“Show Some Guts”
By Captain Don Marcus
Seafarers Are Not Expendable
The recent bluster from the President of the United States about “showing some guts” to run the gauntlet of the Strait of Hormuz, had to strike a nerve in every merchant seaman, regardless of nationality or location on the globe. As of this writing there are approximately 100 merchant ships and an international community of some 30,000 civilian seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf. Depending on the source, up to 19 vessels have been hit by missiles or drones and at least eight seafarers killed since the start of the war against Iran on February 28, 2026. One of those vessels was the U.S.-flag Stena Imperative, which was struck by two projectiles on March 2 while in port in Bahrain causing the death of one shipyard worker and wounding two others.
Numerous U.S. citizen merchant mariners, including the crew of the Stena Imperative and other U.S.-flag vessels, are among the 30,000 seafarers stranded in the Persian Gulf. Others are in or near ports outside the Gulf awaiting developments. None of these seafarers could have been assured by the contradictory and sometimes delusional statements of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in his March 13 press conference when he said that with regards to the oil trade and the attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz: “we have been dealing with it and don’t need to worry about it.”
“… in virtually every U.S war, declared or undeclared, supported by Congress or the American people or not, the guns start firing first, followed shortly thereafter by the U.S. government’s realization that seaborne military logistics, U.S. foreign commerce and, finally, the U.S.-flag merchant marine and the seafarers that deliver the cargoes have to be taken into account.”
The supply chains of the world depend on transport by sea. Approximately 80% of world trade is carried by sea. Observers of recent events, not to mention students of history, are well aware that global choke points such as the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Gibraltar and half a dozen other key waterways around the world can have a drastic impact on the world economy if closed to commence.
For the U.S. seafarers standing by aboard their vessels inside the Persian Gulf or diverted away from the Gulf by the present war, uncertainty is a given. Since at least the Spanish American War in 1898, in virtually every U.S war, declared or undeclared, supported by Congress or the American people or not, the guns start firing first, followed shortly thereafter by the U.S. government’s realization that seaborne military logistics, U.S. foreign commerce and, finally, the U.S.-flag merchant marine and the seafarers that deliver the cargoes have to be taken into account.
Within the last two years, prior to the attack on Iran, the crews of U.S. and foreign merchant vessels have faced attacks by Houthi missiles and drones in and around another global choke point, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. At least half a dozen U.S. flag vessels experienced near-miss attacks. This key waterway is located at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. Missiles, drone attacks, gunboat and unscrewed surface vessel attacks in Middle Eastern waters are not a new phenomenon to U.S. or foreign seafarers. The attacks, crew fatalities and vessel seizures in and around the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea have proven to be only a prelude to what is now taking place in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.
History Is Repeating
In fact, history is directly repeating itself in the Persian Gulf. Few will remember the “Tanker War” which took place during the closing years of the Iran-Iraq War in 1987-88. During this time the U.S. decided to re-flag a number of Kuwaiti tankers to the U.S. flag to inhibit Iranian attacks on these vessels as they transited the Persian Gulf and its outlet at the Strait of Hormuz. Two of these U.S. flag tankers, the M/V Bridgeton and M/V Sea Isle City crew were attacked and seriously damaged. The M/V Bridgeton was struck by a mine off Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf, and the M/V Sea Isle City was stuck by a Silkworm missile fired from the Al Faw peninsula in Iraq which at the time was occupied by Iranian forces. Both attacks were launched by Iran. U.S. Captain John Hunt was permanently blinded during the attack on the M/V Sea Isle City, and eleven other members of the crew were hospitalized. Ultimately, some thirty U.S. naval vessels were engaged, U.S. attacks on Iranian facilities were undertaken which included ground attacks by U.S. Special forces as part of the vessel escort operations. This effort was dubbed “Operation Earnest Will” which is in itself a telling distinction in tone from “Epic Fury.” Operations ended with the peace between Iran and Iraq in 1988, but it should be noted that some 64 seafarers from many nations were killed through the course of the “Tanker War.” Notably, the entire effort was done under sanction of UN Resolution 598 and in conjunction with the French and British Navies.
Military technology has advanced exponentially since 1988. Seafarers remain on the front line of war, however. Today they are more lethally exposed than ever. Seafarers do, in fact, have something to “worry about,” as do shipowners. Whatever their concern for their crew, shipowners will protect their investments. The price of oil may be going up, but War Risk insurance for vessels entering the Persian Gulf is priceless – it simply cannot be had. “Nothing to worry about,” indeed.
Therefore, U.S. merchant seamen in and around the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and Eastern Mediterranean and thousands of other seamen, have reason for grave concern. Of course, so do millions of innocent civilians throughout the region. The men and women of the U.S. Merchant Marine, 90% of whom are card carrying Union members, require more for assurance than facile bombast from the current administration in Washington DC. As the motto of the United States Merchant Marine Academy states: Acta Non Verba. “Deeds, not Words,” — least of all imbecilic ones from triumphalist and “merciless” U.S. government officials.
Those who go to sea for a living must deal with the hazards of their job just like firemen or mineworkers do. In wartime, merchant seamen know they are at risk. They must make their personal decisions accordingly.
