Chris Hedges's Blog, page 137
October 5, 2019
19 Killed in Protests in Iraq Despite Calls for Calm
BAGHDAD — Iraqi protesters pressed on with angry anti-government rallies in the capital and across several provinces for a fifth day Saturday, setting government offices on fire and ignoring appeals for calm from political and religious leaders. Security agencies fatally shot 19 protesters and wounded more than three dozen in a sustained deadly response that has claimed more than 80 lives since the upheaval began.
The semiofficial Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, affiliated with the parliament, put the death toll at 94. It said nearly 4,000 people have been wounded since Tuesday, when mostly young demonstrators spontaneously initiated the rallies to demand jobs, improvements to electricity, water and other services, and an end to corruption in the oil-rich nation.
The violent deadlock presented the conflict-scarred nation with its most serious challenge since the defeat of the Islamic State group two years ago and deepened the political crisis of a country still struggling with the legacy of multiple, unfinished wars since the U.S. invasion in 2003.
“It has been 16 years of corruption and injustice,” said Abbas Najm, a 43-year-old unemployed engineer who was part of a rally Saturday in the square. “We are not afraid of bullets or the death of martyrs. We will keep going and we won’t back down.”
Scrambling to contain the demonstrations, Iraqi leaders called an emergency session of parliament Saturday to discuss the protesters’ demands. But they lacked a quorum due to a boycott called by influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of parliament’s largest bloc. On Friday, al-Sadr called on Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi’s government to resign and hold early elections, saying the shedding of blood of Iraqis “cannot be ignored.”
Abdul-Mahdi said in an address to the nation that the protesters’ “legitimate demands” had been heard, but he defended the deadly response of security forces as a “bitter medicine” that was necessary for the country to swallow.
In a desperate attempt to curb the growing rallies, authorities blocked the internet Wednesday and imposed a round-the-clock curfew on Thursday. The curfew, ignored by protesters, was lifted at 5 a.m. Saturday, allowing shops to open and traffic to flow in most of Baghdad before the new demonstrations began.
As in previous days, protesters waited to gather until the afternoon, when temperatures were cooler and ensured greater participation, and security forces responded by opening fire.
Health and security officials said more than a dozen people were killed and about 40 wounded in the capital on Saturday when security forces opened fire during protests in various neighborhoods, including central Tahrir Square, which remained closed to cars, and around which special forces and army vehicles deployed in an operation that extended as far as 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away. The forces also unleashed tear gas, said health, police and medical officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to brief reporters.
A protester who refused to be named for fear of repercussions said anti-riot police directly opened fire at the protesters. The military initially tried to stop the police but ultimately left the area, the protester said.
In a smaller, peaceful rally earlier Saturday in the capital, demonstrators raised banners demanding the resignation of Abdul-Mahdi and an investigation into the killings of protesters.
Thousands of protesters also took to the streets in the southern cities of Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah, defying a curfew still in place there. In Diwaniyah, at least one protester was killed as demonstrators marched toward local government offices, a medical official and human rights official said. They did not provide details.
In the restive city of Nasiriyah, demonstrators torched the offices of three political parties and a lawmaker whom they blame for their country’s ills. Security forces responded with gunfire, but there was no immediate word on casualties, said the officials, who described the protest as “very large.”
Abdul Mahdi’s office and Parliament Speaker Mohammed al-Halbusi have called on protest representatives to meet with them so they could hear their demands. In a televised meeting in parliament, al-Halbusi met with a group of Iraqis and tribal representatives, mostly in their 50s and older, to discuss the country’s myriad problems. Al-Hablusi repeated promises to address unemployment and poverty.
But the promises did nothing to stop the unfolding street violence. The deadliest day was Friday, when 22 people were killed in Baghdad. Health officials said many of those victims were wounded in the head and chest.
___
Associated Press reporter Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
4 Homeless Men Beaten to Death With Pipe in New York City
NEW YORK — A homeless man wielding a long metal pipe rampaged through New York City early Saturday attacking other homeless people who were sleeping, killing four and leaving a fifth with serious injuries, police said.
A 24-year-old suspect was in custody but has yet to be charged. Police recovered the weapon that was still in the suspect’s hands when he was arrested, officials said.
“The motive appears to be, right now, just random attacks,” Chief of Manhattan South Detectives Michael Baldassano said at a Saturday news conference, adding there was no evidence yet that the victims were “targeted by race, age, anything of that nature.”
The victims were attacked as they slept in doorways and sidewalks in Manhattan’s Chinatown section, which is packed during daylight hours but empties out at night.
Police responded to a 911 call just before 2 a.m. as one assault was in progress. They found one man dead in the street and a second with critical head injuries.
A search of the neighborhood turned up two additional bodies.
The New York Post published photos of two of the victims under white sheets, one slumped in a blood-spattered doorway, the other on the sidewalk. The identities of the victims have not been released.
Two of the men were killed on The Bowery, which cuts through the heart of Chinatown and has for decades been known as New York’s skid row. Two more died on East Broadway, the neighborhood’s main street.
The lone known survivor of the attacks was hospitalized in critical condition. Police planned to question him as soon as possible, Baldassano said.
