New or Noteworthy

Meeting Sundays 3-5 pm During COVID-19 shutdown we will meet on-line.
Meeting link sent to our email list: E-mail alt.banking.ows@gmail.com if you want to be added to it.

Movement for Black Lives

ACLU: Know your rights while demanding justice

Moral Policy Agenda to Heal America:
The Poor People’s Jubilee Platform

Current topics

• Reform of the criminal legal system (to be discussed Sunday 9/20)
  • Sati: Quest for a fairer justice system
  • Restorative justice
    •  Danielle Sered Repairing Justice: An Alternative to Prison
  • Prison Abolition
    • Mariame Kaba and Prison Abolition
  • Meager progress
    • California Bill Clears Path For Ex-Inmates To Become Firefighters a bill that is decades past due
• Organizing (for discussion 9/27)
  • Mutual Aid for Survival and Mobilization Solidarity Not Charity
  • 4,000 Nurses Strike in Chicago – 2,000 Grad Employees at Michigan – Long Island Teachers Wildcat
  • 1000 strikes during pandemic

1. Progressive efforts against RI Democratic establishment ousted 7 state legislators
2. Why the media is silent on Assange prosecution
3. Indianapolis police pushing back on reforms
4. America’s settler colonialist roots explain how we see property rights
5. A whistleblower complaint alleging ‘high rate’ of hysterectomies in ICE detention centers parallels grim U.S. history
6. Poorly protected postal workers are catching COVID-19 by the thousands.

Sept. 6 to Sept. 12, 2020

1. How Facebook profits from polarization
2. Remembering Kevin Zeese
   • United National Anti-war Coalition
3. Here Is One Graph Everyone Should See on Labor Day
4. U.S. foreign policy has to reject U.S. exceptionalism
5. America’s real hoax is a recipe for even worse social unrest
6. Why Your Favorite Musicians Are Broke
7. The Postal Service: A history
8. Tragedy of American Science: How trillions are mis-spent and the lost potential

August 30 to Sept. 5, 2020

1. Reposting Black Panther / Fred Hampton documentary Jarrettia mentioned:
   • American Revolution 2 (1969)  https://vimeo.com/351632080
2. Scott reflects on experience in a homeless shelter and why the apartment he just moved into comes with strings attached
3. Oxford pledged to donate rights to their COVID vaccine, Then sold them to pharma on Gates Foundation’s advice
4. The many faces of the radical right and how to counter their threat
5. Do the Men Running the Post Office Have Conflicts of Interest? 
6. Online lenders are preying on desperate borrowers and could trigger a new consumer financial crisis
7. Tenant Unions for the Future
8. In defense of ‘looting’
9. What MLK and Malcolm X would do today
10. The Conservative Defense of Kyle Rittenhouse Is Dangerous Nonsense
11. Amazon posts then deletes job listings detailing effort to monitor ‘labor organizing threats’
12. David Graeber, author of “Debt” who coined the term “bullsh*t jobs,” dies at 59
13. How many new drugs rely on government-funded science? All of them
14. How to Stop a Police Pullback
15. The Conspiracist in Chief Will Save Us All

August 23 to August 29, 2020

1. In Australia, COVID-19 Has Exposed a Litany of Privatization Disasters
2. Why Is It Always the Wrong Time to Criticize Democrats From the Left?
3. When Nixon pushed postal workers, they pushed back
4. Gangs in Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Cost Taxpayers $55 million
5. Is QAnon the future of the Republican Party? The Intercept
   • QAnon is the future of the Republican Party The Nation
6. Drawing a false equivalence between Ilhan Omar and Marjorie Taylor Greene is not only incorrect, but dangerous
   • The Q part is getting all the attention when her racism, Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism should be the story
7. Black Lives Matter protesters in many states are facing felony charges, including terrorism
   • Tennessee’s anti-protest law is a step in the direction of authoritarianism
8. Mitch McConnell Received Donations from Voting Machine Lobbyists Before Blocking Election Security Bills
9. Government has ‘blood on hands’ says serving soldier investigated for protesting against war in Yemen while wearing uniform
   • Statement By Veterans For Peace UK In Support Of Lance Corporal Ahmed Al-Babati
10. Amid backlash and disillusionment, slower reckoning for #MeToo movement in India
11. The Movement To Abolish Prisons And The Police
12. THE LINE: a new play crafted from firsthand interviews with New York City medical first responders during the COVID-19 pandemic