In making their decisions certain basic needs must be met by all maritime employers. These needs were cogently expressed by the Nautilus Federation, an international federation of over twenty maritime unions representing seafarers from sixteen different countries including the U.S.A. Seafarers must be:
· Fully and promptly informed of all known risks before entering war zones or areas of warlike activity
· Provided unhindered right to repatriation and transit should they decline to enter zones or areas of heightened risk
· Protected from disciplinary action, loss of pay, impact on insurance, or detriment where safety decisions are taken in good faith
· Supported with appropriate security measures, welfare provisions, and access to assistance where voyages are disrupted
· At the very minimum, the protections, including pay bonuses and compensation for death or disability agreed to by the participants of the International Bargaining Forum of which the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) is a party to must be met for service in designated “Warlike Operations Areas” which, among other locations around the world, (such as the Black Sea) includes the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman and coast of Israel in the eastern Mediterranean.
What U.S. seafarers need for assurances regarding the performance of their profession in wartime are basic to what any prudent seafarer would logically require before voluntarily putting herself or himself in danger:
· Naval Escort/Convoy and oversight system in war zones: This has been the most effective protective measure from the days of the Spanish galleons to the Second World War, to the 1987-88 Tanker War to recent attacks in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb Strait. It needs to be implemented in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.
· Proactive countermeasures against shore-based air attack and naval facilities. This appears to be ongoing.
· Effective Mine-Sweeping capability. The U.S. naval minesweeping capabilities are notoriously limited and under-resourced.
· Secure communications equipment aboard ship and, if required, trained communications personnel with direct access to the appropriate military authorities, escorting vessels and surveillance personnel. This need was apparent in the Red Sea attacks and remains to be adequately addressed aboard U.S. commercial vessels in War Zones.
· International cooperation and pooling of naval assets. It has been repeatedly made clear to U.S. merchant mariners that the U.S. Navy does not have sufficient equipment to prioritize escort and close oversight protection of U.S. vessels, let alone the international merchant fleet that transits the Persian Gulf.
· Sufficient War Risk Insurance.
It may be a bridge too far to expect traditional allies who we have maligned and whose forces we denigrated to pool resources in a war the U.S. and Israel have started. However, if the world economy is to be stabilized and supply chains are to remain intact, seafarers must feel safe enough to willingly ply their trade.
In the words of British Trades Union Congress President and Nautilus International Director Mark Dickinson:
“Seafarers are not expendable, and they must not be treated as collateral damage in regional or international conflicts. The current situation in and around the Strait of Hormuz represents a serious escalation in risk for the men and women working at sea, many of whom are simply trying to do their jobs and return home safely. Their safety must come first, and that means clear information, robust protections, and the unequivocal right to refuse to sail into warlike or unsafe zones without fear of penalty.”
U.S. merchant mariners are overwhelmingly members of unions. They are covered by collective bargaining agreements. They are civilians. Opinions about the war vary greatly aboard U.S.-flag ships as they do in our communities.
Few civilian workers of any type have risen to the occasion more patriotically or consistently than American merchant seamen, who have done so since the first United States ensign was hoisted aboard a vessel in 1775. During the Second World War, American seafarers, overwhelmingly union members, suffered a higher proportional casualty rate than any branch of the U.S. armed forces. Close to 10,000 seamen were killed and over 950 ships were sunk.
The tradition of service in the U.S. merchant marine: “In Peace or War” is one that American seafarers are understandably proud of. The fact that they are union members and have the personal agency to make their own decisions about shipping out and putting themselves in harm’s way only enhances their pride of profession. This mindset has not changed. It continued during the Tanker War of 1987-88, the first Persian Gulf War and every war since, up through the attacks in the Red Sea and now the war in Iran. The men and women of the U.S. merchant marine cannot be accused of “lacking guts.”
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Today the Forum Presents 2 Ways For You To Participate In The Fight
By The Editors
Webinair: Wednesday – March 18th – 1PM
Labor Solidarity with Palestine
Lessons from Italy and Britain
On March 18th the National Labor Network for Ceasefire and In These Times magazine will host an international webinar featuring trade unionists from Italy and Britain engaged in direct action for justice for Palestinians. On October 3, 2025 the Confederazione Generale Italiana di Lavoratori (CGIL) participated in a national strike for Palestine. The action involved over two million workers and paralyzed transport and logistics throughout Italy. British workers have also engaged in dramatic actions, pressuring both their government and corporate targets, and have had to withstand attacks on their civil liberties in the process. Join the webinar to learn more from unions from both countries and how it might inform the actions of unions here in the United States.
The need for working class solidarity with Palestine did not end with the so-called “ceasefire” in Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since the “ceasefire” went into effect, and the U.S. government recently sent $6.7 billion additional dollars worth of weapons to Israel, funds that are desperately needed to fund human needs in the U.S.
Header Panelists will include:
Jo Grady, General Secretary, University and College Union (Britain)
Salvatore Marra, International Secretary,CGIL (Italy)
Puneet Maharaj, Executive Director, National Nurses United (U.S.)
Lara Kiswani, Executive Director, Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC) (U.S.)
