The NYT reports (paywalled link) that the US opposes an independent Palestinian state:
The United States blocked the U.N. Security Council on Thursday from moving forward on a Palestinian bid to be recognized as a full member state at the United Nations, quashing an effort by Palestinian allies to get the world body to back the effort.
The vote was 12 in favor of the resolution and one — the United States — opposed, with abstentions from Britain and Switzerland.
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, had described the bid for full-member status as an effort “to take our rightful place among the community of nations. .... Our right to self determination is a natural right — a historical right — to live in our homeland Palestine as an independent state that is free and that is sovereign.”
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said after the vote: “The shameful proposal was rejected. Terrorism will not be rewarded.”
“The resolution provides for the Palestinian Authority to be a member of the U.N.,” U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters. “Right now, the Palestinians don’t have control over a significant portion of what is supposed to be their state. It’s being controlled by a terrorist organization,” she said, referring to Hamas.
One can only wonder if this little nugget of cynical US foreign policy hypocrisy will be just one more little thing on the crappy side of the scale that tips the 2024 election from Biden to Trump. Maybe time tell.
Notice the intense hate toward the Palestinians that gushes out of the Israeli government. Note the about same sentiment from the US government. As far as I can tell, Hamas does not control squat in Gaza. That is an Israeli lie. Israel controls nearly all of what used to be Palestinian territory everywhere. A two-state solution is an impossible mirage.
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The NYT and other sources are reporting that all 12 jurors have been selected. Today the 6 alternates will be selected. Jury selection went a heck of a lot faster than I anticipated. The judge here seems to be serious about not letting Trump get away with his endless delay tactics. Good for the judge!
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A NYT opinion reports (paywalled link) about the intention of the UAW (United Auto Workers) to unionize car manufacturing plants throughout the South:
Southern Republican Governors Are Suddenly Afraid
U.A.W. is targeting 13 automakers — including Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan, Volvo and Tesla — employing around 150,000 workers in 36 nonunion plants across the South. It faced the first major test of its strategy on Wednesday, when 4,300 workers at a Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tenn., began voting on whether to unionize. The vote ends Friday. If it’s successful, it will be a breakthrough for a labor movement that has struggled to build a footing in the South.
The mere potential for union success was so threatening that the day before the vote began, several of the Southern Republican governors announced their opposition to the U.A.W. campaign. “We the governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas are highly concerned about the unionization campaign driven by misinformation and scare tactics that the U.A.W. has brought into our states,” their joint statement reads. “As governors, we have a responsibility to our constituents to speak up when we see special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by.”
It is no shock to see conservative Republicans opposing organized labor. But it is difficult to observe this particular struggle, taking place as it is in the South, without being reminded of the region’s entrenched hostility to unions — or any other institution or effort that might weaken the political and economic dominance of capital over the whole of Southern society.
As the sociologist Jack M. Bloom puts it in “Class, Race and the Civil Rights Movement,”
The apparent defeat of Populism and the subsequent disenfranchisement of blacks [Jim Crow] brought about a severe setback for these whites, as well. Many of them lost the right to vote. They were subject to the harsh terms of their employers, and they remained without labor unions to counter the power the wealthy retained. When they did try to form unions, they found the region’s tradition of violence turned against them.
By now, deep moral rot in the form of demagogic rhetoric and lies like that quoted above from the radical governors is standard for inconvenient reality-challenged Republican elites. Claiming “misinformation and scare tactics” by unions is mendacious demagoguery. Claiming threat to “jobs and values” is a scare tactic that speaks for capitalist elites and their supporters, but not those who want a better, fairer distribution of power and wealth in society.
When it comes to corporations vs employees wanting to unionize, the weight of misinformation and scare tactics by corporations dwarfs that of labor. On top of that, the weight of illegal corporate anti-union acts usually far outweighs what offenses that unions and employees commit. AI commentates:
Q: In labor union organizing, do labor or corporations usually rely more on demagoguery, misinformation and illegal acts?A: Based on the search results provided, it appears that corporations and employers often rely more on demagoguery, misinformation, and illegal acts in opposing union organizing efforts by workers. The key points from the search results are:
- Employers were charged with violating federal law in 41.5% of all NLRB-supervised union elections in 2016 and 2017, including illegally firing workers, coercing and retaliating against workers for supporting a union, and disciplining workers.1
- Employers spend nearly $340 million per year hiring “union avoidance” lawyers and consultants to help them prevent employees from unionizing.1
- Companies have used misinformation campaigns, including false and fabricated “scare tactics”, to defeat union drives, such as the anti-union campaign at a Boeing plant in South Carolina.2
- Anti-union groups have engaged in misinformation campaigns to encourage public sector union members to leave their unions after the Janus Supreme Court decision, creating confusion and frustration among workers.2
- The Republican-controlled Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 to specifically allow captive audience meetings where employers can give anti-union speeches to workers, despite previous NLRB rulings that this was illegal.4
In contrast, the search results do not provide evidence of similar widespread use of demagoguery, misinformation, or illegal tactics by labor unions in organizing efforts. The evidence suggests the unfair labor practices and misinformation campaigns tend to originate more from the employer side in order to prevent unionization.
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