August 16 to August 22, 2020

1. Social justice movement channels spirit of Central New York suffragist
   • Matilda Joslyn Gage directed the women’s suffrage movement from her Fayetteville home. Then she was written out of history.
2. Krystal and Saagar: Polls show voters want to hear from AOC more than John Kasich despite DNC choice
3. How Ben Carson Tried to Destroy Fair And Affordable Housing
4. What Will the Real American Resistance Look Like — Chaotic Rebellion or Organized General Strikes?
5. NYPD used facial recognition to track down Black Lives Matter activist
6. Fed Economists Finger Monopoly Concentration as Underlying Driver of Neoliberal Economic Restructuring
   • Monopoly power to blame for inequality, instability according to Fed economist
7. Michigan reaches over $500M settlement in Flint water crisis civil suits
8. Democrats Drop Demand To End Fossil Fuel Subsidies From Party Platform
9. Antifa crackdown is the new red scare
10. Modern-Day ‘Poll Tax’ Amendment In Florida Faces Court Battle Before Election
11. Cathy O’Neil: School Reopening Is an intentional disaster: Students are pawns in a political game
    • Boston…Are We Ready for Hybrid Learning? A Student Perspective
12. De Blasio: City to begin moving homeless people out of hotels after complaints
13. An NYC exodus

August 9 to August 15, 2020

1. Biden names Kamala Harris as his running mate
   • “Kinship” Isn’t Enough — Harris Must Be Accountable to Black People
   • Kamala Harris accused of ignoring dangerous radioactivity, toxins by SF Treasure Island Former Residents
2. Five White Louisiana judges uphold life sentence of Black man jailed for stealing hedge clippers 23 years ago
3. Black Lives Matter Activist Hospitalized After Police Seen Kneeling On Her
4. Belarus: Fraudulent election
   • Germany: There are many indications of electoral fraud in Belarus
   • Belarus’s Workers Are Going on Strike Against the Election Fraud
   • Belarus election: ‘Widespread torture’ inflicted on jailed protesters
5. Man seen near homemade explosive at Portland protest ID’ed as ex-Navy SEAL
6. Despite ‘Frantic’ Walk-Back Efforts, Group Says Trump Threat to Destroy Social Security Must Be Believed—and Defeated
7. Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore
8. How A System Of Power Defends Itself, A Case Study
9. Abolishing Prisons and Restorative Justice
   • Abolishing Prisons with Mariame Kaba
   • sujatha baliga The transformative power of restorative justice
   •  Danielle Sered Repairing Justice: An Alternative to Prison
10. In the Wake of Protests: Symbolism that cost nothing and shifted no power
11. Trump Effort to ‘Destroy the Post Office to Sabotage This Election’

August 2 to August 8, 2020

1. Don’t believe the lie that voting is all you can do: Movements create change
2. Latinos, and others, should not let the president intimidate them into not being counted
3. 2020 Is a Great Year for #SquadPolitics. Just Ask Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib
4. Progressive Cori Bush Just Pulled Off the Upset for the Ages
5. Noam Chomsky Says ‘Failure To Vote For Biden in a Swing State Amounts to Voting For Trump
6. Bloomberg News: Bankruptcies rip through U.S. mall tenants with no end in sight
7. Golden Trump ‘Statue’ Shows BLM Protester Detained in Unmarked Fed Vehicle
8. NYC mayor’s staffers are fleeing as he gets slammed for ‘letting the cops run over him and the entire city’
9. After months of being sidelined by de Blasio, NYC’s top doctor calls it quits
10. The Trump child abuse scandal
11. America’s ‘Caste’ system
12. An estimated 30-40 million people are at risk of eviction
    • A Memphis woman, recovering from COVID-19, was evicted from her home
    • New law prohibits most evictions in NYS until Gov. Cuomo declares end to Covid-19 pandemic
13. Student suspended after posting photo of crowded hallway
14. Can we build a politics of hope?