Maria Elena Delia, spokesperson, Global Sumud Flotilla – Italy
The webinar will take place on March 18th and will begin at:
1 PM Eastern Time (USA) and last until 2:30 PM EST
Here is a link to register for the webinar
https://bit.ly/palestine-labor-solidarity-webinar
From Steve Early
Come meet the folks from Barn Raiser
Share a meal and ideas
March 25th
Our friends Justin and Joel (former publisher of In These Times) are doing great work with a new on-line media outlet designed to counter MAGA influence in rural America by covering its politics, history, culture, religion, labor, environmental and agricultural issues from a progressive perspective. See-–https://barnraisingmedia.com/
On Wednesday, March 25, we hope you can join us for a dinner discussion of what’s going on in red states and rural areas of blue ones, like CA. They are particularly interested in meeting potential contributors—journalists, photographers, activists, and academics with an interest in this field. We’ll be passing the hat but no donation required
See details below, including how to RSVP. Please share this invite with anyone else who might be interested!
Steve and Suzanne
For further info, directions, and to RSVP, follow the QR code, email Lsupport@aol.com or contact 617-930-7327. Food and drink will be served!
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Rip van Winkle and the unbelievable breaking news
By Helena Worthen
Rip van Winkle woke up every day and read the paper and said, “Unbelievable!”
Roosevelt gets a third term – “Are you kidding?”
Germans, the country of Beethoven – “What’s with this thing about Jews?”
Military-industrial complex? “Sounds like a mall.”
Someone shot Kennedy? “No way. Why was he in Texas?”
Tanks on the streets of Detroit: “Impossible.”
Both Martin Luther King and Malcom X? “Unbelievable! Why would anyone?”
He thought the Moon Shot was great; he enjoyed that, it was not incredible.
But the photos coming out of Vietnam were “unbelievable.”
Some of it just went over his head. The Kent State killings, for example. Jackson State? No clue.
The volunteer army? “Well, maybe.”
He liked “Morning in America.”
Tax cuts? Can’t hurt.
But his local post office closes – “I can’t believe it.”
The price of medical care? “Unbelievable.”
That 6-lane bridge that fell in Milwaukee: “Are you kidding?”
The Twin Towers – “Why them? They’re not military. They’re office buildings. I don’t get it.”
“What kind of nutcase takes a mortgage with an APR? What’s a tranche?”
Gaza – “Good god, how did we get here?”
And “No more fireflies? What’s with that? There were always fireflies.”
Now this guy – “You’re not going to believe this. Incredible.”
Tell Rip to read this poem backwards. Maybe push it back 150 years. Your assignment: help Rip believe.
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The DisState of the Union
By Stewart Acuff
The con man’s games and tricks
As the nation waited, and took a breath to watch the president hold forth on the State of the Union, Trump was hit with a week’s worth of fresh crises.
We learned last Tuesday, that the DOJ and the FBI have been scrubbing the president’s name from the Epstein files before they’re released to the public. The NYT reported on February 25th that one of those files held back are investigative notes of a 13 year old girl who reported Trump raped her.
That would blow up a State of the Union speech of any other president. But he has no sense of shame or accountability or any boundaries.
June 19th, PBS reported that America’s top Catholic leaders issued a damning statement about Trump’s ICE and immigration policy. They included a number of policy demands and criticisms of both DHS and ICE.
They call for human rights for immigrants, for supporting not destroying immigrant families, for a new immigration policy with a path to citizenship and provide a way to stay for immigrants who’ve made a life here and “work for the common good”.
While he was preparing for his speech, polling from different sources show the alleged pedophile, convicted sexual abuser president has the lowest approval rating of both his terms. His approval rating is below 40%. Sixty percent of Americans disapprove of him as president.
He started his speech with a list of data points liberally sprinkled with half truths, bad numbers and outright lying.
He lied liberally about the economy. He blamed (how many times) Biden for the inflation that still plagues us. Of course, anyone who understands economics knows that the Trump tariffs are sales taxes on imported goods that keep prices up, even raising them.
Jarringly, he reported that the US has taken 80 million barrels of oil from Venezuela since the kidnapping of their president. War for Oil?
After bragging about assaulting the environment with huge increases in oil drilling, he crowed his “Drill Baby Drill” chant.
He claimed to have cleaned up several major American cities including Memphis, Washington, DC and others.
The rest of the speech was the con man’s games and tricks. He wrapped himself in glory that he didn’t earn or deserve: introducing military heroes soaking up their applause as though he had ever known the sacrifice, discipline and sheer terror and trauma that comes from all combat and defines what is given and taken in mortal struggle.
I couldn’t help but notice that every time he delivered an applause line he turned his head, preening with his silhouette.
The chamber was obviously more split than usual after the war Democrats have experienced from Trump including trying to prosecute Democratic war heroes like Senator Mark Kelly, basing federal aid on the way a state votes, flooding city streets with corrupt cops called ICE to remove as many brown and black people as possible. The Democratic side of the aisle had many open seats as many boycotted the speech.
While at one hour and forty-seven minutes, and forty seconds, the address was the longest in history. But not as long as rumors, and leaks, had predicted leading to speculation that some were using inside information to play the betting market on the speech’s length.
In the end the whole effort was about shoring up his slipping base. Of course, that just reinforces the status quo which is a disaster for Trump.
In the upper Potomac Valley we are facing two distinct crises piled on us by the GOP Administration.