Another homeless man who had slept in the area, Stephen Miller, said he knew one of the victims as kind and quiet.
“No one knew him by name, but we saw him every day,” Miller said. “At this point, I’m just sad. This guy never did anything. Just had a life to live. It sucks that he’s out here in the rain and everything but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a life to live.”
New York City’s homeless population has grown to record levels over the past decade, and the homeless remain among the city’s most vulnerable residents. Over the last five years, an average of seven have been slain each year.
Mayor Bill de Blasio launched new homeless outreach efforts early in his tenure in an attempt to move more people off the street and into shelters, but the program has faced challenges. City efforts to build more homeless shelters have dragged due to neighborhood opposition.
De Blasio tweeted Saturday that he’s “stunned and horrified by this senseless act of violence against the most vulnerable members of our community.”
The attacks happened in one of the few downtown Manhattan areas that has retained its character as a center for new immigrants, through gentrification has started to creep in lately.
During the day, it bustles with small shops, restaurants and markets doing business in Chinese, as a mix of residents and tourists pack the sidewalks. At night it can be desolate in some sections.
Warren Dismisses Top Staffer for Inappropriate Behavior
WASHINGTON — Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign has dismissed its national organizing director following “multiple complaints” of inappropriate behavior.
Spokeswoman Kristen Orthman says the campaign received complaints about Rich McDaniel over the past two weeks and retained outside counsel to conduct an investigation. McDaniel was fired after the campaign determined that his reported conduct was “inconsistent” with its values.
Word of the dismissal was first reported by Politico.
In a statement to Politico, McDaniel said he “would never intentionally engage in any behavior inconsistent with the campaign or my own values” and he wished his former colleagues well.
McDaniel worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid and Doug Jones’ successful Senate run in Alabama in 2017.
October 4, 2019
Campaign: Sanders Had Heart Attack, Released From Hospital
LAS VEGAS — Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had a heart attack, his campaign confirmed Friday as the Vermont senator was released from a Nevada hospital.
The 78-year-old was at a campaign event Tuesday when he experienced chest discomfort and was taken to a hospital where he was diagnosed with a heart attack. The senator was transferred to Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center where doctors inserted two stents to open up a blocked artery in his heart, according to a statement from the Las Vegas doctors.
The doctors, Arturo Marchand, Jr. and Arjun Gururaj, said the rest of his arteries were normal.
A blocked artery can cause a heart attack, which just means that an area of the heart is suffering and in danger of damage because it’s not getting enough blood or oxygen. An artery-opening procedure like the one Sanders had, and placing stents, which are tiny scaffolds to keep the artery open, restores blood flow and helps prevent future problems.
The statements from Sanders and his doctors do not indicate whether his heart suffered any permanent damage, or the extent of any. The sooner blood flow is restored, the better the chance of survival without damage, which is why heart experts urge anyone thinking they might be having a heart attack to call 911.
The doctors said the rest of his stay before being discharged Friday was “uneventful with good expected progress.”
The campaign also released a statement from Sanders where he thanked the doctors, nurses and hospital staff.
“After two and a half days in the hospital, I feel great, and after taking a short time off, I look forward to getting back to work,” he said.
He was expected to return to Vermont.
This marks the second time in two months that health problems forced Sanders to cancel campaign events. In September, he backed out of some appearances in South Carolina because he lost his voice. His campaign said at the time that Sanders felt fine.
As the oldest candidate in the Democratic 2020 field, Sanders has sometimes jokingly referenced his age on the campaign trail. He is one of three septuagenarians who are leading the crowded race and have sparked questions within the party about whether Democrats need to coalesce around a younger leader.
President Donald Trump is 73.
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AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
The Las Vegas Shooter, Two Years Later
Paddock. Palast. We sat next to each other at Fernangeles Elementary School, and later at Poly High in Sun Valley, Calif.
Steve was a chess prodigy and a math whiz.
He finally got to use his extraordinary gift to do complex ballistics calculations that allowed him to murder 58 people in Las Vegas in just minutes from a distant hotel window. That was two years ago this week.
Steve should have gone to MIT, to Stanford. He didn’t. For that, he needed Advanced Placement calculus.
If you went to “Bevvie”—Beverly Hills High—you could take AP calculus. Or AP French. We didn’t have AP calculus. We didn’t have AP French. We weren’t Placed, and we didn’t Advance.
According to a state investigation led by Tom Hayden, our high school was situated on top of a toxic dump site. No surprise there.
In Sun Valley, Steve and I were required to take classes called “electrical shop” and “metal shop” so we would be trained to man the drill presses at the local General Motors plant. Or do tool-and-dye cutting to make refrigerator handles at GM, where they assembled Frigidaire refrigerators and Chevys.
And we were required to take drafting. Drafting, as in “blueprint drawing.” We sat at those drafting tables with our triangular rulers and No. 2 pencils so we could get jobs at Lockheed Martin Corp. as draftsmen and draw blueprints for fighter jets.
But we weren’t going to fly the fighter jets. Somewhere at Phillips Academy Andover, a dumbbell named Bush with an oil well for a daddy was going to go to Yale and then fly our fighter jets over Texas. We weren’t going to go to Yale. We were going to go to Vietnam. Then, when we came back, if we still had two hands, we were supposed to go to GM or Lockheed.
