NO cuts to postal service and jobs (Workers World)

Repost from Workers World:

March 24 national protests to demand NO cuts to postal service & jobs

 

By a Workers World staff writer on March 22, 2013 » Add the first comment.

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The National Association of Letter Carriers has called for 100 rallies and other protests on Sunday, March 24, to save postal jobs and to keep six-day delivery.


The NALC call for a National Day of Action invites unions, small business customers, civic organizations and faith groups, as well as all postal workers, families, friends and neighbors, to gather outside specified post offices in the major cities of each state. “We want to make this fight about the cost of losing Saturday mail delivery and how it would affect people in each and every state,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said.


The American Postal Workers Union, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the Rural Letter Carriers Union have all endorsed the March 24 rallies.


The following information is from leaflets sent out by some of the groups organizing for the rallies:
“Combined with the planned closures of hundreds of post offices, the reduction of hours, the sub-contracting of postal trucking, and the closing of half the processing plants, the elimination of Saturday delivery is a frontal attack on the largest unionized workforce in the United States.

“Thirty percent of postal jobs are held by people of color. Veterans hold over 20 percent and women over 40 percent of postal positions.

“Continued closings of processing plants and post offices economically undermine local communities and small businesses. Not only are these living-wage jobs threatened by privatization, but the world’s lowest postage rates and most efficient mail service would be at the mercy of for-profit corporations.

“The sale of valuable and historic post office buildings being pushed by the Postal Service is yet another unnecessary scheme that will enrich the 1% and harm our communities.

“Not the internet, not private competition, not labor costs, not the recession — a 2006 Congressional law, which unnecessarily forces the postal service to pre-fund retiree health benefits 75 years in advance, is responsible for sending the postal service into a death spiral.”

In some of the demonstrations, organizers have invited community activists to participate. For example, among the list of endorsers that have endorsed a community march from the Chelsea Post Office to the New York main rally are the Chelsea Coalition on Housing; Neighborhood Advisory committee; Chelsea for Peace; Fulton Housing Tenants Association; NYC Metro Raging Grannies; and Communication Workers of America Local 1180.

Other endorsers are Parents to Improve School Transportation; International Working Women’s Day Coalition, NYC; U.S. Labor Against The War; Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization; May 1 Coalition for Worker & Immigrant Rights; the Rev. C.D. Witherspoon, Southern Christian Leadership Conference Baltimore Chapter president; International Action Center; and Baltimore All Peoples Congress.

Information on rally sites can be found at  tinyurl.com/aa5gg3b
Atlanta,GA:
Crown Road Post Office, 3900 Crown Rd, Atlanta, GA 30304; 1 -3pm 
Baltimore, MD:
Baltimore MPO,  900 E. Fayette St, Baltimore, MD 21233; 1 – 4pm 
Boston, MA:
Boston Common, Tremont St., Boston, MA 02108; 1 – 3pm 
Buffalo, NY:
Cheektowaga Post Office, 125 Galleria Dr. Buffalo 14225, 1-3 PM

Cleveland, OH:
Main Post Office, 2400 Orange Ave, Cleveland, OH 44101; 1 – 3pm
Charlotte, NC:
Carmel Post Office, 6300 Carmel Rd, 2 pm
Chicago, IL:
Federal Plaza, 230 S Deaborn St., Chicago, IL 60604; 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM CDT
Detroit, MI:
Southfield Post Office: 22200 W 11 Mile Rd Southfield, MI 48037
Los Angeles, CA:
Hollywood Station / 1615 N. Wilcox Ave., LA 90028 / 12:30 – 3:30 PM
Milwaukee, WI:
West Milwaukee Post Office, 4300 W. Lincoln Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53219; 1 – 3pm
New York, NY:
Start at Chelsea Rally 10am-11:30am, 15th St. & 9th Ave, march to NALC rally at Manhattan GPO; 8th Ave between 31 & 33, noon – 3pm
Philadelphia, PA:
Ben Franklin Post Office, 316 Market St, Philadelphia PA 19106, 2pm
Pittsburgh, PA:
1001 California Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15290, 2PM, SUNDAY, MARCH 24
Raleigh, NC
Old State Capitol building (south side), W Morgan St & Fayetteville St, 2 P.M.
Rochester, NY;
General Mail Facility (GMF) 1335 Jefferson Road, Rochester, New York 14692 1-3 PM
Salt Lake City, UT:
Downtown Salt Lake City Post Office, 230 W 200 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84101Sunday, March 24, 2013 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM MDT

