Tidbits, Resources and Announcements - September 29, 2011

* Protests Spread -- Occupy Together
* Memorial Service for Carl Oglesby - November 5 - 
  Cambridge, Massachusetts
* Re: Gospel Music - response to Rev. Jack Zylman 
  (T.M. Scruggs) 
* Re: U.S. Condemns Israeli Plan for New Construction beyond
  Green Line (Peter Belmont)
* Teamsters Local 237, Community Partners to Host Hoops for 
  Haiti Fundraiser in East Harlem - October 8
* Could you help locked out workers make this go viral?
  (British Columbia Federation of Labor)

==========

* Protests Spread -- Occupy Together

#OccupyWallStreet 99% Movement Spreads Across America - 
http://occupytogether.org/

Welcome to OCCUPY TOGETHER, a hub for all of the events
springing up across the country in solidarity with the
Occupy Wall St. protesters. As we have followed the news on
Facebook, Twitter and the various live feeds across the
internet, we felt compelled to build a site that would help
spread the word as more protests organize across the
country. We hope to provide people with information about
events that are organizing, ongoing, and building across the
U.S. as we, the 99%, take action against the greed and
corruption of the 1%.

We will try our best to provide you with the most accurate
information possible. However, we are just a few volunteers
and errors are bound to occur. Please be patient as we get
this site off the ground and populated and please contact us
if you have any info on new events, corrections, or
suggestions for this site. You can contact us at
[log in to unmask]

We will only grow stronger in our solidarity and we will be
heard, not just in New York, but in echoes across this
nation.

For more information about us, the movement, and answers to
questions, please check out our FAQ.
http://occupytogether.org/faq/

[Links for actions in all cities and areas are at:
http://occupytogether.org/

* MIDWEST -
	Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Indiana,
	Indianapolis, Kansas City, Michigan, Minnesota,
	Oklahoma City, Omaha, OSU - Stillwater, St. Louis,
	Tulsa, Wisconsin, Youngstown
* NORTHEAST -
	Binghamton, Boston, Washington, D.C., Hartford,
	Maine, New Haven, New Jersey, Philadelphia,
	Pittsburgh, Providence, RI, Rochester, Vermont
* SOUTHEAST -
	Arkansas, Birmingham, AL, Charlotte, TN,
	Clarksville, TN, Columbus, GA, Daytona Beach,
	Durham, Florence, SC, Greensboro, GA, Jacksonville,
	FL, Knoxville, Lexington, KY, Louisville, Memphis,
	Miami, Mississippi, Nashville, New Orleans, Orlando,
	Richmond, VA, Tallahassee, Tampa, Winston- Salem
* SOUTHWEST -
	Albuquerque, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, San
	Antonio, Tucson
* WEST -
	Boise, Colorado Springs, Denver, Eugene, Las Vegas,
	Los Angeles, Olympia, Portland, Sacramento, Salt
	Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa
	Cruz, Seattle, Spokane
* INTERNATIONAL -
	Brisbane, Australia; Den Haag, Netherlands; Finland;
	Frankfurt, Germany; Hamburg, Germany; London, UK;
	Manchester, UK (March on the Tory Party Conference);
	Melbourne, Australia; Montreal, Canada; Perth,
	Australia; Toronto, Canada; Vancouver, Canada

==========

*  Memorial Service for Carl Oglesby
 Saturday, November 5 · 5:00pm - 9:00pm
 
Old Cambridge Baptist Church
 1151 Mass Ave. (Harvard Square)
 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Please join in celebrating the life of Carl Oglesby with
friends and family. A reception will follow the service.

Contact for RSVPs and further information: Aron DiBacco,
[log in to unmask]

==========

* Re: Gospel Music (response to Rev. Jack Zylman)

