Opinion

Juneteenth is a day to honor the resilience and tenacity of those who survived slavery and fought for justice and freedom. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger brought news to enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, that they were freed in accordance with President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. That news took 2 1/2 years to arrive.

Juneteenth deserves an honored place in our labor history as we as we continue the fight for workers’ rights and to build worker power. On this day, we recognize the origins of the U.S. labor movement in the struggle of enslaved African people for emancipation. W.E.B. Du Bois characterized the American Civil War as a general strike. Black Americans’ withholding of their unpaid work collapsed the Southern economy and, with it, the defection of many Black residents to the Union military effort proved decisive in the Confederacy’s defeat. 

"Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person." -- Anonymous

The infamous decision of the NeoConservative, pro-corporate, US Supreme Court in their infamous “Citizens United” decision in 2010 has further strengthened the already powerful and over-privileged status of the corruptible, purely profit-mitivated, multinational corporations that control most everything in the United States. The 5-4 decision has made into law the absurd notion that corporations deserve the same rights as individual human citizens.

On May 25, famous American actor, Mark Ruffalo, tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza.

 “I have reflected and wanted to apologize for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding, “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now is the time to avoid hyperbole.”

 But were Ruffalo’s earlier assessments, indeed, “not accurate, inflammatory and disrespectful”? And does equating Israel’s war on besieged, impoverished Gaza with genocide fit into the classification of ‘hyperbole’?

“The United States is a nation founded on both an ideal and a lie.”

I offer these words of Nikole Hannah-Jones, whose 2019 essay is part of the New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project,” to the Heritage Foundation and the horde of Republican politicians currently trying to update the look and feel of American racism (a.k.a., “the lie”), to make it, you know, respectable and politically correct, so that it fits seamlessly into the mores of the 21st century.

Ballots to restructure along professional/democratic lines from the New Day Pacifica movement began being distributed June 7, 2021. 

If the Pacifica Network does not remake itself into something workable, its relevance and survival are doubtful.  

With its treasured history and powerful broadcast signals in America’s biggest media markets, the Pacifica Network should be a core electronic flagship for America’s vital pro-democracy movements.  

Instead:

* FOE Pacifica has chased away all but a tiny, tenuous audience;

* It’s in a deep financial abyss;

* Its management, and many of its most crucial meetings, are profoundly dysfunctional; 

* Its recent KPFK-Los Angeles fundraiser was a major disaster, portending even deeper disarray;

* For years FOE Pacifica has failed to produce a passable audit, costing the network millions; 

Editor's Note: This Sunday the Hilltop Historical Society was scheduled to hold its annual memorial service for Confederate soldiers, but it has been postponed until September and a decision to place Confederate flags will be made then.

One year into America’s reported racial reckoning, it is difficult to discern much meaningful change in our country. A major factor contributing to our stalled progress is an inability to grapple honestly with our nation’s history. The recent American Legion incident in Hudson highlighted how much some people prefer anodyne, sanitized stories of an imagined past to thoughtful inquiry that honestly grapples with legacies of race and power. In Columbus, there are some who hold far stronger preferences for hagiography and mythology over history, with far starker implications and consequences.

In early May of 2021, the Department of Justice released 10 pages of their FBI file on former Nirvana singer-songwriter Kurt Cobain. Since the rock icon’s death in 1994, mainstream media has mostly repeated police statements that Cobain killed himself with a shotgun. FBI statements and a mass of accumulated evidence suggest that they purposely avoided looking into the radical activist musician’s death due to U.S. intelligence involvement.

Cobain’s Radical Left Politics

One of the reasons the FBI may have had for participating in and/or covering up Kurt Cobain’s murder is their history of targeting political leftists. In 1971, activists broke into an FBI office and revealed its Counter-Intelligence Program (Cointelpro), which started in the 1950s and targeted anti-war and Civil Rights activists.

I reviewed a couple of the June 12th releases

Schoolly D + Ice T – The Real Hardcore

Philly Rapper Schoolly D invented teenager rap marketing. Schoolly  D’s album named Schoolly D released on Schoolly D Records boasted sex, money, and street respect. Schoolly D fathered every gangster rapper from Ice T to Biggie Smalls. 

Record Store Day finds the Philly Legend releasing his recent recording with actor/rapper Ice T’s “The Real Hardcore” in vinyl form. 

Recently, Ice found a moment in his schedule of starring in Geico Commercials and touring with Body Count to rap with Schoolly about Philly’s King of New York influencing Ice T’s renown L.A. Rap classic “6 In the Morning.” Schoolly D triumphs over a hard drum with reminding the listener he invented “Gucci Time.”  

Ice-T and Schoolly D were teenagers who had to figure out how to navigate the 1980’s C.I.A. bringing crack cocaine in their neighborhoods while puberty and poverty existed. 

I reviewed a couple of the June 12th releases

Schoolly D + Ice T – The Real Hardcore

Philly Rapper Schoolly D invented teenage rap marketing in the 80’s. Schoolly D’s album namedSchoolly D released on Schoolly D Records boasted sex, money, and street respect. Schoolly D fathered every gangster rapper from Ice T to Biggie Smalls.

Record Store Day finds the Philly Legend releasing his recent recording with actor/rapper Ice T’s“The Real Hardcore” in vinyl form.

Ice T who starred in a Geico Commercial and won a Grammy with Body Count raps with Schoolly D influencing Ice T’s the L.A. Rap classic “6 In the Morning.” Schoolly D triumphs over a hard drum reminding the listener he invented “Gucci Time.”

 Ice-T and Schoolly D were teenagers who had to figure out how to navigate the 1980’s C.I.A. bringing crack cocaine in their neighborhoods while puberty and poverty existed.

Gucci Mane would agree that Schoolly D looked fresh in his watch and fly gold chain.

The danger of nuclear apocalypse is at an all-time high. Understanding of the damage that would result from a nuclear war is of a greater horror than ever previously understood. The historical record of threats of nuclear weapons use, and of near-misses through misunderstandings, has mushroomed. The influence of the Israeli model of aquiring nuclear weapons but pretending not to have done so is spreading. The Western militarism that other nations see as justification for their own nuclear armament continues to expand. Demonization of Russia in U.S. politics and media has reached a new level. Our luck will not hold out forever. Much of the world has banned the possession of nuclear weapons. Presidents Biden and Putin could very easily make the world dramatically safer and redirect massive resources into benefitting humanity and the earth, if they were to choose to abolish nuclear weapons.

The American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord has made these three excellent proposals:

1. We urge the Biden Administration to reopen the Consulates and reverse its recent decision to halt Visa services for most Russians.