And any pretty girl at our high school could always make decent money in Sun Valley, then the porn film capital of America.
Those were the choices we were given. As long as they lasted: After NAFTA, GM shut down and shifted to Mexico.
Our school, and our incomes, didn’t qualify Steve for anything other than San Fernando Valley College. Any dumbbell could get in. And it was nearly free. That’s where Steve was expected to go, and he went, with his big math-whiz brain. And then Steve, with his “Valley” degree, went to Lockheed, like he was supposed to. Then Lockheed shut down plants in 1988. Steve left, took the buyout.
Here’s a little info about the pleasantly named place where Palast and Paddock were bred. Sun Valley is not really a city. It is the anus of Los Angeles. Literally. It’s where the sewage plant is. And the garbage dump. It’s in a trench below the Hollywood Hills, where the smog settles into a kind of puke-yellow soup. Here’s where L.A. dumps both its urine and the human refuse it only remembers when it needs cheap labor when the gusanos don’t supply enough from Mexico. And cheap soldiers for your wars.
The home of “Okies” and Chicanos.
I returned there a couple years ago to see my family’s old home in the weeds. I then walked down San Fernando Road, near Steve’s old home, along the now-abandoned railroad tracks. Today, along those tracks that once led to the GM plant, you see a bunch of busted-up camper-trailers that the union men bought for vacations. Now they live in them.
Photo courtesy of Greg Palast
Land of opportunity? Well, tell me: Who gets those opportunities?
Some of you can and some of you can’t imagine a life in which you just weren’t give a fair chance. In which the smarter you are, the more painful it gets, because you have your face pressed against the window, watching them. They got the connections to Stanford. They got the gold mine. We got the shaft.
But Steve’s brain was too big to end up on the tracks. He lived in empty apartments in crappy buildings he bought, then in a barren tract house outside Reno. I laugh when they say he was “rich.” He wanted to be them, to have their stuff. He got close.
It’s reported that Steve was a “professional gambler.” That’s another laugh. He was addicted to numbing his big brain by sitting 14 hours a day in the dark in front of video poker machines. He was a loser. Have you ever met a gambler who said he was a Professional Loser?
It’s fair to ask me: Why didn’t I end up in a hotel room with a bump-stock AR-15 and 5,000 rounds of high velocity bullets? The truth is, it’s a very fine line and lots of crazy luck that divided my path from Steve’s. I credit my survival to my job, my career—really, my obsession. As a journalist, I have vowed to hunt them down, the daddy-pampered pricks who did this to us, the grinning billionaire jackals who make a profit off the slow decomposition of the lives I grew up with.
Dear reader, please do not think for one minute that I am justifying Steve’s murder spree. He slaughtered coldly, with intense cruelty, destroying lives and hundreds of families forever. If you think I’m making up some excuse for him, then I give up.
But understand this: Just like veterans of the Vietnam War who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder even after five decades, so too, losers of the class war can be driven mad by a PTSD that lingers, that gnaws away their whole lives.
Langston Hughes tried to explain it. After the Harlem riots, he wanted to tell you why people would burn down their own neighborhood:
What happens to a dream deferred?Does it … fester like a sore? …
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Steve, you created more horrors than your cornered life could ever justify.
But I just have to tell you, Steve: I get it.
Below is a clip from Palast’s documentary “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” in which actor-activist Shailene Woodley and Palast visit the L.A. neighborhood he once called home:
Reclaiming Difference
“Disability and Art History”
A book edited by Ann Millett-Gallant and Elizabeth Howie
Art history is slow to change. Other humanities and social science disciplines, since the academic and political upheavals of the 1960s, have broadly incorporated issues of race, class and gender into their curricula and scholarship. So too has art history, but maverick art historians and those working in related fields like visual culture, ethnic and gender studies have often found resistance from traditional art historians.
My personal experience leads me to that conclusion. I have taught and written about political art, African American art, Chicano/a art, feminist art and related themes for decades. When I began researching and teaching political themes in visual art, I encountered resistance, indifference, and even hostility from many traditional art historians who didn’t want the “purity” of fine art muddied up with the muck and grime of political conflict.
I was dealing with artists like Francisco Goya, Honoré Daumier, Käthe Kollwitz, the Mexican muralists, America street artists, political cartoonists and many others. Most important, I addressed their concerns with war, class conflict, poverty, racism and related social issues. All of these works negated conventional aesthetic appeal. My most amusing episode, in retrospect, occurred when a graduate student related to me that her very distinguished art history professor told her that I was “destroying art history.” Despite his dire prediction, art history has nonetheless survived (and so have I).
But few academic fields have addressed the issues of people with disabilities, and I have likewise neglected this area. It is therefore extremely fortunate that an academic anthology, “Disability and Art History,” edited by scholars Ann Millett-Gallant and Elizabeth Howie, is now available. It reveals the need to include disability in both the study and practice of art. Its visual examples and scholarly analyses have added a powerful—and long overdue—dimension to the field. It is a welcome addition to the growing body of work in both art history and disability studies.
