Monday, October 6, 2025
spot_img
spot_img
Home Blog Page 20

US Atomic Bombings Didn’t Save Lives or End the War

Reporters Desk
-
0
US Atomic Bombings Didn’t Save Lives or End the War

 

By John LaForge

August 6 and 9 are the 80th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 140,000 civilians at Hiroshima was the result of detonating a 60-million-degree Celsius explosion (10,000 times hotter than the surface of the sun) over the city. Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb reported, “People exposed within half a mile of the … fireball were seared to bundles of smoking black char in a fraction of a second as their internal organs boiled away…”

The use of atomic bombs was rationalized after-the-fact using myths that transformed the burning of children into a positive good. President Truman and government propagandists justified the attacks, claiming they “ended the war” and “saved lives” ⸺ stories still believed today ⸺ but, as historian Gar Alperovitz has demonstrated in The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, and the Architecture of an American Myth, the pretext of “saving lives” was fabricated.

General Dwight Eisenhower, who had been the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, notes in his book Mandate for Change that he told Secretary of War Henry Stimson at the July 1945 Potsdam Conference that he opposed using the bomb because it was “no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.” Ike told Stimson, “Japan was already defeated and dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary.”

Broad declassification of wartime documents has made the facts accessible to everyone, leading the historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, J. Samuel Walker, to report in the winter 1990 edition of the journal Diplomatic History: “The consensus among scholars is that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan and to end the war within a relatively short time.”

Dozens of leaders who ran the war agree. Winston Churchill wrote in his history of WWII, “It would be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was settled by the atomic bomb. Her defeat was certain before the first bomb fell.”

Admiral William Leahy, the Chief of Staff to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, declared in his memoir I Was There:

“The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

Major General Curtis LeMay, who directed the devastating incendiary destruction of Japan’s 67 largest cities before August 1945, was more emphatic. Asked by a reporter at a Sept. 20, 1945, press conference, “Had they [Japan] not surrendered because of the atomic bomb?” Gen. LeMay declared, “The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”

Gen. “Hap” Arnold, commander of the Army Air Force, wrote in Global Mission (1949), “It always appeared to us that atomic bomb or no atomic bomb the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”

Likewise, Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers reported in Reader’s Digest, “Obviously … the atomic bomb neither induced the emperor’s decision to surrender nor had any effect on the ultimate outcome of the war.” And the renowned Gen. Douglas MacArthur said, “he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb.”

Religious and cultural leaders contemporaneously condemned the attacks, as on March 5, 1946, when the Federal Council of Churches issued a statement signed by 22 prominent Protestant religious leaders saying in part, “the surprise bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are morally indefensible. … Both bombings, moreover, must be judged to have been unnecessary for winning the war.”

Nuclear weapons are still protected by lies like “limited nuclear war.” This month’s anniversaries remind us to rebel against them, to demand that the United States apologize to Japanese survivors and their descendants for the crime; that the U.S. abandon its nuclear attack plans and preparations (deterrence); and that it finally stands-down and eliminates the crown jewels and poisoned foundation of all government waste, fraud, and abuse ⸺ nuclear weapons.

John LaForge, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Co-director of Nukewatch a nuclear power and weapons watchdog group.

Home of the Brave

James Preston Allen
-
0
Home of the Brave

 

And the not so very free, unless you defend it

For all of my life, patriotism has been defined by our society as those who serve in the military to defend our country from external enemies. Yet many times in many wars, what we were fighting for was not the defense of our nation. Indeed, those wars didn’t seem particularly necessary. I’m thinking of the Vietnam War in particular, but there are many other often “undeclared” wars. Most of these were fought for purely economic reasons, like the war in Iraq. The 1935 book by Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler War is a Racket made this point most clear to me Butler, one of the most highly decorated officers of the 20th Century, was a retired United States Marine Corps major general and two-time Medal of Honor recipient when he wrote the book. Based on his career, military experience, and honors, you wouldn’t think he’d be a critic or whistleblower, but Butler exposed the ways business interests commercially profit from warfare.

He had been appointed commanding officer of the Gendarmerie during the 1915–1934 United States occupation of Haiti. Most don’t even know this part of our history, along with our occupation of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War.

War as Butler says, “is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes”.

As such, the symbols of patriotism, such as the U.S. flag, monuments to the fallen, and military parades for Veterans Day or other occasions, often end up having dual meanings, which leads one to ask: “What exactly does patriotism mean?”