Two weeks back Rev. Jack Zylman, who is unknown to me,
shared some enviable experiences he had with musicians, both
religious and secular, in Mississippi and elsewhere.  But he
wrote: "Regarding 4. Friday night videos -- I didn't see the
original statement, but this Mr. Scruggs got it wrong." and
asserted that "gospel music" predated all other musics of
African-Americans.  Perhaps there is some confusion in
terminology here. Only if the word gospel is kept to small
"g" and used to mean any religious sacred music of any kind
could it precede the blues because we know from historical
sources that African-Americans, like every culture we know
of, created secular music right along with sacred.  What is
generally considered Gospel music started in the 20th cen.
(as Rev. Zylman also recounted) when Thomas Dorsey moved the
secular urban blues style developed in the north into the
sacred realm. The divide between secular and religious music
in African-American music is, like many cultures, often a
somewhat specious divide as far as the music itself is
concerned but clearly distinct for lyrics and when and where
it's appropriate.  That's part of the reference in the
expression "Saturday night, Sunday morning": different but
still similar.  There was atrocious repression in the U.S.
against African cultural expression and religion.  A
different tactic towards controlling slave populations in
Cuba, Haiti, Brazil and other Latin American areas allowed
for a continuity  of music, dance and religion across the
Atlantic that is dynamic and widespread there today.  The
protestant U.S., snuffing out the one exception in once-
Catholic New Orleans, effectively crushed the outright
continuance of African religions and allowed slaves few
opportunities to sing in their own way; worshiping the slave
masters' god singing spirituals was one of those. But of
course there were lullabies, field hollers and other music.

When Ray Charles's hit "I Got a Woman" became a hit in 1955
(which the movie "Ray" got right) he was criticized from the
pulpit for using Gospel music for a non-religious theme that
also violated church dogma.  Only a couple of generations
earlier Mr. Dorsey himself got an earful for bringing blues
style and its instruments into the church.  It's truly
amazing how quickly human culture can swing around and
embrace a previously disdained music or other cultural
expression, witness the tango being despised by the upper
classes until it became the rage in Paris and only then
began its ascent to being the "national music of Argentina."
Just recently here the Chocolate Drops have helped to re-
introduce the fiddle and banjo as part of African-American
musical culture, the banjo having lost favor, to put it
mildly, among black Americans for generations.

The secular and the sacred, always closely intertwined in
human culture, becomes so especially when any group needs
cultural forms to rally around to face oppression and
injustice.  Correcting the historical record motivate me to
post this, but I've hesitated due to a quandary I imagine
other Postside readers have found themselves in: when we
feel we should avoid challenging a religion-based comment we
disagree and let it just pass in our daily lives. Most
freethinkers/atheists/agnostics live pretty closeted,
keeping our take on the world to ourselves, and between
ourselves.  Still today, with an African-American president,
freethinkers are so marginalized that none have a chance
running for such a high office in our nation.  Throughout
the 2000 campaign Vice-Presidential Democratic candidate Joe
Lierberman drummed over and again in speeches that "all
morality comes from religion" -- the silence in response was
deafening.  The topic is a bit afield from Portside's focus,
but as  no one else has responded I decided to risk further
rebukes to move out of that silence.

T.M. Scruggs 
(Ethnomusicologist)

==========

* Re: U.S. Condemns Israeli Plan for New Construction beyond
Green Line

The US and EU have four levels of condemnatory action
available to them in regard to Israel's illegal building of
settlements in occupied territories and Israel's illegal
settling of its citizens as settlers in occupied territories
(including East Jerusalem).

Settlement-building and settlers residing within occupied
territories (including East Jerusalem) are both illegal at
international law, as UNSC-465 (1980) held (when the UNSC
demanded that Israel remove all settlers and dismantle all
settlements), and as the International Court of Justice
(ICJ) held in its July 9, 2004, advisory opinion the
principal holding of which was that Israel's wall within
occupied territories is illegal and must be dismantled.

What might the US and EU do in the face of this Israeli
illegality?

First, they can ignore it.

Second, the US and EU can condemn Israel's announcement of
new housing in East Jerusalem. This is what they have done
this time. It is little better than the first option, for
the ritual tsk-tsk-ing is the equivalent of telling Israel
that the settlements are OK (a procedure sometimes called
"praising by faint damns").

Their third option is to recite that the settlement-building
and settler-settling is illegal. This sort of recitation
seems to be a thing of the past, not much heard since 1980.
US presidents call the settlements unhelpful, obstacles to
peace, but have not recently called them illegal.

Their fourth option, which they have never chosen, is to act
(e.g., through the UNSC) to require Israel to remove all
settlers and dismantle all settlements with sufficient
serious sanctions in place to compel Israeli compliance.

The real significance of the US and EU's tsk-tsk-ing is that
the US and EU consider the international law which forbids
Israeli construction of settlements in occupied territories
to be (in effect) a nullity, law that they will not seek to
enforce and which, as is well known, the US will use its
veto in the UNSC to prevent anyone else from seeking to
enforce.