July 26 to August 1

1. More federal officers deploying to Portland as protests gain momentum
   • The militarized assault on our right to protest
   • Reposting: Imperial Wars Always Come Home
   • ‘These are his people’: inside the elite border patrol unit Trump sent to Portland
2. How police unions fight reform
   • We’re Publishing Thousands of Police Discipline Records That New York Kept Secret for Decades
3. A tidal wave of evictions
4. Evil is never necessary
5. John Lewis: Together, you can redeem the soul of our nation
6. The pandemic is an opportunity to overhaul the economy
7. Speech and slavery in the West Indies

July 19 to July 25

1. Public banking efforts: Local Efforts & Legislation by State
2. Political Correctness Is Destroying America! (Just Not How You Think.)
3. Poor People’s Campaign:
   • Hundreds of thousands join the New Poor People’s Campaign virtual march
   • A Moral Policy Agenda to Heal America: The Poor People’s Jubilee Platform
4. An old speech but at least as relevant today as when it was given in 2014; Enormous power of Citigroup “Let’s pass something, anything, that will help break up these giant banks” (aka: why Warren will not be Biden’s VP choice). Also worth noting that the cronyism she decries was in the Obama administration.
5. Matt Stoller: Alexander Hamilton Wasn’t a “Cool” Guy, He Was More of a “REALLY, REALLY BAD” Guy
6. Krystal Ball: Free Speech Warriors SILENT On Anti-BDS Laws
7. Portland’s wall of moms joined by dads with leaf blowers
8. A Constitutional Crisis in Portland
9. The legal war against Trump’s anti-Immigrant census power grab ramps up
10. NYC is now the worst place to do business, retailers say
11. Old Karen Blocks Postmates Delivery Guy From Doing His Job, Westwood Los Angeles
12. Community fridges across the city are fighting food insecurity, reducing waste, and uniting neighbors.
13. U.S. ranked among worst countries to raise a family, study says
14. Groups challenge state vote-by-mail requirements that put voters at risk during COVID-19 pandemic
15. Civil rights leader C.T.Vivian dies
16. Civil rights leader, Congressman John Lewis dies
17. Commentator Michael Brooks dies at age 36
18. Imperial Wars Always Come Home
19. Confessions of a former bastard cop
20. Poultry and Prisons: Toward a General Strike for Abolition
21. U.S. Capitalism Is in Total Meltdown

July 12 to July 18

1. Reposting to Sunday discussion:
   Black Socialists of America’s Dual-Power self-determination map
   • Who are the Black Socialists of America?
2. Dismantle Racial Capitalism
3. America’s Enduring Caste System
4. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions’ career comes to an end
5. Public banking in New York?
   • NY State Senate bill
6. Make the Fed Publicly Owned and the Foundation of a Public Banking System
7. Federal agents invade Portland, Oregon
   • Portland Federal Agents Bundle Protester Into Van in Viral Video
   • It was like being preyed upon’: Portland protesters say federal officers in unmarked vans are detaining them
   • Mayor: Federal agent who shot Portland protester with crowd control weapon ‘escalated’ tensions
   • 50 Nights in Portland
   • The Trump administration wants to see what they can get away with in Portland and then they’ll be on their way to your town to make unlawful arrests, kidnap, and even kill citizens who are protesting
   • Federal officers respond to Portland protests with gas, munitions Thursday amid growing attention from Trump administration
   • The Oregon governor wants federal officers out of Portland. Trump officials won’t listen. Why?
8. ACTION: Tell Gov. Cuomo that prisoners’ families should be able to visit on reasonable terms.
9. Having Trouble Making Rent? NY State Assistance Fund Now Open for Applications
   • COVID Rent Relief Program
10. Strikes:
    • July 20 Strike for Black Lives: This Historic Organizing Effort Is Demanding Economic Justice for Black Workers
      • Strike for Black Lives On July 20 we walk out
    • 900 Strikes during pandemic
11. Your White neighbors “Black Lives Matter” yard sign is not enough
12. Are you racist? ‘No’ isn’t a good enough answer – Marlon James
13. When SNAP Gets Squeezed
14. Congress is running out of time to extend expanded unemployment insurance
15. The ‘Black Lives Matter’ Street Art That Contain Multitudes
16. March on Staten Island, 6th anniversary of Eric Garner’s killing
17. Nicaragua: The Revolution Won’t Be Stopped: Nicaragua Advances Despite US Unconventional Warfare