San Diego, CA:
Downtown Station / 815 E. Street, San Diego 92101 / 11 AM – 2 PM
San Francisco, CA:
North Beach Finance Station / 1640 Stockton Street, SF, 94133 AM 11 AM – 3 PM
Tucson, AZ:
22nd Street and Cherrybell, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.




Articles copyright 1995-2013 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved

Highlights

This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.


 "Check your fly, Peter Beinart, your insincerity'showing" -- most requested highlight from last week by readers of this site.

 "Iraq snapshot," "Wednesay's Senate Veterans Affairs hearing,"  "The latest spin from the VA" and
"Robert Petzel tries to spin the Senate VA Committee" -- C.I., Ava, Wally and Kat cover a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.











Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Marital Aid"" -- Isaiah  continues his coverage of Barack's Drone War.

"Kat's Korner: Devendra's back, if you want him" and "Kat's Korner: Kate wants to talk" -- Kat did two album reviews last week, Devendra's Mala and Kate Nash's Girl Talk.


"Stop-Loss" -- Stan goes to the movies.

"That Barack" -- Isaiah dips into the archives.


"Yep, worse than Nixon" -- Mike notes reality.



"THIS JUST IN! THEY GAVE HIM A ROCK!" and "Evita-wanna be flames out in Israel"  -- Wally and Cedric point out Barack's visit was so bad, Israel gave him a rock.





"Whitney," "Whitney,"  "scandal," "Whitney (snooping)," "Arrow," "Body of Proof: All the Whiteness," "Smash,"  "Deception," "revenge,"  "The Client List,"  "The Good Wife,"  "Smash,"  "Nikita: The Life We've Chosen" and "Basic cable again calls" and "THIS JUST IN! HE BOOKS ANOTHER JOB!"-- Betty, Ann, Rebecca, Marcia, Stan, Elaine, Ruth, Mike and Cedric and Wally cover TV.









"Recipe for a f**k up," "The dying Iraq War veteran," "Avoiding the topic,"  "Pathetic WMC and others," "Differences (Iraq),"  "Oh, Ralph, shut up," "Praise for MarketPlace," "Sarah Flounders," "Iraq and Third,"  "the useless," "What happened to Laura Flanders?," "10 years later," "On the dreadful Cynthia Tucker," "No lessons learned," "Iraq, The Nation and more (C.I.)," "iraq," "On Matthew Rothschild and other whores," "Suggesting a legal requirement," "They couldn't be bothered," and "Raed offers more sillyness" -- every day C.I. covers Iraq at her site.  These are some of the Iraq pieces that went up at sites other than The Common Ills last week (including a guest post C.I. did for Ann).

Truest statement of the week

Since this is the tenth anniversary of the Bush war against Iraq, concerning Democratic Party support for it: On March 13, 2003 Congressman John Conyers convened an emergency meeting in Washington DC at a law firm right down the street from the White House on the Eve of War to consider, discuss and debate my draft Bill to impeach Bush and Cheney to try to stop that war. He invited Ramsey Clark and me to come in and debate the case for impeachment. The debate was 2 hours long. He also invited in about 40 top NGO honchos affiliated with the Democratic Party, including John Podesta, for the debate. I will not name the rest of them here, but I will never forget these pro-war cowards and hypocrites for the rest of my life-- not including Congressman Conyers. At the end of 2 hours of vigorous debating, we adjourned with my draft Bill of Impeachment sitting on the table. As Ramsey and I walked out of the building to take our separate cabs, I turned to him and said : “ Ramsey, I don’t understand it. Why didn’t those people take me up on my offer to stay here, polish up my Bill of Impeachment immediately, and put it in right away to try to stop this war?” And Ramsey replied: “I think most of the people there want a war.” The Democrats supported that war from the get-go. And this includes the Democratic National Committee. Podesta was there on their behalf and in the name of the DNC put the kybosh on my Bill of Impeachment designed to stop Bush’s war against Iraq.