Trump and his maga crowd are determined to build an ICE detention center just across the river in Maryland. And here in West Virginia the MAGA GOP Governor wants our state to create the most data centers in our nation. It will soak up our ground water, and suck up electrical power, driving up our electric bills.
It’s happening all over the country. Trump and the GOP are trying to sell the earth beneath our feet as they turn our children and grandchildren into high tech serfs, who only matter for giving themselves to a virtual boss and robotic existence.
Time to turn it around in November.
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Jesse Jackson Was a Labor Leader
By Gene Bruskin
The Reverend Jesse Jackson was a labor leader of the most visionary kind, in the great tradition of WEB Dubois, Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King,
Like Dr King, who identified the “Triple Evils” of poverty, racism, and militarism”, Reverend understood the links between class/race and US foreign policy in a way that few labor leaders do, recognizing that making these connections was essential to building a powerful workers movement in the US and beyond.
I know that because I saw him in action repeatedly in the 2-year period, 1992-1994, that I worked for him at the National Rainbow Coalition as his labor deputy.
In 1988, while helping to build Labor For Jackson in Boston, and prior to my time at the Rainbow, I was inspired by Reverend’s emphasis on peace in the Middle East and Palestinian rights in his Presidential campaigns. This encouraged me to visit the West Bank as part of a labor solidarity delegation sponsored by the ADC (Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee). Palestinians are workers, and I got to see firsthand the incredible obstacles they face to be respected as workers.
In 1990, while Bush was planning a massive deployment of troops to Kuwait, Reverend traveled to Iraq, met with Hussein and brought back a large group of Americans trapped there. Meanwhile, I was helping to form an Anti-Gulf War labor group in DC. This experience helped plant the seeds for the founding of US Labor Against the War in 2003 when the Iraq war broke out. Reverend of course opposed that war even before it started.
In 1992 I became his Labor Deputy as the fight against NAFTA was moving center stage in the US. I watched as Reverend repeatedly educated African Americans in churches about the dangers to all working-class people of a pro-corporate trade agreement that didn’t include them. Crossing borders, like Robeson and Dubois did, we organized two Rainbow sponsored labor rallies on the US-Canada border. One was near Niagara Falls and one in the Peace Park on the Washington State/British Columbia border. Mexican representatives participated in both rallies. Then Reverend sent me to Mexico to attend the Tri National Conference to oppose NAFTA.
In September 1993, I was with Reverend when he led a militant march and civil disobedience action with workers organizing for a union with ACTWU at Earle Industries in rural Arkansas. He then pressured the CEO to allow a vote that brought in the union. As the events there were concluding Reverend rushed off to charter a plane to join the signing of the OSLO accords in DC and meet with Arafat. Reverend was not invited to the signing, despite his years of Middle East peace work, but that didn’t stop him.
In 1993 in St Louis, I did the advanced planning for a city-wide pre-strike janitors rally. At the rally, the excited janitors were disappointed when they saw me coming on stage to read my remarks instead of Reverend. (very embarrassing role for me). At the last-minute Reverend had been asked by President Clinton to fly to South Africa to represent the US at the funeral of anti-apartheid leader Oliver Tambo, a friend of his. Reverend had been to South Africa as early as 1979 and was deeply involved in the Anti-Apartheid movement. But he also cared about the janitors in St Louis.
In 1993, when Nelson Mandela visited the US, Reverend planned a large rally for him in DC. My job was to raise the money for the event from Johnny Morris, the powerful leader of the Pennsylvania Conference of Teamsters and a big fan of Reverends. At an earlier statewide meeting of the Conference, I watched Reverend exhibit his insight into workers and their union leaders. When Reverend arrived at the podium to speak, accompanied by a loud applause, Johnny reached out to shake his hand. Instead, Reverend bent his knee and kissed Johnny’s ring, embarrassing him and shocking the amused workers in the room. No one did that to Johnny Morris. Then Reverend gave a powerful well received speech. Later Johnny agreed to provide the money as long as he and his team could get a photo with Mandela. My job was to arrange it. It was a great example of bringing solidarity with South Africa from an unlikely labor partner. And of course, it was an honor to watch Reverend and Nelson Mandela interact at this huge event, two great world leaders and friends.
In October 1993 Reverend was invited for the first time to speak at the annual AFL-CIO convention. Walter Johnson, the progressive SF Labor Council President called an outside rally, allegedly one of the first rallies ever held at an AFL-CIO convention. Although AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland didn’t want Reverend to speak, Johnson declared it was his town and his rally. Reverend gave a powerful speech about NAFTA to a large cheering crowd.
Just as Reverend couldn’t resist an opportunity for righteous acts of international solidarity, he couldn’t resist a big worker fight. Another example was in Providence, RI prior to an election for a large unit of service and maintenance workers at the Rhode Island Hospital with the Teamsters, under Ron Carey. With great organizers on the ground (Bob Muehlenkamp, Valerie Ervin and Gary Stevenson) Reverend led a large rally with the workers in front of the hospital. Many of them had walked out to join him. The viciously anti-union CEO came out, thinking he could talk Reverend into a private meeting. Instead, Reverend led the rally into the hospital lobby and sat down with the CEO and organizing committee. He asked them to join hands and began a call and response prayer asking God to assure a fair election and contract for the workers. He then led large entourage through the hospital, promoting the union in every department, while the CEO trailed helplessly behind the workers, begging him to stop and meet alone with him. The Teamsters won the election.