The volume contains 10 separate essays, but like most anthologies, it suffers from disparate levels of quality and readability. Many of the contributions are highly academic in nature and would scarcely attract even most educated readers. This is a subjective judgment and not intended as pejorative; it is simply an acknowledgment of the remoteness of much of contemporary scholarly writing. Several of the essays here are heavily footnoted efforts that cite and often dispute other scholars as they make their arguments. The hard reality, of course, is that only a few other academics bother to read these works, and I suspect that many merely skim them. Such is the contemporary nature of academic publishing.
Click here to read long excerpts from “Disability and Art History” at Google Books.
Still, there are various pieces here that I think are remarkable contributions to the art historical canon. One, “Difference and Disability in the Photography of Margaret Bourke-White,” by Keri Watson, adds to the already stellar reputation of one of America’s finest socially conscious documentary photographers. This chapter focuses on Bourke-White’s deeply sympathetic photographs of the residents of Letchworth Village, an early 20th century “New York state institution for the segregation of the epileptic and feeble-minded.” Professor Watson also explores Bourke-White’s images in her 1937 landmark photo-book, “You Have Seen Their Faces.”
Bourke-White was ostensibly hired to showcase the state’s generosity in treating the residents of this facility. But a closer look at her images reveals that she subverted this objective. Her photos show the intellectually disabled girls wearing ill-fitting, makeshift dresses. The boys and men are depicted digging ditches, loading thousands of tons of coal, and doing other hard labor, with only room and board for compensation. Above all, Bourke-White reveals the depressing pattern of oppression and injustice that people with cognitive and physical disabilities suffered in that setting. This work is a powerful addition to her body of overall photographic work.
As the author notes, “You Have Seen Their Faces” has received significant scholarly attention. I have personally included many of its images in my teaching and publications for decades. But the book also includes images of poor people with disabilities, images that reflect her deep commitment to social justice art, augmenting her Letchworth Village imagery. That dimension is generally neglected in art historical scholarship. I have shown some of these photographs in my UCLA classes, but I regret not discussing this feature of Bourke-White’s vision. That will change starting in January 2020.
Art history is not entirely devoid of disability issues. Anne Marno’s chapter on Otto Dix’s 1920 painting, “The Cripples,” highlights his work on the tragic situation of severely injured German World War I veterans. It is useful in reminding readers of the unspeakable horrors they faced during the Weimar period. Dix is an established figure in the canon, and is regularly discussed with such stalwart German artists as George Grosz, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Beckmann and many others. Marno links Dix’s work to the contemporary era by analyzing it in conjunction with Israeli filmmaker Yael Bartana’s 2010 film, “Degenerate Art Lives.” It is valuable to resurrect Dix’s disability themes to provide a valuable historical context for disabled artists working in the present.
That focus is one of the most valuable aspects of “Disability and Art History.” Several contemporary artists represented in this volume are exemplary representatives of disabled artists who should be serious figures in current art historical discourse. One of the most intriguing and imaginative is Taiwanese artist, disability activist and scholar Chun-Shan (Sandie) Yi. Educated in the United States, Yi was born into a family with variable numbers of fingers and toes—a reality for generations. She herself has two fingers on each hand and two toes on each foot.
She has turned what would seem to be a profound disability into an extraordinarily creative artistic outlet. Her efforts are wearable art pieces specifically molded to fit her hands and feet. She photographs herself wearing these pieces, and in the process confronts “ordinary” people with their views of her as a “freak of nature.”
The issues and implications go deeper. As a visual artist, Sandie Yi recalls that people were shocked and disgusted by the sight of her hands and feet. Deliberately, she accentuates her appendages so that viewers must confront, often uncomfortably, normal standards of female attractiveness, beauty and sexuality. She uses her art to take agency over her own body and to force a reconsideration of women’s power in patriarchal societies, in both Taiwan and the U.S.
Some of Yi’s most striking artistic efforts involve the objects she inserts between her two toes on both feet. She acknowledges that her works reference the historic Chinese practice of foot binding, and the intense, painful pressure that generations of Chinese women had to endure by balancing on their toes. Yi acknowledges and critiques the deep sexism of her ethnic ancestry, while simultaneously advancing disability rights through her visual arts productivity.
Another thoroughly compelling artist represented in this volume is Nomy Lamm. She describes herself provocatively as a “bad ass, fat ass, Jew dyke amputee … feminist dancer, performance artist, writer.” Her artworks reclaim “’fat” and “amputee” from the margins of American respectability and force her audiences to reevaluate American standards—and their own—of physical attractiveness and acceptability. Although her body is dramatically different from that of Sandie Yi, she performs the identical confrontational function with her artwork.
Shayda Kafai’s chapter on Lamm focuses on her 2008 multidisciplinary performance, “Wall of Fire,” which encompasses performance art, visual art, singing, fashion and, above all, artistic activism. Kafai’s description of Lamm’s event is outstanding. Her details provide readers with the best possible understanding short of actually seeing the performance itself. “Wall of Fire” is only 7 minutes and 13 seconds long and readily available online; it is a perfect complement to this chapter.
