O’Dell joined the war effort in 1943 by shipping out with the Merchant Marine. As a member of the National Maritime Union, a militant interracial union of a half-million members then led by the left, he learned his politics, from practice to theory. When not at work, he was reading W.E.B. Du Bois, a historian cursed in the scholarly mainstream for radical connections.
Here, what he had learned at home and in high school was driven home. He acquired a sense of real and potential working-class solidarity across racial lines, not merely as an ideal, but as a building block for a vast movement. He also learned what would soon be called, in the civil rights movement, “nonviolent direct action,” as he explains in the film. A strike, if done successfully, is already the perfect nonviolent direct action.
Meanwhile, the heroic moments for the US labor movement were passing swiftly, though hardly anyone in labor could suspect how swiftly. “Operation Dixie,”launched by the Congress of Industrial Organizations, was intended to change the South through unionization, and thereby change the Democratic Party by wiping out the power base of the Dixiecrats, the racist Democrats of the South. Instead, the post-war labor leadership abandoned the campaign quickly: It was hard going and labor leaders thought it involved too many “Reds,” those left-wing members and sympathizers of the Communist Party. O’Dell had to find another way forward.
He did. Part of his learning was to meet with the outstanding race intellectuals and activists of the day. A personal hero, W.E.B. Du Bois, would count most of all. O’Dell recalls becoming part of the Communist Party, not especially because of its global views including support of the Soviet Union, but because it was the one US organization selflessly dedicated to racial equality. Black people made real gains, as he says, from the work that communists, Black and white, did and against the greatest possible odds.
During the years immediately after the second World War, the civil rights movement resurged and gained new supporters and activists, as well as new and renewed enemies. Newer celebrities as varied as Jackie Robinson and Harry Belafonte were emerging — symbols of a volcano of energy and of warm acceptance from at least a leftish segment of the US population.
The post-war US elite, meanwhile, faced a new threat: anti-colonial stirrings in the global South, a restlessness that placed US segregation policies and the wider, pervasive US racism in a dangerously bad light. The Cold War furiously stoked the fires of repression at home across every social movement, and none more than movements for racial equality, South or North. But leading Democrats and others had to make some symbolic moves away from the status quo: thus, the measured and uncertain desegregation of the armed forces, or rather, sections of the armed forces, and a bit more rhetoric of racial equality in the 1948 Truman campaign for president. Such moves led to the third-party response of the Dixiecrats, with Strom Thurmond winning much of the South, while militantly anti-racist, Progressive candidate Henry Wallace, a few years earlier the most popular political figure after Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was Red-baited off the public stage.
I would add that the disappearing comes from 'well meaning' semi-lefties as well.
I have noted before that Communists were part of the Civil Rights Movement. That's not an insult. That's nothing to be ashamed of. As a Black woman, I am thankful for everyone who was involved in the Civil Rights Movement. And I do believe that every segment deserves credit.
But if I note a Communist here, I always get a few e-mails from people who explain to me that I am discrediting the Civil Rights Movement. How?
How is giving people the credit they deserve discrediting anyone?
Because some 'well meaning' semi-lefties see Communism as a dirty word. It's not a dirty word.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Wednesday, September 12, 2018. In Iraq, it's never the officials fault,
it's always the people of Iraq who get blamed. In this case, killing
protesters is a-okay but attacking a building is big time wrong.
In Iraq, the strife continues. Hayder al-Abadi and the US government would like a second term for him as prime minister. Iraqis are less enthused. Michael Jansen (IRISH TIMES) reports:
Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has called on caretaker Iraqi prime minister Haidar al-Abadi to step down in the wake of protests that killed 12 in the port city of Basra and elsewhere in the Shia-majority south. “We demand the government apologise to the people and resign immediately,” said Sadr’s spokesman Hassan al-Aqouli.
Catch that? Protesters killed.
It's a point far too many miss. Like below in this ALJAZEERA report where the governor of Basra whines about the 'violence' but the violence is only when the protesters attacked buildings.
Basra's governor, Asaad al-Eidani, is a hypocrite on many levels (for those who don't stream, the image frozen above is Hayder al-Abadi, Assad's later in the video). He's denouncing violence against property and that has to make many who know him chuckle. When Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, al-Ediani had a different view and it's that view that led to his arrest and imprisonment.