Another big labor issue of this period was striker replacement and the “Cesar Chavez Workplace Fairness Act” in Congress, to prohibit employers from hiring permanent replacements for striking workers. The AFL-CIO showed no interest in working with the Rainbow to promote this new bill, so Reverend asked me to organize a march. He loved marches for justice. In Atlanta, I worked with CLC President Steward Acuff and the legendary civil rights leader James Orange, to organize a two-day march in support of 150 high paid white male printing workers from GCIU in Doraville, GA, 15 miles into Atlanta. The workers had been permanently replaced during a 5-month strike. Reverend brought Al Sharton down to march with us “to give him more experience with labor,” he explained. Along with 1199 SEIU President Dennis Rivera, they marched in the front of this contingent of white male workers ending up in the offices of Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. To this day, the right of employers to permanently replace workers on economic strikes is a major impediment to holding companies accountable.
One last example of many that shows Reverend’s commitment to building a militant labor movement was in collaboration with the highly regarded, president of 1199 SEIU in Connecticut, Jerry Brown. 1199 was staging a statewide strike of nursing home workers and they invited Reverend to join them in blocking the main bridge in New Haven during rush hour and taking arrests.
Enroute to New Haven, at HERE’s request, Reverend led a march through a Westchester country club of service workers who were involved in a tough contract struggle. Reverend marched in the front with an older white woman worker, passing by the refurbished chicken coups that served as the workers’ housing. The women worker marching with Reverend had been the nanny for the now CEO when he was a child.
From there we were driven to the large New Haven rally and greeted by cheering women CNAs. He gave a rousing speech, including one of his favorite lines, “you take the early bus and then you work the late shift,” followed by a group chant “I am somebody.” He understood the powerful capitalist strategy to make workers feel like they are worthless and therefore shouldn’t complain. After essentially shutting down New Haven during rush hour Reverend demanded that the police arrest him, which they did reluctantly, and then escort him out of town to get to La Guardia in time for our flight home. Another day in the life.
Even during the short time I was with Reverend Jackson I witnessed many other dramatic examples of labor and international solidarity. Can you imagine how many of these happened during his lifetime? Jesse Jackson was a labor leader.
In January 1994 my wife Evie and I traveled to St Petersburg, Russia to adopt our daughter for life from an orphanage. As a caring gesture, Reverend wrote a letter for me to carry that essentially said, politely, “To Whom it May Concern; Don’t mess with all the paperwork approvals Gene needs, or you will have to mess with me.” Given his international renown, I knew things would go well.
Long live Reverend Jesse Jackson
Keep Hope Alive
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We Have to Arm Ourselves With Knowledge
By Jorge H Rodriguez
In order to defeat the Chief Nazi leader Stephen Miller, the Gestapo green shirt army, the Fascist KKK Trump Regime and the Deportation Industrial Profit Making Complex, we have to arm ourselves with knowledge. We have to have the courage to take collective actions for justice with each other.
The brutal campaign of violent policies, terror, kidnappings, incarceration in concentration profit making detention centers and the violation of immigrant and American People’s civil and human rights is no way near its apex.
Nazi Stephen Miller has unleashed his personal Gestapo green shirt army of terrorists across cities throughout the USA to inflict fear and terror upon not only Mexicans and other Latinos, who make up the majority of undocumented in the USA, but also Asian Pacific, Middle Eastern, African and Caribbean immigrant families.
Nazi Stephen Miller has made it a point to unleash government controlled violence on its citizens to ensure that his plan inflicts as much physical pain, hatred, racism, economic disparity, damaging the local economy and businesses across the country. He is causing the separation of families, and creating more unemployment and homelessness.
Where are the 1200 people who were housed at Alligator Alcatraz in Florida? The families do not know where ICE moved them.
The Nazi Stephen Miller, who directs the Fascist Trump administration and all of Trump’s murderous cabinet members all need to be arrested, and charged for crimes against humanity, human rights abuses, incarcerating and putting children in cages and for ordering the killing of American citizens and immigrants.
The Deportation Industrial Detention Complex GEO and CoreCivic Companies have detention centers in all 50 States across the USA and have been given government contracts making $40 to $50 million a year in this shadow economy. The GEO Group controls every aspect of the deportation pipeline, from ground transportation to air flights according to ReelNews. ICE is getting ready to contract with the GEO Group and CoreCivic with $50 billion dollars to turn all these warehoused into illegal detention centers
Todd Lyons the acting Director of ICE in April, 2025 at a private prison convention in Mirror, Arizona according to Reels said “ We need to start treating this like a real business like Amazon but with humans”. State Street, BlackRock and Vanguard are the largest shareholders in the GEO incorporation.
The Los Angeles Blue Dodgers and LA Lakers owners group, “The Guggenheim Baseball Management Partners” with controlling interest of Owner Mark Walker are investors in the Deportation Industrial Detention Complex. Mexicans and Latinos make up the majority of Dodger fans in LA and a large portion of the LA Laker fan base.
Mark Walker and other Laker, Dodger investors including Laker great Magic Johnson are fan money to help GEO and CoreCivic the leading companies in the Deportation Industrial Detention Complex.