At the same time as Butler’s book was being published, fascism was on the rise in this country, as well as overseas, leading to the saying, “When fascism comes to America, it’ll come draped in the flag and bearing the cross.” Those words can now be seen as prophetic and not cautionary. For what we are now witnessing is that very prophecy acted out by the Orange Felon, his immigration Gestapo, his disrespect for the rule of law, and the very democracy that he is sworn to uphold.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but when he was sworn into office the second time, I could swear his hand never touched the Bible, and did he really mumble “I swear to protect the nation against all enemies, both foreign and domestic”? If he did, he has already broken that oath in so many ways, and that alone is an impeachable cause. If only we had a Congress that would prosecute and convict him, this time for certain.

However, what I do find truly patriotic these days is the number of average citizens who have taken to the streets with the “No Kings” and “Stop ICE” protests. What I do find courageous are those who show up at ICE raids to protect the innocent and those few news commentators actually calling out the Orange Felon administration’s actions for what it is: FASCISM. What I find as patriotic are those federal judges who have decided to uphold habeas corpus, issuing injunctions on the indiscriminate kidnapping of people who are being racially profiled by masked, badge-less, unidentified armed mercenaries, who are unpatriotic, traitors to our republic and our democracy.

These are the times in which true patriotism will step forward, and the cowards in Congress will procrastinate. This is the time that defines true leadership by actions, not just by empty words or slogans.

Yes, it does take courage to stand up against the Orange Felon’s fascists, as we have seen, there are consequences. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the Declaration of Independence, “We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty on a feather bed.” Nor are we now to be protected from this tyranny on our video screens. This nation is truly in distress, which is why I have hung the U.S. flag upside down in my window and ordered a gross of distress flags for all to wave in solidarity and resistance to the Orange Felon’s regime.

We cannot, at this point, allow the bullies, the fascists, and the traitors to own the symbols of our freedom and liberties.

Resistance now is the most patriotic action that all of us can perform. The domestic enemy has arrived. Stand up and be counted! It’s time to rip the flag off this tyrant and beat him with his own cross.

Protecting Pedophiles Proves Too Much

Paul Rosenberg
-
0
Protecting Pedophiles Proves Too Much

 

83% of Republicans Nationwide Want Epstein Files Released, Local Republicans Stay Mum

The Jeffrey Epstein files scandal is different from any other Trump scandal, because it’s a scandal most of all for his base. It’s a mutated continuation of the QAnon conspiracy, which began with the earliest “Q drops” in October 2017, falsely promising that Hillary Clinton’s arrest was already underway.

For true believers, whose hopes are being dashed, the Epstein files would finally expose the elite cabal of Satan-worshipping entertainers, top Democrats, and their globalist pals who control “the deep state” and traffic children to harvest a miracle chemical, adrenochrome, which only comes from human blood (a myth invented by Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. Adrenochrome is produced by the human body, but it’s no different from the commercial product available for decades). Steve Bannon called the files “the key that unlocks everything.”

But Trump isn’t just blocking the files’ release — even though Bloomberg reports his name has already been redacted. He’s also playing footsie with Epstein’s chief enabler, Ghislaine Maxwell, whose “Mary Poppins” persona enabled her to recruit a constant stream of innocent victims for him to rape. They appear to be concocting a whole new cover story intended to sideline any serious investigation. Maxwell’s already been relocated to a minimum-security “club fed” (in violation of regulations barring sex offenders) as an apparent reward for whatever she said in two days of conversation with Trump’s private defense attorney and current #2 official at the Department of Justice, Todd Blanche.

This seems to portend the rolling out of a whole new cover-up narrative in the near future. But so far, the more Trump tries to evade releasing material, the worse it gets. His claim that Democrats had doctored the files to implicate him, for example, has been met with disbelief. On the r/conservative subreddit, user AngryGambl3r wrote:

That just seems so… convenient.

They put his name in, and then do absolutely nothing with it?

That just doesn’t make sense.

I don’t want the Dems in power in the slightest, but this just isn’t believable.

The pattern was clear, user Cylerhusk added:

Every time he opens his mouth about the Epstein files, it’s just getting more and more embarrassing at this point.

So embarrassing that local Trump/Republican supporters don’t even want to talk about it. Random Lengths reached out to more than a dozen such supporters we’ve heard from in recent years, and none would comment in any detail. Only two people responded at all.

“I feel that Trump is doing a fantastic job as President. I support all of his decisions,” said South Bay real estate agent John Altamura. “Too bad the Democratic Main Stream Media is totally controlled by the Liberals, and they cannot give Trump any credit. They are a disgrace to objective Journalism.”

