Trump's military parade
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Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Say No To Trump's Military Parade
Thu 2/15, 12 noon: Defend Mayli! Fight Sexual Harassment & Racism-Cambridge
Thu 2/15, 12 noon: Defend Mayli! Fight Sexual Harassment & Racism-Cambridge
Dear All,
On 2/6/18, HUCTW* member Mayli was terminated from her job on flimsy
pretexts after 10+ years of dedicated service at Harvard University. For
years Mayli had repeatedly complained of sexual harassment and racist abuse
from her boss. This Thursday 2/15, starting at 12 noon, union members and
our allies will picket <https://www.facebook.com/events/177267289715504/>
Mayli's former workplace, the Smith Campus Center at 1350 Mass. Ave., steps
from the Harvard Square MBTA stop. Please join us!
*Background*: Mayli is a first generation immigrant single mom of two who
faces severe economic hardship from the loss of her job. One of her
children currently attends college. After she took an approved short-term
disability leave, management cut her hours of work in half without removing
any tasks. She also endured racist comments and aggressive sexual
harassment. Activists believe Mayli was fired in retaliation because she
refused to tolerate the mistreatment and reported it to Harvard's senior
management. The ridiculous reason given for Mayli's ultimately being
terminated was that she allegedly came to work half an hour early.
Please send protests to Harvard Director of Labor Relations Paul Curran at
paul_curran@harvard.edu or 617 496-9193. Suggested message: "I am troubled
to hear about an HUCTW member named Mayli who was terminated on 2/6/18
after complaining of sexual harassment and racist comments from her boss
Pierre Raymond. I suggest you use your influence to ensure that Mayli is
reinstated in an at least comparable full time job with a new supervisor,
full back pay and all the discipline in her file rescinded."
Please share this message & the Facebook event
<https://www.facebook.com/events/177267289715504/> as widely as possible!
In Solidarity,
Geoff Carens, Union Rep, HUCTW
*Harvard Union of Clerical & Technical Workers
______________________________
Act-MA mailing list
Act-MA@act-ma.org
http://act-ma.org/mailman/listinfo/act-ma_act-ma.org
To set options or unsubscribe
http://act-ma.org/mailman/options/act-ma_act-ma.org
On 2/6/18, HUCTW* member Mayli was terminated from her job on flimsy
pretexts after 10+ years of dedicated service at Harvard University. For
years Mayli had repeatedly complained of sexual harassment and racist abuse
from her boss. This Thursday 2/15, starting at 12 noon, union members and
our allies will picket <https://www.facebook.com/events/177267289715504/>
Mayli's former workplace, the Smith Campus Center at 1350 Mass. Ave., steps
from the Harvard Square MBTA stop. Please join us!
*Background*: Mayli is a first generation immigrant single mom of two who
faces severe economic hardship from the loss of her job. One of her
children currently attends college. After she took an approved short-term
disability leave, management cut her hours of work in half without removing
any tasks. She also endured racist comments and aggressive sexual
harassment. Activists believe Mayli was fired in retaliation because she
refused to tolerate the mistreatment and reported it to Harvard's senior
management. The ridiculous reason given for Mayli's ultimately being
terminated was that she allegedly came to work half an hour early.
Please send protests to Harvard Director of Labor Relations Paul Curran at
paul_curran@harvard.edu or 617 496-9193. Suggested message: "I am troubled
to hear about an HUCTW member named Mayli who was terminated on 2/6/18
after complaining of sexual harassment and racist comments from her boss
Pierre Raymond. I suggest you use your influence to ensure that Mayli is
reinstated in an at least comparable full time job with a new supervisor,
full back pay and all the discipline in her file rescinded."
Please share this message & the Facebook event
<https://www.facebook.com/events/177267289715504/> as widely as possible!