NO FAN MONEY FOR DETENTION CENTERS!
This is not morally acceptable! Make the call to the Dodger owners to divest and remove the money we pay at the Dodgers and Lakers games from the corporations like GEO and CoreCivic.
We have to call on the AFL-CIO leadership and all the building trade unions to tell their workers- electricians, laborers, cement roofers, pipe fitters, etc., to refuse to work on the construction of these detention incarceration centers. They need to refuse to be part of violating the civil and human rights of children and immigrants in the USA. Their legacy for justice and the fight against Fascism, demands they refuse to work on these sites.
There is no room for neutrality here. The AFL-CIO leadership and its labor affiliates need to find courage and boldly lead the American working people in shutting down this country against fascism. The AFL-CIO must call upon every worker in every industry from AFSCME, SEIU public sector workers to UFCW retail workers, janitors, home health care workers, to the UFW farmworkers in the agricultural fields, to the Teamsters in the trucking and distribution warehousing industry, workers in the packing and slaughter houses, to the Longshore Unions at every port throughout the country, to the Building Trades unions, to municipal and school bus drivers in every city, to the pilots, flight attendants, ground crews, to all the professors, teachers in every school district and college, and calling on all students across the country to take part in a national strike on May 1st 2026.
We have to call on every pastor, reverend, priest, rabbi, Imam, of every religious denomination to preach to their flock about joining the call for moral action in helping to boycott stores and shut down America for justice.
Our moral responsibility is to stop the incarceration of children in cages, separation of families, the violations of human and democratic rights and an end to beating and killing of immigrants and US citizens. The loud call for abolishment and defunding of ICE has to reverberate across the USA. We have to demonstrate by the millions in the streets exercising our First Amendment right to freedom of speech, “ABOLISH ICE”. The loud call for the abolishment and defunding of ICE has to reverberate across the USA with demonstrations in the streets by millions exercising our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech.
We have to arm ourselves with our civil and human rights knowledge to educate everyone in our communities starting with elementary, middle, high school, college students, businesses and every neighbor in our communities across the country.
The study of our civil and humans rights is one of many ways that will help our communities to defend themselves.
We have to have a coordinated national boycott against Walmart, Home Depot, Amazon, and Target. These are some of the corporations that contribute to the Fascist Trump Regime and are in every community in the USA.
WE NEED TO BOYCOT THEM NOW!
We have to collectively have the courage and come together in bold action in an American act of kindness by shutting down this country and striking for each other in order to preserve our civil, democratic and human rights today and for generations to come.
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New Bio of Famous East Bay Author Recalls Fine Old Conflict in Richmond
By Steve Early
During World War II, the shipyard workforce in Richmond, CA. numbered one hundred thousand—and 20 percent was non-white. By 1945, Richmond had the largest public housing program in the nation, with seventy-three thousand residents. Eighty percent of Richmond’s black residents lived in these hastily constructed units but in racially segregated fashion.
As a “thank you” for their service building ships to defeat fascism in Germany and Japan, Richmond’s fourteen thousand African Americans became victims of renewed housing and job discrimination and wholesale displacement efforts, after the war.
The city’s federally funded projects became a major postwar battle- ground because of decisions made by the powerful, all-white Richmond Housing Authority (RHA). In the late 1940s and early 1950s, nonwhite public housing tenants were showered with eviction notices warning that their apartment buildings were about to be torn down.
The RHA’s demolition plans were protested by the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because they were clearly designed to drive African Americans out of town. Black tenants responded by signing petitions and attending mass meetings, picketing the RHA, and organizing rent strikes, all of which slowed the process. Nevertheless, by 1953, all seventeen of the public housing projects near Richmond harbor had been dismantled.
Private housing options in the city were far more limited for blacks than whites, as navy veteran and American Legion post vice-commander Wilbur Gary discovered. He tried to move his wife, Borece, and their seven children from the Harbor Gate wartime housing project when it was scheduled for destruction. Their new home, purchased through a black real estate agent, was located at 2821 Brook Way in a subdivision of eight hundred single-family homes called Rollingwood. During the war, it was a neighborhood almost exclusively occupied by white defense industry workers.
The Gary family was greeted by white racists who planted a KKK-style cross on their lawn. The downtown Richmond office window of their realtor, Neitha Williams, was shattered by a brick. On the night of March 7, 1952, after the family actually moved in, a menacing crowd of four hundred white men and teenage boys gathered outside their new home to curse at them, hurl insults, and throw rocks.
A Lynch Mob in Richmond
The unruly mob ignored the county sheriff when he read parts of a US Supreme Court decision outlawing restrictive covenants of the sort that white homeowners wrongly assumed would continue to protect them from new neighbors of the wrong color. The white protestors were similarly unmoved by the arrival of three white ministers who carried a US flag and a copy of the Constitution. The sheriff’s department made no arrests and little effort to defuse the situation.