At least RPV attorney John Resich was willing to say something about Epstein, if not much.

“What about Epstein? He was in jail and died. Clinton was his best friend,” Resich said — effortlessly swapping Trump out for former President Bill Clinton. “All you reporters want is to bring up trash. The judge keeps the grand jury transcripts. Nothing Trump or anyone in the administration can do is release those transcripts without a judge allowing it, so look at the judges who are doing this Rag on them,” Resich said.

But no one’s asking for the grand jury testimony — except for Trump, as a distraction. What they’re asking for is the vast trove of files gathered in the FBI investigation — the files Trump previously promised to release.

Polls by both CBS and the Washington Post found that 83% percent of Republicans think the administration should release all the information it has. But numbers alone can’t convey the significance of the apparent cover-up.

A Line In the Sand

“This one’s a line in the sand … we thought Trump was going to come in and a lot of things are going to be resolved,” Joe Rogan said on his podcast. “And when you have this one hardcore line in the sand that everybody [has] been talking about forever and then they’re trying to gaslight you on that,” he said before shaking his head.

In the past Trump has minimized his close, well-known, more than decade-long friendship with Epstein and told two contradictory stories of their falling out: Either because of a real estate bidding war (or sneak attack according to Epstein), or because — out of the blue — Trump belatedly discovered Epstein was ‘a creep’ sometime around 2004, even though Epstein remained a Mar-a-Lago member through 2007, when he was initially investigated for sex trafficking. But now Trump’s telling a completely different tale: that Epstein “stole” his employees — not once, but twice — as if they were his private property, things, not people.

“That’s not true,” said journalist Tara Palmeri, who investigated Epstein for nearly two years for her podcast, Broken: Jeffrey Epstein.

“They remained friends during that time,” Palmeri said on MSNBC’s Deadline Whitehouse. Trump said that Virginia Roberts Giuffre, an outspoken Epstein victim who died by suicide in April, was one of the people Epstein stole. She was procured by Ghislaine Maxwell, Palmeri said. “And Virginia told me she met Donald Trump through Jeffrey Epstein.” She was only with Epstein from 2000 to 2002, years before Epstein’s Mar-a-Lago membership ended. So Trump’s new story has more holes than Swiss cheese.

Giuffre’s family was visibly upset by Trump’s latest claim in an NBC interview. “I think we were shocked by it — especially the use of the term ‘stolen.’ Because she’s not an object. She’s a person. She’s a mom. She’s a sister,” her brother Sky Roberts said tearfully. “And she was recruited by Maxwell. She wasn’t stolen, she was recruited at Mar-a-Lago — his property … It just kind of makes us wonder … how much he knew … A couple of years later, he made a statement on Epstein and how he liked young girls.”

But it’s not just a new and disturbing account, Palmeri noted. It contradicted Trump’s own sworn testimony. “Donald Trump was deposed by one of the victims, the lawyers for the victims, Brian Edwards,” she said. “And when he told the story it was over real estate, it was over a piece of property, Palm Beach waterfront property, they got in a bidding war, and because of it Trump had to pay more, he ended [up] hav[ing] to pay $40 million for a property ironically called ‘the house of friendship.’”

Worse than that, Trump biographer Michael Wolff now tells Epstein’s side of the story on the MeidasTouch podcast, adding to his reporting in Siege: Trump Under Fire. In this telling, Epstein was buying the property from a bankruptcy court for $36 million, and showed it to Trump, seeking his advice on relocating the swimming pool, only to have Trump surreptitiously enter a last-minute $41 million bid “entirely financed by Deutsche Bank.”

When Trump resold it two years later for a $55 million profit, it was “a red flag of money laundering” (likely involving the Russian mob), further infuriating Epstein, who threatened to go to the press, “saying that Trump was a front man for a money-laundering deal.” And that’s when he believes Trump tipped off prosecutors to go after him as a pre-emptive strike against his own possible investigation.

While both Epstein’s and Trump’s dealings are shrouded in mystery, there’s ample evidence that Epstein was deeply involved with Israeli intelligence, while Trump’s real estate dealings involved Russian mobsters and later oligarchs, who were assets, if not agents of Soviet and then Russian intelligence. Both men spent decades swimming in disinformation that obscured their corruption, along with the motives of the intelligence agencies they collaborated with. In the world they moved in, everyone treated young girls like objects. It was second nature to them.