July 5 to July 11

1. Global Capitalism: As US Capitalism Shakes, US Socialism Renews
2. How the pandemic exposed faultlines in capitalism and failures of the gig economy
3. Occupy City Hall:
   • How the Floyd protests turned into “Occupy City Hall” in NYC
   • NYPD Arrests Legal Observer During Occupy City Hall Protests
   • How Black Organizers Fed the Occupy City Hall Protests With Restaurant and Homemade Meals
   • “Occupy City Hall” Brooklyn turns into “Abolition Park”
   • St. Louis protestors occupy city hall grounds
   • St. Louis Police Clear Occupy City Hall STL Protest Camp
4. Black Socialists of America’s Dual-Power self-determination map
   • Who are the Black Socialists of America?
5. Tucker Carlson’s top writer resigns after secretly posting racist and sexist remarks in online forum
6. ICE Offering ‘Citizens Academy’ Course with Training on Arresting Immigrants
   • ICE Citizens Trainings May Be A ‘Vigilante Academy’
7. Police surveilled George Floyd protests with help from Twitter-affiliated Dataminr
8. ‘Cancel Culture’ debate
   • A Letter on Justice and Open Debate
     • Interview of one of letter writers
   • “A More Specific Letter on Justice and Open Debate,”

June 28 to July 4

1. Fredrick Douglass speech: The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro
   • Read by James Earl Jones: What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?
2. To discuss this Sunday: Political Realignment?
   • What People Power Looks Like in a Pandemic Democracy, Corey Robin, NYRB
   • Symposium on the Challenges Facing Democrats: Freedom Now, Corey Robin & Alex Gourevitch, Polity
   • If authoritarianism is looming in the US, how come Donald Trump looks so weak?, Corey Robin, Guardian
   • America’s Aspiring Autocrat Is in the Home Stretch. How Worried Should We Be?
   • America Is Facing 5 Epic Crises All at Once, David Brooks, NYT
   • The new intellectuals of the American right
3. Reparations, H.R. 40 and the Path Forward
4. Garland Nixon: News Views: Trump executive order protecting monuments
5. Hundreds of Occupy City Hall protesters demand NYPD cut budget by $1bn
   • De Blasio’s $1 Billion NYPD Budget Cut Is Based On “Gimmicks” And “Fiction”
6. NYC Budget cuts of about $4 billion from other programs got little press coverage
   • NYC budget cuts could lead to loss of school counselors
   • NYC’s new budget cuts funding to cultural institutions by 11 percent
   • What the $182M cut to the Education Department budget means for students, teachers at NYC schools
   • NYC Cuts Parks Budget by 14% When People Say They Need Them Most
7. Essential Worker Spends Week In Jail After NYPD Mass Arrests Bronx Protesters
8. New York Protester Jailed for a Week Highlights Parole Abuses
9. John Oliver on topics not getting much MSM attention:
   • Prisons & Jails: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
   • Evictions
     • John Oliver warns of a “full-blown homelessness crisis” due to COVID eviction tsunami
10. St. Louis Mayor Says Sorry for Doxxing Protesters
11. Richard Wolff: Could U.S. Capitalism Turn Nationalist?
12. Israel’s Annexation Plan, a New Era in Palestinian Resistance
13. Why are we still in Afghanistan?

Earlier Posts

Jan. – June 2020

July – Dec. 2019
Jan. – June 2019

July – Dec. 2018
Jan. – June 2018
July – Dec. 2017
Jan. – June 2017
July – Dec. 2016
Jan. – June 2016