To ALJAZEERA, he whines about the destruction of property while insisting, "Any criminal act should be denounced regardless of who has carried it out."
Strange though, Asaad al-Eidani did not denounce any of the violence aimed at the protesters -- despite security forces killing protesters since July.
In Iraq, the strife continues. Hayder al-Abadi and the US government would like a second term for him as prime minister. Iraqis are less enthused. Michael Jansen (IRISH TIMES) reports:
Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has called on caretaker Iraqi prime minister Haidar al-Abadi to step down in the wake of protests that killed 12 in the port city of Basra and elsewhere in the Shia-majority south. “We demand the government apologise to the people and resign immediately,” said Sadr’s spokesman Hassan al-Aqouli.
Catch that? Protesters killed.
It's a point far too many miss. Like below in this ALJAZEERA report where the governor of Basra whines about the 'violence' but the violence is only when the protesters attacked buildings.
Basra's governor, Asaad al-Eidani, is a hypocrite on many levels (for those who don't stream, the image frozen above is Hayder al-Abadi, Assad's later in the video). He's denouncing violence against property and that has to make many who know him chuckle. When Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, al-Ediani had a different view and it's that view that led to his arrest and imprisonment.
To ALJAZEERA, he whines about the destruction of property while insisting, "Any criminal act should be denounced regardless of who has carried it out."
Strange though, Asaad al-Eidani did not denounce any of the violence aimed at the protesters -- despite security forces killing protesters since July.
Mohammed Kadem, lost his father at an early age, recently married with a child, English language major, went out to protest and demand fresh water for his family, tonight he was killed with a head wound. Basra , Iraq
The governor also plays dumb on what fueled the last few days of protests.
By Tuesday, Iraqis incensed at the cold-blooded killing of Yasir had descended on the city's main municipal building calling for justice for the slain youth. Security...
THE NEW ARAB reports:
Protests against a severe lack of public services, including reliable electricity and potable water, erupted once more across southern Iraq last weekend, with the country's third largest city of Basra at their epicentre.
Protesters had been briefly placated after a summer of unrest by a combination of pledges to resolve chronic problems - along with mass arrests coupled with police brutality. However, demonstrators have now resumed their calls for accountability of corrupt officials and state mismanagement after government promises to resolve Iraq's infrastructure crises failed to materialise.
But tensions escalated after a series of violent reprisals seemingly led by Iraqi counter-terrorism forces led to the deaths of seven protesters in two days.
Makki Yasir, a young Basran man, bled to death after he was shot in the shoulder on Republican Road in Basra's city centre on Monday. The New Arab's Arabic-language sister site reported activists saying security forces then engaged in a widespread campaign of arrests, with some witnessing abuses by officers.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced an investigation into Yasir's death after the Iraqi Human Rights Commission denounced the excessive use of force by security personnel.
By Tuesday, Iraqis incensed at the cold-blooded killing of Yasir had descended on the city's main municipal building calling for justice for the slain youth. Security forces once again used live ammunition, but were this time met by protesters launching fireworks and Molotov cocktails at them. Six demonstrators were shot dead while 15 military personnel were injured.
While some politicians sought to blame demonstrators for the violence, the Human Rights Commission's Basra chief, Mahdi al-Tamimi, again laid blame at the door of the military and police, stating that they had "directly fired on protesters"
Also addressing Yasir's death on Monday, Tamimi said: "We call on the Iraqi judiciary to open an immediate investigation into the killing of a demonstrator who was shot in the shoulder and subjected to electric shocks by security forces."
The governor of Basra has nothing to say about the deaths of the protesters. Apparently killing is not a crime in Iraq?
Killing is a crime. You know what else is a crime? Giving people polluted water that makes them sick. That's the sort of crime that should be punished and, since the Iraqi government loves to execute so much, maybe it's time the Iraqi government sentenced the governor of Basra to hang?
Deadly protests have rocked Iraq's Basra after 30,000 people were hospitalised for drinking polluted water aje.io/ddft9 — in pictures
That 30,000? The official number has increased. Ibrahim Saleh (AA) reports, "At least 60,000 people have suffered temporary poisoning due to polluted water in Iraq’s southern Basra province, Iraq’s High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR), a parliamentary body, said Wednesday."