Naturally, Giuffre’s family was sharply critical of the recent Trump administration outreach to Maxwell, after she and her lawyer met with Todd Blanche — Trump’s #2 at the Department of Justice, and his former defense lawyer — to discuss what she knew about the case, and likely help start developing a new cover-up narrative.

“If our sister could speak today, she would be most angered by the fact that the government is listening to a known perjurer. A woman who repeatedly lied under oath and will continue to do so as long as it benefits her position,” Giuffre’s family said in a written statement. “The government and the President should never consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell any leniency.”

Days later, leniency was exactly what Maxwell got: a transfer to a minimum security facility, which is off-limits for a sex offender, thus requiring a special waiver. It’s also unheard of for a prisoner in the early years of a 20-year sentence.

Normally, Trump lying, rewriting the past, and tossing out one fanciful distraction after another would more than satisfy his base. But the Epstein case is different. Not only does it matter for his QAnon-influenced conspiracist base, but for a significant chunk of new supporters who helped him narrowly win the election last November, typified by Rogan and like-minded podcasters’ followers. They’ve been vocally quite upset, as the topic has taken off, despite Trump’s repeated calls for people to stop talking about it.

“Epstein has been discussed by prominent right-wing podcasters in more than 3,000 episodes across nearly 125 podcasts this year,” the Wall Street Journal reported on July 31. “Those conversations grew more than eightfold in the last three weeks despite Trump’s admonishment that MAGA drop the issue.”

QAnon Origins To Epstein Now

From October 2017 on, QAnon conspiracists elaborated a fantasy of Trump secretly battling the evil cabal of child predators, who would all be swept from power and arrested in “the Storm,” a cataclysmic day of reckoning. The QAnon movement grew vibrantly before the Jan. 6 insurrection, and played a significant role in contributing to it, as Random Lengths reported at the time (Aftermath of A Coup: The Threat Lives On Feb. 4, 2021). As a result, leading social media platforms increased efforts to ban QAnon content, but by then, there was a whole ecosystem of QAnon influencers who migrated to less moderated platforms, like Telegram and Rumble.

With Trump no longer in the White House, and “Q” himself falling silent, the movement became more diffuse, splintering into various influencer networks. But the conspiratorial mindset and certain core beliefs became normalized in the Republican Party, as the authors of two books on QAnon explained in 2024.

“QAnon as a movement based around secret codes and clues and riddles doesn’t so much exist anymore,” Mike Rothschild, the author of The Storm is Upon Us, told NPR in late December.”But it doesn’t need to exist anymore because its tenets have become such a major part of mainstream conservatism and such a big part of the base of people that reelected Donald Trump.”

Will Sommer, author of the book Trust the Plan, said something similar to Washington Post columnist Philip Bump in April. “QAnon and these conspiratorial beliefs and a lot of the ideas that were at the core of it … that has become more mainstreamed in the Republican Party,” Sommer told Bump. “It’s not that the Republican Party rejected QAnon, but that QAnon sort of assimilated into the GOP.”

Indeed, Trump amplified QAnon content on Truth Social nearly 1,000 times between joining the site in 2022 and the final weeks of his reelection campaign in 2024, according to a Media Matters analysis published on Oct. 29. This was a much higher rate than he had previously promoted QAnon on Twitter prior to the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to earlier Media Matters monitoring.

What’s more, a Public Religion Research Institute poll just before the election found that 32% of Republicans who favored Donald Trump qualified as QAnon believers based on agreement with three statements:

(1) Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country, (2) There is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders, and (3) The government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.”

In addition, eight in 10 QAnon believers registered to vote said they intended to vote for Trump. Tying #2 and #3 together, the Epstein files have emerged as “the key that unlocks everything,” in Banon’s words. Which is why the Epstein files scandal matters more than others that outrage the broader public as a whole.

“Epstein’s old news,” Resich said. But it’s Trump’s own base that’s not just kept the story alive, but seen it as a key reason for their support. “This one’s a line in the sand,” as Rogan said.

For the broader public, Trump has already lost significant support on his key winning issues — immigration and the economy — as his actions and results don’t match his promises. His tariffs and Gestapo-like immigration raids are visible signs of how much he’s out of step with the country he pretends to represent. Gallup has his approval at an abysmal 37%, and he’s so worried about losing the House in 2026 that he’s pushed Texas Republicans to pass an outrageous mid-decade gerrymander to give them five more seats, while depriving Black and Hispanic voters of any realistic opportunity for representation. California may respond with a gerrymander of its own.

While there are many issues out there that divide Americans — and Trump is always on the lookout for another one — opposing pedophilia isn’t one of them. Which is why it could ultimately prove to be Trump’s downfall.