In Solidarity,
Geoff Carens, Union Rep, HUCTW
*Harvard Union of Clerical & Technical Workers
______________________________
Act-MA mailing list
Act-MA@act-ma.org
http://act-ma.org/mailman/listinfo/act-ma_act-ma.org
To set options or unsubscribe
http://act-ma.org/mailman/options/act-ma_act-ma.org
From The Marxist Archives- On the Need for a Workers Party
From The Marxist Archives- On the Need for a Workers Party
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No War with Korea Standout, this Thursday @ South Station-In Boston
No War with Korea Standout, this Thursday @ South Station
NO WAR Negotiation Not Confrontation
STANDOUT AGAINST WAR WITH NORTH KOREA!
Date: Thursday, February 15th
Place: In Front of South Station Main Entrance
700 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, MA 02110
Time: 4:30 to 5:30 PM
Calling all peace Activists Please Join us!
Contact:
Dan Luker danluker@yahoo.com
Paul Atwood Paul.Atwood@umb.edu
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Support The Florida Farm-workers SIGN & CIRCULATE!… Show your support for fasters calling on Wendy’s to join FFP by signing new petition!_Su
SIGN & CIRCULATE!… Show your support for fasters calling on Wendy’s to join FFP by signing new petition!
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Monday, February 12, 2018
We Are Coming Father Abraham 300,000 Strong- In Honor Of Old Abe Lincoln On His Birthday
We Are Coming Father Abraham 300,000 Strong- In Honor Of Old Abe Lincoln On His Birthday
…he, Father Abraham he, pug-ugly he that no monument chiseled stone could render beautiful (damn, that age of photography, that Mathew Brady and his merry band, that damn warts and all pre-digital photography, when a painterly touch, say Winslow Homer’s, might have made him, well, just plain). Yes, warts and all, sitting arched in stone in judgment, eternity self-judgment (did he do this or that right to further furrow his brow first of all, overall, preliminary assessment right on union and abolition). He, furrowed and pug-ugly, thus no catch for gentile Kentucky bourbon belle daughters, or so it seemed, all Kentuck born and Illini-bred (where the best they could do was say nigra when talking about the slave problem. And later, much later the sons and grandsons of poor as dirt Kentuck hills and hollows mountain boys, Harlan County roughs, picked that up nigra expression too, and went to their graves with that on their lips, jesus.). He all keep the races split, let them, the blacks, (nigras, remember) go back to Canaan land, go back to Africa, go to some not union place but keep them out of Chi town (sounds familiar) had a conversion, maybe not a conversion so much as a lining up of his beliefs with his walk the walk talk.
So he ran for president, President of the United States, not as a son of William Lloyd Garrison, all Newburyport prissy and hell- bent on damning the Constitution, his Abe well-thumbed, well-read constitution , or some reformed wild boy Liberty man barely contained in the Fremont Republican dust but a busted out Whig when whiggery went to ground, (hell, no, on that tack, otherwise he would still be stuck in Springfield or maybe practicing law in bell-weather podunk Peoria, although he would note what that burg had to say and move slowly). Nor was he some righteous son, Thoreau or Emerson-etched son, of fiery-maned Calvinist sword-in-hand black avenging angel Captain John Brown, late of Kansas blood wars and Harpers Ferry liberation fight (he had no desire to share the Captain’s blood-soaked fate, mocked his bloody efforts in fact, as if only immense bloods would render the national hurts harmless when later the hills, hollows and blue-green valleys reeked of blood and other stenches).
His goal, simple goal (in the abstract), was to hold the union together, and to curb that damn land hunger slavery, that national abyss. And since they ran politics differently in those days (no women, latinos, nigras to fuss over) and were able to touch up a picture or two (and stretch his biographic facts a bit when the “wide awakes” awoke) he won, barely won but won. And then all hell broke loose, and from day one, from some stormy March day one, he had to bend that big long boney pug-ugly body to the winds, his winds.