At the outset, Lamm begins singing, boldly accentuating her fat body, reclaiming that pejorative word as a political statement. Her sheer, red, form-fitting negligee over her breasts pushed down over her shoulders clearly communicates her lust. Females and males alike cannot help but gaze at her body; that is of course her objective, offering herself as an alluring sexual being.
In the most dramatic moment of the performance, Lamm pulls off her prosthetic left leg, and seductively raises her negligee to the top of her thigh. She then holds her leg in front of her body, and begins slapping it rhythmically and erotically. Like “fat,” she negates the pejorative language of “crip” and “cripple” in the same way that LBGTQ people have reappropriated the term “queer.”
Lamm has upended conventional notions of sexuality in her art. She boldly proclaims that the desexualization ascribed to disabled and overweight people must end. She uses her own fat and amputated body to show that she, and others like her, can honor and enjoy their own sexuality. That political message should resonate in both the disabled community and in the general population.
“Disability and Art History” offers other examples of disabled artists who contribute to both art historical conversations and to the growing body of disabled art: dwarfism, PTSD, breast cancer, traumatic brain injuries—those conditions and many more have been and will continue to be represented in the visual culture of our times. This book is a useful augmentation to the slowly changing discipline of art history. African American, Latino/a, feminist, LGBTQ, political activist, and other scholars and artists historically marginalized and excluded from the academy have blazed the path. Nothing can stop that trajectory.
Sara Nelson Is the Face of America’s Resurgent Labor Movement
During the chaos that transpired from Dec. 22, 2018, to Jan. 25, 2019, in the most recent government shutdown, two speeches by a woman named Sara Nelson, our Truthdigger of the Month, spread like wildfire across the internet.
On Jan. 20, as she accepted the 2019 MLK Drum Major for Justice Award from the AFL-CIO, Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-Communications Workers of America (AFA-CWA), called for a general strike and questioned why the labor movement was missing in action during this crucial time for 800,000 federal workers.
“Almost a million workers are locked out or being forced to work without pay. Others are going to work when our workspace is increasingly unsafe,” Nelson said. “What is the Labor Movement waiting for?”
“Federal sector unions have their hands full caring for the 800,000 federal workers who are at the tip of the spear,” she went on. “Some would say the answer is for them to walk off the job. I say, what are you willing to do? Their destiny is tied up with our destiny—and they don’t even have time to ask us for help. Don’t wait for an invitation. … Go back with the fierce urgency of now to talk with your local and international unions about all workers joining together—to end this shutdown with a general strike.
“We can do this. Together. Si se puede. Every gender, race, culture, and creed. The American labor movement. We have the power. And to all Americans—We’ve got your back!”
Days later, speaking to another crowd in front of the Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., Nelson passionately highlighted the security dangers flight attendants—and anyone on a plane—during this period were facing while federal workers, including air traffic controllers, worked without pay.
Lives are at risk because of the gov’t shutdown, and these airline workers want Trump to take that seriously pic.twitter.com/5IwW4zocWr
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) January 24, 2019
“Many of these people are our veterans,” she said in her Jan. 24 speech. “Many of these people are fighting for our country right now, and we are not paying them.” When several air traffic controllers chose to abstain from unpaid work the next day, forcing flights to stay grounded in several busy airports, suddenly the Trump administration had an added incentive to reopen government as fast as humanly possible, proving the power workers have always held.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders reportedly credited Nelson with helping shut down the shutdown, telling her, “Between you and me, that’s what ended the shutdown. … When planes looked like they weren’t taking off.” But he wasn’t the only one who saw the role the rising labor movement star had played in those crucial days.
Nelson started organizing and intimidating corporate bosses not unlike President Trump long before she made national headlines during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. A United Airlines flight attendant since 1996, Nelson became the head of the AFA-CWA in 2014 after holding several positions at the union, including vice president. Her activism began almost as soon as she started working at United, and has continued throughout her tenure there as she’s helped negotiate better terms for pensions, among other labor improvements, not just for her fellow United flight attendants, but for the 50,000 members of the AFA-CWA who work at 20 airlines.
Now, Nelson has been tapped for the head job of the American labor movement, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), despite the fact the current president, Richard Trumka, still has a couple of years left in his term. The flight attendant turned union president and fervent activist is a far cry from the American labor leaders we’ve seen in the past few decades, and that’s precisely why so many people, including her, want her to lead labor in the upcoming years. Already, she’s been called “the most powerful labor leader in the country.”
Not only does Nelson have the passion and presence sorely lacking in other labor leaders—who, for instance, can remember a single speech by Trumka?—she’s willing to fight at the frontlines—not just for workers in her unions, but for all American workers—on a number of crucial issues.
The AFA-CWA president has testified before Congress about the sexual harassment still rampant in her industry, and has also thrown her support behind activism across the nation, including teachers’ strikes in California, Wyoming and West Virginia, General Motors workers protesting stagnant wages, and, most recently, the global climate strike inspired by Swedish youth activist Greta Thunberg.
Nelson is also an outspoken proponent of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, stating her support stems from the proposal’s focus on the need to address both the very real climate crisis before us, along with better labor conditions and the creation of jobs.
