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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=irag@iglou.com href="mailto:irag@iglou.com">Ira Grupper</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=ronniewhite2@insightbb.com
href="mailto:ronniewhite2@insightbb.com">Ronnie White</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, September 30, 2010 10:51 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> FW: Labor Paeans--Oct. 2010</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV class=Section1>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-LEFT: 2.5in"><I>Labor Paeans—</I>October
2010<o:p></o:p></P>
<P
class=MsoNormal><I>
Twin horrors: US unemployment, Mideast Occupation<o:p></o:p></I></P>
<P
class=MsoNormal>
by Ira Grupper<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
(Published by <I>FORsooth</I>, newspaper of Louisville F.O.R. [Fellowship of
Reconciliation])<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">We focus in this column on the
struggle to combat growing unemployment in the United States, and on the horror
that is the occupation by Israel of Palestinian land in the Middle East.
<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">Of every one hundred people in the
U.S., a little over fourteen are living in poverty. For workers aged 18-24
it is the highest rate of impoverishment since 1965, and overall it is the
highest official rate since 1994. <o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"> In this, the richest nation
on earth, forty eight of every one hundred African-American teenagers are
unemployed. Banks and other mortgage providers foreclosed on 95,364 units,
the highest number since the beginning of the housing crisis.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">President Obama had maddeningly
wasted a year or so trying to suck up to the stonewalling phalanx of Republican
Party yahoos. Finally, in disgust, and seeing misinformed white workers
blaming him and “big government,” and embracing Tea Party neo-fascists, he
suggested programs to deal with this.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">Meanwhile, the working class was
left to figure things out for itself. Organized labor was not organizing
on a large scale, the Employee Free Choice Act became an apparition, elections
for union representation dropped by 60%, and there were large losses in private
sector union membership—with organized labor and progressive groups, until
recently, and with some notable exceptions, seemingly catatonic.
<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">One positive note centers around
Congressman John Conyers, and his “21st Century Full Employment and Training
Act.” This act is patterned after pioneering legislation pushed by
organized labor and civil rights groups in 1978, and signed into law by
then-president Jimmy Carter: The Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act
(also called The Humphrey-Hawkins Act).<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"> If the private sector was
unable to create a full-employment society through gradual economic growth after
ten years, the Act would obligate the government to step in and create “last
resort jobs” to fill the employment gap. Unfortunately, and not
surprisingly, a coalition of Republicans and pro-business Democrats was able to
successfully weaken the bill.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Forward to the present. Representative Conyers has
introduced legislation tailored to fit our current economic realities, while
also embodying the spirit of the original Humphrey-Hawkins legislation:
the “21st Century Full Employment and Training Act.” <o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The Act aims to create a full
employment society over the next decade: 9 percent unemployment after 6
months; 8 percent unemployment after 2 years; 6 percent unemployment after 5
years; 5 percent unemployment after 8 years; and 4 percent unemployment (full
employment) after 10 years (is 4% full employment?).<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The Act establishes a “Full
Employment and Training Trust Fund” with two separate accounts. These two
accounts will direct funding to job creation and training
programs.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Meanwhile, there is hunger. And while our domestic
policies stagnate, so too do our international relations. The
Israeli-Palestinian crisis is a case in point.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">Your columnist comes from parents
born into Orthodox Judaism, never having any knowledge of the Palestinian
people, let alone their just struggle for a homeland, until I was fully
grown.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">The 1960’s civil rights group SNCC
(Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), on whose staff I proudly served,
began to take stands on international issues. I, embarrassed at my lack of
knowledge of the struggles of Palestinians and Jews in the Middle East, began to
read. I support justice for the Jewish people. I learned, to my horror,
about Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisiton of the fifteenth century, about the
Alhambra Decree, which expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492. <o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">But Palestinian Arabs did not
cause this, and Palestinians in the last century did not cause the
Holocaust. The government of Israel has, in effect, extracted reparations
from the Palestinians instead of the Nazis and Fascists in Europe, much like the
U.S. dumping endless bombs on the people of Iraq, even when no weapons of mass
destruction or Al Qaeda armies could be found in Iraq.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">I was in Cairo, Egypt, last
December, part of 1,400 internationals from forty three countries trying to
enter the Gaza Strip in solidarity with the Palestinians walled-in by the
Israeli government, slowly starving.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">It was there I met Mick Napier,
leader of the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. Mick and four
compatriots had interrupted an August 2008 Edinburgh Festival concert by the
Jerusalem Quartet. Tours by the classical musicians are regularly sponsored by
the Israeli Government, which the campaign group claims makes them a legitimate
target for protest.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"> The campaigners had been
charged with making “racially aggravated conduct,” and “comments about Jews,
Israelis, and the State of Israel”, but during a three-day legal debate at
Edinburgh Sheriff Court, a BBC audio recording of the event revealed that there
had been no reference made to “Jews”. Comments included “They are Israeli Army
musicians”, “End the Siege of Gaza”, and more.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">Sheriff James Scott ruled that
“the comments were clearly directed at the State of Israel, the Israeli Army,
and Israeli Army musicians”, and not targeted at “citizens of Israel” per se.
Although upbeat, Napier expressed concern over prosecutions still taking place
elsewhere in the UK. Space does not permit more information about the work
of the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. We in the United States
have a lot to learn about successful struggle from our sisters and brothers
across the pond.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New
Year, has just ended: “…there shall be a sabbath for you, a remembrance with
shofar (ram’s horn) blasts, a holy convocation”: Leviticus 16:24.
Listen, equally, to my beloved friends in Rabbis for Human Rights, in
Israel: “This evening a group of concerned and troubled Israeli (Jews)
went to recite <I>slikhot</I> (penitential) prayers and then stand silently in
front of the Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh
Jarakh that have been taken over by (Israeli Jews), and the additional homes now
in the midst of court proceedings which could lead to more expulsions (of
Palestinians). <o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">“(T)here is evidence the courts
did not review when expelling the families, and that the Israeli legal system
has sanctioned the expulsion based on suspect pre 1948 Jewish claims, while
denying the expelled Palestinian families an equal opportunity to reclaim their
pre-1948 homes. The Jewish tradition calls that <I>eifah v'eifah</I>, a
double standard…”<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in">I take my stand with these
courageous rabbis, who see both Palestinians and Jews as human beings.
They know that either we will live together, or we will die together. And
let the congregation say “amen.”<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN-LEFT: 1in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
Contact Ira Grupper: <A href="mailto:irag@iglou.com">irag@iglou.com</A>
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P
class=MsoNormal>
# <o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
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