-- Professor  Francis A. Boyle, international law and human rights expert, reflecting on the illegal war that began ten years ago.  

Truest statement of the week II

Ask yourself if the the rich elite, the 1%, are going to fund that.   Leave The Nation and Mother Jones on the shelf;  turn off Ed Schultz, Rachel Madow and Chris Hayes;  don’t open that barrage of email missives from Alternet, Media Matters, MoveOn, and the other think tanks;  and get your head out of the liberal blogosphere for a couple days.  Clear your mind and consider this:

The self-labeled Progressive Movement that has arisen over the past decade is primarily one big propaganda campaign serving the political interests of the the Democratic Party’s richest one-percent who created it.  The funders and owners of the Progressive Movement get richer and richer off Wall Street and the corporate system.  But they happen to be Democrats, cultural and social liberals who can’t stomach Republican policies, and so after bruising electoral defeats a decade ago they decided to buy a movement, one just like the Republicans, a copy.

The Progressive Movement that exists today is their success story.  The Democratic elite created  a mirror image of the type of astroturf front groups and think tanks long ago invented, funded and promoted by the Reaganites and the Koch brothers.  The liberal elite own the Progressive Movement.  Organizing for Action, the “non-partisan” slush fund to train the new leaders of the Progressive Movement is just the latest big money ploy to consolidate their control and keep the feed flowing into the trough.

The professional Progressive Movement that we see reflected in the pages of The Nation magazine, in the online marketing and campaigning of MoveOn and in the speeches of Van Jones, is primarily a political public relations creation of America’s richest corporate elite, the so-called 1%, who happen to bleed Blue because they have some degree of social and environmental consciousness, and don’t bleed Red.  But they are just as committed as the right to the overall corporate status quo, the maintenance of the American Empire, and the monopoly of the rich over the political process that serves their economic interests.

-- John Stauber, "The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats" (CounterPunch).

Truest statement of the week III

After the 2004 flop of the Kerry/Edwards campaign, luck shone on the Democrats.  The over-reach of the neoconservatives, the failure to find those weapons of mass deception (sic),  the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, turned American public opinion,  especially among the young, against the Republicans.  Growing anti-war sentiment, which had little to do with the organized anti-war movement, delivered to the Democrats what Governor Mario Cuomo called “The Gift.”  The horrific Iraq war, he explained to a Democracy Alliance gathering, was the gift that allowed the Democrats to take control of the US Congress.
It was at this point in early 2007 that the truly dark and cynical agenda of the professional Progressive Movement and the Democratic Party revealed itself.  Under Pelosi the Democrats could have cut off funding for Bush’s unpopular wars and foreign policy.  Instead,  with PR cover provided by MoveOn and their lobbyist Tom Matzzie, the Democratic Congress gave George Bush all the money he wanted to continue his wars.  For the previous five years MoveOn had branded itself as the leader of the anti-war movement, building lists of millions of liberals, raising millions of dollars, and establishing itself in the eyes of the corporate media as leaders of the US peace movement.  Now they helped the Democrats fund the war,  both betting that the same public opposition to the wars that helped them win control of the House in 2006 could win the Presidency in 2008.


-- John Stauber, "The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats" (CounterPunch).

A note to our readers

Hey --

Another Sunday.



First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:



The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.

And what did we come up with?

• Truest statement of the week

Francis A. Boyle provides some basic facts regarding the Iraq War.

• Truest statement of the week II

John Stauber had an incredible piece of writing last week.

• Truest statement of the week III

So we highlighted it twice and could have done it 20 times.

• Editorial: Iraq ignored by the media

Though they pretend to follow Iraq with their rush-to-write-a-column-about-what-happened-10-years-ago, they really don't know a damn thing about how bad Iraqis have it today.

• TV: Nikita's greatest foe

Ava and C.I. cover Nikita.

• How to write an Iraq anniversary column*

This is how to write one of the bad columns you are finding everywhere these days -- uninformed columns that act as if Iraq ceased to exist when Bush left the White House.