When 2020 Democratic front-runners Biden and Sanders debated the Vermont senator’s Medicare for All bill, with Biden saying Sanders’ policy would fly in the face of union accomplishments, Nelson was clear where she stood:
A note to anyone who wants to use union members as a wedge to oppose #MedicareForAll: @UAW has one of the best plans in the country, but management can still use it to hold workers hostage. #M4A puts power back in our hands. #1u https://t.co/Wsro6dOmlf
— Sara Nelson (@FlyingWithSara) September 17, 2019
Nelson faces an uphill battle toward the leadership position she seems to have been born to take on. Since its formation after a merger in 1955, the AFL-CIO, which boasts 12.5 million members and is made up of 55 unions, has never had a woman in the top office. The labor leader is also facing stiff competition from the AFL-CIO’s secretary treasurer, Liz Shuler, who’s also likely to run.
But adversity is something Nelson is familiar with. As a woman, she has been consistently underestimated and discriminated against, even harassed, by men in any number of work situations. As she fights for women’s rights and workers’ rights, the Oregon native will not be cowed, no matter the challenge. Her rising profile is evidence of this, if nothing else.
The AFA-CWA president’s main inspiration for possibly running came after Trump was elected after running a campaign that fed off blue-collar workers’ discontent.
“Trump took up so much of the airwaves because he was off-script,” Nelson said. Unions, stuck in a defensive crouch, barely participated in the conversation. “If we had someone who could bring a different vision of what a union leader is,” she said, “it could have been a moment that was really powerful.”
Nelson, by all accounts, embodies that “different vision,” and with signs that the American labor movement is on the rise, there is no one better to take the lead than this strong, passionate woman who is a great speaker, has earned her progressive chops as a worker, activist and union leader, and understands the vital truth about the U.S. economy: Workers have all the power, as long as they have each other’s backs.
Since we just celebrated Labor Day in September, we have decided to make Sara Nelson our Truthdigger of the Month—for all she has done and will do for American workers.
House Investigators Seek Documents From Pence
WASHINGTON — The Latest on President Donald Trump and the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry (all times local):
3:45 p.m.
House investigators want Vice President Mike Pence to give them documents that could shed light on whether he helped President Donald Trump pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
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In a letter to Pence on Friday, the Democratic chairmen of three House committees cite reports that a Pence aide may have listened to the July phone call in which Trump pushed Ukraine’s president to investigate unfounded charges that Biden was involved in corrupt activities there.
They say they also want to learn more about Pence’s Sept. 1 meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The letter says there are “questions about any role you may have played in conveying or reinforcing the President’s stark message to the Ukrainian President.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
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11:35 a.m.
President Donald Trump is insisting that his call for China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden will have no bearing on upcoming high-stakes trade talks with the nation.
Trump is telling reporters at the White House Friday that, “one thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other.”
Negotiations between the U.S. and China are set to resume next week as a protracted trade war continues.
Trump on Thursday publicly encouraged China to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter, snubbing his nose at an impeachment inquiry into whether a similar, private appeal to Ukraine violated his oath of office.
Trump says he believes China wants to make a deal.
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11:20 a.m.
President Donald Trump is denying there was quid pro quo as he sought for the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden, and says he didn’t do it for political purposes.
Trump says: “We are looking at corruption, we’re not looking at politics.”
He adds: “I believe there was tremendous corruption with Biden.”
Trump has asked Ukraine and China to launch probes into the former vice president and 2020 Democratic hopeful, alleging without evidence that there was misconduct by Biden and his son, Hunter.
He claims his call for the investigations wasn’t political, because “I never thought Biden was going to win” the primary.
Trump says of rooting out corruption: “I actually feel I have an obligation to do that.”
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11:10 a.m.
President Donald Trump is acknowledging that Democrats in the House have the votes to begin a formal impeachment inquiry into his conduct.
Trump is telling reporters at the White House that while, “Republicans have been very unified,” the “Democrats, unfortunately, they have the votes.”
But he’s insisting the move will backfire on the party, saying: “I really believe that they’re going to pay a tremendous price at the polls.”
Trump said Friday the White House would be sending a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to formally object to the inquiry. It’s expected to say officials won’t cooperate with the probe because it was initiated without a vote of the House.
Pelosi last week announced that the House was beginning the formal inquiry but didn’t seek the consent of the full chamber.
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11:05 a.m.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says he “seriously” doubts China’s response to President Donald Trump’s call for the rival nation to investigate a Democratic political rival will play a role in upcoming high-stakes trade negotiations between the nations.
Kudlow tells reporters at the White House, “I seriously doubt that that is going to be part of the talks.”
Trump on Thursday called on China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Talks between the countries are set to resume next week.
Kudlow also says he’s unaware of the contents of a June phone call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in which CNN reports Trump brought up the political prospects of both Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Kudlow is calling the call and questions about the president’s conduct “way out of my lane.”
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12:30 a.m.
The White House is preparing to formally object to the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry as soon as Friday, saying it won’t cooperate with the probe because it was initiated without a vote of the House.
The White House Counsel’s Office was preparing to send a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi objecting to the form of the impeachment investigation, a person familiar with the matter said late Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the letter before its dissemination.
