was a total press blackout.
There were two articles in the Atlanta Constitution:

1) a decent one, dated December 13, covering some (but far
from all) of the points made in Joe Weber's piece. It was by
Rhonda Cook, and it was entitled, "Inmates use technology to
organize state prison protest."
http://www.ajc.com/news/inmates-use-technology-to-774862.html

2) a second, quite inferior, article (actually an opinion
piece), as reflected in its title:
"Beware cell phones in state's prisons," by Terry Bittner.
This one was dated December 21.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/beware-cell-phones-in-784902.html

Of course, The Constitution is a Georgia paper, so we might
expect that if it were covered anywhere, it would be here.
On the other hand, the fact that it was covered here and
nowhere else suggests that the strike was known by the
mainstream press and that every other paper's editor chose
to ignore it.

Ordinarily, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but what else am
I to think?

Best,

Gene Glickman

==========

* Re: Stand Up to the Hostage-Takers! Defend Social Security
And Medicare

There is no response to the "click here to take action."
You need to put in the link.

Elaine Hagopian

[Moderator's Note: Here is the URL:
http://www.ourfuture.org/savesocialsecurity

==========

* Re: Two Calls to End War in Afghanistan

These commentaries make the utmost sense. This is just one
more unwinnable war. There really is no such thing as
winning in the sense of having a clear enemy surrender. It
will never happen in Iraq, & it will never happen in
Afghanistan. We need to pull out as soon as it is safe &
practical to do so. We have wasted too many lives, supplies,
money, & time. LET'S GET OUT NOW!

Jerry Gilbert

==========

* Workers' Centers: Is It Organizing?

This article raises important issues but in the end tends to
reflect the view of the labor bureaucracy which doesn't want
outsiders impinging on their turf.  Workers Centers can
suffer from a social agency syndrome where staffers provide
services to a passive and victimized working class but of
course so do many unions. Nor are the unions innocent of
reliance on  government, and legal maneuvering rather then
mass mobilization.

The fundamental failure of the left, of which DSA leader Bob
Roman is a prominent Chicago figure, is the failure to root
ourselves organically  in the working class and in
particular with lower paid workers of color. If Workers
Centers, with all their limitations, can move us in this
direction-which I think they can- then working with and
supporting them is important, as is working with and within
trade unions.  To counter-pose such efforts, as Roman does
is not helpful.

Mel Rothenberg

===

But, if somehow a Hollywood movie of this were made, it just
maybe  might catch on and become something of an organizing
approach.

Joan Mencher

==========

* Re: Senate Repeal of DADT in Global Context

I'm happy for them. But not happy that they want to join the
military.
Thanks for all the cool reads!

Ras Moshe

==========

* Re: An Historical View from the "Sanctimonious" Left

Bravo Portside!
 
Sherman Malone

===

good piece.  

Kathy Lipscomb

==========

* Re: REWIND - Quote of the Day - Dec. 16, 2010

re: JAMIE MALANOWSKI - Obama and Lincoln

Readers should take care to follow the link to the full
'article' (actually a clever historical fiction) from which
the  quote below originates. Provided by Carl Bloice.

The quote, in fact the entire article, is clearly pregnant
with implications for the current dispute within the left
and working class movements on the tax deal before Congress.
Reading the article, one might surmise that the "Lincoln-
like" position in the controversial compromise Obama reached
with the Republicans would be to reject the tax compromise,
in the same vein as Lincoln rejected extending the Missouri
Compromise to new states in 1860. Its well known that Obama
is a longtime and serious student of things Lincoln. The tax
compromise just approved by the Senate gives ground on
continuing Bush tax cuts for the rich in exchange for
extending unemployment, preserving tax cuts for workers and
adding some additional stimulus in the form of a FICA
payroll tax cut and some other education and environmental
tax credits. The deal has a price tag of $900 billion added
to the deficit as well.

However, a better analogy to Lincoln (to my own
understanding of his tactics and character) is his refusal
to have a showdown with the South until he could maneuver
their rebellion -- and the impossibility of expanding
slavery --- into an explicit, aggressive  confrontation over
the union and survival of the entire nation. I agree with
Obama's decision not to have the showdown over the cards on
the table now in the tax compromise -- too divisive and the
waters are too muddy for showdown.

Does that mean Obama passes the Lincoln test -- we shall
see. We are not there yet. May fate, or the heavens, spare
us the 600,000 lives that scourge took. But, to quote
Lincoln:

"Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth
piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the
sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it
must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether."

John Case 
Harpers Ferry, WV

==========

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