In the real world, they allow Israel to run rough-shod over
the Palestinians. The US's so-far successful attempts to
suppress the Goldstone Report regarding war crimes during
Israel's "Cast Lead" operation in Gaza are similar in
intention and in effect.

Whether this will lead to the final expulsion of all or most
Palestinian Arabs from the occupied territories, or just to
an indefinite continuation of Israel's apartheid-like one-
state system of ruling the people living today in the
territory of the former Palestine Mandate (ruled by Great
Britain 1922-1948), it seems clear that it will not lead to
a "just and lasting peace" as envisioned by UNSC-242 (1967).

Peter Belmont

==========

* Teamsters Local 237, Community Partners to Host Hoops for
Haiti Fundraiser in East Harlem

(New York, NY) - Teamsters Local 237 along with community
partners will host Hoops for Haiti, a fundraiser on
Saturday, October 8, to help Haitians who remain ill and
injured in the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake.
Funds raised will be donated to the Registered Nurses
Response Network (RNRN) of the California Nurses Foundation,
a nonprofit organization, which has been sending volunteer
nurses to the island.

The event will take place at Taino Towers Gymnasium and Red
Carpet Theatre at 240 East 123 Street in East Harlem.
Activities include: a basketball clinic for youths ages
7-18, starting at 10 a.m., led by retired NBA players; a
silent auction of NBA memorabilia; a raffle; and a concert
starting at 3 p.m., featuring artists from Haiti, and west
and east Harlem.  The camp enrollment fee is $30; spectator
fee is $3; and the concert is $15.

Among the most coveted silent auction items are basketballs
signed by Magic Johnson (Lakers) and the Harlem
Globetrotters. The raffle prizes are two round-trip tickets
for domestic or Caribbean travel from lead sponsor, American
Airlines; a basketball autographed by Shaquille O'Neal; and
a Blu-Ray disc player.

The concert lineup includes Renowned Latino poets Tato
Laviera and Caridad de La Luz "La Bruja"; a Haitian band,
led by Tiga Jean Baptiste an innovator in the trailblazing
sound of Tchaka; Hoops for Haiti Quartet with Eddie Conde,
percussionist, Rudel Drears, vocalist and pianist, Jorge
Quevedo, saxophonist and percussionist, and Jesus "Tato"
Laviera reciting the poem he was commissioned to write for
the event. A DJ will provide dance music.

Our Community Partners include: Gary Battle, vice president,
Labor Benefits, Winston Financial; Hollis Copeland, retired
NBA player; Ed Genece, EG Body Work, wellness consultant to
NBA; Helen Mashburn, NBA mother and Local 237 retiree; Dr.
Marta Moreno Vega, president, Franklin H. Williams Caribbean
Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute; Steven
Anderson, apl Anderson Productions, Ltd.; Maria Cruz,
executive director, Taino Towers; Mike Klein, senior
strategic advisor, McKenna Long & Aldridge; Jesus "Tato"
Laviera, poet; Marjorie Eliot, musician, host of "Parlor
Entertainment" in Harlem; and José Galarza, owner, Sabor
Borinqueño.

 For more details, sign on to
 www.local237.org/hoops-for-haiti.

Teamsters Local 237 represents more than 23,000 municipal
workers in New York City and on Long Island and is the
largest local affiliated with the International Brotherhood
of Teamsters.

==========

* Could you help locked out workers make this go viral?

I'm writing you today because locked out workers at Rocky
Mountaineer need your help.

The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) has decided
to hold one of their events behind a picket line where
workers have been locked out for several months.
We're asking the festival to move their event rather than
asking guests to cross a picket line.

We've written a tweet that you can send to your followers
with a single click.
Thousands of guests the media are following the film
festival on Twitter.

Please click this here to tweet this message.
http://newmediabootcamp.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e988e13c93cc37c65f18d13ac&id=ab3dcd5bf4&e=fc9b452431
 
@Vifffest Don't ask your guests to cross a picket line while
@rmountaineer employees are lockedout. Move the #viff
opening night somewhere else #bcpoli

Thanks for your solidarity,

Jason Mann
B.C. Federation of Labour
200-5118 Joyce Street
Vancouver, British Columbia V5R 4H1

==========
 

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