Fortunately, hundreds of Bay Area progressives, both black and white, rushed to the scene that night–and for as long as it took thereafter–to defend the Gary family. They formed a “human chain” around the house facing the screaming mob, in what became round-the-clock shifts. Among the first to arrive from Oakland was a key organizer of this fight, an immigrant from Britain whose activist career is now the subject of a new biography calledTrouble Maker: The Fierce, Unruly, Life of Jessica Mitford. (Harper-Collins, 2025)
Written by literature professor Carla Kaplan, this book cites many other examples of Mitford’s exemplary 20th century solidarity with causes ranging from fighting fascism in Spain in the 1930s to saving the lives of unjustly convicted death row prisoners in the U.S.
Despite coming from an extremely privileged background—described in Mittford’s own 1977 memoir A Fine Old Conflict— she was able to “transform herself into an engaged, effective ally because she sought others out who had reshaped their lives through personal sacrifice. She read. She listened.”
Communist Party Members
In the Gary case, her more experienced partner was Buddy Green, a fellow Communist Party member, military veteran, and leader of the East Bay branch of the left-wing Civil Rights Congress (CRC). As Kaplan reports, the CRC took a “a more activist approach to the fight for civil rights—not only in court but in the streets—to picket and do things that were considered, at the time, beneath the dignity of the NAACP.”
Green and Mitford’s hurried consultation with the besieged Gary family led to “a many-pronged approach: physical protection of the house, trade union resolutions demanding police protection, and distribution of leaflets, drawn up by the CRC, throughout the Bay Area.” While keeping its distance from the CRC, the Richmond NAACP mobilized its members, to join more radical out-of-towners. Eventually, two dozen white home-owners broke ranks. They wrote a letter welcoming the Gary family to their neighborhood, which Green and Mitford widely publicized.
Community and labor campaigners then demanded that the Richmond city council ban segregation in post-war public housing. A special council session heard complaints about joblessness and other problems facing the city’s non-white residents. The city’s own discriminatory hiring practices came under fire. At the time, Richmond had no nonwhite firefighters and only two black police officers.
Sounding the Alarm, Then and Now
As Kaplan argues, the successful defense of the Gary family showed the potential of “an inter-racial, cross-class, cross-gender coalition” capable of mobilizing at a moment’s notice. This was similar to today’s emergency response efforts triggered by the local appearance of any uniformed thugs from Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE).
A decade after her involvement in Richmond’s most famous fair housing fight, Jessica Mitford became one of the leading “muckrakers” in America. In 1963, she published a best-selling book on widespread consumer rip-offs by the funeral industry. In The American Way of Deathand many related articles, Mitford exposed “corrupt and predatory practices” that exploited millions of poor and working-class people after a death in their families. Her investigative journalism led to major regulatory reforms and positive changes in funeral home behavior.
During her varied late-in-life journalism career, Mitford published multiple memoirs and tackled other topics like prison reform, Nixon Administration prosecution of political dissenters, and the over-medicalization of child birth Mitford’s American Way of Birthwas one of her last works.
Readers will findTroublemaker to be a long read (as in 581 pages worth). But the subject of this autobiography, who died in 1996, was a long-time maker of “good trouble.” Her exemplary activism is worthy of emulation by defenders of civil rights, civil liberties, and immigrants in the East Bay today.
As foes of Trump here and across the country sound the alarm about the menacing arrival of ICE, the Gary family story reminds us about the importance of showing up in time!
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A Few Resources for Current Events
By The Editors
Stephanie Luce at the City University of New York (CUNY) has long been a moving force in promoting best practices in labor. She has compiled a battery of resources that are very useful for labor activists and organizers struggling to find a path for mass action in this moment of resistance to Trump authoritarianism. The Forum is proud to publish her compilation.
1) The Dig, in-depth interview on Minnesota organizing
2) Labor Notes articles:
– “In The Twin Cities, A Massive Strike Against ICE” (Luis Feliz Leon)
– “How to Spread the General Strike Beyond the Twin Cities” (Stephanie Luce)
3) “How to Build a Real General Strike Against ICE” (Eric Blanc)
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Why do you think they call it the “first amendment”?
By Stewart Acuff
They call it the first amendment because without the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment, democracy is impossible:
– Free speech is critical to communicate with anyone and everyone in a free society.
– Freedom of Religion was demanded by the framers who had been persecuted by state religions in Europe, in particular Baptists.
– Freedom of assembly and petition guaranteeing the right of all of us to ask and demand our will to the government.
– Freedom of the Press is another right without which democracy is not possible. It is this freedom of our independent media to cover the news, to let our people know what a free people need to know to govern ourselves that is entirely necessary for democracy or self government. We all must know what is going on to be able to direct democracy.
It is that very Freedom of the Press that President Trump is violating in pursuit of his “Minneapolis Moby Dick” now heaped on the American citizens and their neighbors in that great city. Like Moby Dick, Trump is pursuing an obsession that will turn on him.
Former CNN star journalist Don Lemon was arrested by the FBI for covering a demonstration at a right-wing church pastored by an ICE officer.
What????? Church pastored by an ICE agent? You wonder how he relates to the Lamb of God?
Any city traumatized as Minneapolis has a lot of open sores, and this church that connected the Gospel of Jesus to the murder of peacemakers and healers, was seen as part of the official government oppression of one of America’s great cities, Minneapolis.
There was a demonstration at the church. Don Lemon covered the protest for his podcast and other platforms.
For being at the protest and asking questions that reporters ask, the FBI arrested Don Lemon in an act that undercuts the Constitution.