Asaad al-Eidani has been the governor of Basra for over a year now. Maybe it's time the Iraqi government held people accountable? The people of Basra have been in the hospitals due to the water. Assad hasn't. That would appear to indicate he knew what water to drink and ensured that he had it for himself. But he didn't protect the people of Basra, did he?
And while we're noting who betrays the people and ignores violence against them, let's note Brett McGurk who Tweeted the following on Sunday.
Brett McJerk never Tweeted one word about the approximately 70 protesters killed thus far by the security forces. But look at him go when it's a building attacked.
al-Eidani and Brett fail to grasp that tossing around the term "right to peaceful protest" means defending the peaceful protesters. Neither man has said one word in defense of the protesters. But then the corrupt tend to only protect themselves.
This morning, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights declared:
We are concerned at the situation
in the southern Iraqi Governorate of Basra, where for the past several
weeks, people have been taking to the streets to protest against the
lack of basic services, electricity and water shortages, pollution, and
unemployment.
Protests escalated last week
after drinking water supplies were found to be contaminated. According
to the Ministry of Health, between 1 and 8 September, at least 11 people
were killed in relation to the protests. This brings the number of
people who have died since demonstrations began on 8 July to at least
20. In addition, more than 300 people have been injured in Basra since
July, including 52 members of the security forces.
We urge the relevant authorities to investigate all protest-related deaths and injuries and hold those responsible accountable.
Among the reported incidents, at
least five protesters were reported to have been killed and 41 others
injured on 4 September when unidentified attackers in a white van threw
grenades at demonstrators in Basra City. On 7 September, protesters set
fire to the Basra Governorate building for the third time, totally
destroying it, as well as numerous other buildings.
There were further protests yesterday to commemorate those killed. No casualties were reported.
We call on the Iraqi State to
heed the grievances voiced during the protests for their economic and
social rights to be fully respected and for the rule of law to be
upheld.
Since July, hundreds of
protesters are reported to have been arrested, many of whom were
subsequently released and at least 20 protesters are reportedly
currently in custody. We urge the authorities to release immediately any
person arbitrarily detained, in particular those who were protesting
peacefully. We reiterate the right of individuals to peaceful assembly
and association, and also to freedom of expression.
Meanwhile, make way, Jane Arraf's waddling down the public street again.
As Jane waddles on by, let's all chuckle over this one "tells @NPR Trump Administration has wrecked decades of good relations between US-Iran." Decades? Which decades were those? Before the fall of the Shah or after? It wasn't the '00s because the US government was accusing Iran of funding and fueling strife in Iraq (or has everyone forgotten those government endorsed 'reports' by Michael Gordon?). It wasn't the 90s and it sure wasn't the 80s. So which "decades" were they?
Where's Human Rights Watch, by the way? Surely the Executive Director, Middle East and North Africa Division, Sarah Leah Whitson, is focused on this and issues that truly matter, right?
Wrong.
Sad to have such a pea-brain as a parent, literally disadvantaging her children. Growing multilingual children is a great gift to them and a great gift to society.
I believe the "pea-brain" is you, Sarah. If a mother chooses to raise her children in a way you don't like, too damn bad. It's a free world, dear. And her traveling a different road doesn't make her a "pea-brain." You're not raising the children, she is and she's making the decisions that she feels are best for her child. That's her right. I speak multiple languages and my kids do as well. But that was our choice. And choosing that or rejecting that would not make me a "pea brain."
Ignoring the suffering in Iraq? Well, Sarah, that makes you a piece of s**t.
Who will save us from the 'saviors'? Sarah's about as helpful as the nurse in Pink's "Just Like A Pill."
And the suffering never ends. REUTERS reports, "At least six people were killed and 42 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated a car full of explosives at a restaurant on a highway near the Iraqi city of Tikrit on Wednesday, police and medical sources said. "
The following community sites updated:
Tuna salad in the Kitchen
8 hours ago
Barack the scold
8 hours ago
GLAAD's pathetic
8 hours ago
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
8 hours ago
Fake versus real
8 hours ago
Conspiracy of silence?
9 hours ago