MAGA Officials Go After Immigrant Defenders

Reporters Desk
-
0
MAGA Officials Go After Immigrant Defenders

 

Advocates for migrants and their rights are now being targeted themselves by ICE, Trump, and his bigots of like mind in Congress and federal policing.

Freedom Socialist newspaper, Vol. 46, No. 4, August-September 2025

socialism.com

By Nic Preston

Famously, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sparked protests and civil disobedience in Los Angeles in June. Human rights organizations, leftists and labor unions were involved and helped lead the fight against mass deportations. Since then, the Trump administration, Republican congressional leaders, and federal law enforcement have targeted people for defending immigrants. Yet they fight back.

Return of the McCarthy Era

Kristi Noem, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security secretary, has made statements threatening unions, nongovernmental organizations and individuals for allegedly funding the protests. Senator Alex Padilla was tackled, handcuffed and detained for trying to ask questions of Noem at a press conference. He was held for three hours without charges.

Republican U.S. Representatives Mark Green and Josh Brecheen sent letters to over 200 NGOs announcing a probe of Biden-era federal grants used by these groups to provide services and advocacy to immigrants. ICE and other federal law enforcement officers continue to rough up and arrest anyone who gets in the way of their indiscriminate detentions.

Senator Josh Hawley sent letters to groups including the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), and Unión del Barrio demanding that they stop “bankrolling civil unrest” and preserve internal communications, donor information, and more for use against them.

In LA, David Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union in California, was injured while being arrested for confronting ICE agents executing a workplace raid. And in New York City, comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was manhandled while being detained for linking arms with a migrant outside a courtroom.

The people fight back

These are blatant intimidation tactics to try to scare folks into inaction. The good news is that these measures aren’t working. The targeted groups PSL, CHIRLA, and Unión del Barrio, among others, refuse to back down.

The only way people have ever achieved meaningful social change in this country is through mass movements and protest. Litigation, legislation and elections are all tools that can be used to support movements for radical social change.

The Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) knows a thing or two about attempts at repression. In 1984, a former member sued the party for a return of money he had donated. The ensuing court case lasted six years. It included a demand that the FSP hand over membership lists and meeting minutes to the court.

The organization mounted a vigorous defense of its constitutional rights to privacy and freedom of association. FSP rallied supporters, including the NAACP and the Black Panther Party, and won!

Defenders of immigrants can take these lessons and apply them to the current fight. We can get involved in local community defense of migrants and their advocates. We can push our unions, other organizations and their leaders to take action. We don’t have to cooperate with federal authorities and we can fight them every step of the way on all fronts. Organizing mass protest is how we show our strength.

Send feedback on this article to FSnews@socialism.com.

 

Carson Residents Protest Fireworks Petition and Hotel Conversion Plan

Terelle Jerricks
-
0
Carson Residents Protest Fireworks Petition and Hotel Conversion Plan

 

CARSON, California — Residents in Carson are raising alarm over two controversial issues: a petition to overturn the city’s fireworks ban and a proposed plan to convert an extended stay hotel into homeless housing.

Community members gathered recently to voice concerns that signature gatherers for the fireworks petition are misleading voters. Residents reported being approached with deceptive language about “supporting the right to vote” or signing for unrelated issues like pothole repairs. Petitioners need 6,800 valid signatures — 10% of Carson’s registered voters — for the measure to appear on the 2026 ballot.

“People are being tricked into signing,” said one speaker. “They’re misrepresenting what the petition is about, especially to seniors.”

Meanwhile, tensions are rising over the planned conversion of the Extended Stay America on Avalon Boulevard into 106 units of supportive housing using Project Homekey funds. City and county officials support the project, but residents question whether Carson has any say in the decision and worry about oversight, tenant selection and long-term safety.

“We fought hard to keep this city safe,” said another speaker. “We’re not against housing, but the community deserves transparency.”

City officials and residents are organizing efforts to monitor both issues and ensure public accountability.

Two Killed in Separate San Pedro Shootings; Suspect Arrested After Standoff

Reporters Desk
-
0
Two Killed in Separate San Pedro Shootings; Suspect Arrested After Standoff

 

By Chris Villanueva, Reporter

LOS ANGELES — Two men were killed in separate San Pedro shootings in July, police said.