And he did, not unequivocally, not John Brown prophet proud, fearlessly facing his gallows and his maker, to erase the dripping blood and canker sore from his homeland, but in a revolutionary way nevertheless, broke down slavery’s house divided, broke it down, no quarter given when the deal went down. So more like some latter day Oliver Cromwell (another warts and all man) pushing providence forward with a little kick. More like old Robespierre flaming the masses with the new dispensation, the new word slave freedom. Kept freeing slaves as he went along, kept pushing that freedom envelope, kept pushing his generals south and west and east and tightening , anaconda tightening, the noose on the old ways until Johnny Reb cried uncle, cried his fill when righteous Sherman and his cutthroat bummers got to work too. Yes, old Father Abraham, the last of the revolutionary democrats, the last of the serious ones, who couldn’t say black better that nigra, and never could, but knew the old enlightenment freedom word, knew it good.
…and now he belongs to the ages, and rightfully so, warts and all.
In Honor Of Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday- Now He Belongs To The Ages- Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Abraham Lincoln- “Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Political Genius"- A Book Review
In Honor Of Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday- Now He Belongs To The Ages- Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Abraham Lincoln- “Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Political Genius"- A Book Review
Book Review
Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Political Genius, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon &Schuster, New York, 2005
One would think as we celebrate, and rightly so, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday that everything that needs to be said about the man has been written, and written in profusion and to exhaustion. I believe that fact is essentially true, although that has not stopped all and sundry from taking a shot at reformulating, or “uncovering” the “real” Lincoln as the fairly recent attempts to win Lincoln for the “Homintern” (the English poet W.H. Auden’s term, not mine) on the question of his sexual preferences indicates. That said, after reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team Of Rivals it is apparent that there are reformulations and there are reformulations. Here Ms. Goodwin has gathered much material that I have seen in other sources and tells a very interesting and detailed politically-etched story about the way that Abraham Lincoln was able to use his sharply-honed skills to weld together a presidential cabinet that, with few defections and fewer resignations, ran the Unionist side in the American Civil War. For those already familiar with battles, military victories and personalities, and grand strategies this is a very good inside look at the mechanics of how the Union victory was won. If that fight was a close thing at times it was not Lincoln’s lack of ability to stay the course and to push the fight forward that was to blame.
As I mentioned above most of the material used here, including many of the humorous (1860s humorous) anecdotes and parables that Lincoln was famous for, have seen the light of day in other sources, especially in poet and fellow Illinoisan Carl Sandburg’s old time multi-volume study. Where Ms. Goodwin shines is on the information about the fight for the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850s and in chronicling Lincoln’s almost compulsive desire from early on to mark his name in the stars. The struggle to create that new party, and the sketches of the men that were drawn to it, including Lincoln, out of the divergent political tendencies that were coming apart in the tradition Whig and Northern Democratic parties as a result of the pressures of the slavery question represented some of the most interesting parts of the book. The mix and matches of personalities and divergent political backgrounds that came together and formed its core, men like William Seward, Montgomery Blair, and Simon Chase joined by Unionist Democrats and Whigs like Edwin Stanton and Edward Bates, were those that Lincoln had to work with in order to form a coalition, a popular front if you like, that held together under his authority to get the necessary job done.
There has been some recent controversy over the question of Lincoln’s racial views and whether he was, personally, a racist or not. While that question is more germane than the once concerning his sexual preferences I believe that Ms. Goodwin has put paid to that question by her narrative. Clearly Lincoln, as he entered the presidency, had the typical racial views of his times, his white man’s times, no question. In that sense Seward, and more so, Chase held more “advanced” views and were more comfortable with working with blacks. The beauty of Lincoln, as a kicking and screaming late covert to “high” abolitionist positions is that he was able to transcend his own personal views.