• Photo of the Week

The Iraqi protesters have a message for the world.

• Beyond Gall & Evil

Unbelievable is the only term for the administration's pretense as "openess."

• Sexism in the White House

A picture alarmed in January but the media just accepts it these days.

• The Iraq Roundtable

I (Jim) participated in this along with Ava and C.I. which makes it a Third piece needing to be posted here as well.  It was a strong roundtable and it was insightful not to be the moderator and watch how another person handles the duties.

• Does this mean he'll be sleeping on the couch?

Short feature.

• Iraq -- How the West Lost (UK Socialist Worker)

Repost of Great Britain's Socialist Worker. 

• Picking up Harriet's Rifle (WW)

Workers World repost.

• Highlights

Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.



Peace.




-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.

Editorial: Iraq ignored by the media

Human Rights Watch is calling for  an investigation into the March 8th assault on protesters in Mosul.  This follows their call last month for an investigation into the January 25th assault on protesters in Falluja.


There has been no investigation into either.  In both cases, Prime Minister and Chief Thug Nouri al-Maliki's forces assaulted protesters.  There has been no condemnation of Nouri from the White House for these assaults.

Amnesty International issued a report  [PDF format warning] "Iraq: A Decade of Abuses" last week and how the media rushed to avoid it.

That's The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS Evening News, ABC World News, Democracy Now!, The Progressive, In These Times, Z-Net, The Nation, . . .


They didn't care enough to cover it.

Like the ongoing protests which they ignore with very few exceptions.





That's a screen snap of Mosul last Friday from a video posted by Iraqi Spring MC.



Ghaith Abdul-Ahad (Guardian) reflected on the protests:


Every Friday, thousands of peaceful demonstrators have poured into the streets of Ramadi, Mosul and Falluja mimicking the Arab spring protests elsewhere in the region.In Mosul and Falluja, tent cities have sprung up in public squares. Some have even demonstrated in Sunni areas of Baghdad, braving the draconian Friday security measures imposed on them.

 Since December, these protests have been going on.  Some estimates have 10% of the population participating.  And yet the media ignores them over and over.


Remember Egypt?  How you couldn't get away from it on your television?

Try finding what's happening in Iraq on your TV.


Iraq was important enough to invade, it was important enough to drop bombs on, it was important enough to destroy.  But now the same media that once sold the illegal war wants nothing to do with Iraq.  They avoid it like the criminals they are, afraid to return to the scene of their crime.

TV: Nikita's greatest foe

Friday night The CW aired "The Life We've Chosen," an episode of Nikita, it's spy show. 
 

It was a win-some-lose-some episode.  Former head of Division and all around baddie Amanda (Melinda Clarke) had shot dead two police officers to kidnap Division agent Alex (Lyndsy Fonesca) on the previous episode and was now calling Division agent Nikita (Maggie Q) to tell her she would trade Alex for Russian spy Ari (Peter Outerbridge) who had been Amanda's lover of many years until she recently decided to steal his money and try to kill him.


Ari went running to Division which is how he ended up with Nikita and her gang.  As things heated up, Alex was rescued but adamant about going back to rescue a doctor that had helped her while Nikita was insisting that they had to follow Amanda and get Ari back.  Alex's lover Sean (Dillon Casey) sided with Alex and they went off together leaving Nikita with Owen (Devon Sawa) and not enough people to execute the plan they'd come up with.

Nikita and Alex divided are of no help to anyone.  That's long been the message of the show.  Friday night was no different.  The doctor died in a fire, Ari died shot in the back by Amanda.

As the episode wound down, no one with a brain was grinning.  Nikita was explaining to Michel (Shane West) just how badly it had gone.

Nikita:  Alex left and we lost.

Alex walks up and looks over at Nikita who stares back at her.  Michael looks from one to the other.

Michael:  I'll be in Ops.

As he walks off, the two women stare at each other for a moment more before speaking.

Alex:  So.


Nikita:  So. 

Ryan comes through, looks from one to the other.


Ryan:  I just want to say, job well done.  Look, I know we had some differences over tactics, but we got Alex back and we recovered the black box.  I cannot argue with those results.  You guys really do make a great team.