On July 3, Los Angeles police responded to reports of gunfire around 1:40 p.m. at Troy’s Burgers, 20th Street and Pacific Avenue. Officers found two men wounded; 20-year-old David Archuleta died at the scene, and a man in his 40s was hospitalized in serious condition. Detectives say the shooter, 29-year-old Chris Rene Roman Galindo, a documented gang member, fled in a dark Nissan. He was arrested July 23 after a standoff at an apartment complex on South Gaffey Street and faces five felony counts, including manslaughter and attempted manslaughter. Police said the victims had retrieved a firearm during an earlier dispute before the shooting. Galindo’s bail is $1.3 million; his next court date is Aug. 27.

In an unrelated case, police said 21-year-old Mardoqueo Gomez was fatally shot July 20 near 25th Street and Gaffey after a traffic crash involving a landscaping crew. The suspected gunman, believed to be in his 50s, was arrested shortly after. No motive has been identified.

Harbor Division records show seven homicides in the area so far this year, unchanged from last year.

Union Roots, Modern Fights

Terelle Jerricks
-
0
Union Roots, Modern Fights

 

Alex Aguilar Jr., LIUNA Local 724, Carries On a Legacy of Labor

Not since the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations has labor faced the kind of assault seen under Trump’s second term. Six years ago, the late, great labor photographer Slobodan Dimitrov described how Big Labor traded spirited Labor Day parades for quiet picnics.

That shift came as both parties targeted working people. Under President Jimmy Carter, labor’s power began to unravel as his administration disrupted long-standing union ties built during the Richard Nixon years. Reagan followed with a more aggressive approach.

In August 1981, when air traffic controllers went on strike, Reagan declared the strike illegal and gave workers 48 hours to return. He fired those who refused, reshaping labor relations and launching a decades-long war on union jobs.

Forty-five years later, #45/47, via executive orders, stripped union rights from 700,000 federal workers at national security agencies, from the State Department to the Department of Homeland Security; ordered agencies to reopen existing collective bargaining agreements under tight deadlines, defaulting to one-size-fits-all terms if agencies fail to agree; weakened grievance protections and discipline systems; instructed agencies to ignore union contracts when conducting layoffs or staffing adjustments, and more.

It is times such as these that labor must remember that its superpower is its unity and its memory of its wins and losses, its allies and its enemies.

Last week, Random Lengths News interviewed Alex Aguilar Jr., the secretary-treasurer of Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA).

Aguilar noted that unions have been addressing this issue internally for a long time.

“[We] talked about the new up-and-coming members that don’t know the history and don’t know about those fights, and how many people have suffered and fought, and in some cases, even died for us to gain some of [those] wins and some of these protections that we currently have,” Aguilar said.

The union has created a five-minute education video. Drawing a connection between the predominantly Latino laborers who make up LIUNA today to the Italian and Irish immigrants who started LIUNA, Aguilar said, “It’s crazy the times we’re living in, but a huge part of that video is about how LIUNA started and those founding fathers of LIUNA. They were all immigrants. They were Italian and Irish American immigrants, and no one wanted to organize them and help them. And so they formed their union, so they could represent themselves and those like them. It’s very important to talk about the past.”

Labor is in the Blood

Aguilar knows a little something about remembering where he came from. He and his two younger sisters were born in Mexico City. His father worked at a car wash, and his mother worked as a housekeeper.

“She used to clean houses for rich folks, and that’s how my dad ended up getting in the union,” Aguilar said.

His mom used to take care of and help with the house of a senior figure at Universal Studios. He was like the number two guy worldwide, and his dad was detailing cars at the car wash. Aguilar’s family had no benefits. They couldn’t just go to a doctor if one of them got sick unless it was necessary. One day, this Universal Studios bigwig who employed Aguilar’s mom was complaining about his collection of Jaguars not being detailed correctly. She told him about her husband’s skill set as a car detailer. The employer tried Aguilar’s dad out for a couple of months. At that time, Aguilar’s dad asked the employer about getting a job at Universal Studios.

A couple of weeks later, the Universal Studios bigwig asked Aguilar’s father to report to Universal Studios’ lower lot, to get work from the company’s labor department, and he got it, becoming the elder Aguilar’s first union job in the United States.

His father initially faced suspicion and unkind treatment from co-workers — some assuming he got the job through favoritism — but he eventually earned their respect. Over time, union membership gave his family healthcare, stability and a path to a better life.

Aguilar was only 12 or 13 years of age at the time of the 1989 strike, the first his father participated in. But the memories remained, and the lessons remained.

“Everything we have is because of this union. Don’t you forget it,” Aguilar recalls his father saying. “Be grateful and always support union workers.”

Aguilar still recalls the lessons he learned from the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike when he was just a member of the rank and file.