It still shakes me to watch this failed president undercut, and undermine the Constitution. He ignores court orders and judgements. He has no dignity nor respect for citizens, especially those of color and exercising their rights. He is threatening our cities, and our lives with with squads of troops.
He is committing war crimes and murders, while he ignores the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by his armed thugs.
He is attacking protestors with poisonous chemical agents, and breaking faith with all our global allies. He releases convicted fraudsters, sex offenders and domestic terrorists by dint of the highest bid.
Not only was Don Lemon arrested, but another African-American journalist Georgia Fort was also arrested by the FBI in Minneapolis for doing her job as a journalist.
Trump and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a global sex trafficker, were famous friends for years, and were credibly accused of raping and abusing young women and girls.
Before Trump was elected to his current term, he and his campaign demanded the release of the file compiled by federal law enforcement. After his election, the DOJ refused to release the files until legislation was passed and signed, ordering them to do so. They released a relatively small a portion of the files, heavily redacted.
What a crazy coincidence that during the media focus on Minneapolis, the MAGA Department of Justice (DOJ) released a second tranche of documents from the Epstein files. This release is 3 million plus documents. President Trump’s name is scattered thousands of times throughout the documents.
The DOJ says there are another 3 million documents that they will not release. That is a violation of the law passed by Congress and signed by Trump.
Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia said: “This continues to be a major cover up. Pam Bondi needs to held in contempt.”
The upward pressure on prices, Trump’s tariffs, his deportation of immigrant farm workers, the evidence of pedophilia, the assaults on the people of Minneapolis, squads of heavily armed thugs stalking communities of color, and workplaces – healing the country can only happen when Trump and company is held to account.
This all sets up a doozy of midterm elections in November. Democrats could stop Trump’s march to autocracy and tyranny if they elect a majority in the House of Representatives.
The street side protests, anti-ICE demonstrations and campaigning against the GOP will continue throughout this year.
In fact, the date of our next national No Kings Day has been set for March 28. Please calendar that date.
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The Death, Times, and Legacy of Mike Quill – Labor Champion, Anti-racist, Anti-colonialist
By Patrick Kelly
In the moment we are in when a vicious fascist would be dictator occupies the White House and sends his ICE agents to American cities to terrorize the populace, leadership is called for in the crisis. Rarely has a union leader displayed such courage in the face of repression and the “law” as Mike Quill, the founder and leader of the Transport Workers Union. January 28, 2026 is the sixtieth anniversary of Quill’s death, and my friend Pat Kelly, a retired Teamster leader, has penned a tribute that we are happy to publish on The Forum.
Peter Olney – Co-Editor of the Stansbury Forum
Michael John Quill was an Irish immigrant born in County Kerry in the southwest of Ireland, September 18, 1905, an Irish Catholic farm kid who was IRA all the way. Quill died of a heart attack in New York on January 28, 1966, sixty years ago, right after leading a historic and important strike by the Transport Workers Union. He was jailed for violating the infamous Taylor Law prohibiting strikes by public employees. He died a few days after being released from jail. At the time, many of us thought that Mike had been murdered. The judge knew he had a weak heart and that jail could kill him.
In 1966 I was a college student at the University of Wisconsin and a part-time casual in a Teamster warehouse called Central States Warehouse and Storage in Madison. This was a time of great turmoil and struggle. Malcolm X had been assassinated in February, 1965. James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in the summer of 1964. And Viola Liuzzo was also murdered by the Klan in March of 1965. The war in Vietnam was raging and escalating with 100 or more young Americans dying every day. In the midst of these roiling historical moments I found great inspiration in the actions and leadership of Mike Quill.
On December 29, 1965 Quill announced that the TWU would not bargain with the City of New York after midnight on New Year’s Eve. That afternoon Quill was served with papers telling him he had to explain in court why the union should not be stopped from striking. Quill called the press and went on TV that night and tore the summons up. Quill’s union put over 8,000 workers on the street stopping NYC from moving 6,280 subways cars at 481 stations and over 720 miles of track. He acted in defiance of a court order and went to jail. On Day 4 of the strike Quill suffered a heart attack and was transferred to Bellevue hospital. The strike lasted 12 days and resulted in a great victory. Quill was sent to Mt Sinai after settlement and rested there until he was released on January 25. He died three days later at home.
Mike Quill was one of the strongest and most effective labor organizers in the United States. He militantly pushed for industrial unionism and led many strikes. He was a significant leader of the CIO and of public employees as well as of contracted transit workers. A great advocate for racial equality, Quill was an early negotiator of non-discriminatory language in collective bargaining agreements. His youthful work as a courier for the IRA (Irish Republican Army) showed an early hostility to colonialism, and he remained a lifetime fighter against imperialism. He was an inspiration to thousands of youth and adults. Studying his life and actions will help us deal with the current Fascist threat and Gestapo tactics we are facing in the United States. Viva industrial unionism! Viva Mike Quill!
Learn about Mike Quill:
– Mike Quill Himself: A Memoir by Shirley Quill (his wife and coworker)
– In Transit: The Transport Workers Union in New York City, 1933-1966 by Joshua B. Freeman
– A Mighty Union: Quill, Connolly, and the TWU by Lorcan Collins
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