In that sense Ms. Goodwin, however, may have underestimated the influence that the “team” had on Lincoln’s racial views, as they meshed together to turn what started as a straight up, although still historically important, struggle for the Union to the more important struggle to break slavery as a reputable modern form of servitude. The ups and downs of that struggle to focus the fight on abolition form the core of this book. If you are not familiar, beyond the general high school or college history books, on the subject of the American Civil War and you are not desperate to know, in detail, every battle, skirmish, and mere looking mean at each other across every picket line, or every military commander, drunk or sober, or much about what was happening politically on the Confederate side once the war started this book is for you. And if you want to have a well written political narrative of the hows and whys of Lincoln’s growing political authority during the Civil War and understand why War Minister Stanton’s statement after his assassination “now he belongs to the ages” rings true you had better read this one.
Book Review
Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Political Genius, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon &Schuster, New York, 2005
One would think as we celebrate, and rightly so, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday that everything that needs to be said about the man has been written, and written in profusion and to exhaustion. I believe that fact is essentially true, although that has not stopped all and sundry from taking a shot at reformulating, or “uncovering” the “real” Lincoln as the fairly recent attempts to win Lincoln for the “Homintern” (the English poet W.H. Auden’s term, not mine) on the question of his sexual preferences indicates. That said, after reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team Of Rivals it is apparent that there are reformulations and there are reformulations. Here Ms. Goodwin has gathered much material that I have seen in other sources and tells a very interesting and detailed politically-etched story about the way that Abraham Lincoln was able to use his sharply-honed skills to weld together a presidential cabinet that, with few defections and fewer resignations, ran the Unionist side in the American Civil War. For those already familiar with battles, military victories and personalities, and grand strategies this is a very good inside look at the mechanics of how the Union victory was won. If that fight was a close thing at times it was not Lincoln’s lack of ability to stay the course and to push the fight forward that was to blame.
As I mentioned above most of the material used here, including many of the humorous (1860s humorous) anecdotes and parables that Lincoln was famous for, have seen the light of day in other sources, especially in poet and fellow Illinoisan Carl Sandburg’s old time multi-volume study. Where Ms. Goodwin shines is on the information about the fight for the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850s and in chronicling Lincoln’s almost compulsive desire from early on to mark his name in the stars. The struggle to create that new party, and the sketches of the men that were drawn to it, including Lincoln, out of the divergent political tendencies that were coming apart in the tradition Whig and Northern Democratic parties as a result of the pressures of the slavery question represented some of the most interesting parts of the book. The mix and matches of personalities and divergent political backgrounds that came together and formed its core, men like William Seward, Montgomery Blair, and Simon Chase joined by Unionist Democrats and Whigs like Edwin Stanton and Edward Bates, were those that Lincoln had to work with in order to form a coalition, a popular front if you like, that held together under his authority to get the necessary job done.
There has been some recent controversy over the question of Lincoln’s racial views and whether he was, personally, a racist or not. While that question is more germane than the once concerning his sexual preferences I believe that Ms. Goodwin has put paid to that question by her narrative. Clearly Lincoln, as he entered the presidency, had the typical racial views of his times, his white man’s times, no question. In that sense Seward, and more so, Chase held more “advanced” views and were more comfortable with working with blacks. The beauty of Lincoln, as a kicking and screaming late covert to “high” abolitionist positions is that he was able to transcend his own personal views.
In that sense Ms. Goodwin, however, may have underestimated the influence that the “team” had on Lincoln’s racial views, as they meshed together to turn what started as a straight up, although still historically important, struggle for the Union to the more important struggle to break slavery as a reputable modern form of servitude. The ups and downs of that struggle to focus the fight on abolition form the core of this book. If you are not familiar, beyond the general high school or college history books, on the subject of the American Civil War and you are not desperate to know, in detail, every battle, skirmish, and mere looking mean at each other across every picket line, or every military commander, drunk or sober, or much about what was happening politically on the Confederate side once the war started this book is for you. And if you want to have a well written political narrative of the hows and whys of Lincoln’s growing political authority during the Civil War and understand why War Minister Stanton’s statement after his assassination “now he belongs to the ages” rings true you had better read this one.
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