Pelosi last week announced that the House was beginning the formal inquiry but didn’t seek the consent of the full chamber, as was done for impeachment investigations into former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, confirmed that the letter was forthcoming.
Why Do Black Americans Always Have to Forgive?
What follows is a conversation between Lisa Snowden-McCray and The Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.
SPEAKER: Five to 99! it should have been 25 to 99!
SPEAKER 2: If it was a white woman that got killed by a black person, they would have got life!
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: Welcome to The Real News. I’m your host, Lisa Snowden-McRay. Former Dallas police officer. Amber Guyger has been sentenced to 10 years for the 2018 death of Texas man, Botham Jean. Guyger’s sentencing was yesterday, but what people are still talking about is the show of emotion that happened in the courtroom. Shortly after Guyger was sentenced Botham’s brother, Brant Jean, told the court that he forgave Guyger for his brother’s death and gave her a hug.
BRANT JEAN: If you truly are sorry, I know I can speak for myself; I forgive you.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: Judge Tammy Camp, who presided over the case also hugged Guyger and gave Guyger her personal bible telling her quote, “You need a tiny mustard seed of faith. You start with this.” Jean’s mother was a little more critical in her statements after the sentencing.
ALLISON JEAN: Yesterday, we saw the conviction of Amber Guyger and today we heard the sentence of 10 years in prison. That 10 years in prison is 10 years for her reflection and for her to change her life, but there is much more to be done by the city of Dallas. The corruption that we saw during this process must stop. It must stop for you because after now, I leave Dallas, but you live in Dallas and it must stop for everyone.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: It begs a few questions. Would Guyger have been treated this way if she was black? Are black people compelled to forgive those who hurt them? Today I’m talking with Real News host Jacqueline Luqman about why this story is so compelling.
Hi, Jackie.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Hi Lisa. Thank you so much for having me.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: Oh, my pleasure. We were talking a little bit before the camera started rolling about how you heard about what happened in the courtroom, ironically, a little bit after you came home from church because a lot of the conversation was around how it was so great that the victim’s family was being so forgiving and how that’s a Christian thing to do. What was your take on that?
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Well, my take is that people, especially Christians and particularly black Christians, have a very skewed interpretation of the doctrine of forgiveness as it’s preached and taught in, especially, American Christian churches. We are taught that we’re supposed to, especially black people, are taught that we’re never supposed to be angry at what is done to us and it doesn’t matter if it’s someone who steals from us or if it’s an example of extra judicial killing of an unarmed black person by law enforcement. We’re just never supposed to be angry. We’re always supposed to be meek and humble and we’re supposed to automatically, immediately forgive whatever anyone does to us.
That is a doctrine that is not biblical. It’s a misinterpretation of what forgiveness is in the biblical sense. It’s also not a form of forgiveness that’s practiced by many white Christians. There are a lot of different angles in that where we can look at how white supremacist ideology has misinterpreted and warped scriptures to control at, first, formally enslaved people and enslaved people and how those scriptures came out of an ideology of supporting empire in the first place when they were written.
Because we’re talking about the difference between the epistles and the gospel of Jesus Christ, which directly confronts and challenges unjust authority. What’s taught around forgiveness in the bible is usually centered around the epistles or the letters that came after the gospel that focus a lot on obeying all kinds of authority and that’s what we’re taught.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: I mean, it makes me think about even with… Everything these days goes back to Donald Trump, unfortunately. But when you look at his polling numbers, the people who are most consistently with him are white evangelical Christians. It also makes me think about when there were slaves, slaves were compelled a lot of times to go to church with their masters and stand in the back. It’s always been this warping of religion to kind of meld with the United States’ long history of anti-blackness.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Absolutely. I mean we don’t have enough time to go into all of the connections, but I love that you brought up that point that this was a tool; the misinterpretation of these scriptures to control oppressed and enslaved people was a tool that the empire, that the slave holding class used to control people. But when those enslaved and oppressed people actually were given the opportunity to read the scriptures themselves, they found in those very same scriptures a very different representation of the Christian God. This deity was someone who they found in the scriptures was on the side of the oppressed. He fought for justice and he compelled people who believe, who were believers to fight for justice on behalf of the oppressed, but this is one of the reasons why reading was prohibited among enslaved populations so that message of liberation could not be imparted to those people.
It got through anyway because this very same faith is what people like Nat Turner and John Brown and Denmark Vesey and Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth and Marcus Garvey and others used to fight for liberation for oppressed people. We don’t have a historical, the historical narrative of the scriptures themselves and of the Christian faith in regard to black liberation. That’s one of the reasons why we think that what happened in that courtroom was what forgiveness is supposed to look like for black people who call themselves Christians.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: What do we do? I know that when Guyger was even found guilty, in my circles, people were shocked. People were shocked that she was even found guilty. There’s not too many instances in the United States of a person who was a police officer being held accountable for taking a black life. We get to there. We got to the sentencing, which we can even argue about whether that was enough time or not, but where do we go from here? Where do black people go from here if we are not compelled to forgive, what are the alternatives for us?