He was a young father, expecting a third child, while his wife was experiencing complications and couldn’t work. Finances were tight, and in just a nick of time, a seven-month production job on the Disney film G-Force, came through.

Aguilar went to New Mexico on location. He, like every other union working person, thought they were safe, thinking they’d at least work for the next seven months. “Not only are the executive producers people, but they’re also writers,” they thought.

When the WGA went on strike, no WGA screenwriter could make script changes, dialogue rewrites, or adapt scenes during shooting without crossing the picket line. For G-Force, a visual effects-heavy, comedic action film, this likely meant less flexibility on set — actors and directors couldn’t punch up jokes or adjust scenes in response to pacing or performance, but they didn’t allow the strike to slow down production.

Nevertheless, the other impacted union members on set who suddenly had less work were going through their savings. Things got bad enough in Aguilar’s household that he had to sell his vehicle to pay the mortgage.

“Those were the days of Nextel [phones], when you could send out a text message to every single contact. I sent out a blast text saying, ‘Hey guys, I’m selling my car. If anyone’s interested.’ Then somebody said, ‘Must be nice,’ because others were hurting. They thought I was selling it to buy a new car because I got a new car. ‘Hey, I said no, I need to pay our mortgage, man, and feed my family. I don’t lie. I don’t have a job to go to. So I don’t really need a car at the moment,” Aguilar recalled.

“After selling the car, an industry friend said to him, ‘Hey, you should call MPTF, and I’m like, ‘What’s MPTF?’ He said it’s Motion Picture & Television Fund.”

The idea emerged during the early days of Hollywood, when many actors, crew and technicians had little to no safety net. Industry figures such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and William S. Hart helped establish it. It began as a charity to provide medical care, financial assistance and retirement support to those in the motion picture business who fell on hard times.

The goal originally was to create a community and resources for motion picture workers — a sort of “industry family.” Initially, the fund provided temporary financial aid and set up a rest home and hospital for industry professionals. Over time, the MPTF expanded services to include: comprehensive healthcare (now including a retirement community and skilled nursing); counseling and wellness programs; and assistance for families of workers. It eventually broadened to include television workers as the industry evolved.

Aguilar said he reached out and received $10,000, enough money to pay all of his bills for two months.

“They asked me for the bills that I had, and I showed them to them. They cut the checks for every single bill.”

It bought Aguilar just enough time for work to get him back and make it through the strike.

“That was huge because, honestly, I was at a point at the time of starting to look for a new career, doing something else. My wife and family were like, ‘This is not good. You’ve got to find another job. I was thinking about starting a construction company, but then the work started picking up.”

Solidarity Across Jurisdictions

The interesting thing that is starting to happen is that unions are starting to engage with each other more collaboratively rather than competitively, causing jurisdictional battles to take a backseat to labor solidarity across the board.

Aguilar recalled a pivotal moment when labor leaders from various Hollywood unions and guilds met at the Shrine Auditorium to show solidarity with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) during the strike. Despite decades of shared struggles, Aguilar noted that many of them had never been in the same room together before — an eye-opening realization that sparked a deeper, united labor movement.

He explains that the rise of streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon disrupted the industry’s traditional financial structure — particularly around residuals, which are critical for funding union pension and health plans. This shift, along with the collapse of DVD sales and the impact of COVID-19, severely weakened the funding mechanisms many entertainment unions rely on.

Aguilar emphasizes that this crisis underscored the need for inter-union solidarity — not just within the entertainment sector, but across broader labor struggles. He cites examples of unions showing up for one another, from Teamsters strikes to hotel workers’ rallies, asserting that true union strength lies in collective action and mutual support.

That’s why during recent ICE raids, which impacted Hollywood’s immigrant workforce, he reached out to members to alleviate fears — recognizing that around 20% are immigrants and nearly half are Latino.

It’s also why he has championed unionizing efforts for production assistants, actively supporting the movement alongside AFM Local47 and others this past year.

This intergenerational commitment to solidarity is rooted in Aguilar’s family history. The senior Aguilar is retiring now that he has turned 65 and remains the central inspiration behind the younger Aguilar’s union work. He credits his dad with instilling a deep sense of gratitude, pride, and commitment to organized labor, encapsulated in the motto: “Live Better, Work Union.”

