The Common Ills: 2017-07-23

Saturday, July 29, 2017

Will they remember women this time?

We must ensure that women are included in the national reconciliation process in Iraq: http://ow.ly/rGpc30dWdHn  @UNIraq

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Yes, that would be ideal.

And needed.

When Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House and the Iraqi Constitution was being written, they kept women out of the process even when women took to the streets.

When Barack Obama was president, after the 2010 elections, he installed Nouri al-Maliki into a second term as prime minister and didn't bat an eye when not one minister in Nouri's cabinet was a woman -- even the Minister of Women's Affairs was a man.

Among today's violence?

XINHUA reports, "At least four Islamic State (IS) militants and one paramilitary fighter were killed on Saturday when the extremist militants attacked a paramilitary base in eastern Iraq, a provincial security source told Xinhua." And ALSUMARIA notes a south Baghdad bombing left two people injured, and an al-Kasr bombing left 3 people dead and seven more injured?

Violence today also included Turkey bombing northern Iraq yet again.

Let's note this from David Bacon:

MAY DAY MARCH FOR "UN OTRO MUNDO"
By David Bacon
The Progressive / On The Line - 7/21/17
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2017/07/may-day-march-for-un-otro-mundo.html
http://progressive.org/magazine/on-the-line-the-changing-face-of-work-and-poverty-in-yakima/

The face of work and poverty in Yakima ranges from a closed mill of the city's past to the agricultural fields of its present.

At the edge of town is the rusting structure of the old Boise Cascade plywood plant, where many of this small city's people worked for over a hundred years. Little houses in the surrounding neighborhood were originally built for mill workers. Now many are the homes of laborers in the valley's fields and packing sheds. Yakima always was and still is a farm worker town.

The closure of the plant is one reason why those homes have seen better days. Rick, who lives in a tent camp set up by homeless people on the street downtown, says he'd like things to go back to the way they used to be. "There was work for everyone," he remembers.

Not all memories of that work are so pleasant, though. Manuel Ortiz, age 85, came to the US in the 1950s as a bracero. After a lifetime of labor in the fields, today he collects cans to pay his rent. In Moxee, just a few miles away, Mario Magaña and Martin Gutierrez cut weeds between the rows of tall hop vines, whose fruit will soon be fermenting in the vats of one of the Washington State's many craft breweries. Their workday is 10 hours of bending over double, swinging a machete.

Long work days, or days of no work at all, were on the minds of hundreds of workers on May Day in this central Washington city. Farm workers marched with activists from the indigenous nation for whom the city is named. One group of workers, carrying the red flags of the United Farm Workers, came from the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery. A few growers and packing shed owners closed for the day, but most workers just took the day off on their own, risking their jobs.

And:

In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte
Photographs and text by David Bacon
University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte

302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9”
paperback, $34.95

SPECIAL OFFER:
order the book on the UC Press website:
ucpress.edu/9780520296077
use source code 16M4197 at checkout
receive a 30% discount

En Mexico se puede pedir el libro en el sitio de COLEF:
https://www.colef.mx

Die Apfel-Pflücker aus dem Yakima-Tal
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=23990

THE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog
http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com

EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE: Farm worker photographs on the U.S./Mexico border wall
http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=fc67a76dbb9c31aaee896aff7&id=0644c65ae5&e=dde0321ee7
Entrevista sobre la exhibicion con Alfonso Caraveo (Español)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJeE1NO4c_M&feature=youtu.be

Cat Brooks interview on KPFA about In the Fields of the North
https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=263826 - Advance the time to 33:15

"Los fotógrafos tomamos partido" - Entrevista por Melina Balcázar Moreno - Milenio.com Laberinto
http://www.milenio.com/cultura/laberinto/david_baconm-fotografia-melina_balcazar-laberinto-milenio_0_959904035.html

Attack on Immigrants - video of presentation about immigration raids and migration
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_msXdhsGmc&feature=youtu.be&t=1m6s

Book TV: A presentation of the ideas in The Right to Stay Home at the CUNY Graduate Center
http://booktv.org/Watch/14961/The+Right+to+Stay+Home+How+US+Policy+Drives+Mexican+Migration.aspx

KPFA - Upfront with Brian Edwards Tiekert
https://soundcloud.com/kpfa-fm-94-1-berkeley/david-bacon-on-upfront-9-20

Books by David Bacon

The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration (Beacon Press, 2013)
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328