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Well, first, I think you also raise a good point about the sentencing, and the fact that she was found guilty, which is unusual, but even among the black radical circles and the activists, we were looking at the situation from the guilty verdict and saying, okay, she’s been found guilty, but let’s not celebrate because we know that there’s going to be some shenanigans with the sentencing because we’ve seen this before. Then that’s what happened. The sentence could have been up to 99 years for murder and she was granted a sentence of 10 years with the possibility of parole in five if she behaves herself in prison.
I mean, people who sell crack have gotten sentenced to prison for more time. We understand that there is an inequity, a serious racial inequity that exists in the justice system, so-called justice system. We have to keep pointing that out as both as Botham Jean’s mother so eloquently did, that people in Dallas still have to live with that corruption and that injustice in Dallas. We have to keep fighting on those fronts and challenging the authority that allows these things to happen. That includes challenging the judge who was a black woman and calling into account the behavior of the bailiff, another black woman, and recognize-
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: She was the one who was stroking her hair.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Yes. And making her presentable and comfortable before the sentencing. We have to recognize that even black people in positions of authority will sometimes uphold the very system of white supremacy and oppression that we endure as we go through these challenges. As far as forgiveness is concerned, forgiveness is, just from a biblical spiritual perspective, it’s personal thing for everyone depending on their own personal proclivities, but if we’re just talking about, in the Christian faith, forgiveness is a process that includes inputs and measurable behaviors from the perpetrator of the person who requires forgiveness. This is a part of the forgiveness narrative that even Christians don’t understand is a requirement for the process.
It is not just a quick “you’ve done me wrong, and for me to be a good Christian or for me to be a good person of spiritual belief, I have to immediately forgive you, and you’re released from responsibility for making anything right of what you’ve done.” That’s not what the doctrine of forgiveness is in the Christian faith tradition. It involves quite a bit more than that. It involves true contrition, and it involves a changing of the perpetrator’s behavior away from those actions that warrant forgiveness. Then, then when those things are genuinely done, then we can talk about forgiveness. Usually, even then, it doesn’t require hugging people who murdered your loved one in a courtroom.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: Well, Jacqueline, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts today.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Thanks so much for having me.
LISA SNOWDEN-MCCRAY: I am Lisa Snowden-McCray and you’ve been watching The Real News Network.
Ralph Nader: Why Isn’t the 99% Revolting?
Never have there been more communications technologies, yet it is harder to get through to people personally than fifty years ago.
Never have people been able to use their right to free speech so unencumbered, yet a torrent of lies are now spread so freely and are often unchallenged.
Never have there been higher corporate profits, yet staggering amounts of poverty and near poverty remain along with stagnant wages.
Never have there been more medicines to alleviate pain, yet far too many of these pain killers have caused massive fatalities and addictions.
Never has there been more liquid corporate capital piled up, yet corporate investment is proportionately lower than before. Instead, CEO’s have burned over 7 trillion dollars in unproductive stock buybacks in the past decade.
Never have there been more exercise outlets, exercise machines and apps, yet obesity is still rampant.
Never have there been more tax breaks for big businesses, yet big businesses use so little of the windfalls for productive investments, good jobs and shoring up pensions.
Never has there been more free access to information, yet so little retained knowledge.
Never have there been more impressive muckraking film documentaries and books that expose corporate and government crimes, yet this media attention produces less impact and reform.
Never have there been more ongoing impeachable offenses and statutory violations by a president, yet the opposing Party in Congress have been reluctant to move on the many articles of impeachment. Remember how fast the unified House of Republicans moved to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice?
Never have there been more trainers, sports physicians, protective equipment and guards for professional athletes, yet there are far more injuries and days lost by players than was the case sixty years ago. Now there are helmets, gloves, pads, cushioned walls, better shoes etc. Why?
Never has there been more to read, yet there are so few readers reading. Historically, we have gone from illiteracy to literacy to aliteracy!
Never before has technology made it so easy for heads of government to meet, yet fewer international treaties are made. (Eg. Cyber, water, environment, consumer, labor etc.)
Never has there been such an outrageous corporate crime wave, yet law enforcement budgets have decreased! The more big CEO’s are paid, the worse is their management. (Eg. The big banks twelve years ago, General Electric for years.)
Never before have there been so many wrongful injuries, yet the court budgets are becoming tighter and the law of torts is being restricted. Without the defense of and use of our civil justice system, wrongful injury cases cannot go to court with a trial by jury.
Never before has there been more corporate fraud, yet agencies tasked with bringing this fraud to justice have smaller budgets and more limitations. The budget of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is a third of one day’s worth of health care billing fraud, which is estimated this year to be $350 billion, according to Harvard’s national expert on the subject, Professor Malcolm Sparrow. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been straitjacketed by the evil corporate crime abettor Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House Chief of Staff for corrupt Donald.
Never has the drug industry accumulated more profits and government subsidies, yet so many patients cannot begin to afford lifesaving medicines.
Never have the under-taxed super-rich been so rich, yet on average give a smaller proportion of their money to “good works.” Actually, middle and lower income people give more proportionally than do the ultra-wealthy.
I could go on and on. Pick up the pace, readers. Senator Elizabeth Warren has correctly called for “big structural changes.”
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