Join the Watts Summer Festival this Saturday

Reporters Desk
-
0
Join the Watts Summer Festival this Saturday

 

If you’re looking for something special and fun to do this weekend, join the Watts Summer Festival, a historic and cultural cornerstone of the Watts community, at Ted Watkins Park, Aug. 9. This year’s theme, Watts Summer Festival: Then, Now and Beyond, will honor the memory of the historic 1965 Watts Revolt. This event will feature live entertainment, local vendors, exhibits, community resources, voter registration, social services, and more.

Unnamed 2025 08 07T094932.069
Watts Summer Fest.

Time: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Aug. 9.

Cost: Free

Details: For more information, contact the Watts Summer Festival office at watts2k@pacbell.net or call 213-361-8249.

Venue: Ted Watkins Park, 1335 E 103rd St., Los Angeles

Los Angeles County Moves Forward with Maximum Indoor Temperature Ordinance

Reporters Desk
-
0
Los Angeles County Moves Forward with Maximum Indoor Temperature Ordinance

 

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors today approved an ordinance establishing a maximum indoor temperature for rental units in unincorporated areas of the County. The ordinance, the first of its kind in the region, aims to protect renters from extreme heat.

Introduced by Chair Pro Tem and First District Supervisor Hilda L. Solis and uplifted by Third District Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath, the measure sets a maximum indoor temperature of 82 degrees Fahrenheit. It allows tenants the right to install portable cooling devices such as plug-in air conditioners, fans or blackout curtains without fear of eviction, retaliation or additional charges. The ordinance also protects immigrant tenants by prohibiting landlords from using passive or portable cooling devices as a reason to raise rent, charge fees or engage in harassment or eviction.

The ordinance responds to worsening climate conditions across Los Angeles County. Unincorporated areas of the San Gabriel, San Fernando and Antelope valleys are experiencing rising temperatures and longer heat waves. These communities are home to many renters living in older buildings without modern cooling systems, placing them at increased risk for heat-related illnesses and chronic health complications.

In November 2022, Chair Pro Tem Solis introduced a motion directing County departments to explore indoor temperature thresholds. Since then, she and Supervisor Horvath have worked with the Departments of Public Health, Consumer and Business Affairs, the Chief Sustainability Office and County Counsel to develop the ordinance.

“Every summer, the heat gets worse and worse, making it hard to cook, to sleep, and even to breathe. Finally, there will be a way for me and many others to have relief and make sure we can stay healthy in our own homes when heat waves come,” said SAJE member Mireya, a tenant of the Fourth District, who did not share her last name for fear of being targeted by ICE.

The ordinance will take effect in 30 days. However, in an effort to ensure the passing of the ordinance, the board accepted an amendment allowing small property landlords to maintain a maximum indoor temperature of not more than 82 degrees Fahrenheit in at least one habitable room by January 2027, and in all habitable rooms by January 2032. Landlord enforcement will begin in 2027, with an optional two-year extension for qualifying major improvements.

To support small landlords in unincorporated areas, Chair Pro Tem Solis also introduced a motion to provide technical and financial assistance. A report outlining potential funding sources, eligibility criteria and disbursement plans will return to the board within six months.

Read the Board Letter for the ordinance here.

Read the FAQ here.

CDFA Announces Recall of Burrata Cheese Made by L.A. County’s Gioia Cheese Co., Inc.

Reporters Desk
-
0
CDFA Announces Recall of Burrata Cheese Made by L.A. County’s Gioia Cheese Co., Inc.

 

Burrata cheese produced and packaged by Gioia Cheese Company of Los Angeles County is the subject of a statewide recall and quarantine order announced Aug. 6 by California State Veterinarian Dr. Annette Jones. The quarantine order came following the confirmed detection of Salmonella bacteria in the firm’s burrata cheese sampled and tested by the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

The order applies to “Gioia Cheese Co. Burrata” sold in four-ounce and one-pound plastic tubs available for purchase at retail on or before Aug. 1, 2025. There are no lot codes or “Best if Used By” code dates on the packages.

Consumers are strongly urged to dispose of any product remaining in their refrigerators.

CDFA found the Salmonella bacteria in a routine sample collected on July 29 at the Gioia Cheese Company’s manufacturing and packaging facility. No illnesses have been reported.

1...192021...937Page 20 of 937

EDITOR PICKS

POPULAR POSTS

POPULAR CATEGORY

ABOUT US

Real people. Real news. Random Lengths is the Los Angeles harbor area's remaining independently owned progressive news magazine. We cover news in Carson, Wilmington, Long Beach, Lomita, Torrance, Rancho Palos Verdes and San Pedro.

Contact us: letters@randomlengthsnews.com

FOLLOW US

© Newspaper WordPress Theme by TagDiv