He walks off while Alex and Nikita continue to stare at one another.


Nikita is now in its third season.  The show is based on the USA series La Femme Nikita starring Peta Wilson and the US film Point of No Return starring Bridget Fonda and the 1990 French film Nikita starring Anne Parillaud.  The first episode of Nikita messed with you.  Like the ones before, it involved a break-in and a shoot out.  But the young woman injured was Alex.  Nikita has already been trained by Division (a spy agency working with the US government) and has already bailed on them.  She wants to get Alex inside the fortress that is Division so she can work on bringing it down.

Making Nikita a mentor and not someone struggling to learn spycraft wasn't the only change, there's also Maggie Q.




In the US versions, Nikita's been blonde.  In all three previous versions, Nikita's been White.  Maggie Q is bi-racial.  With a White father and a Vietnamese mother, she's Asian-American.  And carrying her own show.

August 27, 1951, The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong aired its first episode.  That DuMont Network program featured Asian-American actress and star Anna May Wong.  Wong had found fame in silent films, then moved on to talkies before pursuing the stage and overseas films. At the age of 46, she began starring in The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong which was the first TV series in the US to star an Asian-American woman.  And her character?  A spy.

Much is rightly made of African-American Kerry Washington being the star of ABC's one hour drama Scandal.  Similar attention should focus on Maggie Q's accomplishment.

Q's carried the series for three years.  She's played a vengeful and untrusting Nikita who wanted to bring down Division who managed to transform into a team leader in the second season and to someone with an ever increasing sense of right and wrong in the third season.  She's handled each evolution with skill and careful shading, forever finding new dimensions in Nikita -- the trained assassin who fights her way back to humanity.

If Nikita could go hand-to-hand with her worst enemy, The CW would be gasping for breath and begging for mercy.  The CW qualifies as worst enemy because its spent this season forever undermining the show via scheduling.  Once you put a show on Fridays, you need to stand by it.  Standing by it is not stops-and-starts.  Ratings show a season high for Friday night.  So how sad that this Friday won't feature a new episode.  This has happened too often in season three.  The show builds up steam and excitement and the ratings begin to rise and then it's time for the show to be off the air or for a repeat.

Maybe The CW needs to order more then 22 episodes of Nikita?  We're not talking about the 23 episodes it ordered for season two.  Up the order to 30.  Take a winter break of four weeks off and air the first half before the winter break and the second half after.  30 episodes with no repeats?  The CW could see Nikita build real traction.

Season four certainly has enough twists and turns in store.  For example, Ryan.

Back on October 27th, Mike (who covers Nikita at his site) noted, "But Ryan's turning bad.  [. . .]  He's becoming Percy.  He's shutting people out of the decision process, he's doing questionable things arguing that it's the only way, it's probably exactly how Percy started."

Ryan Fletcher (Noah Bean) was a CIA agent who became aware of Division and an ally of Nikita in her seasons one and two efforts to bring it down.  At the end of season two, to keep the government from killing the rogue agents of Division (who aren't aware that they're rogue and were led to believe they were on official, government missions), Michael, Nikita and Ryan agreed to run to Division.  Since Ryan had been a CIA analyst and not an agent, he didn't have the training for the field missions that Nikita, Michael, Alex and Owen did.  So he ended up running things.

And what the audience has seen is that Ryan is okay with killing children, he's okay with putting kill chips in the heads of people.  All the things Percy (who came before Amanda) and Amanada once used to justify their actions are slowly the things Ryan is grasping for.

How do you fight your friend when you friend becomes the monster?  If Division is the all corrupting -- as it appears to be -- how do you do anything but dismantle it in order to save the ones you love?

These are the choices Nikita will likely be facing in season four.  Fortunately, Maggie Q and the rest of the cast (especially West, Fonseca, Clarke and Casey) have demonstrated they can play complexities.  Season four should be the best season of Nikita so far.  In the meantime, take comfort in the fact that while the show's benched this Friday, the following Friday (March 29th), The CW spends the next eight weeks with a new episode of Nikita every Friday.  Trust us, you won't want to miss this.